3D Printing Techniques in Construction Materials

Dear Colleagues,

The concrete industry has developed rapidly over the last 50 years. Nowadays, 3D printing technology has outstanding advantages compared to traditional casting methods, including ample flexibility and improved construction automation. The development of such computer-aided additive manufacturing in the construction industry also enables sufficient buildability and bonding behavior, and it also increases structural integrity, enhancing the mechanical characteristics based on its inherent anisotropic characteristics. In addition, this novel technology is cost-effective, highly efficient, and environmentally friendly, enabling the ability to revolutionize the way we build construction. 

The application of construction materials for extrusion-based 3D printing must meet certain vital criteria to be compatible with the printing processes. Different from castable concrete, printable mixtures are designed to be easily extrusive, low-slump, buildable, fast-setting, and with good mechanical strength in order to produce a continuous paste from the printing nozzle and to ensure a rapid modelling of freeform construction.

This Special Issue of Materials focuses on construction materials suitable for 3D printing. Potential paper topics can deal with many aspects related to printable watse solid cementitious composites, functional concrete, high-performance concrete, fiber reinforced concrete, etc.  In addition, this Special Issue is expected to provide a collection of articles showing novel 3D printing methodology comprising shotcrete methodology, reinforcement methodology, novel extrusion-based method, particle-based methods, and other new technologies in 3D printing. In addition, the case study, rheological investigations, mechanical performance, structural designs, and review papers of recent advances in the field of digital fabrication are also welcome. 

Dr. Junbo Sun
Dr. Junfei Zhang
Prof. Dr. Genbao Zhang
Prof. Dr. Shukui Liu
Dr. Yuantian Sun
Guest Editors

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