State Partnership Program

Video by George Gonzalez

3-D printing a building - ACES

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center

Aug. 21, 2017 | 2:06

The U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois, has successfully three-dimensionally printed a 512 square-foot concrete structure. The three year Army Program called the “Automated Construction of Expeditionary Structures” uses an additive manufacturing process to “print” semi-permanent structures. ACES will allow the Army to print buildings and other required infrastructure, such as barriers, culverts and obstacles on location and potentially reduce building materials shipped by half and reduce construction manpower requirements by 62 percent when compared to expedient plywood construction. CERL is teamed with NASA to make ACES technology more mobile, including extraterrestrial infrastructure and with Caterpillar Inc. to explore commercialization of ACES technology, focused on disaster relief operations and conventional construction applications.