With research based at the University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering professor Khoshnevis hopes to combine 3D printing with other technologies to create houses on a large scale. He says he's within two to three years of being able to share his technology commercially. He'd also like to use his technology to create habitable environments in outer space.
The homebuilding process uses
hand-held tools, robotics and rapidly-fabricated, large-scale 3D
objects, according to the Contour Crafting website. In Khoshnevis' plan,
workers would lay down two rails. The printer/robot designed by his
team would glide along the rails and lay cement in layers from above to
build the framework of the house, based on the G-code programmed into
the printer. Workers would be needed again at the end of the process to
install windows and doors.
Khoshnevis says the technology
would allow for a home to be built in 24 hours for far less money than
traditional building methods, although the process hasn't yet been used
to build a full-scale house.
He says he hopes to master a
system that can spit out a home in less time than it takes now to
collect materials for a building, and include better architectural
features than are available using traditional building methods.
http://www.contourcrafting.org/
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