{"id":25222,"date":"2020-10-30T15:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T15:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/?p=25222"},"modified":"2020-10-30T15:22:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T15:22:36","slug":"concrete-with-3d-printed-polymer-lattices-301020205","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/concrete-with-3d-printed-polymer-lattices-301020205\/","title":{"rendered":"Reinforcing concrete with 3D printed polymer lattices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Concrete<\/a> is one of the most widely used man-made building materials and one of the world\u2019s most consumed substances, second only to water. It is cheap, abundant, and capable of heavy loads, but, it is also brittle and tends to crack. Therefore, concrete needs to be reinforced. Recently, researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a novel way to reinforce concrete with 3D printed polymer lattice structures – a way that improves concrete\u2019s ductility while reducing the material\u2019s carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

In fact, engineers have been reinforcing concrete with polymer fibers for six decades, so the concept isn’t new in itself. However, the technique was different: fibers were typically mixed into concrete before it was poured, which meant the fibers were not \u00a0distributed evenly. As a result, one part of a structure would have a high concentration of fibers, while another had almost none, leaving a path for cracks to form. Enter 3D printing<\/a>.\u00a0The benefit of a 3D printed lattice reinforcement is that a series of trusses stops cracks before they grow too large.<\/p>\n

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All image credits: UC Berkeley<\/p><\/div>\n

Previous lattice reinforcements were two-dimensional and had a limited capability to support complex concrete designs. So the researchers wanted to manufacture a 3D design that could support heavy loads from all directions. For that purpose they used the octet truss for the lattice structure. Popularized by the architect Buckminster Fuller in the 1950s, the octet truss is known for being strong but also light at the same time.<\/p>

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As for the reinforcing material, the team tested two different polymers<\/a>: polylactic acid (PLA<\/a>), which is easy to 3D print but more brittle than other polymers, and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS<\/a>), which is tougher than PLA. The researchers discovered that switching from PLA to ABS made no significant difference in compressive tests, as all of the lattice-reinforced concrete samples scored high in strain density values.\u00a0The engineers also experimented with the amount of lattice reinforcements used in the concrete. One sample was thinner, with the polymer making up 19.2% of a sample\u2019s volume. The other made up 33.7%. But, the amount of polymer didn\u2019t significantly change the structure\u2019s overall mechanical properties – the samples with less polymer were just as tough as those with more.<\/p>\n

Yet, there are some instances where larger amount of polymer does have significant benefits.\u00a0Manufacturing cement, the main ingredient in concrete, produces 8% of the world\u2019s carbon dioxide emissions. Reinforcement material makes up less than 5% of most concrete structures. So, increasing the amount of polymer and reducing the amount of concrete could cut down on a structure\u2019s overall carbon emissions. You can learn more about the UC Berkeley method by reading the research paper, HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Berkeley team used a 3D printer to build octet lattices out of polymer, and then filled them with ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC).<\/p><\/div>\n

What do you think about the innovative way to reinforce concrete with 3D printed polymer lattice structure? Let us know in a comment below or on our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0pages! Sign up for our free weekly\u00a0Newsletter<\/a>, all the latest news in 3D printing straight to your inbox!<\/p>\n

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Concrete is one of the most widely used man-made building materials and one of the world\u2019s most consumed substances, second only to water. It is cheap, abundant, and capable of heavy loads, but, it is also brittle and tends to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6072,"featured_media":25227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","category-materials","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6072"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25239,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25222\/revisions\/25239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}