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Propelling the widespread adoption of large-scale 3D printing

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3D printing can be used to automate the manufacturing of building elements for large-scale structures such as skyscrapers, aircraft, rockets and space bases without human intervention. However, challenges in materials, processes, printers and software control must first be overcome for large-scale 3D printing to be adopted for widespread applications.

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Fig. 1: Overview and future of large-scale 3D printing.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (no. 2018YFC0705800), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (no. 19QB1403300) and Shanghai Construction Group R&D Program (no. 14GLXX-05 and 16JCYJ-02). The authors acknowledge J. Gong of SCG for his help in implementing research and engineering projects of LS3DP over the years. The authors thank M. Gong and C. Lu of SCG and C. Gao of KENYO for their help in preparing the figure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Structural Engineering and Building Materials, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Zibo Zuo & Wouter De Corte

  2. General Engineering Institute of Shanghai Construction Group, Shanghai Construction Group Co., Ltd, Shanghai, China

    Zibo Zuo, Yulin Huang, Xiaoming Chen & Longlong Zhang

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Construction Materials, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

    Yamei Zhang

  4. Nanjing KENYO Digital Material Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd, Nanjing, China

    Jin Li

  5. State Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

    Jianzhuang Xiao & Yong Yuan

  6. School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Ketao Zhang

  7. State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China

    Lulu Zhang

  8. Institute of Construction Materials, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Viktor Mechtcherine

Authors
  1. Zibo Zuo
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  2. Wouter De Corte
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  3. Yulin Huang
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  4. Xiaoming Chen
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  5. Yamei Zhang
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  6. Jin Li
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  7. Longlong Zhang
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  8. Jianzhuang Xiao
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  9. Yong Yuan
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  10. Ketao Zhang
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  11. Lulu Zhang
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  12. Viktor Mechtcherine
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Contributions

Z.Z., Y.H., X.C., J.L. and Longlong Zhang researched data for the article. Z.Z., W.D.C. and V.M. contributed substantially to discussion of the content. All authors wrote the article. Z.Z., W.D.C., Y.Z., J.X., Y.Y., K.Z., Lulu Zhang and V.M. reviewed and edited the manuscript before submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zibo Zuo.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Zuo, Z., De Corte, W., Huang, Y. et al. Propelling the widespread adoption of large-scale 3D printing. Nat Rev Mater (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-023-00626-1

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