Additive manufacturing in the construction industry

Abstract

New sustainable technologies, such as additive manufacturing (AM), have recently been adopted in the construction industry, significantly reducing construction completion times and effectively repairing and remanufacturing components. While AM's implementation in construction is still diffuse, this review contributes to a better understanding of how this technology is interpreted and utilized, exploring the main trends in AM within the construction industry. The systematic review of recent publications identified eight critical topics for AM, whose processes are characterized by their materials: aggregate-based materials, metals, and polymers. The findings reveal an increase in the published works, with the United States, Germany, and China rising as the prominent contributors, where AM technologies are mainly defined by processes such as Material extrusion, Particle bed, Powder bed fusion, Directed energy deposition and Vat photopolymerization. Finally, other challenges regarding AM in the construction industry, such as its role in large-scale construction and prefabrication, are also discussed.