Civil Insight: A Technical Magazine Volume 2 | Page 52

52
STUDENTS’ SECTION
CIVIL INSIGHT 2018
3D PRINTING AND ITS APPLICATION IN CIVIL
ENGINEERING
Umesh Raj Joshi
Student
BE in Civil Engineering
(3 rd Year)
INTRODUCTION
Three-Dimensional Printing or Additive Manufacturing, commonly known as 3D Printing, is the process of
making 3-dimensional solid objects by using CAD (Computer Aided Design). A 3D design is prepared with
CAD software, later to be exported as a Standard Tessellation Language (STL) fi le. The fi le is then sliced into
a number of 2D layers. A third layer is added on top of these two, thus forming a complete 3D block. The
materials generally used for 3D printing are plastic (ABS, PLA, PVA), steel, gold, titanium and Geopolymer
Concrete.
Figure 1: A 3D printer in action
(Source: 3dnatives.com)
3D printing has become one of the fastest growing technologies in recent years since its invention in 1984.
The technology has become cheaper and simplifi ed over the years promoting its use in several fi elds. The
medical industry has started using 3D printing to print human organs. On the other hand, automobile and
aerospace industries have also started using the technology to print automobile and aerospace products.
In 2014, 3D printing was employed to print a house after which it started gaining ground in construction
industry. The construction industry has now moved towards digital construction taking a leap away from the
traditional, constructional practices and architectural designs.
CA D 3D
M odel er ST L F i l e Sl i ci ng
A ppl i cat i on
L ay er sl i ces
and t ool pat hs 3D Pr i nt er 3D
Obj ect
Figure 2: Typical work-fl ow of 3D Printing