Materials

'Brain-breaking' glass bricks are 3D printed, reusable, and strong

'Brain-breaking' glass bricks are 3D printed, reusable, and strong
The glass bricks are printed in a figure-eight design, which allows for curved structures
The glass bricks are printed in a figure-eight design, which allows for curved structures
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The glass bricks are printed in a figure-eight design, which allows for curved structures
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The glass bricks are printed in a figure-eight design, which allows for curved structures

Using a 3D printer that works with molten glass, researchers forged LEGO-like glass bricks with a strength comparable to concrete. The bricks could have a role in circular construction in which materials are used over and over again.

“Glass as a structural material kind of breaks people’s brains a little bit,” says Michael Stern, a former MIT graduate student and researcher in both MIT’s Media Lab and Lincoln Laboratory. “We’re showing this is an opportunity to push the limits of what’s been done in architecture.”

Stern is also the founder of MIT spinoff, Evenline. That company developed a special 3D printer that can execute additive manufacturing using molten glass as its feedstock, which you can see in operation in the following video.

Glass masonry

In printing the bricks, Stern and his team used soda-lime glass that is used in most glass-blowing studios.

The bricks have a figure-eight design which, the engineers say, allows them to be used for curved construction projects. They also contain two small pegs on the bottom that allow them to interlock, much in the same way LEGOs go together. After the bricks were printed, the team placed them in an industrial hydraulic press to see how much force they could take and found that they were almost as strong as concrete blocks. Adding an interlocking feature from aluminum on the bottom of the blocks made them even stronger.

The researchers also built a small wall using the bricks as a proof of concept.

The bricks fit neatly into the circular construction ethos in several ways. First, they are made from recycled glass. Second, after they have fulfilled their role in supporting a structure, they can be snapped apart and reconfigured into a new form. Finally, if the bricks themselves won't work in a new project, the glass can be melted down and 3D printed into a different shape.

The material joins other eco-friendly glass bricks including those made from discarded glass and recycling waste ash, as well as a set of highly insulating glass blocks made from aerogels.

“I get excited about expanding design and manufacturing spaces for challenging materials with interesting characteristics, like glass and its optical properties and recyclability,” says Kaitlyn Becker, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT who helped develop the bricks. “As long as it’s not contaminated, you can recycle glass almost infinitely.”

A research paper describing the development and testing of the bricks has been published in the journal Glass Structures and Engineering.

Source: MIT

8 comments
8 comments
FreddyB
I live in earthquake country. Would this meet construction codes?
MCG
This is the future. I've been waiting, thank you.
Chase
I wouldn't mind having a wall of these in a well lit bathroom/walk-in shower.

@FreddyB, most international building codes are Descriptive rather than Prescriptive and even those that do prescribe the building standards often include the option to defer to a structural engineer/architect for solutions that are uncommon. So the real question is whether or not these blocks would work in whatever situation you'd like to use them in, which comes down to specifications of the materials, construction methods, sealing and detailing methods, and the architect's grip on the maths of dynamic load calculations.
Matt
Why do ever story title from this site say, brain this and brain that ...
veryken
Mind-blowing, brain-breaking, skull-fracturing, cerebral-cracking, mental-mutilating — sure, but still commonly comprehensible.
rgbatduke
I've been expecting this for some time, but they need to build SOLID glass structures out of straight up beach sand using local/solar electricity. 8" thick glass/fused quartz is enormously strong and quite heavy -- it would make utterly hurricane-proof outer shells for near-ocean structures, without concrete. Buildings made this way would outlive multiple generations of humans. Modern construction is all throwaway stuff -- it takes a perpetual flow of money just to keep a house built after the 70's or 80's from falling down in country with NO hurricanes or nasty weather. Houses have cheap bones, terrible siding (remember masonite? I have horror stories...), flimsy drywall, easily cracked foundations (concrete or not), permeable basements, and roofs that have to be replaced every 10-20 years made out of largely toxic materials.

This is just more of the same. Build something that literally comes apart, pretending that you can reuse the building material. Sure, except that new blocks will always be cheaper, watch and see.
Phredye
" . . . the glass can be melted down . . . ."

"Melted down"?? Ok. How about "melted up"?
Michael Irving
@Phredye https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/melt-down