USA US Army to print large barracks to save money and time

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

US Army to print large barracks to save money and time​

Digital render of Icon’s 3D-printed army barracks in Fort Bliss, Texas (Courtesy of Logan Architecture)

The US Army has begun work on three printed barracks in Texas that it says will be the largest such structures in the western hemisphere.​

The barracks will be printed at Fort Bliss near El Paso, with the project overseen by a collaboration between the Defence Innovation Unit, the US Army Installation Management Command and the Engineer Research and Development Centre.

The printing will be carried out using a Vulcan 3D printer made by local 3D printing specialist Icon, to a design by Austin-based Logan Architecture.
Each barrack will measure over 5,700 sq ft, making it only slightly smaller than the 6,900 sq ft administrative building in Dubai, built in 2020 and present holder of the title of world’s largest printed building.

The printing process will use Icon’s proprietary Lavacrete cement, which will be extruded in layers to form the structure of the buildings. The barracks will then be fitted out conventionally with roofs, windows, wiring and plumbing.

The whole process is expected to take 10 months to complete.

A video of the printer in action can be seen here.

Lieutenant General Doug Gabram, commander of the Installation Management Command said: “Constructing facilities using this cutting-edge technology saves labour costs, reduces planning time and increases the speed of construction of future facilities. We are looking at other ways to use this innovative technique for rapid construction of other types of facilities beyond barracks.”

Brendan O’Donoghue, an Icon vice president, added: “We are proud to collaborate with the U.S. Army and continue our partnership with DIU to see diverse use cases for Icon’s technology across the Department of Defence and to deliver resilient, comfortable 3D-printed barracks for soldiers at Fort Bliss.”

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/us-army-to-print-large-barracks-to-save-money-and-time/

 

[RogerRanger]

I bet anyone here that this ends up being more expensive and takes longer.

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

I bet anyone here that this ends up being more expensive and takes longer.

The first couple of buildings probably will, yes. But once they fixed the flaws of those, it's likely going to go into mass production.

 

[RogerRanger]

The first couple of buildings probably will, yes. But once they fixed the flaws of those, it's likely going to go into mass production.

The Americans had said this with all their 'new generation' technology, as far as I can tell, the military contractors only make money in the R&D and early production phase, not from the operational and mass production phase. So these things always get worked up, then cancelled. Or they just don't work after a decade of R&D. If history of American programs tells us anything the same it happen here, they are just coming up with nonsense to make more money.

The other thing is 3-D printing doesn't work on the scale they are trying to get it to work on. You can print some smaller components, but not entire buildings, aircraft, ships, tanks and so on. What I would love to see a molecular printer, where they break the materials down into molecules and re-materalize them in a near vacuum, and form whatever design you want with any material you want. That would be a game changer for military production standards and military design which is currently very slow and limited by the ways people build. Like Russians AA missiles are great, but they are highly complex and dependent on a very capable and intelligent design/production team. With molecular printing all you need is the materials and energy, you don't need a work force or design team. My hope is 3-d printing is a step towards molecular printing, and whichever nation gets it first will dominate world production for 50 years.