IMPROVING THE OVERHANG OF 3D-PRINTED CONCRETE SHELLS BY WRINKLE STRUCTURES

Abstract

The labour shortage is impacting the construction industry globally, and 3D concrete printing (3DCP) technology is considered a solution for such an issue by using robots instead of manpower in building construction. However, due to the unstable mechanical properties of the fresh-state concrete, current 3DCP building forms exclude a massive number of options, one of them being the overhang shape. Therefore, this paper introduces bionic wrinkles to improve the overhang of 3DCP shell prototypes and demonstrates the feasibility of this idea through three groups of buckling simulations. This study proves that surface wrinkles can improve the in-process mechanical properties as well as the overhang capacity of shell structures. In the best scenario, the original design which only reached 30° overhang can be promoted to 77.5°. Besides, the applications of all wrinkle types are robust.