1.

INTRODUCTION
3D printing technology is not a brand new discovery. It was created in the 1980s, but due
to some main challenges, it has not revolutionized the way we live yet. It has shown endless
possibilities of application. Areas, such as medicine, engineering, architecture, medicine
and even cookery will be truly impacted by this technology.
The world population has now exceeded the 7 billion mark, and if the prognosis of the
United Nations comes true, there will be 9.2 billion people in 2050. As the case is today,
most of the people will want to live in the megacities because they promise a better life and
wealth. Due to this, the population density in the cities would increase like never before.
This would lead to redevelopment and slum rehabilitation projects to be undertaken on
large scale. Imagine a situation wherein a huge bunch of people will need an urgent space
to live in. Thus, a situation will arise when the cities will have to grow rapidly but also
sustainably, keeping in mind the environmental effects and also the economy. Contour
Crafting is an emerging technology that uses robotics to construct free form structures by
repeatedly laying down layers of material such as concrete. This has a great potential in
automated construction of whole structures as well as sub-components. Using this process,
a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be
automatically constructed in a single run. Tool path planning and optimization benefits the
technology by increasing the efficiency of construction of complicated structures. CC can
automatically construct custom-designed structures by repeatedly laying down construction
material. CC has the capability to fabricate with thick layers using various materials and
without compromising surface quality unlike other automation methods.
2. CONVENTIONAL METHOD AND AUTOMATED
CONSTRUCTION
Presently, the construction industry is facing various problems including high project costs,
low labor efficiency, high at-site accident rates, vanishing skilled workforce, and poor
control of construction projects. Automation has resolved several similar problems in the
manufacturing industry. The construction industry, however, largely remains manual and
manpower intensive. The few attempts made towards automating certain aspects of
construction have aimed only at mechanizing the same manual approach without
introducing any new paradigm. Development of new automation paradigms for whole
structure construction may mitigate many of the problems that the industry is facing. In
fact, new automation paradigms seem imperative for several applications, including
construction of emergency homes and low income housing projects. Furthermore, the
development of construction automation technologies is necessary if colonization of other
planets is to become a reality in the coming century. Conventional methods of
manufacturing automation do not lend themselves to construction of large structures with
internal features. This explains why the evolution of construction automation has been
slow. By the beginning of the twentieth century automation has grown and prevailed in
almost all production domains other than in infrastructure. Implementation of automation
in the construction domain has been slow due to:-
Conventional design approaches that are not suitable for automation.
1. Unsuitability of the available fabrication technologies for large scale products.
2. Smaller ratio of production quantity of final products.
3. Limitations in the materials that could be used by an automated system.
4. Due to expensive automated equipments.
5. Managerial issues.
6. Lack of technical efficiency.
On the other hand, the following are the serious problems that the construction industry is
facing today:-
1. Accident rate at construction site is very high.
2. Labor efficiency is quite low.
3. Work quality is low.
4. Control of the construction site is difficult, and skilled workforce is less.
In the last two centuries, automation of various products has evolved considerably but very
few of them are successful. Still construction of whole structures remains largely as a
manual practice. This is because the various conventional methods of manufacturing
automation do not fit in the construction of large structures. Layered fabrication is a
promising new approach generally known as Solid Free Form Fabrication (SFF). Although
several methods of SFF have been developed in the last 2 two decades and successful
applications of these methods have been reported in various industries including industrial
tooling, medical, toy making, etc., most of the current “layered fabrication” methods cannot
deliver the wide variety of materials applicable to construction industry. Currently Contour
Crafting (CC) seems to be the only layer fabrication technology that is uniquely applicable
to construction of large structures such as buildings.

3. RAPID PROTOTYPING
During the last 18 years, construction automation and robotics have been implemented at
various extents to address problems facing the construction industry such as productivity,
quality, safety, high costs and skilled labor shortages in the United State and Japan. The
Japanese construction industry, in particular, is very active in automated construction
research, seeking a solution to the skilled labor shortage. Many large Japanese construction
companies have their own research centers with sophisticated equipment and large staffs
researching new construction technologies. Kajima Corporation, for example, spends more
than $900M / year on construction research; a significant portion is invested in construction
automation.
Approximately 89 single task construction robots have been prototyped and deployed in
construction sites in Japan .These single task robots replace simple human tasks thereby
reducing labor costs and construction time. Automated construction systems such as
AMURA, SMART and FACES are capable of fabricating high raised structures. These
systems typically use precision fabricated components such as pillars, beams, ceilings, floor
slabs and others during operation. Also, fully automated construction systems do not allow
much flexibility in the design of structures. The cross section of a structural member, for
example, cannot be readily changed. A system capable of generating a variable cross
section structure would be rather expensive. Furthermore, current automated systems
require many prefabricated parts. This translates into extra costs for inventory,
transportation, and additional machinery.
In recent years rapid prototyping (RP) processes have been implemented in a variety of
applications and disciplines such as architecture, automobile design, aerospace and medical
industries. RP processes are capable of fabricating complex structures, as shown in Fig. 1.
However, RP systems today are not suitable for fabrication of larger scale parts. A special
RP technology developed at the University of Southern California (USC) is Contour
Crafting, which was introduced at the 19th International Symposium on Automation and
Robotics in Construction (ISARC) in 2002. CC technology adapts RP capabilities and
extends them to the field of large scale construction. As in other RP methods, in Contour
Crafting (CC) material is added layer by layer according to a computer control sequence.

Figure 1: A complex geometry (Hagia

4. CONTOUR Sophia in Istanbul) fabricated by a RP CRAFTING
process
TECHNOLOGY
Contour Crafting (CC) is an advanced building printing technology being researched by
Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California’s in the Viterbi School of
engineering that uses a computer-controlled crane to build homes rapidly and efficiently
with substantially less manual labor. It was originally designed as a method to construct
molds for industrial parts. Khoshnevis decided to adapt the technology for rapid home
construction as a way to rebuild homes after natural disasters, like the devastating
earthquakes. Using a quick setting, concrete-like material, contour crafting forms the walls
of houses layer by layer until floors and ceilings are set in place by the crane. This great
concept calls for the insertion of structural components, air conditioning, plumbing, wiring,
utilities, and even consumer devices like audiovisual systems as the layers are built. It is
based on printing the building layer by layer using special material ejection. This method
promises an automated construction process that is safe, fast and reliable. 3d printing helps
us make one step further towards lean principles by minimizing waste in construction
duration and increasing error proofing through activity automation. Furthermore, it
guarantees an evolution in building textures that increases the quality of life for its residents
without having a negative impact on public safety and welfare.6 This has a great potential
in automated construction of whole structures as well as components.
Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different
design, may be automatically constructed in a single run. Tool path planning and
optimization benefits the technology by increasing the efficiency of construction of
complicated structures. CC can automatically construct custom-designed structures by
repeatedly laying down construction material. CC has the capability to fabricate with thick
layers using various materials and without compromising surface quality unlike other
automation methods.
In CC, computer control is used to take

Material feed barrel Side trowel

control
mechanism
Nozzle

Top trowel Side

trowel

Figure 2: Simple Historical Construction Tools Figure 3: Contour crafting process

advantage of the superior surface forming capability of troweling to create smooth and
accurate, planar and free-form surfaces. The layering approach enables the creation of
various surface shapes using fewer different troweling tools than in traditional plaster
handwork and sculpting. It is a hybrid method that combines an extrusion process for
forming the object surfaces and a filling process (pouring or injection) to build the object
core. As shown in Figure 3, the extrusion nozzle has a top and a side trowel. As the material
is extruded, the e traversal of the trowels creates smooth outer and top surfaces on the layer.
The side trowel can be deflected to create non-orthogonal surfaces. The extrusion process
builds s only the outside edges (rims) of each layer of the object. After complete extrusion
of each closed section of a given layer, if needed filler material such as concrete can be
poured to fill the area defined by the extruded rims. Some internal walls can be extruded
within each layer to create square hatches or other types of hatches(see Figure). The
hatching process may be required for large objects, since setting or curing can start before
the filler material gets a chance to spread over the entire surface of the layer.
However, when hatching is used, each of the small hatches is filled separately, which
because of their small size allows more control over the spreading and curing of the filler
material. Hatching can also accelerate the forming process because it provides for
concurrent extrusion and filling (i.e., as the extrusion nozzle creates new hatches,
previously made hatches can be filled).

5. CC MACHINE
The machine consists of a trowel rotation system, and a vertical extrusion head capable of
linear motion along three coordinate axes. The trowel rotation mechanism consists of a
bevel gear, and a connector.The connection mechanism allows the raw material to flow
continuously from the cylinder to nozzle, and can rotate the extrusion system without
disturbing the material flow while fabricating complex curves.The extrusion system
consists of a top and side trowel, a cylinder that contains the raw material, and a piston and
a threaded feed rod that extrudes the raw material through a nozzle. The process utilizes a
Programmable Multi-Axis Controller (PMAC), a high-performance servo motion
controller, capable of controlling up to eight axes of motion (Delta Tau Data Systems, 1996
a, b). The eight axes can be all synchronized for completely coordinated motion; each axis
can be put into its own coordinate system for eight completely independent operations; any
intermediate arrangement of axes into coordinate systems is also possible. Limit switches
are used to restrict motion to specified limits.
 Figure 4: Creation of internal 5.1 Figure 5: Close view of a nozzle
wall Single
Nozzle
The extrusion process forms the smooth object surface by constraining the extruded flow
in the vertical and horizontal directions by the use of trowels. A schematic view of
extrusion using a single nozzle is shown on the left side of Figure 6. The orientation of the
side-trowel is dynamically cha nged for better surface fit for each decomposed layer. The
side-trowel allows thicker material deposition while maintaining high surface finish.
Thicker material deposition cuts down fabrication time, which is essential for building
large-scale parts by using the additive process
. 5.2 Multi Nozzle
On a compound nozzle assembly concurrent extrusion of two wall sides and filling of the
previously built layer may be performed. As the extrusion nozzle moves according to the
predefined material deposition path of each layer, the rims (smooth outer and top surface
of outside edges) are first created. The troweled outer surface of each layer determines the
surface finish quality of the object. The smooth top surface of each layer is also important
for building a strong bond with the next layer above. Once the boundaries of each layer are
created, the filling process begins and material is poured or injected to fill the internal
volume.
6. TROWEL PATH PLANNING AND NOZZLE CONTROL

The analysis deals about the ability to physically realize the task by specifying the trowel
path, Figure 6: Single nozzle Figure 7: Multi nozzle trowel/nozzle
orientation, and nozzle flow control. At this level the constraints include collision
avoidance of trowel/nozzle assembly with previously built portion of the structure, and
minimization of layering imperfections (such as bulges, gaps and cracks). Again, we can
potentially reduce these constraints to geometric reasoning problems by breaking each
layering into smaller segments and then analyzing each segment. To extrude layers of more
thickness, the volume of material extruded by the nozzle should be proportional to the
speed at which the nozzle is displaced. Also, as the nozzle moves and extrudes, the trowel
orientation must be tangent to the layering path at all times in order to form smooth
surfaces. For straight or smoothly curved segments trowel
orientation adjustments should be readily achievable.
6.1 Reasoning About Corners

Figure 8: Motion System Of The CC Machine

When the trowel reaches a corner it must change its orientation to be tangent to the opposite
side of that corner. At such times the nozzle stops extruding as the trowel rotates and pushes
the extruded material from the opposite edge. However, the push-in technique tends to
create bulges around sharp acute corners because of excess material. The nozzle has to
reduce its flow rate as it approaches the corner and the exact amount of material reduction
can be computed based on the angle of the corner and geometry of the nozzle.

7. CONCRETE PROPERTIES
7.1 Workability
The ease of placing,consolidating and finishing freshly mixed concrete and the degree to
which it resists segregation is called workability.The workability on 3D printed concrete is
a crictical factor on CC.The layers first poured have to support the layers that will be poured
sequentially but also cannot cure very fast causing bond problems between the layers.
7.2 Extrudability
Extrudability refers to the ability to transport the fresh concrete through a hopper and
pumping system to a nozzle where it must be extruded as a continous filament.The concrete
mixture in this process need to have a good extrudability rate,otherwise it is going to create
concrete clog points inside the 3D printing machine,causing delays and maintainance
necessity.It is known for every proffessional on construction that once you start pouring
concrete you should stop when the labour is done.
7.3 Curing
Curing is the process in which the concrete is protected from loss of moisture and kept
within a reasonable temperature range. This process results in concrete with increased
strength and decreased permeability. Curing is also a key player in mitigating cracks, wh
ich can severely affect durability.Due to the fact that CC construction has accelerated
rhythm, its curing must be speeded up as well. However, this high velocity should not be
too fast to the point of harming the bond between the layers. To reach this precise curing
speed, many techniques may be used, for example thermal and chemical ones.
7.4 Mixture
Concrete is a mixture of several components in certain proportions which goes by the name
of concrete mix design on construction language .The mix ranges depends on the
application necessities.The mixture designs for 3D printed concrete are not cheap or easy
to come up with. Many researches going on in the CC area are committed to study and
improve the mix designs. Therefore, the perspective is to decrease the cost of the materials.
For example, usually, the size of the aggregates should not be over 2 mm, and most part of
the times, additives like superplasticizer, retarder, accelerator, and polypropylene fibers are
needed, and they are very expensive. Through several trial and error experiments, a mixture
characteristic found to be suitable for the new CC machine is as follows;(1lb =4.309kg)
• Type II hydraulic Plastic Portland cement: 9.5 lb
• Sand: 10.5 lb
• Plasticizer: 0.8 lb
• Water: 4.8 lb
7.5 Strength
 •
Compressive strength may be defined as the measured maximum resistance of a concrete
specimen to axial loading. It is generally expressed in megapascals (mpa) or pounds per
square inch (psi) at an age of 28 days(1 mpa=145.038psi). As all the other kinds of
concrete, the printed concrete must be able to hold the weight of the structure. In this point,
the printed concrete has shown an excellent strength average rate. It is due the small size
of the aggregates, causing a reduction of voids in the concrete. Lesser the number of voids,
higher the compressive strength rate.

8. COST ESTIMATION
Once the machine parameters have been defined, cost of deposition for each wall segment
can be calculated according to its geometrical information. Cost of traveling between the
edges is related to the cost of moving between the vertices and the cost of rotation along
the edges. This cost can be estimated according to the relevant position of edges. The total
construction can be evaluated once a tool path has been defined. Each edge has two end
points; therefore, there are a total of four possible traveling costs from one edge to another
edge. Since the nozzle of the Contour Crafting machine has to orient itself to be
perpendicular to the tangent of the wall segment, the nozzle may need to be re-oriented
when traveling between edges. For example, in order to construct a corner, the nozzle must
rotate 90° between the constructions of two wall segments.

9. SUSTAINABILITY POTENTIAL OF CONTOUR CRAFTING

With growing concerns,regarding what are considered environment friendly methods and
materials,any new method of construction must take environmental concerns under
consideration. Simply saving on construction cost is not enough to justify the new use of
system. Contour crafting must have the potential of being employed as a sustainable
alternative to traditional methods of construction with regards to carbon emission,
embodied energy, life cycle costs and the use of recycled materials. While a specific
integrated approach is required for any building to be less hazardous to environment as
compared to other approaches, the method of construction chosen has a great impact on
sustainability of any project. While no construction method can be considered as inherently
sustainable, there are practices considered more sustainable than others. In order to further
understand the sustainability potential in contour crafting in application to single family
housing it was reviewed using the USGBC, LEED (United States Green Building
council,Leadership in Energy and Environment Design)for homes point system published
in 2008 as a guideline. LEED was selected as a baseline since the guidelines set by LEED
have become the current accepted international standard for defining sustainable building
practices. Contour crafting reduces the amount of time spent on site thereby reducing the
negative environmental impact of prolonged construction. Concerns such as silt and runoff
due to disturbed topsoil are reduced notably through diminished exposure to weather before
being permanently reset into the landscape.Since workers are needed on the site for less
time and they must travel to the site less and more efficient the construction process
becomes. The amount of waste generated on site also reduces as CC process only mixes
the cement and polymer right before the application. However due to the nature of contour
crafting and requirements necessary for the construction process to be effective, other areas
of LEED for homes became affected through the use of CC.

10. APPLICATIONS OF CC
Contour Crafting technology is relatively straight forward and simple. The significant
benefits of Contour Crafting are short construction times, no human workers, cheaper cost
and flexible of materials. These characteristics gave researches several brilliant
applications.
 Application in constructions
 Commercial applications
 Low income housing
 Space colonies
 Emergency housing
10.1 Applications In Construction
A single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design can be
automatically constructed in a single run using Contour Crating technology. Conventional
structures can be built by integrating the CC machine with a support beam picking and
positioning arm and adobe structures. It may be built without external support elements
using shape features.
 Design Flexibility: The process allows architects to design structures with functional and
exotic architect geometries that are difficult to realize using the current manual
construction practice.
 Multiple Materials: Various materials for outside surfaces and as fillers between surfaces
may be used in CC. The quantity of each material may be controlled by computer and
correlated to various regions of the geometry of the structure being built.
 Paint Ready Surfaces: The quality of surface finish in Contour Crafting is independent
of the size of the nozzle orifice. Sand, gravel, reinforcement fiber and other applicable

materials available locally are mixed and extruded through the CC nozzle. The surface
quality in CC is such that no further surface preparation would be needed for painting
surfaces..
10.1.1 Automated Reinforcement
Robotic modular embedding of steel mesh reinforcement into each layer may be devised.
The three simple modular components may be delivered by an automated feeding system
that deposits and assembles them between the two rims of each layer of walls built by
Contour Crafting. A 3D mesh can be built for columns. The mesh will follow the geometry
of the structure. It is possible to feed glass or carbon fiber tows through the CC nozzle to
form continuous reinforcement consolidated with the matrix materials to be deposited.
10.1.2 Automated Tiling Of Floors And Walls:Automated tiling can be integrated by

Figure 9: Automated reinforcement

robotically delivering and spreading
the material for adhesion of tiles to floor or walls. Another arm can then pick the tiles from
a sack and place it over the area treated with the adhesive material.
10.1.3 Automated Plumbing
Contour Crafting based construction system has the potential to build utility conduits
within the wall. For plumbing after fabrication of several wall layers,a segment of any
material pipe is attached through the constructed conduits into the lower segment already
installed. The robotic system delivers the new pipe segment and in case of copper pipes

Figure 10 : Automated tiling

having heater element in the form of ring. The inside or outside rim of each pipe segment
is pretreated with a layer of solder. The heater ring heats the connection area, melts the
solder and once the alignment is made bonds the two pipe segments.
The needed components may be pre-arranged in a tray or magazine for easy pick up by the
robotic assembly system. Using this components various plumbing networks may be
automatically imbedded in the structure.
10.1.4 Automated Electrical And

Figure 11: Automated plumbing

Communication Line Wiring

A modular approach similar to industrial bus-bars may be used for automating electrical
and communication line wiring used in Contour Crafting. The modules have conductive
segments of power and communication lines imbedded in electrically non-conductive
materials. All modules are capable of being robotically fed and connected. The automated
construction system could properly position the outside access modules behind the
corresponding openings on the wall.
10.1.5 Automated Painting

Figure 12: Automated wiring

During layer wise construction of wall a spray painting robotic manipulator attached to the
CC main structure will paint each wall according to the specification. The painting
mechanism may be a spray nozzle or inject printer head.
10.2 Commercial Application
The cost of construction includes huge amounts of material waste, labour problems and
uneconomical building design. Conventional construction is not eco-friendly, it produce
air, water and noise pollution. Hundreds of thousands of people injured or killed annually
at construction field. Contour Crafting make robots do the risky work preventing any kind
of human injuries. It has lessen the harmful impacts. Since materials will be precisely
measured prior to construction, there will be no material waste. It will produce less
pollution than the conventional method. In the end when the people use CC, the
commercial industry will not be restricted by inefficient costs and human labor.
10.3 Low-Income Housing
The population is growing faster than ever. Population in developing countries re growing
five times faster than those of developed countries. They do not have residence or money
to afford such population boom. Slums form because the country’s rate of urbanization is
too slow to accommodate all poor citizens. The cheap and rapid characteristics of CC
provides a solution since a fully functional house can be made in less than one day. By
using this technology developing countries will be able to solve housing problems of the
current and future population.
10.4 Emergency Housing
The people are prone to some kind of emergency due to war, natural disasters or economic
crisis.So many peoples are suffering from these problems.So the best option for them is a
home.The house should be cost effective, good quality with proper facilities. The CC
creates a fully functional house including pumping and heating within a day.
10.5 Space Colonies
Contour Crafting is the best solution for any extraterrestrial construction that NASA
approved. Scientists are already using tremendous amounts of money on shipping research
machines from earth to another planet.They need to minimize the cost on the actual
construction. Astronauts do not have much labor power and time to construct building by
themselves. Sending construction materials from earth is too expensive and inefficient to
carryout. By using lunar Contour Crafting, there is no need for human labor.

11. COMPARISON BETWEEN CC AND CONVENTIONAL

METHOD
11.1 Cost
Conventional Construction: In the traditional method, there is a high cost of production
because of the quantity of materials, labour and time. In addition, sometimes it becomes
even higher due to the complexity of projects. For example, during extreme weather
conditions, the construction process has to slow down significantly because of the
employee’s incapacity to work in these conditions, which would not affect a CC machine.
Delays on project’s execution raise costs.
CC Method: Contour Crafting is an alternative that can decrease about four times of the
construction cost because of its simplicity, materials’ saving and short time productivity
(10 houses in one day, for example). In addition, it can give more liberty to design projects
that might be easily done without much difference (in terms of cost and feasibility) from
simple projects.
11.2 Labour
Conventional Method: Besides being one of the most hazardous industry, construction
nowadays has become overpast because it still depends mainly on the man force. One of
the challenges of Civil Construction industry today is to find well-qualified workers
because most of them still need to be trained, causing additional costs and schedule delays.
In addition, its labor is very expensive because of the big number of workers that it brings
to the construction site.
CC Method: The great advantage of this technology is the use of few workers at the
construction site. Only specialized people (computer and management skills) would be
required to operate the machine. Due to this fact, not only men would be able to work in
construction, but women and elderly people as well. In conclusion, CC machine does not
get tired, does not give excuses of failures, and does not need to be trained. In contrast, it
might work 24 hours a day, thus it speeds up the job schedule.
11.3 Safety
Conventional Method: Construction industry is the most hazardous of major industries.
One of five worker deaths in 2013 were in construction, according to the United States
Department of Labor. The causes of deaths were falls, followed by struck by object,
electrocution, and caught in between. Every time that a mega construction is being built,
the human loss is very high. For example, the construction of Hoover dam (in the Colorado
River) took life of more than a hundred of workers.
CC Method: With Contour Crafting, work injuries and fatalitiy rate are reduced to zero
because of the very safe method of construction. As it has a low number of workers and a
computer executes almost everything, it does not bring any danger to the construction site.
11.4 Sustainability
Conventional Method: This method is very harmful to the environment. First, it pollutes
the environment. Second, it also emits many harmful toxic materials, which are dangerous
for the whole environment (soil, air, people and animals), such as dust. Finally, the number
of waste materials is very high. Usually, the quantity of materials used to make a building
could easily be enough to build one more building, but the wastage does not make it
possible.
CC Method: Due to its accuracy, Contour Crafting technology provides construction
without waste, being considered as environmental friendly and a sustainable process,
consequently. In addition, it does not make any noise, besides of being a fast process. It
uses less material, less energy for all construction activities and less transportation of
material, equipment, and people.
11.5 Productivity
Conventional Method: Construction today can last months, and even years. It is liable to
schedule delays and work failures. For example, when the concrete is poured, it cannot be
stopped until the job is finished, forcing workers to spend a long time at the construction
site, which causes loss of productivity because human beings get tired. In addition, the use
of formwork is a big factor that causes delay in job’s flow because it requires a lot of labor
to work with forms.
 CC

Method: With Contour Crafting, 10 houses can be built in a single day, or even more. This
method does not use formwork, which is a shortcut in the construction time. Computers
execute everything in the construction, so it might be as much as 50 times faster than
conventional method. In addition, this method is very accurate to execute its assigned
commands, so it is able to make its jobs faster.

PROJECT SAVINGS HOW

PARAMETER
Financing 20-25% Short project Length& Control Over Marketing
Time
Materials 25-30% Negligible wastage,No Requirement of Formwork

Labour 50-75% Automation of Construction

TABLE I
Cost Savings In Contour Crafting Compared To Conventional Construction
Chart no: 1 Number and Rate of Fatal Occupational Injuries, by Industry Sector, 2010

Chart no.2 Comparison chart showing Chart no.3 comparison chart showing
cost efficiency and speed of CO2 emission and embodied energy for
construction concrete masonry and contour crafting
12. FABRICATION OF CONCRETE WALL USING CC
12.1 Experiment
To fabricate a concrete wall of specified dimensions

0.75 inch

6 inch

2 feet
concrete

Concrete form

5feet

Figure 13: Schematic view of target concrete

wall Figure 14: CC nozzle
12.2 CC Nozzle
To fabricate the target geometry a new CC nozzle system was designed and integrated with
a new CC machine. Unlike previous designs, the new CC nozzle is equipped with dual
trowels to control both the internal and external surface finish of the extruded rims. The
nozzle assembly is offset 70mm (2.75”) from the flow center of the extrusion system
To fabricate the rounded ends, extrusion in the X-direction is stopped and the assembly is
rotated 180 degrees. With this configuration the Y axis is not used, hence reducing the
machine complexity at the cost of being limited to fabrication of straight wall sections
12.3 Mortar Strength
Cylinders Compressive strength (PSI)
Specimen 1 2,786
Specimen 2 2,830
Specimen 3 2,606
Mean 2,741
Table 2. Results of testing compressive strength
To verify its early compressive strength, three cylindrical test specimens, 5 cm X 10 cm
(2” X 4”) were made and cured for 7 days in room temperature. Tests were conducted at
USC’s Civil Engineering structural testing laboratory with the results shown in Table 2.
The results indicated that the compressive strength of thee test specimens were both
consistent and adequate for their use as a permanent structural component of the finished
concrete wall.
12.4 Fabrication
The mortar mixture was prepared using power drill driven mixing paddles and was loaded
into the material carrying tank, shown in Figure 15. The velocity of the extrusion system in
the horizontal direction was set to 20 mm/sec with stabilized continuous extrusion flow
from the CC nozzle assembly. Initial extrusion flow is discarded until the flow is stabilized
and the system starts its fabrication. Once an entire batch of the mortar mixture loaded
inside the material carrying tank is used up, the CC system pauses until another batch of
mortar is loaded and the extrusion continues to form the remaining concrete form. A batch
of mortar is consumed in approximately 10 minutes and yields a concrete form
approximately 64 mm (2.5”) high. To complete the target geometry shown in Figure13,
nine batches were needed. The final concrete form fabricated by the CC system exceeded
a height of 60 cm (2 feet)

Figure 15: CC machine used for fabricating the concrete wall

12.5 Lateral Pressure On Concrete Form

The function of the concrete form is to contain freshly poured concrete in a contained mold
until the placed concrete sets. Lateral pressure against the concrete form is a function of the
height and mass of the poured concrete; the pressure is not affected by the wall thickness.
The following is a standard formula widely used as a design guide for vertical formwork
based on ACI standard 347:
 P=W*H
Where: P = Lateral pressure
W = Unit weight of fresh concrete
H= Depth of fresh concrete
These are design guides for wall concrete for work. The actual pressures may vary. Note
that reliable data is difficult to obtain in published references when the pour rate is less than
1 ft / hr.
 For CC applications, pour rates less than 13 cm/hour (5”/hour) will allow erection of a
3m (10 feet) tall concrete wall without using special high strength form materials.
 Once concrete inside the form hardens, pressure is no longer generated below the level
of fresh concrete.
 Wait until the concrete hardens completely since even partially cured concrete generates
minimal lateral pressure on the form.

Figure 16: Placing of concrete

Figure 17: Pouring of concrete layer by layer

 Figure 16 illustrates the concrete pouring process.

 The bottom cross -hatched section represents concrete which has been cured for one hour.
 The cured concrete produces minimal lateral pressure on the form but the exact value
was difficult to quantify in our experiments. Data was not available in the available
literature; therefore, a simple test was devised to validate the strength capability of the
form. Figure 17 shows the test bed.
 A batch of concrete was poured to a height of 13 cm (5”). The second batch was poured
on top of the first batch after one hour without problems.
 The test procedure, if repeated 24 times, will result in the erection of a 10 feet high
“conventional” concrete wall in 24 hours. Ten feet is a standard height for concrete walls
in residential housing construction.
12.6 Results
 Concrete was manually poured into the extruded form in 13 cm incremental depths (one
hour intervals) to a final height of 60 cm (2ft).
 Figure 18 shows the finished wall.
The compressive strength of this wall will vary depending on the type of concrete chosen.
Concrete pouring in this demonstration, however, has been independent of the extrusion
forming process. With more experimentation, the filling process can be synchronized with
the extrusion process. The coupling of these two processes will depend on many factors
including extrusion rate, pour rate, and cure time and strength requirements. In the next
generation CC system, the mechanical assembly for continuous concrete pouring will be
integrated into the CC extrusion nozzle assembly.
13.ROBOTICS APPROACH IN CC

Figure 18: concrete wall made by cc machine

The original robotics approach proposed for Contour Crafting is depicted in Figure 19. This
approach uses a gantry robot that has to be large enough to build an entire house within its
operating envelope and lays one continuous bead for each layer. Such an
approach is not without its attractions, but it requires a large amount of site preparation and
a large robot structure.

Figure 20: CC using coordinated mobile

robots for construction and other
Figure 19: CC using a gantry robotics approach auxiliary activities
 An alternative robotics approach for CCC is the use of an inverted Stuart Platform system,
such as the one developed at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and
named RoboCrane (see Figure 19). Application of RoboCrane in CCC is currently under
study by researchers at NIST. In this project a concrete delivery system is devised and used
in conjunction with a CC nozzle installed on the RoboCrane platform. Ease of transport
and installation are the major advantages of this approach.

Figure 21: CC using mobile robots

A third alternative robotics approach involves the coordinated action of multiple mobile
robots. The mobile robotics approach depicted in Figure 21, has several advantages
including ease of transportation. and setup, the possibility of concurrent construction where
multiple robots work on various sections of the structure to be constructed, the possibility
of scalable deployment (in number) of equipment, and the possibility of construction of
structures with unlimited foot print. In this arrangement various mobile robots performing
various activities such as fabrication, plumbing, electrical work, etc. work in coordination.
A CC Mobile Robot may use a conventional joint structure, as shown in Figure 21, and be
equipped with material tanks as well as material delivery pump and pipes. The end effectors
of the robot could carry a CC nozzle that can reach from ground level all the way to the top
of a wall. If the mobile robot arm could be made of a rigid structure, position sensing at the
end effecter may not be necessary. Instead, a position sensor (e.g., a laser tracker) may be
mounted at a fixed location, and the related retro reflectors may be installed on each mobile
robot base. In this configuration, the robot does not engage in fabrication while moving.
Once it reaches a pre defined post (called mobile platform post), it anchors itself by
extending some solid rods from its bottom. Then it starts the fabrication from the last point
fabricated while at the previous post. This arrangement is routinely practiced in some
industrial applications such as robotic welding of large parts, such as in ship building.
13.1 Roof Construction
Roof construction may or may not need support beams. Supportless structures such as
domes and vaults may be built by all of the above robotics approaches. For planar roofs,
beams may be used. Under each beam a thin panel may be attached to sustain the roof
construction material delivered by the CC nozzle. In the mobile robotics approach the
beams may be picked and positioned on the structure by two robots working
collaboratively, each being positioned on the opposite sides outside of the structure.
Delivery of roof material becomes challenging with mobile robots and may be done by a
robot inside the structure. This robot may progressively deliver the material over the beam
panels as each beam is placed on the roof. For the last few beams this robot could exit the
structure and perform the material delivery from outside. An alternative approach for beam
positioning and roof material delivery, which may be used in conjunction with the mobile
robotics approach, is the use of the NIST RoboCrane system. RoboCrane may be installed
on a conventional crane as shown in the lower part of Figure 22(the top part of this figure

shows the RoboCrane moving an actual steel beam.)

Figure 22: Robocrane for roof construction

14. CASE STUDY

14.1 Extra Terrestrial Construction Using Contour Crafting By NASA
As interest in space exploration increases, human beings are to return to Moon and land on
Mars in the future. To carry out experiments and live a longer time on extraterrestrial
planets, permanent habitats are needed to shield heat, cold, cosmic rays and meteorite
impact. Due to negligible lunar atmosphere or scarce Martian atmosphere, spaceship
landing and launching off will cause frozen ice crystal from the fuel and gravels flying at a
fast speed far away. from radiation and micrometeorites and roads are needed to transfer
the landers between the landing pads and the hangars. Most proposals for construction on
Moon and Mars are based on transporting structural elements from Earth and assembling
them at the destination. Such approach is expensive and infeasible for large-scale
implementation. This approach is based on the use of in-situ material and digital fabrication
techniques to construct the infrastructure elements. Intense research has been carried out in
In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) and specifically lunar regolith characteristics have
been extensively studied. In our research we are exploring the possibilities of using sulfur
based concrete and molten regolith as construction materials to be processed by Contour
Crafting.
Figure 23: A Contour Crafting robot is shown here printing a road in front of a parabolic hangar
structure housing a lunar Lander. In the background can be seen a plant intended for processing
regolith that will be used in the construction process

Figure 24: A Contour Crafting robot, housed on an 'ATHLETE' rover, is shown here printing a
parabolic vault structure out of processed regolith. The structure is intended to house a
lunarlander or other equipment, and is unpressurized. The parabolic form has been adopted,
because it is structurally efficient and lends itself to the Contour Crafting mode of construction.
In the background can be seen an array of solar panels intended to supply power to the robot.
14.1.1 Site Selection:
Site selection for lunar Lander sortie operations is of the utmost importance. A strategic
Location will provide several advantages. They include:
• Safety
• Least fuel expenditure (depending on landing site altitude)
• Terrain character – plains vs. highlands, bedrock vs. loose regolith
• Steady surface/terrain temperature
14.1.2 Infrastructure Elements
The following are the originally proposed structures that were being considered for building
using a CC system and employing ISRU materials at the D-RATS field test and simulation
site.
14.1.2.1 A Lunar Landing Pad And Blast Apron:
The landing pad surface could potentially be patterned to diffuse the high thrust loads of
about 40MT and severe heat imparted on it by the descent engines. A blast apron to curtail
eject is also needed to keep hazardous projectiles from striking/damaging high value assets
in the vicinity (3-5km) of the landing zone.
14.1.2.2 A Dust-Free Stabilized Road From The Landing Pad To Habitat Zone:
It is well known that lunar dust will hamper buildup as well as routine activities around the
settlement. Therefore all dust prevention measures are being evaluated. Again, lunar CC
application may provide an option to pattern a dust-free platform that traps, repels and thus
ameliorates dust transport to the habitat zone and contamination of lunar settlement
interiors.
14.1.2.3 Thermal Shade Walls And Protective Micrometeorite (Mm) Shields:
Once the habitat components are assembled, in order to operate it at optimum safety and
energy efficiency, the complex must be covered with a suitable mm shield that will also
regulate thermal control. Patterns, louvers and other openings will be built into the surface
of this protective enclosure to facilitate thermal regulation during lunar solar diurnal cycle.
14.1.2.4 A Communication And Observation Tower:
Since the high ground provides a better view, especially in the lunar case where the horizon
is just 3km away, an observation tower for a suite of cameras and communications
equipment has been suggested in earlier studies. A tower may also be located high enough
to be able to directly observe lunar Lander operations.
14.1.3 Infrastructure
Initial requirements for infrastructure will be landing pads, landing aprons and blast walls
for protection of equipment or resources close to the landing sites. Unless fortuitous
naturally protected sites are located from data being scoured currently, research stations or
settlements will need to be further away from the landing path to avoid damage from rocket
ejects and secondary hyper-energetic regolith projectiles. This will require construction of
roads, dust-free platforms, shade walls, equipment storage hangars and radiation and
meteorite protection shelters. All of the above infrastructure can be built from regolith and
other ISRU materials utilizing several methods of robotic fabrication investigated in this
proposed study. Maximizing ISRU using robotic construction technology as an enabler is
the prime driver for this architecture. Several construction tasks will be necessary to
achieve safe and productive conditions for extended human presence at extraterrestrial
sites.
14.1.4 Materials And Processes For Construction
CC Technology Using Sulfur Concrete
Creation of sulfur-based concrete is fairly straightforward once sulfur is extracted from
regolith. As shown in the top portion of Figure 25, sulfur concrete is made of about 80%
regolith and 20% sulfur. Contour Crafting structures using sulfur concrete requires mixing
the two components and then extruding the dry mix through a CC nozzle barrel that is
heated to 130 C, the melting temperature of sulfur. Sulfur concrete structures can
have a compressive strength of 3000 psi which is higher than the strength of most ordinary
hydraulic concrete structures, such as those built with concrete blocks.

On Earth, sulfur concrete is a relatively new construction material compared with hydraulic
Figure 25: Sulfur, sand, sulfur/sand mix Figure 26: Experimental machine for
yielding sulfur concrete extrusion testing of sulfur concrete

concrete. To use sulfur concrete, aggregates is mixed with sulfur powder and then is heated
up to around 1300C then is cooled down to ambient temperature. The cooled down mix has
a compressive strength as high as 17.24 MPa (2500 psi). Sulfur concrete cures faster than
hydraulic concrete, and achieves 90% of its final strength within 6 hours. Sulfur concrete
is more resistant to acidic and salt and hence it has been made into sewage pipes especially
in food processing industries. Sulfur concrete also has better properties under large
temperature cycles. The aggregate in our experiments is washed dry sand1 with a grain size
below 1 mm, similar size distribution to that of JSC-1A. Loosely compressed sand has a
specific gravity of 1.64g/cm3, and that for regolith simulant is 1.73g/cm3, and for sulfur
and sand mixture is 1.68g/cm3. Both sand and regolith simulant grains are irregular, and
the chemical composition does not affect the binding strength.
14.2 Winsun Constructions, China
In China, a company named Win Sun Decoration Design Engineering has built ten 3D
printed houses entirely out of recycled materials in less than 24 hours. The printer used for
this purpose was assembled by importing its parts from overseas. It measures 32 meters
long by 10 meters wide and is 6.6 meters in height. The printer is capable of printing houses
having a plan area of about 200sq.m. The materials used for construction included a mixture
of industrial wastes and other inexpensive materials. The construction task was fully
automated and there was no requirement of labour at all. The approximate cost for
construction of each unit was under 5000 USD, which is quite an achievement for a
relatively new construction process

Figure 27: Houses built by winsun constructions

15. LIMITATIONS OF CC
1. Due to its size and weight, the machine has to be attached to another machine that would
be able to move it.
2. The difficulties of the environment. How these machines would surpass the issues of
the environment, such as unleveled ground, weather impacts, etc. There are some
researches with great ideas to improve this issue, such as a machine suspended by cables
oriented by a Cartesian system
3. The cost is still an obstacle to develop this technology because of its recent discovery.
The maintenance fees for these machines are also very expensive. If CC development
had more support from sponsors, maybe it could be developed faster.
4. The great challenge of the construction industry will be adapting to the transition
between conventional construction and CC method. One of the CC technology
limitations are the fact that it is not compatible with conventional design.
16. INDIAN SCENARIO AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVE
Our planet is running out of raw material, due to its irresponsible use by people. Contour
Crafting is an environment’s friend because it wastes no material at all. In addition, it does
not bring noise, dust or make harmful emissions to the environment. All the major
industries of the world work mostly with automated systems, except construction industry.
However, it has inevitably changed, and Contour Crafting is a potential agent of this
transition.
India is one of the fast developing nations of the world which is facing an acute shortage
of space due to major population migrating towards the big cities in search for jobs and
better living. As a result of this various redevelopment projects are being undertaken in the
mega cities. But with the use of conventional techniques the rate of construction is very
slow to match the demand for space and moreover the harm to the environment due to these
construction practices is very alarming. Also the rate of construction is bound by the
economy as the cost involved in the redevelopment and city expansion projects is huge.
But with the advent of contour crafting technology, all of these shortcomings can be
mitigated if given a broad platform in our country. This paves the way for complete
mechanization in the industry and what better example than this technology would be
needed to provide the onset for it.

17. CONCLUSION
The world has walked more and more in destination to automated systems. In the future,
computers will make all the processes of major industries. It also includes construction
industry. There will be a time when all the steps of buildings will be performed by
machines. For example, design, plumbing, reinforcement, and electrical systems would be
made by CC technology Another point of Contour Crafting is that it has a great
productivity, building houses in a matter of hours, without wasting any material. In
addition, its cost can be much lower than the conventional method cost because CC uses
less workers and materials. This new technology is an environmental friend, which does
not pollute or cause any evil effect to our environment. However, even with all its benefits,
Contour Crafting has some challenges to overcome. First, CC developers should study how
this technology would be managed at a construction site. Second, it is necessary to see how
people would react to this transition between conventional method of construction (many
workers, wasting and fatalities) and the automated construction method (less workers,
wasting and more safety). Finally, the great challenge is to overcome the current cost barrier
of this technology. The authors believe that the more this technology is developed, the
cheaper it will become to be applied in the reality.

18. REFERENCE
1. Crafting Large Prototypes - IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine,September 2011
2. Extraterrestrial Construction Using Contour Crafting ,Behrokh Khoshnevis, Professor
(khoshnev@usc.edu) Jing Zhang, PhD Candidate (zhan947@usc.edu) Industrial &
Systems Engineering, University of Southern California,August 15,2012
3. Automated Construction Using Contour Crafting ,B Khoshnevis, h. Kwon, and s.
Bukkapatnam Industrial And Systems Engineering, University Of Southern California
Los Angeles,2010
4. Contour Crafting Simulation Plan For Lunar Settlement Infrastructure Build-Up NIAC
Phase-I Final Project Report – October 2012,B. Khoshnevis, A. Carlson, N. Leach
And M. Thangavelu
5. Toward Total Automation of On-Site Construction - An Integrated Approach based
on Contour Crafting Berok Khoshnevis, Professor D. J. Epstein Department of
Industrial & Systems Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA
90089-0193
6. Concrete Wall Fabrication By Contour Crafting Dooil Hwang And Behrokh
Khoshnevis Daniel J. Epstein Department Of Industrial & Systems Engineering
University Of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089
7. International Journal Of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT) ISSN: 2278-
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Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.) Vol. 4 Issue 08, August-2015,Gabriel
Fernandes / Lucas Feitosa ,Department Of Civil & Environmental Engineering Howard
University,Washington DC, United States
8. Journal Of The International Association Of Advanced Technology And Science
Automated Costruction By Contour Crafting ,Piyush Sharma ,Department Of Civil
Engineering, Dronacharya College Of Engineering
9. International Journal Of Research In Advent Technology (E-ISSN: 2321-9637)
Special Issue National Conference “Vishwacon'16”, 19 March 2016 22 Contour
Crafting A Potential Revolution In The Construction Industry.