The Crane WASP, also known as "the infinity 3D printer," uses locally sourced clay, mud or cement to 3D-print affordable homes. It can even use agricultural waste as aggregate. The system is now being used to build much-needed housing in Colombia.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has recently acquired a Crane WASP to print affordable homes in Colombia, utilizing local soil and resources. The printer itself is worth about US$180,000.
More than a quarter of Colombian households are facing a housing deficit – an estimated 3.7 million – and two of three families that have homes need to make structural improvements to their subpar dwellings.
Using locally sourced soil and such means the UN won't have to truck in expensive or proprietary materials from faraway lands, which significantly cuts down on costs.
The Crane WASP (World's Advanced Saving Project) was inspired by the Mason Wasp, a busy little insect that uses mud to build its nests. The UNDP will be able to set up the printers in otherwise difficult terrain where conventional and expensive construction equipment would have limited access, while using local soil to print homes for the impoverish and displaced.
Watch how the Crane WASP works.
3D printing homes isn't a new concept. Wolf Ranch, a 100-home neighborhood near Austin, Texas is nearing completion after breaking ground in 2018. The company responsible, Icon, uses its Vulcan printer to print new homes on existing concrete slabs.
The Vulcan is 45 feet wide (13.7 m) and weighs nearly 5 tons (4.5 tonnes). It uses a proprietary "Lavacrete" blend to extrude four walls, which isn't cheap. Newly printed homes in Wolf Ranch are being priced in the $450,000 range.
While this type of technology is fantastic – and more durable than traditional homes – it would be incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to transport, set up, and build with printers like the Vulcan in remote places with little to no infrastructure.
A single WASP printer uses a "delta" scaffolding setup (four-footed, with a triangular outrigger) that's highly versatile and can be placed even over rugged terrain. It can print out homes for as little as $1,000 each, making this effort significantly more affordable than a stick-and-brick. Multiple printers can even be linked together in a honeycomb pattern, to simultaneously build entire villages.
There's currently no word on when construction is scheduled to begin, but we'll be watching out for progress.
Source: 3D Natives
Do earnestly suggest:
1: A profiled to wall plan profile steel (autenistic stainless pref' / heavy galv' if your short of beer-vouchers) mesh
be laid / every ~18" rise (or ~450mm for thems that don't understand proper money).
+
2: Fibrous filaments capable of taking, at least micro, tensional strain be incorporated in the squirty mix.
+
3: Pref: 1 + 2 above together.
+
4: Ring beam solid plates to wall head / intermediate level(s)to take and spread as evenly as poss'
any superimposed loads such as roofs + floors
(happiness is a solid ring piece).
Good Luck brave new squirty things.
Ignore the above at your own risk.
Reminder:
ref 'Fibrous filaments capable of taking at least micro tension'
Try chopped straw/similar rovings.
(All of history of building bods various across the planet can't be that wrong).
Making Austenite requires a temperature of 723 C (or 1333 F for those who still use measuring systems based on body parts). Even if there is an abundance of iron nearby, the costs of mining and processing it would seem prohibitive, not to mention the time and capital required to create the mine and the steel plant.
Trucking in steel is expensive and requires roads.
What "roofs + floors" do you mean. Domes use the ground as floor, don't have rooves, and are single storey, so "superimposed loads" aren't really an issue.
Mason wasps have been doing this much, much longer than humans have even known about steel, which is only about 1000 years.
Humans were building domed structures out of everything from mud and straw to snow long before that - and still do!
Please, by all means, get me Austin cost and I'll update the article. Thanks in advance!
In the same way, the extruder should be able to construct directly around wooden or metallic frames for doors, windows, furnitures, tube for cable or sanitaries.
Finally, they should incorporate several extruders with different materials for different needs. Directly extruding a surface resistant to weather for the outside would save a lot of time. In the same way, extruding another material full of air bubbles for better isolation to put inside walls would be intelligent.
Other than the dozen or so homes printed and given to poor rural areas already, no other CHEAP 3DP homes have been printed.
The greed makes me sick.