Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility is developing
a novel, large-scale additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, system. The Sky Big Area Additive
Manufacturing (SkyBAAM) system will ultimately be a fieldable concrete deposition machine
with pick and place abilities that will allow for full-scale, automated construction of buildings.
The system will be implemented with existing construction equipment meaning conventional
cranes will be used to suspend the print head. SkyBAAM will be cable-driven by four base
stations and suspended from a single crane. The elimination of a gantry system, found
commonly in large-scale additive manufacturing systems, will enable SkyBAAM to be quickly
set up with minimal site preparation. The medium-scale version of SkyBAAM is currently in
development. The system design, cable stiffness analysis, and tactics for freezing rotational
degrees-of-freedom (DOF), detailed in this paper, will provide a basis for the final, large-scale
version of the SkyBAAM system.Mechanical Engineerin
