A critical review of the use of 3-D printing in the construction industry

3-D printing, which is an automated production process with layer-by-layer control, has been gaining rapid development in recent years. The technology has been adopted in the manufacturing industry for decades and has recently been introduced in the construction industry to print houses and villas. The technology can bring significant benefits to the construction industry in terms of increased customization, reduced construction time, reduced manpower, and construction cost. A few isolated products and projects have been preliminarily tested using the 3-D printing technology. However, it should be noted that such tests and developments on the use of 3-D printing in the construction industry are very fragmented at the time of the study. It is therefore necessary for the building and construction industry to understand the technology, its historical applications and challenges for better utilization in the future. A systematic review shows that 3-D printing technology, after years of evolution, can be used to print large-scale architectural models and buildings. However, the potential of the technology is limited by the lack of large-scale implementation, the development of building information modeling, the requirements of mass customization, and the life cycle cost of the printed projects. It is therefore expected that future studies should be conducted on these areas to consolidate the stability and expand the applicability of 3-D printing in the construction industry

Automating construction manufacturing procedures using BIM digital objects (BDOs): Case study of knowledge transfer partnership project in UK

Purpose This paper aims to present a novel proof-of-concept framework for implementing building information modeling (BIM) Digital Objects (BDO) to automate construction product manufacturers’ processes and augment lean manufacturing. Design/methodology/approach A mixed interpretivist and post-positivist epistemological lens is adopted to pursue the proof-of-concept’s development. From an operational perspective, a synthesis of literature using interpretivism provides the foundation for deductive research inquiry implemented within a case study approach. Within the case study, participatory action research (PAR) is implemented to test the proof of concept via three “waterfall” research phases, namely, literature diagnosis and BIM package selection, BDO development and validation and evaluation. Findings The findings illustrate that a BDO (which represents the digital twin of manufacturing products) can augment and drive automation processes and workflows for construction product manufacturers within a contractor’s supply chain. The developed framework illustrates the benefits of a BDO, by reducing the number of manufacturing processes to effectively eliminate early errors in the model, generates financial savings and reduces material wastage. Originality/value This research provides a seminal case study that implements BDO to automate construction product manufacturing processes and demonstrates the utilisation of BDO at an operational (vis-à-vis theoretical) level. Future research is proposed to implement a longitudinal approach to measure and report upon the success (or otherwise) of the proof of concept when implemented on fabrications and shop floor procedures

A Proposal for a Three Detector Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Program in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam

A Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) physics program of three LAr-TPC detectors located along the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab is presented. This new SBN Program will deliver a rich and compelling physics opportunity, including the ability to resolve a class of experimental anomalies in neutrino physics and to perform the most sensitive search to date for sterile neutrinos at the eV mass-scale through both appearance and disappearance oscillation channels. Using data sets of 6.6e20 protons on target (P.O.T.) in the LAr1-ND and ICARUS T600 detectors plus 13.2e20 P.O.T. in the MicroBooNE detector, we estimate that a search for muon neutrino to electron neutrino appearance can be performed with ~5 sigma sensitivity for the LSND allowed (99% C.L.) parameter region. In this proposal for the SBN Program, we describe the physics analysis, the conceptual design of the LAr1-ND detector, the design and refurbishment of the T600 detector, the necessary infrastructure required to execute the program, and a possible reconfiguration of the BNB target and horn system to improve its performance for oscillation searches.Comment: 209 pages, 129 figure