3D printing: three and a half houses in four days


COBOD and PERI showcase ultra-fast residential development at Bautec. Photo: 3dprintingmedia.network

One 3D-printed house per day

Visitors to the Bautec International Construction Exhibition, which was held from 18 to 21 February 2020 in Berlin, were given a unique opportunity to see the process of creating a residential building in one day, thanks to 3D printing technology. Danish 3D printing construction company COBOD , together with the PERI Group, has embarked on an ambitious project to demonstrate how a 3D construction printer can print a home in less than 24 hours.

During the exhibition, COBOD and PERI successfully printed 3.5 houses of 64 square meters each. The fourth house was not completed, because partners also had to create two 3D-printed logos for the Bautec exhibition. Overall, COBOD claims that 3D logo printing is equivalent to printing 8 square meters of home per hour.

Visitors to Bautec could observe the operation of the BOD2 large format printer from 9:00 to 17:00. Time-lapse videos from every print day are now available for those who could not attend the event in person.



- (Henrik Lund-Nielsen), COBOD:

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Thanks to the modular design of printing up to 15 m wide and 10 m high, the BOD2 3D printer has an unlimited assembly length, which allows it to build fully-functional houses in place. For Bautec, COBOD and PERI partners installed a relatively small BOD2 configuration, with parameters 5 × 5 × 5 meters, which is inferior in size to other BOD2 printers sold by COBOD to various customers.


Source: 3dprintingmedia.network



As for speed, BOD2 is theoretically capable of printing up to 100 cm / second, but due to the limited materials available for 3D construction printing and the complexity of pumping mechanisms, the printer provides a print speed of no more than 40 cm / second. At COBOD, they refused to show top speed for security reasons.

Tilmann Auch, Product Development Engineer COBOD:

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Despite the limitations, COBOD and PERI were able to successfully print homes in the first three days, demonstrating the technology’s ability to wall a small house in about eight hours. According to COBOD representatives, at this printing speed, a house of 150 square meters can be reproduced in less than 24 hours.

Dr. Fabian Meyer-Brötz, hands 3D printing department at PERI Group:

“At Bautec, we proved to visitors that by attracting a minimum number of workers, we are able to print houses with rounded walls at an average speed of 8 m2 per hour. It is important to note that these possibilities of creating arbitrary forms make it possible not only to embody any imagination of the architect, but also to increase the functionality of the walls and create improved designs for buildings and houses. We don’t know about any other technology that could provide the same result. ”

The German construction company PERI Group has long been investing in COBOD projects. In 2018, the company acquired a minority stake in COBOD, and in April last year, the PERI Group was named the official distributor of the construction 3D printer COBOD.


Source: 3dprintingmedia.network



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