Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

3D-printed steel reinforcement for digital concrete construction –

Manufacture, mechanical properties and bond behaviour
Viktor Mechtcherine a,⇑, Jasmin Grafe a, Venkatesh N. Nerella a, Erik Spaniol b, Martin Hertel b,
Uwe Füssel b
a
Technische Universität Dresden, Institute of Construction Materials, Dresden, Germany
b
Technische Universität Dresden, Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Dresden, Germany

h i g h l i g h t s

 Reinforcement approaches for digital construction are summarised.

 3D-printing of steel reinforcement based on gas-metal arc welding is described.
 3D-printed steel bars’ mechanical performance is shown to be similar to that of conventional bars.
 Printed steel bars’ failure is shown to be ductile, on both the micro- and macro-levels.
 Printed steel bars’ bond to printable, fine-grained concrete is shown to be satisfactory.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Digital concrete construction has recently become the subject of very rapidly growing research activities
Received 4 February 2018 all over the world. Various technologies involving 3D-printing with concrete have been developed, and
Received in revised form 1 May 2018 the number of demonstration projects and practical applications has been increasing exponentially.
Accepted 24 May 2018
Most of these approaches are focused on the placement of concrete, while the suggested solutions for
Available online 30 May 2018
incorporation of reinforcement are still rudimentary, and as such they lag behind the concepts for print-
ing concrete. Since the use of (steel) reinforcement is mandatory in most structural applications, there is
Keywords:
an urgent need to bring the technology of reinforcing 3D-printed structural elements forward. The article
Digital concrete construction
3D-printing
starts with a brief overview of the existing approaches in using reinforcement in digital concrete con-
3D-printed steel reinforcement struction. Then the authors’ own research work is presented, namely a feasibility study on 3D-printing
Gas-metal arc welding of steel reinforcement using gas-metal arc welding. A description of the newly developed 3D-printing
Tensile behaviour process is followed by a demonstration of its feasibility in producing vertical steel reinforcement bars
Bond behaviour with and without extra ribs. The mechanical performance of the printed bars was investigated by means
of uniaxial tension tests. The samples exhibited comparable mechanical properties to common steel rein-
forcement of the same diameter. The investigation of fracture surfaces confirmed a ductile mode of fail-
ure of the printed steel bars. Finally, the bond between printed steel bars and printable fine-grained
concrete was tested by means of pull-out experiments. Here the overall performance could be rated as
satisfactory, even though it could be improved by introducing extra ribs in the process of bar
manufacturing.
Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction developed already and have been becoming ever more widespread.
The step from digital planning to digital manufacturing is a logical
The digitalisation of planning and production processes has consequence, namely a step towards a fully, or nearly so, digital-
been developing with ever increasing speed over the last few years. ized, seamless process constituting Construction Industry 4.0. The
In the construction practice, digital design and digital planning by expected benefits of digital construction are higher quality and
means of CAD, BIM and other powerful software tools are well productivity, faster construction processes, higher geometrical
freedom, more efficient use of natural resources, higher cost-
efficiency, universality, etc.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (V. Mechtcherine).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2018.05.202
0950-0618/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
126 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137

Since concrete is by far the world’s most widely used construc- design. The effect of construction joints on the transport of aggres-
tion material, in most applications reinforced with steel bars, the sive fluids and gases between layers, or the quality of the bond of
activities in the field of digital construction focus on the develop- printed concrete to the horizontal reinforcement placed between
ment of digital manufacturing techniques in applying concrete. A concrete layers should be mentioned here but will not be further
recent variety of methods have concentrated on the additive or discussed; considerable research is needed to clarify these matters.
generative manufacturing of construction elements and can be Apart from conventional steel reinforcement, alternative rein-
generally subdivided into two main categories: methods based forcement can be potentially applied in conjunction with Contour
on extrusion-like processes and methods based on selective bind- Crafting. Khoshnevis [11] suggested a novel system consisting of
ing, also known as powder-bed printing (an overview of further, prefabricated steel elements assembled step-by-step by a robot
less widespead approaches is given in [34]). In the case of in accordance with the progress of contour crafting and the filling
‘‘extrusion-based” additive construction, premixed material is of the ‘‘formwork” with flowable concrete. Even if the system
extruded at the specified coordinates through a nozzle at the deter- appears very elaborate and expensive, it is at the very least suffi-
mined printing rates [1,2]. To be more precise, in most cases the cient to trigger engineers’ fantasies toward inventing novel rein-
mode of material flow through the nozzle of the print head does forcement approaches. Certainly, the use of technical textiles can
not correspond to that of the ‘‘classical” extrusion. However, since be an option. In [12] an example of applying two-dimensional glass
the focus of this article is on the implementation of reinforcement fibre-based, wide-mesh textile is shown, where it is placed hori-
into digital construction, concrete 3D-printing techniques will be zontally between the printed layers, covering the entire cross-
presented only insofar as needed to discuss the possibilities of such section of the structural element. The efficiency of this particular
implementation. With respect to options of integrating reinforce- arrangement of textile reinforcement is questionable, but more
ment, first the fineness of deposited filament is decisive. productive use of textile-based systems can be easily imagined in
In the case of selective binding, dry materials are first placed as the context of 3D-printing.
a thin layer on a platform (bed) and a binder or activator is then Not all extrusion-like approaches are limited to printing con-
delivered to specified coordinates [1,2]. Then the next layer of tours of structural elements only. At the TU Dresden the CONPrin-
dry material is spread and the next round of binder/activator is t3D technology has been developed, which enables printing of
delivered. The process is repeated again and again while the monolithic cross-sections of several decimetres in one evolution
printed element ‘‘grows”, always enveloped and supported by the [1,13]. While the initial purpose of this approach was to replace
unbonded dry material, until it is removed after completion of masonry work, the integration of reinforcement is on the agenda
the manufacturing process. While being elaborate and cost- to enhance the versatility of the technology. Again, placement of
intensive, the methods based on selective binding offer the highest horizontal reinforcement in the form of steel bars, CRP bars or tex-
degree of geometrical freedom. However, at this stage the intro- tile would not be a problem; however, suitable solutions for inte-
duction of reinforcement appears limited to one method only: In grating vertical reinforcement are still under development.
the process of printing, channels for subsequent integration of An original approach to combining the manufacturing of mono-
reinforcement bars are produced. Obviously, either bonded or lithic elements with vertical and horizontal reinforcement was
unbonded post-tensioning cables can be used; for the latter the invented and proven feasible by the Chinese firm HuaShang
channel must not be filled with a grout aid. The first and, until Tengda Ltd. Here, steel mats are mounted initially while concrete
now, the only such pedestrian bridge was built by post- is placed layer-by-layer, gradually enclosing the reinforcing bars
tensioning several concrete segments together which were printed from all sides, see Fig. 1b. To master this task a special design of
using the selective binding technique [3]. the printhead is needed: HuaShang Tengda Ltd uses a forked nozzle
Researchers at the University of Loughborough [4,5] also used that simultaneously lays concrete on both sides of the rebars,
printed openings in structural elements for placement of steel bars ‘‘swallowing” it up and encasing it securely within the walls [14].
which were eventually pre-stressed. They developed a concrete This company recently ‘‘printed” an entire 400 m2, two-story villa
printing approach based on the extrusion of very thin and narrow ‘on-site’ in 45 days. The approach seems to be promising; however,
filaments, which enabled the crafting of filigree forms including at this stage it exhibits some obvious limitations, such as a) the
channels for reinforcement or cables. height of individual mats’ being limited to the size of the forked
The most widespread approach of 3D-concrete printing is the nozzle, which is rather bulky in any case, and b) the limitation of
Contour Crafting method developed by Khoshnevis [6] and intro- only one or two reinforcement layers’ easy integration into the
duced into the construction practice by companies such as WinSun middle of the wall cross-section, and c) the further limitation that
[7], TotalKustom [8] and ApisCor [9]. In this approach, the contours only vertical walls (no inclination) can be produced.
of mostly vertical structural elements are produced by extruding/ Another very original approach has been developed at ETH Zur-
depositing concrete filaments with a width of several, usually 2– ich under the name Mesh Mould [15]. Here an industrial robot
5 cm, and a height of generally 1–3 cm. These contours establish forms steel wire by bending, cutting, and welding into complex,
a permanent, integrated formwork which is eventually filled with free-form meshes which are to act both as reinforcement and
flowable concrete in most cases. Before filling the ‘‘formwork”, ver- formwork all in one. Eventually fresh concrete of a specific worka-
tical and horizontal reinforcement bars can be positioned within it, bility is placed into this formwork, only partially ‘leaking’ through
see Fig. 1a. Horizontal bars can be additionally or exclusively the mesh and so enveloping it. Very recently, the feasibility of this
placed between the individual layers of concrete in the process technology was successfully demonstrated by erecting a load-
of 3D-printing. This can be done discontinuously (bar by bar) after carrying wall of a very complex geometry in the framework of
completion of the corresponding printed sections, or simultane- the NEST project [16].
ously by placing a steel wire using the printhead directly during To complete this brief overview (a detailed review can be found
concrete printing. Various options can be realised here, including in [29]), the possibility of using dispersed-fibre reinforcement
the use of metal chain instead of wire, the latter demonstrated should be mentioned as seemingly capable of being most easily
by TU Eindhoven [10]. integrated into the 3D-printing process by using fibre-reinforced
Several important issues such as consideration of the ‘‘integrated concrete instead of plain concrete. This straightforward approach
formwork” in structural design, quality of corrosion protection by is surely worth being pursued, especially taking into account
printed, fine-grained concrete or mortar, and classification depend- tremendous advances in the field of high-performance fibre-
ing on the material’s having been considered in the structural reinforced cement-based composites, see e.g. [17–19]. However,
 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137 127

Fig. 1. a) Vertical steel reinforcement used in combination with Contour Crafting technology used by Fa. WinSun, b) forked nozzle developed by HuaShang Tengda Ltd that
simultaneously lays concrete on both sides of the rebars.

there are some specifics which limit the potential spectrum of on increasing the printing rate of steel reinforcement and on inte-
applications. First, the processing of concrete by the printhead gration of reinforcement into printed concrete, the scope of the
becomes more complicated with increasing fibre content, and present article is limited to following issues: 1) description of the
therefore novel configurations of the material feeding and shaping technique developed for 3D-printing of steel reinforcement, 2)
tool are needed. Second, even the highest performance short fibre, investigation of the mechanical performance of printed steel rein-
for realistic concentrations of fibre in concrete mix, is not capable forcement bars, and 3) presentation of the test results on the bond
of replacing continuous bar reinforcement with respect to its load- behaviour of novel reinforcement when embedded into printable
carrying capacity in most cases of today’s structural design. Finally, concrete. The presented 3D printing technic is potentially capable
the danger of ‘‘cold joints” between the individual concrete layers to produce complex, non-linear geometries of various shapes, for
increases. That is, if no specific measures are taken, the fibres will which its further development is still needed. Thus, the article at
not cross the horizontal joints, making them into the ‘‘weakest hand purposefully focuses on common straight bar geometries
links” in the bonding chain. As one possible measure to counteract for two reasons: 1) simple geometries are favorable for a verifica-
the formation of such weak links, placing a special 3D textile tion of the developed methodology for 3D-printing of steel rebar,
between concrete layers was suggested at the TU Dresden. This and 2) such geometries are necessary for the material testing and
textile constitutes a strip of coarse 2D mesh, from which individual also for direct comparison to conventional steel bars.
fibres stick out of the plane in both directions, so that the neigh-
bouring concrete layers are rather ‘‘nailed” together.
As the above overview shows, numerous methods of introduc- 2. 3D-printing of steel reinforcement using gas-metal arc
ing reinforcement into digital concrete construction exist already, welding
at least as ideas. Nevertheless, none of these approaches satisfies
the entire spectrum of relevant requirements. The approaches need 2.1. Printing technology
to be developed further, but obviously there is room and need for
completely new approaches as well. In this article, such a new Additive production technologies have not yet been used for the
approach is presented. The idea is to produce steel reinforcement generative production of metallic reinforcement structures, most
of any shape by 3D-printing. Such technology might be specifically probably due to the great challenges in terms of production time,
interesting for geometrically complex configurations of reinforce- quality, and cost. Although beam-based additive manufacturing
ment, including the integration of fastening elements and installa- technologies offer the possibility of producing high-quality, com-
tions. Furthermore, since 3D-printing offers nearly unlimited plex components, their application is certainly problematic, espe-
geometrical freedom, the orientation and shape of the reinforce- cially with respect to the low melting rates and, hence, high
ment can be easily adapted to the principle of ‘‘shape following for- production times as well as the strict safety requirements, see
ce”, offering new options for future-oriented, nature-motivated e.g. [33]. Furthermore, the difficult construction site conditions
(bionic) structural design. hinder high demands on tolerance compensation, demand robust-
The authors’ vision is to develop an autonomous process for ness in the manufacturing process used, and require its mobility as
printing reinforcement and concrete as ‘‘synchronously” as possi- well. Against this background, the application of wire- and arc-
ble, but at this stage the printing processes are not coupled. Due based additive technologies specifically offers a high potential for
to high local temperatures in reinforcement induced by melted the realisation of an industrially suitable production process for
metal deposition (see Section 2) it is not feasible to print reinforce- reinforced concrete. Up to now, these processes have been used
ment and concrete simultaneously without introducing an efficient primarily in producing scale metallic components of moderate
cooling system which would bring the temperature of printed rein- complexity. The melting performance of arc processes exceeds that
forcement down to below 50 °C at locations where fresh concrete of beam-based processes by a multiple, so that very high produc-
is deposited. Furthermore, printing with concrete today is much tivity can be achieved. At the same time, the investment, operation,
faster than printing steel elements and the ‘‘enveloping” of steel and maintenance costs of arc processes are only a fraction of those
reinforcement with printed concrete is a challenging task still to of laser-based processes. This being so, arc-based processes are
be solved. While the authors are working on such cooling system, very well suited for applications in small and medium-sized
128 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137

companies in the construction industry. The investigations pre- Firstly, random tests were carried out to define a set of pre-
sented have dealt with the application of gas-metal arc welding ferred parameters, in which almost the same geometric dimen-
(GMAW) with melting electrode for the generative production of sions in comparison to conventionally manufactured
steel reinforcements; see Fig. 2. This process is characterised by reinforcement structures could be achieved. The geometry was
an arc established between a continuously fed wire electrode and based on a conventional reinforcement bar with a diameter of 8
a workpiece, so that there is a coupling between material and mm. The process behaviour is independent from the aspired bar
energy input. The process takes place in a shielding gas atmo- diameter. It is possible to realise different diameters by adapting
sphere to avoid chemical reactions of the molten material or the the process parameters or the wire diameter. Constant process
heated base metal with atmospheric gases due to the high process conditions can be guaranteed using the adaptive process control
temperatures. for the regulation of the stickout. During the welding process, rel-
For the implementation of a 3D-printing process by means of ative movement between the current contact nozzle and the sub-
gas-metal arc welding, a pilot investigation rig was developed, con- strate was realised to take the influence of the weld bead height
sisting of a conventional 3-axis CNC system and a novel control on the stickout into account and keep the stickout as constant as
system; see Fig. 3. In contrast to conventional CNC systems, the lat- possible. Both the correction distance and the traversing speed
ter is characterised by the fact that the single process points for during the height change were varied, thus influencing the welding
describing path movement within a program are no longer entered time. It became obvious that the bar diameter could be increased
statically and unvaried into the system. Instead, the positioning of with increasing correction path and decreasing travel speed. At
the process points can be actively changed and adapted by appro- the same time, however, fluctuation in the diameter also increases,
priately stored control algorithms depending on the construction as the component heats up more and more with the increasing
progress, whereby the process can be influenced depending on numbers of layers. Consequently, the size and temperature of the
the generated reinforcement geometry. As a result, the movement melt is increased, which in turn reduces the viscosity and surface
and welding systems are no longer controlled independently but tension. As a result, the metal melt can flow much faster during
interact with each other. This makes it possible to realise online the process as compared to the first layers. Thus, the weld beads
process control and, thus, to guarantee constant high quality of become flatter and wider as the number of layers increases, so that
the reinforcement inserts over the entire construction height. This no cylindrical bar can be built up, but rather a tapered rod struc-
is because the distance between the tip of the power contact noz- ture is created.
zle and the workpiece surface (stickout) can be kept almost con- Before selecting a preferred parameter set, appropriate param-
stant; see Fig. 3. eter studies were carried out to achieve a reproducible and reliable
In the context of the investigations, a stickout of 15 mm was process. Care was taken to produce a perfect welding result with-
assumed for the GMAW processes. The base material (substrate) out inhomogeneities (inclusions, missing connection). For valida-
used was a 3-mm-thick steel sheet made of S235JR. Furthermore, tion several cross-section were investigated by metallographic
a solid wire electrode with a diameter of 0.8 mm and a chemical analysis.
composition according to ISO 14341 – A – G 46 5 M G3Si1 was
employed [20]. To reduce the process-related energy input, a 2.2. Adjustment of the printing procedure
pulsed process with a wire feed rate of 4 m/min was implemented.
The application of the argon-rich protective gas M21-ArC-25 corre- The first test series was carried out without online process
sponding to ISO 14175 with small CO2 additives enabled the monitoring and active adaptation of the process points. To keep
achievement of a uniform penetration profile as well as the the stickout constant, however, a parameter set had to be found
improvement of the melt flow properties [21]. Therefore, high in which the welding bead height correlates with the traverse path
mechanical-technological values could be achieved with low alloy during the process. For this purpose, the difference between the
burn-up and low pore frequency at the same time. Finally, a vol- torch travel distance and the bar height was calculated after apply-
ume flow rate of 15 L/min was specified for the safe, laminar ing ten layers, which provided information about the change in
shielding gas cover. stickout. The preferred parameter set was finally determined on
the basis of the smallest possible difference between the torch tra-
vel distance and the mounting height, as well as a bar diameter of
wire electrode 8 mm and the smallest possible diameter fluctuation at a travel
distance of 1.4 mm and a traversing speed of 1 mm/s.
Fig. 4 shows the appearance of the reinforcement bars produced
shielding gas nozzle with and without adaptive process control for an order of 80 layers.
Despite a small difference between the travel distance and the
built-up layer height according to the preferred parameter set, it
current contacube was not possible to achieve uniform fabrication over a large num-
ber of layers. In particular, process fluctuations due to the increas-
ing heat build-up of the component cause fluctuation in the weld
shielding gas flow bead geometry, such that the implementation of an adaptive pro-
cess control is indispensable. If this is not done, process stability
decreases with increasing numbers of layers, and thus the geome-
arc try’s dimensional accuracy is reduced, which is then accompanied
by a deterioration of the mechanical properties; see Fig. 4a. To
avoid stickout fluctuations, said adaptive process control was first
sckout welding bead implemented manually by checking the stickout after applying
each individual layer and adjusting the stickout as required; see
Fig. 4b. This led to a significant increase in both the process stabil-
metal sheet ity and the quality of the reinforcement bars. Nonetheless, there
was an increase in diameter fluctuation, especially with an increas-
Fig. 2. Schematic view of gas-metal arc welding. ing number of layers; see Fig. 4b. This can be attributed to operator
 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137 129

containment

extracon unit

machine welding torch for gas metal arc welding

water-cooled clamping plate with clamping system

spaer guard with removable side panels

for high-speed photography

3-axis-CNC-unit

Fig. 3. 3-Axis CNC system for the generative production of steel reinforcements.

number of freely configurable layers is applied based on the pre-

ferred parameter set. After completion of this section, the CNC
moves the torch system to a freely definable position on the work-
piece and positions it over the substrate so that the initially defined
stickout is set. From this starting position, the torch is then low-
ered very slowly until the wire electrode touches the workpiece.
The control registers the drop in the open-circuit voltage and
assigns the axis position to the current free wire length. After com-
pletion of the measuring process, the CNC system moves the torch
back to its last welding position above the printed rebar and exe-
cutes the measuring routine again until the wire touches the com-
ponent surface. Since the current free wire length is known from
the previous measuring process, the torch is moved in height from
the contacting position of the wire on the rebar by the difference
between the free wire end and the desired stickout. Thus the stick-
out is corrected.
Fig. 4c shows a reinforcement bar manufactured with the fully
automatic adaptive process control. The uniform geometry of the
individual layers is conspicuous, which means that the demands
on geometric dimensional accuracy can be met very well. In addi-
tion, material analyses show that the strong, often negative
changes in the material microstructure (martensitic structure with
a really high hardness) which usually occur during welding pro-
cesses are limited, so that high mechanical-technological quality
values can be achieved; see Section 4.1. The reason for this is the
uniform, rotationally symmetrical heat input during the produc-
tion of the rod structures, which means that there is no longer a
locally limited heat input. This results in uniform expansion and
contraction of the metallic material, in this way reducing thermally
induced stresses within the manufactured component. In addition,
Fig. 4. Bar quality after application of 80 layers a) without adaptive process control, the continuous build-up of the rod structures due to the overlap-
b) with manual, adaptive process control c) with fully automatic, adaptive process ping of a large number of layers means that the single layers are
control.
subjected to constant heat treatment by temporally recurring
temperature-time regimes. On the one hand, this results in a uni-
form component microstructure, leading to ductile material beha-
reading errors and irregular temperature-time regimes, both of viour. On the other hand, the already low residual stresses in the
which result in slight variations of the weld-bead geometry within component can be further decreased. As a result, distortion is min-
the single layers. These sources of error were eliminated by imple- imized, ensuring high geometrical dimensional accuracy. A major
menting a fully automatic, adaptive process control. For this pur- challenge in the production of reinforcement structures is the
pose, an online monitoring of the stickout during the production exact setting of the temperature-time regime due to the repeated
process was realised by detecting the drop in the applied open- application of metallic filler metal. If the time interval between
circuit voltage when the wire electrode touches the substrate. Dur- the application of the individual layers is too short, strong heating
ing this tactile measurement, the welding current source is not of the bar structure occurs. Accordingly, the uniform rod geometry
released, ensuring that no arc is ignited. can no longer be guaranteed, as the viscosity and the surface
To calibrate the system, a defined stickout is set before the start tension of the melt decrease due to the continuous increase of
of the printing process, which is stored by assigning the axis posi- the component temperature. Thus, with an increasing number
tion of the height axis within the control. Subsequently, a specified of layers, a wider and flatter melt bath is formed. This leads to
130 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137

overflowing and dripping of the molten metallic filler material Steel reinforcement bars were tested in uniaxial tension accord-
after a certain number of layers. In order to avoid such inhomo- ing to ISO 6892-1 [23] using a universal testing machine. The defor-
geneities, it is therefore necessary to guarantee a minimum cooling mations were recorded using a reflex camera (Canon EOS 700D
time (approx. 30 s between the individual layers) giving rise to with EF-S 18–55 mm lens) and the digital image analysis software
long production times, which, however, can be reduced by the ARAMIS pursuant to the photogrammetry method. Fracture
simultaneous production of several bars; see Fig. 5a. surfaces of specimens were investigated using an environmental
In addition to the fully automated production of simple rein- scanning electron microscope scanning electron microscope
forcement bars as in Fig. 5a, it is also possible to produce rod (ESEM) Quanta 450 FEG (FEI).
geometries with variable cross-sections such as tensile specimens
with a reduced diameter in the middle of the sample, as in Fig. 5b,
or profiled bars, as in Fig. 5c, using the new control algorithms. In
future work, further axes will be taken into account in the control 3.2. Fine-grained concrete
system, so that more complex motion systems such as 7-axis CNC
machines or industrial robots can be controlled. This will make it In the pullout tests a printable concrete, hereafter referred as
possible to produce more complex geometries such as curved or PC, according to Refs. [1,13] was used as material for embedment
horizontal structures. This makes it possible to produce even more of the reinforcement. PC is a fine-grained, high-strength concrete
complex geometries such as curved or horizontal structures. At the which has been proven to be consistently extrudable and build-
same time, the development of a new print head is also aimed at able. A combination of cement, micro-silica and fly ash were used
shortening production times and making the use of expendable as binder in the PC which had 52.5% binder paste by volume.
materials such as wire and shielding gas even more efficient. The cement used was CEM I 52.5 R Portland cement produced
by OPTERRA Karsdorf GmbH (Werk Karsdorf), Germany. The choice
of cement made possible the high, early strength necessary for
3. Materials and testing methods formwork-free digital construction. Pozzolanic additives fly ash
(Steament H-4 by STEAG Power Minerals GmbH, Germany) and
3.1. 3D-printed steel bars and conventional steel bars micro-silica suspension (EM-SAC 500 SE by ELKEM AS, Norway)
were used as secondary cementitious materials (SCMs). At the
3D-printed steel reinforcement bars were produced according same time, the SCMs employed also work as rheology modifiers
to the process described in Section 2. The material was deposited and shrinkage reducers. To facilitate uniform distribution and pre-
layer by layer with an average layer thickness of 2 mm. The diam- vent agglomerates, micro-silica was added as a suspension with
eter of the bars varied slightly according to the performed testing 50% micro-silica and 50% water (by weight). The equivalent
methods. For the uniaxial tension tests on steel reinforcement, water-to-cement ratio (w/c)eq of the PC was 0.42, calculated in
the diameter of the bars was 8 mm in the end regions where the accordance with to EN 206-1 [24] with a reactivity factor of 1 for
load was induced, and 7.5 mm in the 65 mm long central portion micro-silica and 0.4 for fly ash. Very fine quartz sand (fraction 1:
where failure was expected; see Fig. 6a. Three 3D-printed bars, 0.06–0.2 mm, BCS 413 provided by Strobel Quarzsand GmbH, Ger-
which were produced at one time, were tested in uniaxial tension. many) and two fine natural river sands from Germany (fraction 2:
Referring to the pull-out tests performed, the diameter was 8 mm 0–1 mm and fraction 3: 0–2 mm, both complying with EN
for the entire bar length. Five 3D-printed bars, which were pro- 12620/13139 [25], were used as aggregates). The sand fractions
duced at one time, were tested for each embedment length; see were added in the ratios of 0.2:0.2:0.6 for the fractions 1–3.
Section 3.3. To ensure comparability, common reinforcement bars The polycarboxylate-based, high-range water reducing agent
B500B according to DIN 488-1 [22] with a nominal diameter of MasterGlenium SKY 593 (BASF Construction Solutions GmbH,
8 mm were tested using the same procedures as applied in the Germany) was used as superplasticizer (SP) with a dosage of 1.5%
experiments on 3D-printed samples. by weight of binder. This superplasticizer was developed for

Fig. 5. Production of a) simple reinforcement bars, b) tensile specimens to determine the mechanical properties, c) profiled reinforcement bars.
 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137 131

Fig. 6. a) Geometry of printed bars for uniaxial tension tests with a detail of the mid-section, showing smaller diameter, b) specimens with adapters for mounting into the
testing machine, and c) conventional reinforcement bar tested for comparison.

ready-mix concrete applications, thereby ensuring extended specimens were tested in direction perpendicular or parallel to
consistency retention. Tap water at room temperature was used. interface between printed layers, see Fig. 7b–e.
The workability of fresh PC was estimated by means of flow
table tests according to EN 1015-3 [26] using a small cone with a 3.3. Pull-out tests
base diameter of 100 mm. The diameter of the concrete ‘‘cake”
was measured before and after applying 15 strikes. Concrete spec- The testing of the bond between the steel bars and the fine-
imens were 3D-printed by extrusion according to Refs. [1,2,13]. grained concrete was performed by means of the approach used
The 3D-printer described in Ref. [1] was used to produce wall ele- by Rehm with two different bond lengths, 16 mm and 32 mm,
ments with dimensions of 1000 mm length, 160 mm height and which correspond to 2 and 4 times the bar diameter, in agreement
30 mm width. Each wall consisted of 8 layers having a height of with [28]. The bond region was positioned in the middle part of the
20 mm apiece. The time interval between depositions of subse- concrete cube (side length of 120 mm), while the rest of the bar was
quent layers was 2 min. The compressive and flexural strengths decoupled from the concrete according to Ref. [28]. By choosing the
were measured according to EN 1015-11 [27] on prisms cut out bond length according to Rehm, a nearly constant shear stress over
of a printed wall element, see Fig. 7a. However, the dimensions the entire bond length was expected. The steel bars were set cen-
of the saw-cut prism specimens were 120 mm  25 mm  25 m tered in a concrete cube mould; see Fig. 8. It should be stated here
m, deviating from the recommended 160 mm  40 mm  40 mm that stress fields created in pull-out tests are not equivalent to those
in Ref. [26]. This change in specimen size was made to ensure uni- arising in typical structural elements. Beam-end tests have shown
formity in all printed specimens by accounting for unevenness due significant differences in bond factors compared to those obtained
to slight deformation of printed layers and material lost through from pullout tests [30]. However, since the beam-end tests are
cutting process. The span in the bend tests was 100 mm. The acknowledged to be considerably more complex to perform, the

a) b) Perpendicular
front view F Fside view

c) Parallel
front view F F
side view

d) Perpendicular e) Parallel
front view side view front view side view
F F F F

Fig. 7. a) Front view of 3D-printed wall element, red dashed lines indicate cuts for winning the specimens; b, c) test-setups for bend tests and d, e) test-setups for
compressive tests with red lines indicating interfaces between printed layers. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the
web version of this article.)
132 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137

Fig. 8. Pullout test setup according to Rehm [28] for investigating bond properties of steel reinforcement and concrete: a) schematic view, b) mould used for specimen
production, c) detailed view of bar segment to be embedded into concrete.

authors decided to use pull-out test to compare the bond behaviour 4. Results and discussion
of novel and traditional reinforcement, even if the obtained results
cannot be used for design purposes. 4.1. Uniaxial tension tests on steel reinforcement
In the preparation of the specimens for pullout tests, the print-
able concrete presented in Section 3.2 was not actually printed, but Fig. 9 presents stress-strain curves obtained from uniaxial ten-
placed into a cube mould containing a steel bar and compacted on sion tests on the reinforcement bars under investigation.
a vibrating table for 30 s at 50 Hz. Casting was chosen at this stage The 3D-printed bars exhibited approximately 28% lower modu-
instead of 3D-prinitng due to the limitations of the current version lus of elasticity, 28% lower yield stress and 16% lower tensile
of the 3D concrete printer. It compacts concrete in the printhead, strength values in comparison with conventional steel reinforce-
i.e. before filament deposition, while the compaction/vibration of ment, but a considerably higher ductility in terms of 250% higher
concrete after extrusion – a process essential for enveloping steel strain capacity, see also Table 1 for the quantitative evaluation of
reinforcement – does not occur. Since the purpose of pullout tests the results. In contrast to conventional reinforcement, which did
was to compare the performance of novel, 3D-printed steel rein- not exhibit a distinct yield stress but rather strengthened after
forcement to that of the conventional one in terms of bond beha- transit through the linear-elastic regime, the 3D-printed reinforce-
viour to concrete, it seems to be feasible at the current stage to ment showed a distinct yield stress and plateau of the stress-strain
cast the specimens ‘‘as usual” even if the printable fine-grained curve, indicating prominent material flow.
concrete is used. However, the use of printable concrete appears The higher ductility of the 3D-printed bars manifested itself in
to be essential, since it has a specific composition and therefore a the appearance of the fracture surfaces also; see Fig. 10: A pro-
pullout resistance which is likely differs from that of ordinary con- nounced necking fracture was observed for printed reinforcement,
crete. The authors are well aware that the quality of the bond while conventional steel bars yielded less ductile, shear type of
might be influenced pronouncedly by the procedure of concrete failure.
deposition in case of 3D printing. This issue shall be studies in Furthermore, the fracture surfaces of steel specimens were
future investigations. investigated using a scanning electron microscope. The characteristic
 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137 133

equivalent mechanical properties (with conventional reinforce-

ment) through selective combination of input variables (electrode
material, stickout length, shield gas, printing speed).”

4.2. Tests on fine-grained concrete

The printable concrete (PC) under investigation was practically

not flowable under its own weight in the absence of external
forces, as evidenced by the scarcely measurable spread before
strokes. Upon applying 15 strokes the diameter of the concrete
‘‘cake” yielded 114 mm and 126 mm, base diameter before flow
being 100 mm, at 15 and 30 min after water addition, respectively.
Flow table test results correlate well with yield stress of concrete
and therefore can indicate if a concrete is buildable or not, mean-
ing, if subsequent layers can be placed one after another at reason-
Fig. 9. Stress-strain diagrams for 3D-printed and conventional reinforcement bars ably small time intervals without danger of a collapse. However,
as obtained by uniaxial tension tests. the spread values do not provide information if a concrete is pump-
able and/or extrudable. Since the article at hand focuses on print-
able steel reinforcement, only the flow table test results are
micro-structure induced by 3D-printing of the reinforcement is presented as an empirical measure of quality control.
clearly visible in Fig. 11a and c. A necking failure appears here in Table 2 provides the results of mechanical tests performed on
combination with a ‘‘stairway” final crack resulting from material the hardened concrete. Three specimens were tested for each
heterogeneity induced through layer-by-layer material deposition. parameter combinations in compression regime and in flexural
At a higher magnification the fracture surfaces exhibit trans- regime. Compressive strength obtained from tests on printed and
crystalline fracture with dimple-like morphology, typical for duc- saw-cut specimens is nearly independent of the direction of load-
tile failure; see Fig. 11b. However, at some spots of the less ductile ing related to the orientation of working joints. With the average
inter-crystalline shear fracture can also be seen, as shown in value of 96.2 MPa for both testing directions at an age of 28 days,
Fig. 11d. Such less ductile regions are probably caused by overly the material developed can be deemed high-strength, printable
rapid cooling of the melt metal during the welding process. By concrete and classified into the C80/95 compressive strength class
comparison, the fracture surface of the conventional reinforcement according to EN 206-1 [24]. Low (w/c)eq, dense micro-structure due
seems smoother and more regular; see Fig. 11e. The detail in to the use of micro-silica, fly ash and fine quartz sand contributed
Fig. 11f presents a morphology typical of the shear-fracture mode. to achieving high compressive as well as flexural strength, which
The less homogenous microstructure of printed reinforcement also showed very little dependence on the testing direction, with
might be one of the reasons for significantly higher scatter of the an average value of 8.11 MPa at 28 d. One of the primary requisites
results in uniaxial tension tests in comparison to the conventional for printable concretes is fast early strength development. The
reinforcement which showed very moderate scatter, see Table 1. average one-day compressive strength and flexural strength of
Another reason for higher scatter in case of printed reinforcement the PC investigated were 30.5 and 5.82 MPa, respectively. In the
might be its higher geometrical variability. The higher variabilities first place, such speedy strength development can be traced back
in yield stress and tensile strength need to be considered in struc- to the use of Portland cement CEM I 52.5 R with 95% clinker con-
tural design, in short term, by increasing the corresponding safety tent. The strength values obtained by the testing of specimens in
factor. In longer term, the precision of the proposed reinforcement two different directions are very similar, indicating a satisfactory
printing technique will be improved with emphasis on achieving bond between the layers. However, a further test would be needed

Table 1
Mechanical properties of 3D-printed and conventional reinforcement bars as obtained by uniaxial tension tests; average values (standard deviations are given in parenthesis).

Material parameters Modulus of elasticity [GPa] Yield stress* [MPa] Tensile strength [MPa] Strain capacity [%]
3D-printed reinforcement 152.22 306.99 526.10 21.95
(17.04) (34.88) (19.28) (8.40)
Conventional reinforcement 212.43 424.86 622.82 6.28
(17.53) (35.05) (10.65) (2.77)
*
A stress corresponding to strain of 0.2% is given.

Fig. 10. Macroscopic appearance of fracture surfaces of a) 3D-printed steel bars and b) conventional steel bars after uniaxial tension tests.
134 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137

Fig. 11. a, c) Fracture surfaces of 3D-printed reinforcement with b) detail showing dimple-like morphology characteristic for ductile failure, and d) detail showing micro-
structure representing less ductile, inter-crystalline shear fracture, e) fracture surface of conventional reinforcement with f) detail showing trans-crystalline shear fracture.

Table 2
Mechanical properties of the printable fine-grained concrete under investigation, average values (standard deviations are given in parenthesis).

Age Compressive strength Flexural strength

Perpendicular to interface Parallel to interface Perpendicular to interface Parallel to interface
[days] [MPa]
1 31.5 (0.5) 29.4 (0.5) 5.82 (0.25) 5.82 (0.26)
28 97.9 (2.9) 94.6 (2.3) 7.94 (0.20) 8.29 (0.50)

to assess the properties of the bond quantitatively, using loading tional steel bars. For each parameter combination five pullout tests
direction parallel to layer interface plane [2]. While this issue has were performed. For both bond lengths under investigation (16
no relevance for purposes of the article, the interested reader mm and 32 mm), lower values of bond shear strength were
may find the results of such tests, including corresponding micro- obtained for the 3D-printed bars in printable concrete in compar-
scopic investigations in Ref. [2]. ison to conventional steel reinforcement, see also Table 3. For a
bond length of 16 mm, the 3D-printed bars exhibited approxi-
4.3. Pull-out tests mately 26% lower shear stress values in comparison to conven-
tional steel, while the corresponding difference in the
Fig. 12 presents the shear stress-displacement diagram experiments with a bond length of 32 mm was about 14%. Such dif-
obtained from the pull-out tests on both 3D-printed and convec- ferences are considerable, but not critical with respect to the use of
 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137 135

3D-printed bars in common structural applications. It must be curves for the printed bars were always clearly below the curves
underlined that no specific measures were taken to improve the for conventional steel. This resulted in considerably lower values
bond between printed bars and concrete in this study, such as pro- of the displacements at shear strength, shear stress at displace-
filing the bars, as demonstrated in Fig. 5c. Strictly speaking, despite ment of 4 mm and work-to-fracture in case of 3D-printed rebar,
their ‘‘natural” roughness (cf. Fig. 8c) the tested 3D-printed steel see Table 3. In contrast, in the experiments of bond length 32
bars must be classified as plain rebar according to EN 10080 [31], mm, the shear-stress displacement curves showed a kind of pla-
while the bars shown in Fig. 5c have a projected rib factor fR (cal- teau for 3D-printed bars after reaching the maximum stress level,
culated according to EN ISO 15630-1 [32]) close to that of B500 8 while the corresponding curves for conventional reinforcement
mm rebar tested in this study. indicated a pronounced displacement-softening of the bond. The
Of special interest are the shapes of the shear stress- plateau indicates ductile bond failure, which is highly beneficial
displacement curves. In the case of shorter bond length, the similar with respect to structural design. In further research, the mecha-
general trends of the curves could be observed for both printed and nisms behind this specific behaviour will be investigated in detail
conventional steel bars, characterized by pronounced softening for various bond lengths, bar diameters, concrete qualities (includ-
behaviour after surpassing the maximum stress level, while the ing different maximum aggregate sizes).
The observation of bars after pullout tests did not provide a con-
sistent picture of the influence of the type of the steel bars or bond
length on the damage mechanisms of the bond. Fig. 13 demon-
strates that the steel bars were pulled out either with concrete
sticking to them or without such concrete layer. Further investiga-
tions will be needed to gain a more comprehensive view on the
peculiarities of the damage evolution and failure mechanisms for
various configurations (combinations) of printed steel bars and
printed concrete.

5. Conclusions and outlook

Digital concrete construction has recently become the subject of

rapidly growing research activities all over the world. Since the use
of (steel) reinforcement is mandatory in most structural applica-
tions, there is an urgent need to bring the technology of reinforcing
3D-printed structural elements forward. The article at hand has
presented a brief overview of the existing approaches to imple-
ment reinforcement into 3D-printing with concrete, pointing out
the advantages and drawbacks of various techniques. It was con-
cluded that considerable further research is needed in the field
including development of novel approaches which would better
comply with the specifics of digital construction.
The main part of the article was dedicated to a new technique of
producing steel bars by 3D-printing using gas-metal arc welding
and the mechanical performance of novel reinforcement. The main
findings of the research can be summarized as follows:

 The development of a 3D-printing process based on gas-metal

arc welding with fully automatic, adaptive process control
enables the production of steel reinforcement bars with ade-
quate geometrical precision and geometric freedom at reason-
able production speeds.
 3D-printed steel bars exhibited approximately 20% lower values
of the yield stress and tensile strength in comparison to conven-
tional reinforcement bars. However, in contrast to the conven-
tional bars they showed pronounced yielding and higher
Fig. 12. Shear stress-displacement curves obtained through pullout testing with
bond lengths of a) 16 mm and b) 32 mm. strain capacity.

Table 3
Quantitative evaluation of the pullout tests; average values (standard deviations are given in parenthesis).

Material parameters Shear Displacement at shear Shear stress at displacement Work-to-fracture*

strength [MPa] strength [mm] of 4 mm [MPa] [MPa
mm]
3D-printed reinforcement, 16 mm embedment 17.36 (3.76) 0.37 (0.20) 5.14 (4.01) 36.02 (9.99)
Conventional reinforcement, 16 mm embedment 23.60 (2.52) 0.61 (0.36) 9.41 (1.62) 79.58 (10.73)
3D-printed reinforcement, 32 mm embedment 28.74 (2.03) 3.27 (1.05) 26.28 (2.08) 95.6 (24.50)
Conventional reinforcement, 32 mm embedment 33.56 (2.48) 0.86 (0.10) 19.29 (1.31) 158.25 (19.71)
*
Area under stress-displacement curve, here up to a displacement of 4 mm.
136 V. Mechtcherine et al. / Construction and Building Materials 179 (2018) 125–137

Fig. 13. Reinforcement bars after pullout tests: a, b) printed steel bars, c) conventional steel bar.

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