IIT Guwahati Researchers Develop 3D Furniture made from Industrial Wastes

FDT Bureau

Image credit: IIT Guwahati

A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati has reportedly developed 3D-printed urban furniture by using construction materials made from local industrial wastes. The concrete printer has been developed by IIT Guwahati in collaboration with DELTASYS E FORMING. Comprising Dhrutiman Dey, Dodda Srinivas and Bhavesh Chaudhari, the team is from the sustainable resources for Additive Manufacturing (SReAM), IIT Guwahati, and has developed new cementitious mix compositions, amenable for 3D printing. 

To develop the printer, the team used specially-developed printable concrete that contains industrial wastes as binders to build the 3D-printed furniture. The printer, reportedly, can print components up to 1m long, 1m wide and 1m tall. The team took nearly 20 minutes to complete the cycle for 3D-printed urban furniture. The 3D printed furniture has, thus, been designed with a seating height of 0.4m, a width of 0.4m and arch-shaped support that has been modelled and sliced using SolidWorks and Simplify3D, respectively. Layer by layer, the entire piece has been printed at an 80mm/s speed with each layer having a 10mm height. Upon completion, the pieces had been covered by moist gunny bags for seven days to cure before being used.

3D concrete printing optimizes designs with 75 per cent less concrete and eliminates the need for mould as opposed to the traditional method where mould casted required more concrete material, labour, and formwork preparation.