A “Low-Cost” Subtractive Method for Freshly Finished 3D Concrete Printed Structures (2021-02)¶

Until now, construction is an area where most activities are artisanal. Concrete is linked to the masonry trade where few machines are used. Moreover, this material is mainly used for building construction, but it can be used for other applications like urban furniture for example where a mold is necessary to pour and maintain the concrete until it is dry. This method can be expensive for unique part because of the implementation time. Moreover, the part geometry is limited by the mold shape. For a few years, the additive manufacturing is used with the concrete material, mainly to build house walls but without finishing step to have smooth or assembling surfaces. So, it is composed by the layers of concrete and it is difficult to assembly two parts for example because of the shape but also dimensional accuracy. For these reasons, in the frame of the HINDCON project, a low-cost subtractive task has been introduced, to perform post-printing machining with respect of geometrical constraints.