Additive Construction at ERDC

Presented By: Eric Kreiger, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center
Description: USACE ERDC’s Additive Construction program began in 2015 to determine the feasibility of placing concrete by adapting Additive Manufacturing technology for military construction. The program started with the premise that the equipment needed to be used in the field with easy to replace parts that would not be inhibited by dirty/wet environments and could use locally available materials. The first stage began by developing a simple lab based machine that was used to evaluate the equipment limits and a material design of a concrete mix with 3/8” nominal aggregate size. The program continued to evolve through various iterations to utilize a system that could place material using a 20 ft wide x 40 ft long x 10 ft height gantry style robot and developed material design and evaluation methods. Through this work several structures were constructed, including the first building in the US, the first bridge in the US, and several full scale test structures. Using these systems ERDC has trained military personnel to independently operate a deployable system that fits in a 20’ shipping container during demonstrations in Illinois, Missouri, California, Guam, and Indiana.