Pakistan’s First 3D Concrete Printer
| A group of 4 students, Raja Dilawar Riaz (Group Leader), Usama Majid, Ammar Ali, and Muhammad Faizan, developed “Pakistan’s First 3D Concrete Printer” as per the vision of their supervisor, Dr. Muhammad Usman (HoD Structures Department, NUST Institute of Civil Engineering). Pakistan is an underdeveloped country with a construction sector worth 380 billion PKR in GDP. The construction sector will likely grow by 92% in the coming 7 years. However, how construction is carried out in Pakistan is quite old compared to what is practiced in international countries. Conventional construction in Pakistan creates a lot of challenges like high costs, labor inefficiency, and slow construction times. A country with an increased population and more burden on the housing sector needs this technology. However, in the context of the economic crunch and high import taxation, it cannot afford to import this. |  |
|
Realising that required solutions could be developed within the boundaries of the country, the team developed Pakistan’s First Concrete Printer at NUST. The fabrication and design are completely developed within Pakistan (Patent Files under application number 22150-D at IPO Pakistan). The prototype has printable dimensions of 1m x 1m x 0.5 with 3-axis movements, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Concrete Printer first showcased at First International Housing Expo’22 by Federal Ministry of Housing Pakistan The printing has been done using a mixed design containing locally available materials like cement, sand, fly ash, plasticizer, and fibers. The compressive strength, flexural strength, interlayer bonding, and other mechanical and rheological strength parameters have been assessed by the team and are compared with the conventional casted samples. The results show the same mechanical properties of concrete (with the capacity to be further researched) with a significant reduction in cost and effort. The team appeared on various national and international media platforms describing the future of digital construction in Pakistan. Their first media appearance was on Pakistan Television Network’s morning show at Subeh Pakistan, where they described its potential. They also got recognition from Samaa News, ProPakistani, Economy, StatupPK, Islamabad Times, Truth International, etc. They were also awarded a research grant by Bestway Cement Pvt Ltd and the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC). Their home department even recognized their project and was awarded as Best Industrial Project Award for UG 2019. The team also holds various international publications on this topic. |
|
