Structural Consideration in Additive Manufacturing of Concrete as Part of NASA's Centennial 3D Printed Mars Habitat Challenge
Open Access
- Author:
- Park, Keunhyoung
- Graduate Program:
- Architectural Engineering
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- June 26, 2020
- Committee Members:
- Ali M Memari, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Aleksandra Z Radlinska, Committee Member
Jose M Pinto Duarte, Committee Member
Sez Atamturktur, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- 3D Concrete Printing
Mars Habitat
Additive Manufacturing
Structural Analysis
3D Printing of Concrete
Additive Manufacturing of Concrete
NASA Centennial Challenge - Abstract:
- Additive Manufacturing (AM) method used for printing concrete offers potential improvement in conventional building construction. Numerous benefits of AM of Concrete (AMoC), such as less material waste, low labor demand, and ability to mass-customize for aesthetic purposes, allow the design flexibility combined with efficient manufacturing and lower cost for concrete construction compared to traditional methods. However, as much as AM has great potentials, there is also a lot of demand for refining AM technology for practical application to concrete construction. The development of a 3D printer system for AMoC requires comprehensive and exhaustive study covering interdisciplinary areas. This study considered the structural engineering aspect of using AMoC for 3D printing of habitat on Mars according to guidelines specified in NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge for Mars. This thesis reflects one aspect of a Penn State research team that participated in the NASA’s 3D printed habitat competition, and that has been developing and deploying an AMoC system and experimenting using three different printable mixtures and operating a 3D concrete printer system for academic study and practical application. The research presented in this thesis focused on studying the structural aspects of printing a series of components as part of the habitat design development. The study helped to evaluate the possibility of 3D printed habitat’s structural integrity under the Mars’ surface environment. Furthermore, the study provided some lessons based on observations of printing and testing printed components. For example, the study provides some understanding related to existing anisotropy in mechanical properties, degraded structural performance in comparison to cast concrete parts, varying printability and structural performance of different printable concretes, possibility and limitation of 3D printed Mars habitat, and possible improvement of AMoC based on the challenges from the research experience.