27 Jun 2019
Loughborough academic and industry partners host two-day event to experts in the construction field
Loughborough recently hosted a successful two-day event on advances in 3D concrete printing and construction automation.
This consisted of both an international workshop and a technical committee meeting. Over 60 people attended the workshop, and 30 attended the meeting, both of which took place last month and consisted of representatives from academic institutions, with 35% from industry.
Guests visited from more than seven countries, even as far as Japan.
Based in the Hewson Studio, the event featured a number of expert speakers and provided various opportunities for networking.
The speakers shared visions of the future industry from the recently funded ‘Transforming Construction’ initiatives that underpin the UK’s Industrial Strategy: Construction Innovation Hub, and the ‘Research Leaders’ programme. International speakers presented the latest large-scale 3DCP case studies from across Europe.
The speakers were as follows:
- Jeremy Hadall (MTC): Construction Automation at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (UK)
- Robert Stuart-Smith (UCL): Multi-Robot Construction and Agent-Based Fabrication (UK)
- John Orr (Cambridge): Automating Concrete Construction (ACORN) (UK)
- Will Cudworth (Tarmac): 3D Concrete Printing in industry: experiences and lessons from the CAMBER project (UK)
- Viktor Mechtcherine (Dresden): Extrusion for creating walls: the Tshinghua process (China) and CONPrint3D by TU Dresden (Germany)
- Harald Kloft (Braunschweig): Shotcrete 3D Printing (SC3DP) (Germany)
- Wilson Ricardo Leal da Silva (DTI): 3D Concrete Printing of curved columns with a binary blended cementitious matrix (Denmark)
- Tim Wangler (ETHz): Smart Dynamic Casting (Switzerland)
- Freek Bos (TU/e): Building the bridge: full-scale manufacture and assembly using 3DCP (Netherlands)
- Richard Buswell (Loughborough): Output from 276-DFC – Discussion on the classification of large scale 3DCP processes
In addition, an optional tour of the labs – including the twin robot manufacturing cell – was offered to guests.
The event was led by Reader in Building Energy Systems, Dr Richard Buswell, from the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering.
Speaking about the workshop, Dr Buswell said: “This was a fantastic event, that placed a spotlight on current and future advances in manufacturing technology for the construction industry and provided a perfect occasion for actors within the UK’s industrial strategy to come together and discuss new technologies from across the globe.”
It was organised in conjunction with ISCF’s Transforming Construction Initiative and the RILEM technical committee for digital fabrication with cement-based materials. The event was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
For more information, please contact Dr Richard Buswell by emailing R.A.Buswell@lboro.ac.uk.
A blog post written by one of the speakers about the event can be found here.