A 3D printer capable of printing houses and seawalls arrived in Florida late last month, bringing with it the potential to mitigate the impacts of hurricanes and develop the local workforce and construction industry.
The two-story construction printer known as BOD3 is manufactured by Denmark-based COBOD International and was shipped to the University of Florida’s East Campus last month.
It arrived unassembled on Sept. 20, becoming the first BOD3 to arrive in the U.S. and one of the first in circulation after COBOD released the new model in September.
BOD3 is what Chaofeng Wang, assistant professor in UF’s M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management, called a robot system designed for infrastructure construction. That means the printer will complete projects autonomously once code is inputted and material supplied.
The material is a special concrete recipe developed onsite, according to Wang. He said its use in construction can reduce the impact of hurricanes since concrete has much more structural integrity than other building materials.
“There [is] a lot of damage to wooden houses. Imagine you can print those houses using concrete,” Wang said. “You don’t need to worry about storm wind and the water anymore. We can actually build a new generation of resilient, sustainable infrastructure.”
Wang said Florida is a good place for BOD3 to be.
“I’m very excited. I think Florida is a very good region for this kind of research because we can apply the research immediately to the real-world application, especially when you consider hurricanes,” he said.
Iris Rivero, department chair of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Florida, led the effort to bring BOD3 to Florida. She said the state was a driving factor in the purchase of the printer for around $800,000.
“With all the different hurricanes and phenomena that have been occurring, Florida is posed in a situation…where we can actually think about more resilient ways to build communities,” Rivero said. “[There are] more opportunities that may align well with the state’s needs and priorities.”
Unlike its predecessor, BOD2, BOD3 is much more mobile. It’s also modular, meaning it can shrink and grow as needed to accommodate a variety of prints.
Rivero said a part of UF’s research on the printer will look at how this mobility allows the equipment to be on standby when weather strikes.
“Can we actually build procedures where, as soon as you start noticing that there's something being formed in the sea, you can start preparing and start building any kind of shelter?” she said. “When we have tornadoes, when we have floods, when we have hurricanes, can we actually deploy the system right away and build? That’s something we’re really interested in.”
BOD3’s modularity and mobility make the printer more efficient, according to COBOD’s website. Prints can be completed more quickly and its extendable track-based design allows for continuous printing, which is useful for construction on sites with multiple housing projects.
It also means communities affected by hurricanes may be able to build back faster and recover sooner.
Aside from reducing the impacts of weather, Rivero said BOD3 will help people develop themselves and serve community and industry needs.
“We’re going to be starting programs for workforce development [which] is going to be extremely crucial,” she said. “We have lost a lot of people in the construction industry…so what are the new techniques? How can we actually use this technique and then build people’s résumés in this particular industry?”
Rivero said another important aspect is sustainability and the reduction of challenges associated with supply and demand issues.
Since the concrete material is locally sourced, companies can establish themselves in local regions and reduce carbon emissions that come from the transportation of raw materials.
She said in the long run, she hopes enough people will know how to use the printer so it can be quickly deployed in emergencies or used for other needs — industrial or creative.
Rivero said it’s open to anyone who wants to get trained on the machine.
Rivero said the printer’s current location, the Weil Hall Structures and Materials Laboratory, was a conscious decision because it provides people easy access to the machine.
BOD3 is awaiting assembly in the lab where the lab’s associate engineer, Taylor Rawlinson, said dialing in the printer’s concrete material is the primary focus.
BOD3 can process 4 to 6 cubic yards of concrete per hour, according to Rawlinson.
“It’s quite the production,” he said. “It’s a lot of material we’re going to use.”
Getting that material right on a small scale is key before moving to larger structures, he said.
For now, BOD3 will be printing small structures — walls, dog houses, igloos — in the lab before it is used in the field. Rawlinson said the goal is to eventually print a demonstration research facility on UF’s east campus.
Research conducted at UF and in the field will help COBOD inform its new designs and next steps.
Zoë Knudsen, head of products and communication at COBOD, said feedback from users is “huge.”
“Whatever feedback that we can get, or whatever kind of key insights that they have from using our machines is something that we can feed back into our team so that they can develop even more advanced, more capable products and machines,” she said. “We’re trying to take [3D construction printing] even further.”
Knudsen said construction projects using BOD3 are just beginning.
“Three [printers] are actually being used right now in Indonesia and Angola, which is quite interesting to see,” she said. “And now the University of Florida is going to be a part of this new printer model, which is really, really exciting.”
BOD3 will likely be assembled in December or January as part of a two-week in-person training that its manufacturer will lead.
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