by Industrial Print Magazine Staff
The building and construction industry is a great stage to showcase the unique, innovative successes of three-dimensional (3D) printing projects. MX3D, a manufacturer of robotic wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), recognizes additive manufacturing’s (AM’s) role in meeting challenges in the building construction sector. Its technologies are designed to produce complex components while offering flexibility in design.
Above: The MX3D Bridge is a 12-meter-long stainless steel pedestrian bridge constructed with the help of AM. The bridge was fully functional and installed in the city center of Amsterdam in 2021 over one of its canals.
Two case studies showcase MX3D’s commitment to bringing AM to architecture, engineering, and construction.
MX3D Bridge
The MX3D Bridge is a 12-meter-long stainless steel pedestrian bridge. The bridge was fully functional and installed in the city center of Amsterdam in 2021 over one of its canals.
Partners of the MX3D Bridge project include Arup, Autodesk Inc., The Alan Turing Institute, the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS), and Joris Laarman Lab.
Designed by Joris Laarman Lab of The Netherlands, with Arup as lead engineering partner, it was an 18 month process of engineering, designing, re-engineering, re-designing, discovering the world behind permits, safety measures, canal wall renovation, and test printing to finalize the MX3D Bridge. Joris Laarman Lab finished printing the bridge in early 2018 using an MX3D 3D printer.
Beyond working with Joris Laarman Lab and Arup, MX3D teamed up with mathematicians and internet of things specialists to develop a smart sensor network to monitor the bridge’s health in real time.
The team from The Alan Turing Institute designed and installed a sensor network on the bridge. The sensors collected structural measurements such as strain, displacement, and vibration, as well as measured environmental factors such as air quality and temperature, enabling engineers to measure the bridge’s health in real time and monitor how it changes over its lifespan.
The data from the sensors were input into a digital twin of the bridge, a living computer model that reflected the physical bridge in real time as data was generated. The performance and behavior of the physical bridge was tested against its digital twin, which provided valuable insights to inform designs for future 3D printed metallic structures.
Autodesk supplied the cloud services that powered the bridge’s data collection and processing. IT also worked with The Alan Turing Institute researchers to develop machine learning algorithms to enable the bridge to interpret and to react intelligently to its environment. AMS implemented new ways to use, visualize, and connect the bridge’s data to other sources of environmental data in the metropolitan area of Amsterdam.
The bridge was officially installed in 2021 and opened to the public. It closed in 2023 and the collaborative team is currently looking for another spot to place it.
Structural Steel Connector
Another interesting use case in the construction industry is the fully printed, optimized, and organic duplex steel connector MX3D manufactured in collaboration with the engineers of Takenaka in 2018. Takenaka is an architecture, engineering, and construction firm in Japan.
The application showed accelerated progress in the production of highly customized and engineered steel connectors using robotic 3D metal printing, specifically WAAM. An MX3D MetalXL printer was tasked with printing the connector using Duplex stainless steel. The alloy was chosen for its good mechanical properties and excellent corrosion resistance.
According to MX3D, the goal of this project was to automate both the design and production of complex connectors for large structures in the building industry. As the complexity of structures increases and skilled labor in countries with aging populations is less available such innovation is required in the building industry.
The final steel connector’s net weight is 40Kg reaching up to 45Kg after its hollow core was filled with approximately 2.5 liters of mortar.
Creditable Examples
MX3D has many years of experience in the architecture, engineering, and construction space. Its work shown here is just two of many examples of AM out in the wild.
Sep2024, Industrial Print Magazine
