Articles

3D Printing of Fire Shelter Using Ultra-High Performance Concrete

---

Abstract

Building thin, architecturally attractive designs is viable with 3D concrete printing technology but is limited by the strength and stiffness of the concrete. In this regard, the authors recently developed 3D printable ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete composite. This composite's ultra-high compressive and flexural strengths (>150 MPa and >30 MPa, respectively) and fracture toughness properties facilitate the printing of slender elements, which are lightweight, low-cost and has low-carbon footprint. To demonstrate this, a large-scale shell structure of 2.4 m base diameter and 2.4 m height was designed, and 3D printed using the developed composite in this study. The application of this shell structure is intended to be a fire shelter in a wild fire. The design was made of 400 layers, each had a width of 40 mm and a thickness of 6 mm. To analyze the fire resistance of this shell, thin panels were 3D printed with the same composite and tested under ISO 834 fire conditions. No explosive spalling was observed in the 3D printed thin panels when polypropylene fibers were added to the developed composite at 0.5% volume percentage. As such, 3D printing enables the rapid construction of lightweight low-cost fire-safe shelters with attractive designs for wildfire prone areas.

Keywords: 3D concrete printing, fire resistance, fire shelter, slicing, spalling, UHPC

How to Cite:

Arunothayan, A., Sanjayan, J., Surti, M. & Schneider, F., (2023) “3D Printing of Fire Shelter Using Ultra-High Performance Concrete”, International Interactive Symposium on Ultra-High Performance Concrete 3(1): 20. doi: https://doi.org/10.21838/uhpc.16650

Rights: © 2023 The Author(s). All rights reserved.