After viewing way too much footage of hurricane, tsunami and earthquake-related damage lately, it’s somewhat reassuring to know that solutions could be on the way. Although we still haven’t figured out how to control or neutralize natural disasters, a team of researchers from the Lyles School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University is working on a product that could help limit their destructive effects.
A 3D-printed cement paste is currently being developed to help make buildings more resilient to these events, as its composition actually allows it to get stronger as it cracks. Unlike concrete that gets more brittle as it begins to deform, the new paste borrows properties from arthropod shells. The layering composition of these shells allow for absorbing large amounts of damage.
So instead of just applying a large slab of cement, the paste would be applied in honeycomb patterns or printed filaments following a helicoidal pattern, similar to the shells found on beetles and lobsters. This is made possible by 3D printing’s ability to work without molds. Although the material looks theoretically sound, and there’s definitely some satisfaction in using nature to combat nature, testing in a few critical areas is still needed.
Primarily, the team needs to look more closely at how the freshly printed paste will interact with other traditional building materials as it hardens, and how it will react to changes in temperature, moisture and other environmental variables. All of these factors impact reactions that include swelling and shrinking.
Researchers need to see how this compares with the normal degradation of materials like cement and how to adjust the application of the 3D-printed paste to combat them.