[jaw_highlight]TECHNOLOGY[/jaw_highlight]
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By Amy Pollock
Cyclists crossing this bridge in the Dutch village of Gemert won’t notice anything unusual.
But its designers say it’s the world’s first 3D printed concrete bridge.
It can carry loads of up to 5 tonnes and should still be carrying cyclists in 30 years time.
And the team behind it says it’s just as strong as a conventional concrete bridge.
“In the transverse direction, the bridge is reinforced with steel reinforcement, and the steel reinforcement has been implemented and managed during the printing process,” said Theo Salet, Professor of Structural Design Eindhoven University of Technology.
The university team printed 800 layers of concrete for the design and embedded steel wire through the 3D printer on top of each layer to reinforce it.
The bridge, made of six sections, was glued together and lifted into place on site.
Salet says “Concrete worldwide is responsible for a lot of carbon dioxide exhaust. And by printing concrete we can just place concrete at those spots where we need it and leave the concrete out where we don’t need it, so we use less concrete.”
The team says their construction method is flexible and quick and it has the potential to be used for many different shapes.
(c) 2017 Thomson Reuters
