Mesostructures in 3D Concrete Printing

In concrete design, material performance is typically defined by the composition of the concrete mix (micro scale) and the overall shape and design of building elements (macro scale). However, recent developments in the field of 3D concrete printing (3DCP) are demonstrating that the design of concrete now also can take place at an intermediate scale involving the spatial organization of the material at the level of the printing nozzle. A growing body of work is showing how the additive process can result in novel material configurations through the programming of print paths. This paper specifically examines the relationship between the spatial organization of concrete at the mesoscale and its overall structural performance and presents an experimental procedure for evaluating the load bearing capacity of a selection of generated mesostructures.
QC 20230825