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An intelligent extrusion system for additive manufacturing in construction

Additive manufacturing (AM), popularly known as ‘3D printing’, is a manufacturing technique that builds physical 3D objects layer by layer using materials such as polymers, metals, and composites. The widespread popularity of additive manufacturing in most industries ranging from biomedical to aerospace suggests a revolution in manufacturing which have recently emerged in the construction sector and large-scale printing due to its zero waste, design freedom and contribution towards a circular economy.

One of the main problems in current state of the art AM printers that they lack any sort of feedback to keep an eye on the process, thus, causing a lot of failed prints and weak structures. This research aims to develop an intelligent extrusion system that would allow us to 3D print recycled cementations materials, to reduce the amount of waste and better automate the construction process.

An intelligent adaptive nozzle for additive manufacturing in construction
An intelligent adaptive nozzle for additive manufacturing in construction

So far, a platform of a gantry system and various extrusion systems have been developed in house to 3D print sustainable concrete mixes. The final phase is to add monitoring system and train it to detect various errors that occur while printing. This will allow the system to adaptively correct any errors that might happen and ensure the perfect layer every time.  

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Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Mr Mohammad Rafiq Swash
Mr Mohammad Rafiq Swash - Dr Rafiq Swash joined the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, College Of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences, Brunel University London, UK in 2013. Before that, he held research positions in the area of multimedia search & retrieval systems, expert systems and 3D imaging & display systems at Brunel University London. He received his Ph.D. degree in Holoscopic 3D Imaging Systems: Camera / Processing / Display from Brunel University London, UK.  He is a member of IEEE, IET, IEEE Broadcast Technology Society, The Optical Society America (OSA), and The Society for Information Display (SID). In the past, Dr Swash has worked as a senior software engineer, senior technical architect, technical director and chief technology officer in international gaming, financial and robotics industries. Dr Swash has a wide research interests includes 3D imaging and display systems (3D cameras / 3D display / 3D processing), 3D virtual reality / augment reality, 3D computer vision, medical image processing & visualisation, multimedia search & retrieval, human-computer interaction design, interactive game design including serious games and gamification
Mr Abdulrahman Albar

Partnering with confidence

Organisations interested in our research can partner with us with confidence backed by an external and independent benchmark: The Knowledge Exchange Framework. Read more.


Project last modified 15/11/2023