Facilities

The lab is housed at Civil Infrastructure Testing and Evaluation Laboratory (CITEL). It includes a control area equipped with high-end computers, a printing area of 200 m2, a cleaning area, a testing area, and inside and outside storage areas for materials, equipment, and printed parts.

Control area:

The control area has about 50 m2 and it includes two high-end computers, one for each robot, to process files and control printing.

Model: Dell Precision 5820 Tower

Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-9900X 3.5GHz, 4.5GHz Turbo

Memory: 128 GB DDR4 (4 X 16GB Modules)

Video Card: Nvidia Quadro RTX5000, 16GB, 4DP, VirtualLink (XX20T)

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit

Accessories: Dell 34” Monitor, Dell KB216 Wired Keyboard, Dell MS116 Wired Mouse

Printing area:

The printing area has about 100 m2 and it includes a printing bed with 20 m2 and two industrial robots used for both concrete and clay printing.

ABB IRB 6640-235

An industrial 6-axis robotic arm ABB IRB 6640-235, to guide the extruder nozzle along the generated toolpath and print the parts.

Concrete Printing Equipment:

m-tec Picolo Silo

An m-tec Picolo Silo with a capacity of 1.2 m2 is used for feeding the dry mix into the extruding machine.

M-tec Duomix 2000

m-tec Duomix 2000 mixer and pump is used for mixing the dry mix with water and then extruding. It includes a hood to connect directly to the small silo and a probe to control feeding.

M-tec Hurrican 160

Conveyor belt, m-tec Hurrican 160, is used to take the dry mix from the small silo to the Duomix 2000 during printing, when the silo cannot be directly mounted on the Duomix.

Clay printing equipment:

MC94PE Multiquip Polyethylene-Drum Concrete Mixer

MC94PE Multiquip Polyethylene-Drum Concrete Mixer

MC94PE Multiquip Polyethylene-Drum Concrete Mixer is used to mix clay-based mixture. The materials are added into the mixer in their dry state, and then water is added. The wet mixture is then dumped into a pumping system.

3D Potter

The 3D Potter pumping system is used to pump wet clay mixture from the hopper, through a hose, into a robot arm driven nozzle.

Testing Area:

The testing area includes equipment to study the rheological and strength properties of fresh and hardened concrete. In addition, AddCon Lab has access to other facilities at CITEL, including furnaces, concrete mixing areas, and environmentally controlled chambers. AddCon Lab also collaborates with other Penn State labs, namely the Responsive and Adaptive Infrastructure Materials (Re-AIM) laboratory, which investigates the modern cement chemistry and degradation science of sustainable concrete technologies  (https://sites.psu.edu/reaim).

TA DHR – Discovery Hybrid Rheometer

TA Instrument HR-20 Instrument is a rotational rheometer available at Re-AIM laboratory. This state-of-the-art rheometer is capable of performing oscillatory shear testing, capable of testing the rheology of freshly printed cement mortar available. Thus, this equipment enables the study of thixotropy and yield stress over time.

Baileigh Hydraulic Shop Press HSP-20A (with PT Global 1 ton load cell)

HSP-20A is a hydraulic machine press for compressive testing of cylinders on the first hours after printing, where the strength is not considerable, and a 1-ton cell can be used to provide results with accuracy.

Boart Longyear model CM-625 (with a CSI Model CS-100-2A retrofit)

Boart Longyear is used for testing specimens after the final setting time, allowing a continuous readout of the applied load.

Cleaning Area:

The lab includes an area of about 100 m2 equipped with pressure washers, dumpsters tanks, and a settling tank with a drain, to clean the equipment after printing operations, and dump concrete waste and dirty water.

Storage Areas:

The lab includes two storage areas, one internal of about 150 m2 for printing materials and equipment, and another external of about 100 m2 for printed parts.

Safety