Unit 5. Modern Construction Technologies
TOMORROW’S BUILDINGS
Instead of men in high-visibility jackets and hard hats, there are going to be drones buzzing overhead, robotic bulldozers and 3D printers building new structures.
| C. Using Drones on Building Projects |
automated bulldozers. The drones send 3D models of a building site to a computer which then sends the information to unmanned machinery to lay their course.
By 2030 about three billion people will require housing, and 3D printing is one possible solution. It is already making an impact on the construction industry – cutting both the time and cost of building houses.
A team in the School of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University has been working on the technology since 2007, first developing a 3D concrete printer and more recently adapting it to work with a robotic arm. Using a robotic arm means that the team can print up to 10 times faster and create a huge variety of forms, including curved, hollow and geometrically complex shapes.
The team decided to work with concrete as their main material because they believe there are very good reasons why the built world is made mainly out of steel and concrete – including durability, mechanical performance and aesthetic properties.
Prof Austin sees the future of 3D printing as a way of printing key components of buildings rather than whole structures (as in China). "I'm not convinced 3D-printed concrete would be interesting to the whole housing market. In the developing world labour is cheap and they have developed ways of building homes with local materials that have worked for hundreds of years. So the idea of bringing a printing machine to a site to print whole houses is a little bit unreal," he said. "On the other hand, printing building components of various shapes is an attractive approach that will be realised."
NATURE-INSPIRED DESIGNS
Design studio Emerging Objects has come up with 3D-printed porous bricks called Cool Bricks that can be filled with water to bring down temperatures.
Each 3D-printed cool brick has a 3D ceramic lattice-like structure that can hold water in its pores, like a sponge. When air flows through the porous brick it absorbs evaporated water vapour, becoming cooler in the process.
According to the designers, if all the walls of a house were built with porous, cool bricks, the air flow through them could bring down the home's internal temperature.
| D. 3D Printed Bricks |
| E. Pine Cone Shape |
At the Institute for Computational Design, David Correa is convinced that buildings will only be truly smart when they are built with smart materials – many of which can be found in the natural world. He says, "Pine cones have been working for millions of years, so imagine a roof surface that can open when it is sunny and close when it rains." The team designed just such a structure and is now working on creating new materials that can respond to a variety of environmental conditions.
| F. Smog-eating Facade |
Allison Dring has designed a smog-eating facade that is coated with a special paint made from titanium dioxide, a pollution-fighting technology that is activated by daylight. It absorbs the fumes generated from traffic and converts them first into nitric acid and then into calcium nitrate, which is harmless.
A facade of this kind has been put on the side of a hospital in Mexico City. It reduces pollution of about 1,000 cars per day.
HORIZONTAL DIRECTIONAL DRILLING
The horizontal directional drilling (HDD) technique is on the way up at the moment. The application of HDD enables trenchless installations up to 500 m length. Crossings underneath rivers and other waters are frequently performed. The directional method even makes drillings underneath industry complexes possible. The spectrum of application includes heating and drinking water supply, the installation of pressure lines for sewers as well as cable protection pipes for television or telephone cables.
