Journal of Building Engineering 66 (2023) 105863

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Building Engineering

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

A review of “3D concrete printing”: Materials and process

characterization, economic considerations and environmental
sustainability
Ghafur H. Ahmed
Department of Highway & Bridge Engineering, Technical Engineering College, Erbil Polytechnic University, Erbil, 44001, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: 3D printing of cementitious materials or concrete (3DCP) has developed unbelievably in past 10
Additive manufacturing (AM) years and has the potential to revolutionize the concrete industry completely in the couple of in-
3D concrete printing (3DCP) coming decades. Compared to cast concrete, 3DCP technology has a high customizability of ar-
Economic consideration chitectural and structural design; can reduce material consumption, minimize material waste, de-
Sustainability
crease construction time from months or days to hours; can improve sustainability, environmen-
Construction automation
tal impact and resolve residential crises through providing $10,000 homes. In this article, a com-
Environmental impact
prehensive review for 3D printing of various materials, techniques and trending applications has
been carried out. The materials used for 3DCP, mix design principles and printing process para-
meters has been overviewed. The factors influencing flowability, extrudability, buildability of
various mixes; microstructure and mechanical properties of the hardened concrete; and improve-
ment techniques has been discussed. An important part of this review is provided to highlight the
cost of 3D printed houses compared with traditional alternatives, and environmental sustainabil-
ity of 3DCP and its compatibility with international plans for climate change and minimizing the
energy usage. Finally, some to-date challenges are discussed, with conclusions that also identifies
the needed research and state of the art for this incredible technology. Overall, this review pre-
sents the finding of the mentioned topics through exploring 396 of the latest published articles es-
pecially focusing on last three years.

1. Introduction
3D printing construction technology was an amazing breakthrough in the past decade and potentially can revolutionize the con-
struction industry, resolve residential crises, serve the green house, and brings in sustainability benefits, such as increased resource ef-
ficiency, improved construction productivity, compensates for shortages of skilled labors, and building of complex shaped structures
without formworks. Additive manufacturing with cementitious materials or real concrete, commonly refers to as 3D concrete printing
(3DCP) or 3D printed concrete (3DPC). This promising construction technique regarded as a modern technology which can transform
the planned digital construction data to the automated production on the construction site using robotic assistant [1–5]. In traditional
construction, concrete shaping is usually done by a false works, or formworks that made of plywood, steel, aluminum, etc., which
shall be designed to resist the gravity load and the lateral pressure of placed material. The formwork normally comprises up to one-
half of construction cost, and this ratio could potentially increase to 80–90% if the formwork is not reusable or standardized [6–8].
This contradictory phenomenon restricts the development and optimization of traditional concrete construction, as the conventional

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2023.105863
Received 9 November 2022; Received in revised form 7 December 2022; Accepted 7 January 2023
Available online 10 January 2023
2352-7102/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
G.H. Ahmed Journal of Building Engineering 66 (2023) 105863

concrete has a low cost itself, but it is shaping through highly costed formworks is the problem of the past two centuries, especially for
curved or complex structures. Although many techniques have been attempted to reduce materials usage and to determine a cost-
effective alternative to the temporary false work, non-have recorded a significant success. The newest successful technique in this se-
ries is the innovative and novel 3DCP with layer-by-layer extrusion or selective binding jetting [9–14]. In addition to the automation
in construction, 3DPC offers a solution that can highly reduce the building costs compared to the traditional construction: in terms of
time by decreasing the constructions time by 25% compared to that needed to build an equivalent house; in terms of materials cost
through minimizing the material waste; in terms of manpower can reduce 50–70% of the overall cost of the project; can reduce labor
cost by 50–80%, and labor accidents and injuries due to reduction in the project staff that in most cases a team of 3–5 person is suffi-
cient to complete the structure; can eliminate the cost of human errors during construction, and most importantly can save 35–60% of
the overall project cost through elimination of false-work [15,16]. Undoubtedly this technology can greatly improve the design of
buildings and structures through providing constructability of freeform, complex shaped, customized and aesthetically pleasing de-
signs. For this purpose, many innovative research works have been done in the last decade [17–21]. However, removing the false-
works in the construction process brings new difficulties and challenges to this industry, including material selection and mix design,
new compatible reinforcement strategies, cost-effectiveness, quality control, environmental impact, long term durability, etc.
[22–25].
With 3DCP technology the architectural design with any shape or degree of complexity can be fabricated rapidly, and the struc-
tural design optimization can be made in a much easier way to provide functionally graded materials and members based on stress
distribution, even multiple material concrete elements can be printed. Thus, 3DCP technology is a combination of various disciplines,
including architectural design-structural design-material science-mechanics of robotic systems-controlling software [26–29]. Re-
search efforts has a remarkable influence on the development and improvement of 3DCP, and assisted to reduce waste, dust, reduce
material consumption and energy usage, optimize mix design, minimize logistical demand, increase environmental friendliness con-
struction, lower labor requirements, reduced number of fatalities and injuries onsite, since the printers can do dangerous and haz-
ardous works; reduced cost as compared to traditional construction, flexibility in design, decreased construction time, less construc-
tion errors, improved process quality control, freedom of design, automation and improve sustainability [28,30]. The 3DCP investiga-
tions shall continue, to remove restriction and challenges in the way of this technology, while experimental works can improve and
add more insight understanding to 3DCP, the critical and systematic reviews can analyze what have been done and what is supposed
to be done, through revealing research gaps, also can direct and straighten the wrong ongoing research directions [31–34].
Manufacturing industry is always one step ahead in implementing the technological developments compared construction indus-
try, which is also true for 3DCP. The global investment on 3D printing was US$1.5B in 2011, and has raised to US$4.2B in 2015, but
only US$24.5 M was spent in 3DCP technology, comparing to US$12.1B in 2020 with US $56.4 M invested in 3DCP industry. Another
study reported that the 3DCP marketing has a value of US$0.3 M in 2017 and expected to end up at US$1.48B by 2023 [35,36].
Nowadays, the 3DCP market is majorly led by startup players like: “WinSun (China), XtreeE (France), Monolite UK (UK), ApisCor
(Russia), CSP srl (Italy), CyBe Construction (Netherlands), and Sika (Switzerland)” [36]. In 2014, WinSun built ten 200 m2 cheap
houses with $4800 per unit, in Shanghai using a 150 × 10 × 6.6 m 3D printer within 24 h [37,38]. In 2019, ApisCor erected the
world's biggest 3DP structure in Dubai-UAE. The building area was 640 m2, the total height of the 3DP walls was 9.0 m and has 2-
stories [39,40]. In 2021, a 12 m stainless steel pedestrian bridge has been printed by MX3D in Amsterdam [41,42]. The most popular
3DCP applications include proof-of-concept architectural structures, tiny homes for low-income families, 2-story houses, sheltering
structures, military structures such as outposts and barracks, and short span beam or segmental bridges [43–52]. Some innovative,
record breaking or unconventional 3D printing applications are shown in Fig. 1. Since the first 3D printer, known as stereolithography
(SLA), has first used in 1986 by C. Hull, 3D printing technology has been broadly implemented in manufacturing industry, bioengi-
neering, aerospace applications, automotive industry, artifacts, food and sweets design, textile and clothing, as well as architecture
and buildings [53–56]. Suitable materials for 3D printing could be powders (metallic, plaster, ceramic, cementitious, etc.), liquid
(photo-polymer, thermo-curable epoxies, photo-curable acryl resins, etc.), or solid (thermos-plastics, rubbers, metallic alloy, etc.)
[30,57–62], in addition to the most commonly used materials in construction sector, like glass, wood, steel and concrete [63–65].
Construction industry has a great role in consuming of the resources, as it uses 40% of the natural resources globally. 3DCP is usu-
ally done by extrusion of cementitious material or real concrete [66–70], while the selective binding technique has also been tried
[71,72]. In extrusion-based 3D printing, well designed mixtures of cementitious materials that optimized for pumpability, extrusion,
and buildability would be disposed through a printing head system and a specified nozzle in continuous filaments with different
shapes and sizes. The printing head is mounted on largescale computer-controlled gantry or robotic arms with the dimensions of sev-
eral meters. The nozzles could have various shapes, but the common ones are rectangular, circular or elliptical, that can extrude linear
material rates, with the moving speed of 50–500 mm/s [20,73–91]. Preparation of a suitable material's mix design is the base of suc-
cess for any printing process, as in that stages the optimization of the mixture shall be done, for rheological properties, flowability, ex-
trudability, buildability, and the required green and hardened strength [92–95]. Inappropriate mix design leads to the additional re-
quired pressure in the printing head, clogging in the nozzle, tearing of filaments, interrupted extrusion, lack of buildability, weak in-
terface bonding, high porosity, shrinkage of the surfaces, weak mechanical properties, etc. in addition to the own limitations and
challenges adopted to each step [22,66,96–102].
Research progress in the field of 3DCP was very slow during 1998–2015. In any year before 2012, actually the number of pub-
lished articles not exceeds two or three papers. After 2015, the research on 3DCP has grown exceptionally, and makes the todays de-
velopment possible. At the last 5 years, the published papers on “3D concrete printing” by Elsevier alone are 337, 466, 570, 900, and
1053 in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (1, NOV.), respectively. The mentioned information tells that 3DCP interest has increased
drastically, and has the potential to be the main character in new industrial revolution. However, obviously there is still a need for

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Fig. 1. Examples of 3DCP application (a) A 3DP 37 m2 tiny house in Holstebro-Denmark by COBOD (2022), first of its type in Europe; roof, walls, and foundation are
3DP with a low-cost real concrete (not mortar) [103], (b) one of the 1280 ft2 homes of the “Project Virginia-2022” with the printing time of 28 h, “Alquist 3D″ is
constructing 200 more [104], (c) NEXCON 3D printers that used in Project Virginia [104], (d) World's longest 3DPC Bridge (26.2 m) in Shanghai [105]. (e) circular
printing path for truss braced concrete 3DP walls (wind turbine's base) [106], (f) Amsterdam smart bridge, 3DP by MX3D [42].

more research to analyze the reported problems and propose logical efficient solutions, to overcome restrictions and challenges, and
to fill research gaps. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current design methodologies and operational constraints of
3DCP systems, structured insights into the technical problem, limitations and solutions for efficient 3DCP, it discusses the printing
techniques, various materials and applications of commercialized 3D printers, and then gives an overview of recently adopted 3DCP
technological evolution compared with industrial additive manufacturing methods. It focuses on material selection, mix design strate-
gies, and interrelated rheological and mechanical behavior of the materials and their consequences on process parameters at each
printing stage. Insight discussion has provided through exploring the obstacles related to economic, life cycle assessment, sustainabil-
ity and environmental impact of 3DCP. The key challenges, main benefits, potential applications and further developing directions
are presented. The author dedicated considerable time and effort to present a detailed review that provide characterization of the lit-
erature and analysis of 396 published papers with the focus on the last 3 years.

2. 3DP in manufacturing industry

Currently, 3DP techniques and applications are not only limited to the lab printing of some proof-of-concept prototypes, but has
also entered the manufacturing industry in many ways, making at least weekly headlines for new innovative products and in includ-
ing additional items in the production industry. In 3D printing process, numerous substances (liquids, powders, solid bars or sheets)
can be printed through solidification of successive layers by extruding, fusion, sintering, polymerization, etc. (Fig. 2). Many printing
methods have been attempted in AM to print complex, sensitive and high quality structures with a finer particular details and resolu-
tion, compared to their conventionally manufactured corresponding items. The most important key advantages that leads to the revo-
lutionary evolution of 3D printing, includes incredible time reduction, largescale printing capabilities and scalability, ability of mass
production of items even with high degrees of complexity, improved microstructure and mechanical properties of the printed items.
The common technology of AM that mostly uses polymeric filamentous materials, invented by “S. Scott Crump” in 1988, is called
“Fused Deposition Modeling” (FDM). In addition to FDM, several techniques have been successfully implemented in AM, such as SLS
“Selective Laser Sintering”, SLM “Selective Laser Melting”, liquid binding, contour crafting, inkjet printing, stereolithography, DED
“Direct Energy Deposition”, LOM “Laminated Object Manufacturing”, vat photo-polymerization, PBF “Powder Bed Fusion”
[30,107,108]. Each of the listed technologies has its pros and cons, with different ranges of targeted applications, therefore any de-

Fig. 2. Illustration of the printing process in manufacturing industry (a) SLS, (b) SLA, (c) FDM [115].

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bate possibly be made of which technology is more efficient or performs better could not easily compare the outcomes. The merits and
demerits of each method can be illustrated by quality of surface finish, mechanical characters, comparing precession dimensioning,
time of manufacturing, and cost of materials [109,110].
In AM with binder jetting a thin layer of a specified powder is spread over a solid surface and then a liquid binder is selectively
sprayed to the powder according to a computer controlled predetermined path of the nozzles, the binder can solidify the powder
rapidly. The second layer starts with rolling another layer of powder on the top surface of the first layer, and then spraying of the
binder again. This process continues and should be repeated hundred or thousand times until completing of the designed structure.
Ink-jetting is a common technology for fabricating ceramics that used to print complex and high quality structures used in bioengi-
neering applications, like 3D printed scaffolds in tissues engineering. In addition to the ceramics, other materials such as metallic al-
loys, polymeric materials, and sands can also be printed with this efficient, fast, and cost effective technology [110,111].
PBF process consists of thin layers of a micro-size powder, that is rolled compactly on a hard surface. The spread powder fusion is
then made with the help of a selected binder or by laser beaming. The process continues layer by layer up to the completion of the ob-
ject 3D printing. The excess powder can finally be vacuumed and the printed item is cleared. This method has widely been used for
advanced applications and high quality3D printing, as those used in electronics, aerospace, printing of tissues and lattices, using vari-
ous materials like metallic powders, polymeric materials as well as alloy powders. However, the recorded drawbacks of PBF could
slow down its development, such as consumed time is more due to leisurely printing, the cost is relatively high, and the presence of
imperfections in the fused material is rationally high. On the other side, SLS technology has the ability to print highly flexible and
strong elements or objects, using ceramics, metallic rows and plastic materials. LOM is one of the start-up AM technologies that com-
mercially accessible. LOM is based on the precise cutting or laminating of materials sheets or rollers, using laser or mechanical cutting
techniques, the layers then fused one by one in a process termed as form and then bond. The most common application of LOM in-
cludes foundry industry, paper manufacturing, smart products and electronic industry [112,113]. In the past 20 years, FDM is the
most favored AM technology, and has showed a great success. FDM can create objects from the first to the last layer by heating the
printing material and extrusion of continuous filaments of thermoplastic polymers and other materials, favorably resembling metal
wood and sand stone objects. The thermoplastic behavior of polymeric material allows the easy extrusion and the heat can assist in
the fusion of successive printed layers, to be hardened and solidified later at the lab weather [30,107,114].
In material jetting the deposition of printing material is made continuously by dropping of the material to the pre-determined lo-
cations according to the designed prototype. During printing, the nozzle jets photosensitive materials to a hard surface, and then the
solidification process shall be done with the help of electron beam or UV-light, which causes activation of chain reactions on resin lay-
ers, and hardening of the layers in order to carry subsequent layers. Polymers, composites, ceramic and multiple materials have been
printed successfully with this method [57,107]. Another 3DP technique that regularly used in AM is photo-polymerization. In this
technology, curing of photoreactive polymers can be made through utilizing of laser or UV. Digital light processing and stereolithog-
raphy are two obvious examples of photopolymerization [114,116]. DED technology has a higher degree of complexity, and it is fre-
quently used in strengthening, repairing process or fusion of more material to the manufactured or previously printed components.
With this method, a high quality of materials can be assured with a high-controlling degree of the microstructural properties. DED
method is resembling the material extrusion, and often implemented in printing of titanium, aluminum, stainless steel that used in
aerospace engineering. DED is characterized by rapid printing, an excellent printing speed, and large work envelopes of up to
6 × 1.4 × 1.4 m for commercial printers [117,118].

3. Materials used in 3D printing

A broad spectrum of materials starting from a birthday cake to the most complex and advanced multifunctional materials can be
additively manufactured due to the rapid development of 3D printing technology. AM enables fabrication of fully functional objects
from various materials including, metals, polymers, composites, ceramic, cement, concrete, soil, salt, smart and special materials.

3.1. Metals and metal alloys

Metal AM is showing magnificent perspectives of development, since, almost one half of the companies selling AM systems involv-
ing to metal AM. 3D printing of metals has mostly used in research investigations, component prototypes, newfangled applications,
and recently used for 3D printing of short-span and smart bridges. In metal 3DP, often a source of heating or temperature rising like
electron beam, or laser is used to melt the metallic raw materials. The most frequently used AM technologies implemented in 3D fabri-
cation of metallic materials are DED and PBF, whereas other relatively new technologies such as “friction stir welding”, “direct metal
writing”, “diode based process”, “binder jetting”, and “cold spraying” can also be used. The most popular 3DP metals are stainless
steel, aluminum, titanium, and their alloys, but other metals like gold has also been successfully printed in jewelry industry. 3DP
nickel-base alloys have been applied in aerospace industry and, in remote and dangerous environments, due to their excellent resis-
tance to corrosive ions and the high temperatures like 1200 °C. Compared to conventionally manufactured corresponding complex
and advanced components, 3D printed metals with PBF method have a higher resolution of ±0.02 mm with better microstructural
and mechanical behavior, and the majority of PBF printers are selective laser melting (SLM) machines [119–121].

3.2. Polymers and composite materials

Polymers are the most consumed 3D printed materials in AM technology, since they are easily adopted to various printing systems
with an exceptional compatibility to all commercially available AM printers. The adoptable polymers for AM can have various forms
such as “thermoplastic filaments, reactive monomers, resins and powders”. Polymers and composites have recorded a spectacular suc-

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cess in hundreds of applications, like aerospace engineering, fashion and shoes, educational tools and prototypes, architectural com-
ponents and ornaments, toy fabrication, scaled structural engineering prototypes for buildings, bridges, multi-story structures, and
medical applications. Multi-functional AM for polymer nanocomposites and conductive polymers have been applied in a myriad of
applications, from soft robotic actuators to tissue engineering, or even organic dual-band antennas. The research related to these ma-
terials have focuses on 4 main key areas: flexible and stretchable electronics, bioelectronics; electrochemical devices, and sensors
[122]. Composite and biomass-based materials with the incredible versatility, tailorable properties, and low-weight have been revo-
lutionizing the industries requiring high-performance materials [123]. The most frequently used composites include carbon fiber re-
inforced polymers (CFRP), carbon nanocomposites, and glass fibers reinforced polymers. Due to their high resistance in corrosive en-
vironments, exceptional stiffness, and improved mechanical properties such as extraordinary tensile strength for CFRP bars that dou-
bles that of prestressing strands and ten times higher than that of a normal G420 reinforcing steel, CFRPs are most favored by aero-
space engineering combined with some high quality metallic alloys. Glass fibers are also interesting many industries for their high
thermal conduction, heat and burning resistance, and low expansion under thermal stresses [124,125].

3.3. Ceramic materials

Biomaterial fabrication and tissue engineering are located in the top of list for the industries that most interested in ceramic addi-
tive manufacturing through 3D printing of scaffolds for teeth, broken bones, patella, etc. Ceramic material has high mechanical
strength, favored long term durability, high heat resistance, and has the ability of fluidization which makes it adoptable to various de-
sired shapes prior to setting and hardening. However, a relatively lower printing resolution and layer by layer appearance are the two
specific challenges for this material. Post-processing of the printed ceramic in forming favorable geometries could be costly, increases
the manufacturing cycle time per items, and decreases in the value of the full-automation. Research proved that with the optimization
of rheological properties of ceramics and increasing of particular homogeneity, a honeycomb structure can be printed with improved
mechanical behavior and geometric accuracy, enhanced microstructure and crack control [31,126–128].

3.4. Cementitious materials and concrete

Searching any reliable internet database for a list of the most used construction materials globally, places concrete at the top of the
list and then steel and wood at the second and third places. 3D printing of concrete can greatly enhance the interior and exterior ar-
chitectural design of building and structures, decrease the construction costs, and shorten the construction time from months to days
[28,129]. Since its first appearance, researchers have examined the printability of many materials to partially replace cementitious
materials in 3D printing pastes to mitigate its environmental impact and cost, knowing the high cement content is costly and highly
influence carbon emission. The commonly blended materials might include industrial by-products, pozzolanic materials, etc. and
even blended cement-clay have attempted [130–134]. Generally, admixtures and additive materials are used to upgrade the mechani-
cal properties and to enhance rheology of the mixes, to improve printability, and material setting and stiffening [135–140]. Bloom is
an obvious example of using cementitious materials to 3D print architectural complex structures with multiple curved colorful walls
(Fig. 3) [30,110].

3.5. Earth-based materials

Economic considerations and sustainability issues, combined with the environmental impact of materials are in frontline of discus-
sions regarding future of building and infrastructure construction. The most sustainable and environmental friendly material ab-
solutely is earth or soil-based materials. Soil is one of the oldest construction materials, that used thousands years ago, and still many
soil structures can be seen all around the word. During the past three decades several practicing codes and instructions have been
published regarding the earth-based construction. Large 3DP adobe structures were created through utilizing the pot's clayey-soil
blended with well graded fine grains of sand, that introduces a great consistency with nature [141–146]. The Beacon is one of the suc-
cessful examples of 3DP soil structures (Fig. 4) [110,147].

Fig. 3. The Bloom, exterior and interior faces [110].

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Fig. 4. The Beacon made of 3DP clay materials, and the dense network of undulating coils [110].

3.6. Salt materials

The optical translucency behavior of salt permits light permeability which makes it shine under sunlight, and allows for a semi-
transparent and brightened 3D printed structure. Salt is compatible with ink jetting printers which can be selectively bind layer up on
layer up to accomplishing of the structures. The Saltygloo (Fig. 5a) is an example of 3D printing with salt, which is a largescale, light-
weight, aesthetically pleasing structure, printed in San Francisco [110].

3.7. Smart and functionally graded materials

Smart materials also termed as 4DP materials, are described by the 3D printed structures or objects that can change their dimen-
sions, shape, size or function, with time, effected by external loads or climate conditions such as temperature or humidity. The 4DP
items will have the capacity to change their geometry over time and has good advantages in biomedical field. Various disciplines of
engineering were looking forward to 4DP as it seen as a novel evolution of 3DP [57,109]. Functionally graded materials and multiple
material 3D printing have also been attempted by many researchers and interesting results have been obtained, such as printing a
concrete with variable porosity and unit-weight by gradually mixing cementitious components with lime or some metal powders like
aluminum powder, or printable materials containing cork. Polyphytes, which are multi-materials experimental plant-like 3D objects
used to interact with natural elements, printed in full-color rigid photopolymer resin with variable levels of opacity (Fig. 5b)
[148,149].

3.8. Special materials

Additional special materials can be implemented in 3DP, and some examples are: (i) 3DP food can be produced at a favored size
and various geometrical shapes through implementing different edible materials like “chocolate, meat, candy, pizza, spaghetti, and
sauce”. Food printing can produce healthy, palatable and easily digestible food, because this process is allowing the customers to fa-
vorably choose and adjust proportioning of the ingredients; (ii) jewelry and fashion industry can be greatly affected by evolution of
textile 3DP. The most obvious benefits of fashion 3D printing can include, shortening of the processing period and rapid printing of
the ordered items, and a high cost reduction, especially for jewelry industry when compared to the complex handmade items; (iii) lu-
nar dust has the ability to be 3D printed for construction of space structures, and this could potentially help in colonization of the
Moon and Mars [150–152].
The five mainly used materials are metals, polymers, ceramics, concrete, and soil. Different materials, their basic raw materials,
printing methods, and applications are shown in Table-1.

4. General applications of 3D printing technology

In recent years, 3DP has becoming more popular, more printing methods have been developed and the quality of printed compo-
nents has improved significantly. AM has grown enough to become a real alternative for conventionally manufactured objects. The
common applications of AM are.

Fig. 5. The Saltygloo, exterior and interior faces [110], (b) Polyphytes, vascular 3DPs interact with natural elements [149].

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Table 1
Characteristics and printing methods of the five mainly used materials.

Materials Basic raw materials for 3D printing Printing technologies Common applications

Metals and Metal feedstock – powder or wire, such as Extrusion, SLM, DED, binder jetting, Aerospace applications of nickel based alloys titanium
metal alloys steel, titanium, platinum, silver, aluminum, laser beam melting (LBM), etc. brackets for satellites, surgical implants & dental crowns
stainless steel, copper, cobalt, chrome alloy, and bridges, jewelry printing, machine spare parts,
etc., prototypes, smart bridges, etc.
Polymers and Powder, liquid, sheets, filaments, tape, Extrusion - FDM, vat polymerization - Prototypes, educational tools, automotive industry,
composites pellet of ABS, PLA, polycarbonate, SLA, Material jetting, PBF, SLS, sheet special clothes, FRP bars and prestressing strands,
fiberglass, carbon-fibers, Kevlar, waxes, lamination, etc. medical applications include hearing aids, low-cost
epoxy resins, nylon, etc. prosthetics, etc.
Ceramics Silicon carbide, porcelain, silica and glass, Photopolymerization, binder jetting, Medical implants, prosthetics, artificial bones & teeth,
ceramic fibers. extrusion, selective laser sintering, craft components, electric conductors & insulators, car
direct ink writing, etc. parts, impact resistance lightweight armors, etc.
Concrete Cement, cementitious materials, aggregates, Extrusion – contour crafting, selective Construction of prototypes, tiny homes, apartments,
plasticizer, water, etc. binder jetting. bridges, etc.
Soil-based Earth based material, such as red clay mixed Extrusion, binder jetting, using Construction of low-cost houses, adobe structures,
materials with straw, stabilized soil with binders. hydrogels stabilizer. beacon, repair of degraded soil structures, etc.

4.1. Aerospace industry

Globally, aerospace applications contribute to 18% of the total 3D printing market, and regarded as an auspicious sector for more
future development. Typically, advanced and expensive materials are implemented for aerospace engineering, and such materials
could include “titanium alloys, nickel based super alloys, high strength steel alloys, or ultra-high temperature resistance ceramics”,
that manufacturing of theses ceramics makes many difficulties and produces almost 95% of waste. Planes have a life time of 30 years
approximately, and significant expenditures are acquired if the old parts have to be kept during their life time, but with AM it is possi-
ble to create the needed parts on demand with a noticeable lesser cost and maintenance time. Aerospace components should be light-
weight, strong, and have a high stiffness to mass ratio, so as to experience a lower transportation cost. For instance, the charge of
space-travelling to “Low Earth Orbit (the orbit at an altitude of 2000 km)” can cost $2500/kg. Planetary construction is another possi-
ble application for 3DP due to the grown interest in this direction (Fig. 6) [28,152]. Several advantages and applications can be found
in Refs. [48,153–159].

4.2. Healthcare & biomedical industry

The biomedical market has occupied a wide domain of 3D printing which accounts for 11% of overall AM market, also considered
as an important industry to encourage or drive AM to more evolution and rapid growth. These days, biomedical researchers are inten-
sively investigating AM, to overcome challenges, determine benefits and explore the possibility of using AM technology in different
applications, as well as printability of various materials with a higher complexity levels. 3DP technology can print 3D skin, has been

Fig. 6. Marsha, 3D printing on Mars: (a) exterior shape, (b & c) interior design, (d) staircase: “Building a Mars habitat in an alien environment 54.6 M km away from
earth. Martian exploration and settlement at any sustainable scale depends on using materials found on Mars. This is enabled by in-situ resource utilization (ISRU)
technologies, which circumvents the hard limits of the rocket equationwherein each 1 kg of rocket needs roughly 9 kg of propellant. Without ISRU the cost of import-
ing materials from Earth renders the project of extraterrestrial futures impossible. MARSHA's functional areas are spread over four levels identified by a unique inte-
rior atmosphere that encourages mobility and averts monotony. Via the large skylight above and intermittent windows, the space between the two shells acts as light-
well connecting all levels with diffuse natural light. This unique space allows for a stair to arc gently from floor to floor. An innovative mixture of basalt fiber ex-
tracted from Martian rock and renewable bioplastic processed from plants grown on Mars, have been formulated. This recyclable polymer composite outperformed
concrete in NASA's strength, durability, and crush testing. ASTM lab certified to be 2 to 3 times stronger than normal concrete in compression, the space-grade mater-
ial is also 5 times more durable than concrete in freeze-thaw conditions” [204].

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successfully implemented in drug and pharmaceutical investigations, can print various bones and different cartilages such as, fibro-
cartilage, hyaline and elastic cartilages, it is useful in replacing of tissues, organ, customized fashionable exoskeletons, and lastly, AM
can significantly improve medical education through printing of prototypes or models for visualization, education, and communica-
tion [160–164]. AM opens new and multiple doors for developing modern biomedical implanting, tissue engineering, and controlling
of new drug delivery systems. Biomedical applications are required to be specifically designed for each patient individually “from im-
plants to drug dosage”, and 3D printing technology is ideally fitted for this purpose, such patient-specific additively manufactured
items could include “hearing aids, various implants, customized orthotics and prostheses” [165], in addition to the incredibly reduced
time for these AM items compared to traditional fabricating methods. Biofabrication includes engendering of tissues and organs by
different 3D printing technologies “bioprinting, bioassembly, and maturation” [166,167]. Biofabrication is different in general 3D
printing through AM in that, it includes cells within manufactured biomaterials to obtain a product which termed as bio-ink [168].
Bioink is “any natural or synthetic polymer selected for its biocompatible components and favorable rheological properties. These
characteristics temporarily or permanently support living cells to facilitate their adhesion, proliferation and differentiation during
maturation” [169]. More to-date biomedical applications can be seen in Refs. [170–180].

4.3. Construction industry

These days, automation in construction is gaining a spectacular attention, it is making headlines, and becomes a trending topic for
many international conferences and meetings, all over the world. Construction industry involves just 3% of overall AM market and in-
vestments, whereas this ratio is estimated to be drastically raised in the upcoming years [181,182]. Development of 3DPC is a turning
point in building homes and infrastructure construction, as long as it has a huge number of advantages, at the same time it can solve
tenth of construction problems. Construction time reduction from months to days or even hours, minimization of construction materi-
als and waste, environmental friendly construction, freedom of design, and much more are some of the obvious aspects of success for
this modern technology [19,31,150]. BIM is the process of modeling the complete information related to construction of a building
into a 3D database. 3D BIM modeling is referring to the 3 principal building dimensions, and sometimes even the acronyms like 4D or
6D BIM have been used for inclusion of time, cost, and sustainability considerations. The BIM model allows project main parties (engi-
neers, owners, and contractors) to contribute in planning and design, to approve and follow up: activities, events, reports, and con-
struction risks, as well as, inspection of the progress and state of the structure from design stage to the end of the life cycle and demoli-
tion of the building. The emergence of the BIM and 3DCP can really help development of 3D printing and achieving full automation of
the process [57,183,184]. More research and trending applications of 3DP in this field can be heard in Refs. [185–192].

4.4. Protective structures

AM has allowed a fast development of this sector with emerging of new and high quality materials. Following the principles of
contour crafting, many different sandwich panel models have been successfully printed, in which the panels are filled by markedly
different latticed cores, and interesting results were achieved. High impact and blast resistance monolithic metal plates can be 3D
printed and used for protected armored military vehicles or VIP class cars, on the other hand lightweight materials such synthetics
and Kevlar fabrics can be printed for bulletproof clothes, helmets and many other military or personal protective applications. Aside
from armored vehicles and PPE, armored structures for military bases or barracks can also be 3D printed with the help of impulsive
resistance materials that can be printed as contours and then filled with solid high resistance materials such as metals or UHPC, based
on the required resistance level. These applications can increase human safety, are less expensive compared to manufactured items,
and can be printed too fast [193–203].

4.5. Automotive industry

3DP technology can bring a fascinating acceleration to the automotive industry through providing rapidly prepared, durable and
lightweight materials with the desired shapes and different degrees of complexity. Some obvious examples could include, “Local Mo-
tors” 3DP electric car in 2014, and OLLI Bus “which is a driverless, electric, recyclable and extremely smart bus”; XEV Yoyo is a
$15500 cost, 450 kg, model 2022 electric car, printed with FDM using ABS, has the max speed of 80 km/h and can run 150 km; For-
mula-1 Renault RS19, manufactured by Renault and Jabil, for its lightweight parts that could significantly influence racing results;
Nio EP9 Concept, this $3.48 M electric car has designed and printed by Vital Auto “which is the fastest and most expensive electric car
in the world”, printing technologies include FDM, SLA, and SLS; Divergent 3D Blade, manufactured by “Divergent 3D″ in 2017, using
SLM technology, with CFRP and Aluminum, which is a 700 HP car; and lastly the Lamborghini Aventador, which has been designed
by “Sterling and Xander Backus” with FDM by using 4 different materials [106,205–207].

4.6. Food industry

During and after pandemic years, the food industry is stepping to be more price-sensitive, and people really cares on how clean is
their food prepared. 3DP technology has opened many doors to this industry through making aesthetically pleasing foods, and food
sustainability. Food market has accounted as $201 M in 2022 and estimated to get $1941 M by 2027, the most 3DP food for now is
carbohydrate segment, and the fastest progress in food 3DP is happening in Japan and China. Nowadays, the demand of food cus-
tomization is grown significantly, especially for diets and dieting customers, patients-specific food, pregnant women, and athletes.
Personalized food is requiring various quantities of nutrients, through selection of health-care-optimized ingredients [208]. 3D
printed food can be cleaner, have a reduce cost and time of processing and preparation for shape complicated foods with different ma-
terials which even can be printed in colorful layers [208–211].

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4.7. Fashion industry

3D printing can have a great role in clothing, cosmetics and luxury markets, through design flexibility, customization, and increas-
ing productivity. For this purpose, tenth of brands and fashion designers are now competing for the most fascinating products through
implementation of this technology. 3DP technology has successfully been utilized for printing of shoes and sneakers, lace-like tex-
tures, haute couture dress, handbags, knitwear, patronace, skeletal mask, ties, and organic skirts. These products have been made
from many different materials such as polymers, vegan organic material, metals like silver or gold, nacre “mother-of-pearl”, leather,
nylon, carbon fibers, bio-based materials [212–214]. In addition to the personal customization, fast preparation, and environmental
friendliness, 3D printed clothes can have many improved characteristics, and it can be lightweight and flexible, water repellent,
breathable, and have the resistance to abrading and impact absorbing, which gives the ability to the customers to have more safety
and be stylish [215–217].

4.8. Electronic industry

Numerous 3DP techniques have been utilized in printing of ingenious electronic apparatus, gadgets, and machines. 3D printing
can help in mass fabrication of electrochemical or electronic devices much faster than traditional manufacturing methods, with a bet-
ter precision, less human errors, and less cost, in addition the prototyping of electronics can be made by in-house producers, without
risking of intellectual property (IP) theft [218]. 3D printers have implemented in printing of USB stick cases, keyboards, printed cir-
cuit boards, antennas, breadboards, radio frequency components, by using of FDM printers, ink jetting of nano-inks, aerosol jet tech-
nology, etc. 3D printed sensors can upgrade the machines, tools, furniture or even smart structures, through application of internet of
things (IoT), biomedical-sensors on other hand can greatly help in wirelessly monitoring of dieses and infections. Future estimations
for 3DP in electronics industry could also include printing of motherboards, fully operated computers, or smart robots [219]. Thermo-
plastic materials, ABS, PLA, PETG, nano-inks, copper, carbon, silver nano particles, graphene, have successfully been utilized in this
industry. Common 3DP electronic parts involves: transistors, electrodes, capacitators, amplifiers, diodes, batteries, coils, rectifiers,
and LEDs [57,220].

5. 3D concrete printing technologies

In fact, 3DCP has emerged to the construction with the hope of revolutionizing the concrete construction completely, due to nu-
merous advantages such as, formwork elimination, optimized material usage, improved freedom of design, reduced material wastes,
minimizing necessary labors or staff of projects, and costs optimization. At present, the incredibly developed 3DCP technologies are
based on extrusion of concrete filaments, although other techniques such as selective binding, have also been investigated [221–225].
Nowadays, extrusion-based 3DCP is the most investigated and implemented largescale construction technology on its kind. In this
method, a well-designed cementitious material or concrete is transported to a digitally controlled printer, which deposits or pressur-
izes the concrete through a printing head that can be shaped by a nozzle. The concrete extrusion would be made in successive layers
following the path that is digitally programmed according to the design of the structure. When each layer has been finished, the noz-
zle returns to its starting point to print the next layer, as soon as the printed first layer has already gained sufficient strength to carry
upcoming layers, and has sufficient moisture to bond with the second layer [226–231]. The mixture design of 3DCP usually contains
high cement ratios, for its rapid setting and improving flowability of the mix, as well as to satisfy rheological requirements, however,
using a high cement volume could influence the cost-effectiveness of the process, as and also can be harmful to environment. For this
purpose, researchers are investigating the possibility of using real concrete in 3DP of the structures and promising results has been ob-
tained [103,157,232]. The printer size and geometry, operating mechanism, printing head details, nozzle properties (size, shape, and
speed), material thixotropic and rheological properties, printing pressure (deposition, low or high pressure), number, width and
height of filaments, climate conditions (moisture, temperature, etc.), are the main factors that can greatly influence quality and stabil-
ity of the printed structure [233,234].
Contour crafting is commonly implemented in building largescale 3DCP structure, but other techniques that termed differently by
various researchers also had been attempted, like, concrete printing, ultra-high performance concrete printing, functionally graded
concrete printing, multi-material concrete printing, etc. [15,25,35]. Contour crafting pioneered in 1998, which is a largescale digital
construction technology that has been implemented in printing of many large complex geometry structures successfully, without
shuttering, through using multiple-axes robotic arms [12,22,64]. With this technology, first a hollow wall is created through printing
of two parallel lines of continuous multiple layers of filaments to a desired height (Fig. 7), and then, when the concrete has hardened
sufficiently the contour space would be filled with a cementitious materials or concrete, preferably a low-slump concrete, to minimize

Fig. 7. (a) a largescale 3D printer capable to print 1 or 2 story homes within 24 h, (b) PERI 3D printer during printing [258].

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G.H. Ahmed Journal of Building Engineering 66 (2023) 105863

the lateral pressure on the printed contours [235,236]. The printed structure with contour crafting can have a faster building speed,
be as large as desired (in top view dimensions), be aesthetically pleasing due its wall textures and surfaces, and be cost-effective, due
to using a higher volume of real concrete for filling, which already contains less cement than the 3D printing pastes [28,32]. Concrete
printing has been used for many more complex lab-scale structures, with the finer precision than contour crafting, due to the smaller
nozzle size. It has been implemented in several 3DP projects with normal strength concrete, but ultra-high performance concrete has
also been successfully printed [237–239].
The 3DP technology is generally utilized to print structural components with a single homogeneous material, which is basically
designed to carry the ultimate stresses comes from combination of the external loads. But in fact, the maximum stress could happen in
specific areas along members, which means the full materials strength is not necessary in some regions, and thus full material effi-
ciency needs optimization of the sections through reducing cross section of the members, which also causes additional cost and diffi-
culties in stability of printed layers [148,240]. 3DCP can provide two solutions for non-efficient material usage, the first one is func-
tionally graded 3DPC and, the second is multiple material 3D concrete printing. Functionally graded 3DPC is characterized by the
variation of material's packing density and microstructural gradient along extruded filaments in horizontal direction, or, sacked and
adjacent layers in any direction. Thus the denser material regions are of higher strength, while the weakened regions through inser-
tion of air bubbles are those with no or lesser applied stresses. With the stress based mass distribution, creating light weight structural
components is possible with upgraded insulation properties and improved cost effectiveness [15,241]. In multi-material 3DP, other
materials like cork, lime or aluminum powder can be gradually mixed with concrete to extrude a variable density 3DPC, with im-
proved behavior [242,243].
Selective binding 3DCP method is another largescale printing technique that had been investigated broadly, to print various com-
ponents. In this method, the printing is carried out through preprogramed dozens of nozzles that selectively spray a liquid binder to
interconnect fine sand particles [244,245]. The printing procedure resembles SLS printing in AM, in which a fine sand layer is spread
out and then the nozzles spray a “magnesium-based” binder to glue the sand particles based on design of the object. After finishing the
first layer, a spreading beam puts and levels the second layer of sand above the first layer, and then the process continued tenth or
hundreds of times. Along the printing process, the non-bound sand also rises layer by layer with printing component to support the
bound particles. At the end of printing, the extra sand can be vacuumed and the printed object is cleared [246–248]. The advanta-
geous characteristics that selective binding have over extrusion, includes: (i) there is no need for careful monitoring as in extrusion
based printing, (ii) no risks for changes in materials flowability or rheological properties, (iii) no need for human interference in
crossing of the gaps, such that needed in extrusion printing, during crossing over the openings, for which a wooden or metal lintel
shall be laid manually to bridge the gap [249–254]. However, the printed components with selective binding could have a (i) signifi-
cantly higher porosity, (ii) less durability, (iii) less mechanical strength [255–257].

6. Materials and mix design for 3DCP

In order to ensure a mix with acceptable printability and workability to be applied for largescale 3DCP, the extrudate should be
designed for coordination and compatibility with the printer design and operating system, which consists of material storing, deliver-
ing, deposition, print and controlling systems [25,107,259]. The concrete material for 3DP should: mainly comprises of powders, has
suitable flowability, extrudability and buildability, has required green and mechanical strength, and appropriate time to set. It shall
ensure the mixture can be easily extruded through nozzle by selecting ingredients with the max size of not larger than one-tenth of the
nozzle's least dimension. Water/binder (w/b) shall be adjusted so that the mixture behaves as a flowable material, enables to be trans-
ported smoothly through delivering system. As soon as the proportioning of sand (and coarse aggregate) and powders, as well w/b are
decided, the mixture should be optimized for the desired cycle time, buildability, green strength, and shrinkage control, through addi-
tion of various “superplasticizers, accelerators, VMAs, steel or FRP fibers, and/or retarders” (Fig. 8). Research showed that, the de-
signer of the 3DCP mixture could face optimization of a double-difficulty problem in preparing a printable mixture. In one side, a
higher volume of water is necessary to get a flowable mixture which can be delivered fluently in the transportation stage, but lower
w/b is required for concrete to gain higher long term strength, and enables faster deposition of filaments without collapse and/or

Fig. 8. General requirements of printable mix shown in multi-level material design [262].

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buckling. On the other side, the setting or hardening of mixture should be delayed enough so that no blocking or interrupted flow
could happen during extrusion, but it should also be accelerated so as to exhibit rapid strength gaining for buildability to resist load
from successive layers. Hence, the solution of this issue is to add chemical agents which effects on the particle interconnection and
bond alteration, and causes flocculation or dispersion of cements, and rheology enhancement [29,260,261].
In printing of cementitious materials, numerous issues shall be resolved before it can be applied at the concrete level. During print-
ing, layers must bond and must retain their shape with minimum deformation when extruded, and have sufficient structural strength
to avoid failure [80,263]. Design or optimization of the cementitious pastes and 3D printable mixtures has been extensively investi-
gated in literature for flowability/buildability properties in different structural applications [264–268]. Research, however, has
started to more extensively investigate the rheological properties [101,269] and structural build-up properties [270–273]. Although
other materials and quantities have been used, whereas most of the successfully 3D printed mixtures usually contained (for 1 m3): ce-
ment 400–800 kg, micro-silica 80–180 kg, fly ash 90–170 kg, sand 1000–1250 kg, water 170–280 L, superplasticizer 2–10 L, with
the w/b of 0.23–0.35 [100,258,274].

7. Printing process parameters

The 3DCP systems have 3 globally accepted stages which are: (i) concrete is transported to its location usually through truck
mounted concrete pumps, thus, it shall have acceptable “pumpability” without segregation or separation. (ii) deposition of concrete
should be done by extrusion through various shape/size nozzles, so it must have “extrudability”, and this step should be done with
minimum to no vibration. (iii) when the extruded filaments are stacked above each other, the printed structure should have the abil-
ity to carry consecutive coming layers without collapsing, which means, the concrete shall exhibit an excellent “buildability”. Each of
these steps has its restrictions and challenges that depend on: row material and ingredients properties, mix proportioning and design-
ing, and processing parameters [9]. Thixotropy is the property of becoming less viscous when subjected to an applied stress, or “it is a
time and rate dependent shear thinning property which governs the finite time taken for microstructural destruction and rebuilding”.
A logical solution to maintain a suitable thixotropic behavior of the 3D printing mixtures has been determined through addition of
various kinds of short metal or plastic fibers, that have the ability of increasing mixture cohesion when it flows, thereby the shearing
resistance can be reduced [84,192,275]. Addition of nanoparticles to the 3D printing mixture can also increase packing density, pro-
vide extreme water films thinning, and improve mix rheology [73,276,277].
Rheology deals with “flow and deformation of materials, especially non-Newtonian flow of liquids or plastic flow of semi-solids. It
is a measurable rate of internal resistance of cementitious paste for deformation being applied by an external stress”. Hence, when the
plastic viscosity of a cementitious mixture is modified (decreased) through addition of nanoparticles or fibers, its flowability can be
improved (increased) significantly. When flocculation of cement particles is happening due to the resting time during mixing, the
paste behaves more likely as a viscoplastic material with a higher viscosity depending on the delay time, however, yield stress can be
reversed whenever the required remixing mechanism and energy for destruction of the formed inter-particle bonds is sufficient [278].
Yield stress is a material related property, which assigns transferring of materials in different physical states like liquid-to-solid state.
Generally, viscoplastic or semi-solid materials has an interconnection cohesive bond in microstructural level, which needs an external
stress to destruct the bond, and the minimum stress that required for the material flowing is termed as “static yield stress” which de-
pends on shear stress and rest time. Whereas, dynamic yield stress “refers to the measured yield stress under steady-state-flow with
unstructured particle matrix” [1]. Yield stress and plastic viscosity can greatly influence printability of the mixtures as well as durabil-
ity of the hardened concrete (Fig. 9). Particularly, rheology is correlated to mix design, involving the composition of binder, particle
shapes, ratio and aggregate grading, VMA & superplasticizer content, and w/b ratio [79,224,230].

7.1. Flowability and pumpability

The main reason of adding water to concrete ingredients is basically to help in initiating chemical reactions of powders, bonding
of particles, gradual hydration of cement with the setting time, and to improve workability of the mix. 3DCP properties, similar or
even more than the cast concrete properties are very sensitive to the water ratio in the mix [93,280]. Optimization of the w/b ratio is
usually done with the help of superplasticizers, VMAs, accelerators, etc., since the higher required water for pumpability and flowa-
bility can be crucial for buildability, green or mechanical strength as well as porosity and void content of the hardened concrete,

Fig. 9. Influence of yield stress/plastic viscosity on printability and durability [279].

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while addition of chemical agents can highly reduce the needed w/b in a side, and improve strength and buildability on the other side
[210,281]. Gradation of the coarse and fine particles is another controlling parameter which effects flow, pumpability and rheologi-
cal behavior of the mixture. Research proved that, a better flowability might be obtained through a better packing of the matrix,
which can be maintained by well gradation of the used particles [107,282]. Supplementary cementitious materials, industrial by
products, pozzolans, etc. could help in increasing the packing density, filling the gaps, and working as barrier between cement parti-
cles, preventing to create the chemical bonds, thereby improving flow and pumpability of the mixture [283,284]. Although many re-
searchers have experimentally investigated and/or numerically simulated flow of the 3D printable pastes, however, more studies are
necessary to discover the effect of the mixture parameters on flowability optimization, such as parameters could include: rheological
and thixotropic behavior, influence of rest time, implementation of new materials, etc. As much as perfect flowability and pumpabil-
ity are important for 3D printed concrete in delivering stage of material, zero-slump concrete is important to the same degree when
the material is extruded through the nozzle [264,285,286].

7.2. Extrudability
Deposition of continuous filaments of printable mixture from the printing head through a computer controlled nozzle according to
the designed path is usually termed as extrusion. Hence, “extrudability” is the ability of a mixture to be extruded through the nozzle
continuously without interruptions, keep its shape with regular dimensions and have no deformations, and the printed filaments have
not split or teared (Fig. 10). Usually, mixtures with less stiffness, and rounded particles are preferable for easy extrusion process, that
too viscose pastes might cause blocking or clogging during printing [246,287]. In fact, the extrudability imperfections cannot be eas-
ily adjusted, it can only be by referring to a looped process between before and after steps, namely, adjustment of thixotropy and rhe-
ology of the mixture aside, and waiting for buildability, strength and consecutive layer bonding on the other side, to have feedback on
the redesign changes, and repeating the process up to optimization of the mixture [73,84,139]. In addition to the mixture related pa-
rameters, extrusion process might also be influenced by extrusion system, printhead and nozzle characteristics such as nozzle speed
and cross-section shape/size, as well as frictional adhesion stress (between material and nozzle internal surface) and cohesive restric-
tions (due to material stiffness) during printing can decide on the print quality/accuracy [288–290]. In paste extrusion, the “barrel-
die geometry, the barrel diameter, die entry diameter, die exit diameter, length of the barrel filled by the material, and length of the
die”, are crucial geometric parameters that effect efficiency and quality of extrusion [29,291]. Printheads and their mixing devices for
3DP of cementitious pastes have not been studied in details and are still needing more investigations. Numerical simulations could
help in more understanding and development of printhead and nozzle design in future [292,293]. More about extrusion tests, and dif-
ferent rheological behaviors can be found in Refs. [79,94,221,264,294]. The two common extrudability issues could be segregations
of mix ingredients and pauses in printing process. Separation of material could potentially happen in the hose and causes material
blocking, due to insufficient mixing before pumping stage been initiated, or due to inappropriate mix proportioning. Whereas, paus-
ing of the printing process can be crucial for 3DCP, which brings changes in materials rheological properties a side, and insufficient
bonding of the consecutive layers, due to lack of enough surface moisture in the substrate layers on the other side. The cycle time
which can be the needed period of time to extrude one layer, it has a great influence on not only bonding of successive printed layer,
but also on the prevention of cold joint formation. Extrusion pressure is another parameter that affects interlayer and interfilamentous
bonding, however the pressure shall be carefully balanced between the needed pressure to joint layers, and the extra pressure which
might cause excessive cross-sectional deformations. Some recent studies have used shaping plates at both sides of the nozzle to re-
shape the extruded filament with the application of pressure [17,27].

7.3. Buildability
Buildability is the most important parameter for evaluation of printable mixtures, of which the extruded filament must hold its
shape without noticeable deformations, have acceptable settlement of bottom layers, have sufficient stiffness and rapid green strength
gaining to hold the load from upcoming layers, and maintain sufficient interlayer adhesive bonding. A successful buildability behav-
ior can be obtained with inclusion of higher volume of supplementary cementitious powders and relatively finer aggregate particles,
to the mixture. Also, accelerators have a positive improving role in speeding up chemical reactions and hydration process, and
thereby gaining higher early strength [295–297]. The thixotropy of designed mixture which is related to higher fluidity and lower vis-

Fig. 10. Splitting and tearing of the 3DCP filament (extrusion with a 40 × 10 mm nozzle) [69].

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coplasticity must be compatible with extrudability requirements, open time and reduction in extrusion rates, as well structural built
up rate and stability considerations [210,298]. Flowability, extrudability, printability window, buildability, and interlayer fusion
strength, are summarized as main determinants of 3DCP [299,300]. More experimental data and analytical explorations on 3DCP,
printability, open time, and buildability of mixes, are illustrated by Refs. [33,97,133,249].
The speed of nozzle and the length of printed filaments are two key factors affecting built up rate and the needed time for comple-
tion of 3DPC components and structures. Some studies have recorded an optimum cycle time to be 10 min, as the faster building rates
can cause excessive deformations, while delayed overlaying could assist in cold-joint formation, higher void content at the interlayer,
and layer delamination. For a 40 × 10 mm rectangular nozzles the printing speed has been reported to be 30–35 mm/s, and
50–66 mm/s by a 9 mm circle-shaped nozzle, even the operation speed of 300 mm/s (18 m/min) has been tested with COBOD BOD2
[5,69,301]. The nozzle travelling speed usually depends on the robotic system of the printer, the necessary pressure for paste extru-
sion, stiffness gained by extruded filament during return time of the nozzle, changes in materials rheological behavior, tearing and
splitting resistance of filaments during extrusion, and settling of layers due to bearing deformations which would cause changes in
nozzle standoff distance [221,253]. Increased nozzle standoff would lead to dropping of extrudate at a certain distance, causing: geo-
metrical deformations of the printing layer, and a kind of impact, vibration, or instability of the substrate layers. Hence, this standoff
height ultimately must be adjusted to the contacting level or the other way is to carefully control building rate by using accelerators,
to speed-up gaining of green strength [29,302–304]. In addition to the deadweight of overlaying filaments, and the applied pressure
to the substrate layers caused by extrusion system, even more pressure can be applied for highly stable mixtures through adjustment
of the nozzle height to a distance less than the filament height, so that the nozzle mouth would be submerged in the printing concrete
by some millimeters. This pressure could be significantly beneficial to fuse consecutive layers and increase the bonding strength
[33,66,94]. The 3D predicted patterns in various numerical models showed that the filament deformation-related imperfections are
mostly relevant to extrudate yield stress and printing velocity, while plastic viscosity of the cementitious paste has no or a minor role
[184,305].
Commonly, the buildability test is used in to determine the number of filaments that can be stacked above each other without col-
lapse of the printed structure, but the results from different studies are quite difficult to compare. In Ref. [306] the maximum number
of the stacked layers were reported to be 32, 60, 79 layers respectively for 1, 2, and 3 adjacent filaments for a 20 mm circular nozzle
with 10 mm height of layers, while in Ref. [69] number of layers were 15, 25, 31, 31, 34 for 1 to 5 adjacent filaments, with a 9 mm
nozzle and 6 mm layer height. During 3DP of vertically freestanding components or wall like structures, mechanical stress increases
gradually on the substrate layers due to cumulative dead load. This load at some critical limit, engenders failure by either “elastic
buckling” or “plastic collapse”. Research discovered that the “loss of geometrical stability” can cause elastic buckling, whereas plastic
collapse happens when “the ultimate stress at the bottom layer exceeds the material's yield strength” [294,307,308]. Both failure
modes are illustrated in Fig. 11a, while Fig. 11b can explain how the buildability can be improved with the addition of various materi-
als to the mixture.

Fig. 11. (a) Failure mechanisms, elastic buckling (left), plastic collapse (right) [309], (b) Buildability test for mixtures containing various ratios of nano-TiO2, the built
layers are 11, 11, 18,24, 24, 64 respectively [310].

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8. Microstructure and mechanical properties

Unlike conventional concrete when the mixture design is mostly decided based on strength and durability of structures, 3DCP mix
designing has additional special requirements in both fresh and hardened states. Extruded 3DPC components always show or-
thotropic behavior and weakness points that located at interfaces between printed layers or horizontally juxtaposed filaments. The
level of orthotropic behavior in 3DPC is directly related to the “morphology, ratio, size, and distribution of pores”. Although layer in-
terfaces could have higher relative porosity, but the overall density of 3DPC is not much different, even could be higher than cast con-
crete made with the same mixture used for 3D printing [69,311], which might be referred to the applied pressure from extrusion
process or deadweight of concrete during printing, which produces a kind of layer compaction and additional packing stress in mi-
crostructural level. Murica et al. [306] experimental results for 120 mm cubic samples cut from larger 3DCP specimens showed a
mean dry density of 2201 kg/m3 (n = 9, range = 2184–2215), compared with 2114 kg/m3 for mold cast cubes from exactly same
printed concrete, and similar results have also been reported in Refs. [253,312]. In this context, researchers have tried to quantify the
anisotropy that the process of printing exerts on the hardened component [272,313].
Porosity in 3DPC is not likely similar to that of conventional concrete in homogenous pore distribution especially in vertically cut
sections [221,251], and shape of pores could be spheroid instead be spherical [314]; conventionally cast concrete is usually cast in
mold with the presence of internal or formwork vibrations, whereas during/after concrete extrusion, intentional vibrations must be
totally prohibited in case of 3DCP to prevent filament deformations and to maintain structural stability [315]. The imperfections in
filament/layer bonding could basically be created by the entrapped air voids between two successive filaments [96,250], or by evapo-
rated moisture at filament surface [316,317], and thus, causing weak adhesive layer bonding [318]. The improperly bonded regions,
has also a great effect on concrete durability, increases penetrability of chloride ions [319,320], presents evidence for potentially in-
creased corrosion rates of reinforced 3DCP [321,322], and self-equilibration of “thermal stresses” through the layered structure of
3DPC can increase the possibility of layer delamination during fire exposure or high temperatures [323,324]. Kruger et al. [274] re-
ported a microstructural investigation using “X-ray computed tomography” for visualization, and assessment of quality and quantity
of pores in 3DPC. The study parameters were, overlay delaying period up to 60min for each 15min interval, and printhead travelling
speed 100 ± 20 mm/s. It was found that the air voids are mostly spheroid for 3DPC, elongated, flattened or ellipsoid in printing ori-
entation, and their distribution is significantly different from spherical voids in mold cast concrete (Fig. 12). The porosity was 6.8%
for the cast specimen, and 7.9% for the 3DPC. These values are higher than 3.8% (cast) and 1.0% (3DPC) recorded by Le et al. [311],
3% (3DPC) by Putten et al. [317] 3.4% (3DPC) by Kloft et al. [43], and measured 5–6% porosity (3DPC) by Lee et al. [325].
The absence of formworks is one of the most obvious advantages of 3DCP in productivity, economy, and sustainability point of
view, but it poses some difficulties for 3DP structures, up until gaining sufficient green strength. Measuring at the first contact be-
tween cement and water, a 3DP mixture must go through three setting states to gain necessary strength so as to carry the load of addi-
tional layers. These levels are namely: dormant, setting, and hardening [32,80]. Cast concrete wouldn't be responsible to carry any
kind of load at its first two stages, since formworks can do that, while in the hardening stage, it gains a certain strength and the form-
work can be removed. However, the 3DPC shall not only resist the accumulative weight from stacked layers at third stage, it must also
carry deadweight in a short time after extrusion [327,328].
In the last ten years, dozens of studies have experimentally tested and analyzed mechanical properties of 3DPC, but it is hard to
evaluate and compare some research results, due to different testing methods, measurement techniques, and, specimen shape and
sizes. Lim et al. [77] developed a high-performance cementitious mix with sand 3:2 binders (54:36%), w/b = 0.28. The results
showed that compressive strength for two types of differently printed specimens (by extrusion or paste depositions) is 80 and 100% of
concrete that cast in molds. Gosselin et al. [67] studied a printing paste, 35 ± 5% cement, 45 ± 5% crystallized silica, 10% for each
limestone and micro silica powder. The flexural strength of 3DP specimens was 11.7–16.9 MPa. Malaeb et al. [329] results exhibited
the compressive strength of 41.5–55.4 MPa. Marchment & Sanjayan [222] results showed that 7-day compressive strength of 3DP
specimens respectively in perpendicular and parallel direction were 22.6 MPa and 21.5 MPa, and nearly half of 43.5 MPa for mold
cast specimens. Hambach and Volkmer [70] concluded that, the orientated carbon fibers to the filament print direction has improved
the flexural resistance to be 30 MPa. Adding polypropylene fibers to the mix by Le et al. [100] resulted the compressive strength of
20, 80 and 110 MPa, in 1, 7 and 28 days respectively. Chu et al. [73] found that the adding fibers and NC (Nano CaCO3) to a printable

Fig. 12. Pores (with min volumes of 1 mm3) in cast specimens and, 3DP poor and high quality specimens [326].

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G.H. Ahmed Journal of Building Engineering 66 (2023) 105863

mixture can increase its compression resistance to 120 MPa. With 0.5% fibers the strength has improved by 1.2%, but with 0.5%
fibers +4% NC, the increased strength was 6.0%. Pan et al. [330] used a nozzle with the shaping plate, and found a significant im-
provement in compressive & flexural strength, and porosity of 3DPC. Medicis et al. [331] studied mechanical properties of commer-
cial-premix UHPC for 3DCP, and found that printability of the mixture can be achieved by reducing superplasticizers, a dosage of 88%
of that used for cast UHPC is adequate. Almost all researchers who investigated anisotropic behavior of 3DPC through testing of com-
pressive strength in principal directions, showed that this concrete has the highest compressive strength in extrusion direction,
whereas two remained directions exhibited 60–80% of that in strong direction. Rarely 3DPC specimens have achieved similar
strength of cast specimens, as the strength of printed concrete in various directions is mostly 60 ± 20% of that for cast concrete (Fig.
13) [210,306].

9. Environmental sustainability
The combination of buildings and building construction industry accounted for consuming 33–38% of the overall used energy
worldwide, and 15% of “direct CO2 emission”. This high energy demand had raised the emitted CO2 ratio by 1.7% in 2018 alone, and
reached its next record value. At the same time, the housing industry has the responsibility of indirect emitting 40% of CO2, as well as
36% of universal energy consumption. Direct/indirect CO2 emission which originates from “building operations” had been decreased
suddenly to 9 GT in 2020 due to pandemic and lockdown actions, when it was rising in 2019 to its highest level in history, through
gradual increase of 1% annually since 2010. Regardless of the moderate bounce back of emission in 2021, construction in general and
buildings more specifically has remained off track to maintain the target carbon neutralization by 2050. For achieving the targeted
neutrality, every newly built home and 20% of those already exist should be “Zero-carbon-ready” by 2030. Fortunately, the stats have
showed that the “total energy efficiency investments” in the building industry have been significantly increased in 2021, all over the
world. About 50% of the investments have focused on constructing of new and modern energy efficient homes and residential apart-
ments. The driving force for these “energy efficiency investments” was the economic recovery in 2021. In spite of that, spends should
be increased three times up to 2030, compared to the average of last five years for attaining “Net Zero Emissions – NZE” by 2050,
which requires the annual reduction of 2.5% up to 2030, so that it ensures that the newly built structures met standards of highly effi-
cient buildings [39,335]. Another target of NZE-2050 for global economy is to meet “Paris Agreement's goal of keeping global temper-
ature increase to well below 2 °C”, since the building industry can have a crucial role in decarbonizing of world economy. The NZE-
2050 report “IEA 2021: a roadmap for the global energy sector” expected 97% reduction of CO2 emission in building sector by 2050,
to do so, the emitted carbon dioxide should fall 50% by 2030 or 6% annually from now [261].
The buildings energy demand is less severe in southeast Asian countries. In “Association of Southeast Asian Nations – ASEAN”
zone, the consumed energy and “energy-related CO2 emissions” from buildings has been accounted only 25% of the region's overall
consumed energy. The “roadmap for energy-efficient buildings and construction in ASEAN” has focused on “(i) the policy tools avail-
able for ASEAN member states to drive energy efficiency improvements in the building sector to help meet growing needs for residen-
tial and non-residential floor space and energy services, while (ii) limiting the growth in energy demand and related emissions, (iii)
identifying key energy efficient and low carbon actions, and activities that governments could consider for implementation by 2025,
2030 and beyond, moving towards net zero-carbon buildings” [261]. European Commission – Environment, proposed a framework
for sustainable buildings, and to apply circular economy in building environments, called “Level(s)”. Level(s) offers an extensive test-
ing system to measure and support improvements, from design stages to end-life. It is supposed to be applied for residential or offices

Fig. 13. Influence of various parameters on compressive strength of 3DCP (a) with and without shaping plate [330], (b) mixes containing various PET (Polyethylene
terephthalate) aggregates at different ages [332], (c) different VMA, test directions [210], (d) glass fiber content, no. of layers the 50 mm divided into [333], (e) curing
type, testing direction [334], (f) using UHPC premix materials [331].

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buildings. By using Level(s), individuals are responsible to contribute in EU policy goals to increase sustainability of Europe's struc-
tures, through using (i) 50% of all extracted materials, (ii) 50% of total energy consumption, (iii) 33% of water consumption, (iv) 33%
of waste generation [336]. In this direction, 3DCP is a typical solution which can highly reduce the material and water usage, with
minimum waste and energy consumption.
The seven most important parameters which are responsible to at least 80% of the environmental impacts by PEFCR guidance, are:
“(i) global warming, (ii) stratospheric ozone depletion, (iii) fine particulate matter formation, (iv) marine eutrophication, (v) mineral
resource scarcity, (vi) land use, and (vii) water use” [39,337]. The concrete construction contributes to 8% of the global CO2 emis-
sions which refers to the required high energy in the cement production process. 3DPC can significantly reduce: material usage and
waste, gas emissions, and energy demands during various construction steps. Researchers revealed that 3DPC enables to mitigate en-
vironmental impact by 50% compared with the cast concrete techniques. The effect of the printing process and operations on environ-
mental impact can be considered as negligible when compared to that of the materials production process. Research investigations in-
dicated that 3DPC might reduce the material usage by up to 40%, while others estimated that 3DCP can reduce the material waste by
up to 30%. Further, the noise pollution produced in the construction process will be eliminated. 3DP can also reduce the consumption
of fuel, impact of transportation, and associated emissions by reducing or getting rid of the necessary heavy equipment, as well as re-
ducing the number and size of labor teams in construction projects.
Another strategy in mitigating the environmental impact is transiting from common industrial materials, to the new and renew-
able materials. 3D printing of soil is an alternative that uses local clay sources mixed with straw as fibers, however, 3D printed soil
structures are not as strong and durable as 3DPC structures, although it does gain typical thermal insulation properties. Recycling of
the wasted materials, glass, and organic materials, can also serve to improve concrete sustainability [28,74]. Life cycle assessment-
LCA experiments revealed that accumulative energy consumption of 3DP could be decreased by 41–64%, with concomitant reducing
of CO2 emission and minimizing impacts on the environment [30,107]. In the past two decades, a considerable global effort has been
dedicated to the construction of energy efficient structures that has decreased the energy demand, whereas, the incarnated energy as-
sociated to producing of material did not completely investigated [338], and reducing of such energy is a true challenge to the sus-
tainable concrete construction [339]. To decrease the global CO2 emissions in the world, construction engineers can (i) reduce the
material usage through optimization of the structural and architectural design [340,341], (ii) increase the service life of existing
buildings by increasing durability of the whole structural members and components [342–344], or (iii) utilize alternative construc-
tion materials with the minimum carbon intensity, such as soil, bamboo, straw [345,346], or modification of concrete ingredients by
using expanded perlite for producing lightweight concrete, using foam or geopolymer concrete, which can significantly reduce the en-
vironmental impact [347]. For now, 3DP is the most promising technology to meet the mentioned requirements [74,348].
In literature, only few studies have investigated environmental impact of 3DPC or digital concrete construction. Favier et al. [349]
explored various scenarios and actions, such as: aspects studied through materials science research for decreasing emissions of CO2 in
the production of cement, reducing the clinker usage in cement production, using less cement in concrete, using the recycled aggre-
gates; and rethinking of structurally-efficient buildings to consume less material. Kafara et al. [350] conducted a comparative re-
search for 3DP and traditional fabrication of mold core making for production of CFRP. It has been concluded that 3DP products have
a better environmental performance than conventional fabrications. Kuzmenko et al. [351] concluded that the contribution of 3DCP
in climate-change depends on the printing resolution and the printing speed. Yao et al. [352] studied 3DP geopolymer and the cast
concrete in four different scenarios through LCA. It was found that 3DP geopolymer has a better performance in environmental point
of view, which causes the reduction of the material waste in printing concrete components with a higher complexity degree, however,
the performance of the cast concrete was higher when the straight shaped walls been built. Faludi et al. [353] made a comparison be-
tween two types of AM machines versus conventional milling machines considering the environmental impacts. It was revealed that
there is a reduction in the waste and energy usage for AM machines. Alhumayani et al. [39] implemented LCA (Fig. 14) to study envi-
ronmental effect for 4 various materials utilized in largescale load-carrying wall, namely: conventional concrete and cob (a soil-based
substance, water 1:4 soil, 2% straw), and 3DP concrete and cob. The experimental units were selected to represent an external wall in
a single-story building, the entire specimens have an area of 1 m2, but their thicknesses were varied 0.4–0.6 m. It has been deter-
mined that the conventional concrete had the largest environmental impact compared to other walls; 3DPC has an overall collected
enhancement in the seven mentioned impact categories with 24%, except of the global warming, which was mostly referred to high
cement usage, while, the unsatisfactory results of traditional concrete in remained impact scales was mainly due to reinforcement
bars that has a high contribution in CO2 emissions. 3DPC have had 50% fewer environmental impact than cast concrete, and 3DP soil
performed better compared to 3DPC, as the cob is less severe when considering global warming, fine particulate matter formation,
and stratospheric ozone depletion.

10. Cost benefits and time saving

3DPC offers a construction automation that can significantly reduce the cost of conventional construction strategies in three direc-
tions, (i) in time-cost direction, 3DP enables to speedup building process, since the construction period for a 3DCP structure is only
one-quarter of that needed to construct an equivalent building using conventional techniques [107,354]; (ii) in material-cost direc-
tion, the required exact quantity of feedstock or raw material for printing of structural elements can be accurately estimated at the be-
ginning of the construction process, and the extrudate can exactly be placed at its correct location, which results diminishing material
usage and mostly reducing the waste to zero [355]; (iii) in manpower-cost direction, digital fabrication provided in 3DP be able to sig-
nificantly reduce the labor needs that consists of almost 50% in the total cost of a project (Fig. 15). Concurrently, the automated con-
struction can decrease the unnecessary extra work due to human errors [356].

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Fig. 14. (a) overall comparison of the outcome for the 4 wall types: 3DP cob, 3DPC, cast concrete and shaped cob wall (AWARE: Available WAter REmaining method
for water use analysis) [39]; (b) relation between building complexity degree for 3DCP and reuse of formworks for cast concrete, showing that 3DCP is more environ-
mental friendly for complex shaped structures [2], (c) LCA outcome of comparing 3DPC with cast concrete considering emissions; (d) LCA outcome of comparing 3DPC
and cast concrete in terms of social impact [348].

Fig. 15. Machine vs. labor costs: (a) 3DCP (printers first price + expends from (operational + maintenance)) vs. conventional method (worker's salary) based on the
passed time [35]. Labor cost saving by adaptation of robots by 2025 for the top 26 countries [358].

Other advantages of the 3DPC is the reduced number of fatalities and injuries onsite, as the printer enables to do most dangerous
and hazardous works. The traditional construction activities require a high number of workers on construction sites that might poses
many safety issues with untrained or careless labors, for which the automatic printing greatly reduces the labor requirement and im-
proves human safety. On average, 40/1000 workers were injured in the construction projects in USA, and 52/1000 in Australia
[30,107]. On the other side, 3DPC is an AM process without formworks, however, according to rough statistics, the cost of shuttering
of the false work for a concrete structure with normal complexity levels, could comprise 35–60% in overall cost. The unknown cost
parameter could be the 3D printer or the supporting machinery that can be varied depending on printing technology, process preci-
sion, and material delivery systems. As the largescale printers are relatively new to the construction market or construction sector,
they could pose some difficulties to the owners due to the lack of professional staff for maintenance, availability of spare parts, or ad-
ditional unknown costs. Research estimated the expenditure of a 3D concrete printer as $75/h for both operational and maintenance
[22,28]. In traditional construction, the individual cost of production units decreases with the increase in the total quantity of the
items, while the cost per a single unit can always increase as the level of complexity is higher. Contrarily, expenditure of 3DPC items
almost remains constant for one production unit, and the complexity or total number of items have no significant effect. Therefore,
the current 3DCP production shows superiority in relatively complex structures and small/medium size production. However, in up-
coming years, due to the improvements in the adoption rate, the 3DP costs will be gradually reduced [30,357]. These optimistic ex-
pectations come from that the AM industry has grown from $6.1B in 2016 to $21B in 2020, where the total global construction indus-
try costs $3 trillion/yr [28,31].

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Research showed that 3DPC has the ability to minimize the overall expends and rise cost-effectiveness in many directions of con-
struction. For instance, an investigation had compared various methods to constructing load-bearing concrete walls and found that
the 3DP construction has decreased the total cost by 10–25% compared to the construction by masonry blocks, and 25–37% cheaper
compared to the cast concrete walls [28]. Han et al. [22] evaluated the cost effectiveness of 3DP construction made of recycled con-
crete employing LCA tools “materials and scenarios, life cycle inventory analysis, and life cycle impact”. The detailing of analysis has
been arranged according to 3DPC characteristics, so as to testify the sustainability level of recycled materials implemented in 3DP. It
was found that the total cost of 3DP is more compared to the cast concrete at material acquisition stage, because of the higher cost of
ingredients (especially supplementary cementitious materials and chemical agents) in case of 3DCP, since the materials cost ac-
counted as 83% of overall cost of a printed structure. But, the cheaper recycled aggregates than natural aggregates can considerably
decrease the overall cost, as well the rate of cost reduction is directly proportional to the increased ratio of recycles. However, in con-
struction stage, the total expenditure was too higher for concrete silos constructed by pouring concrete into formworks, compared
with those printed digitally. Labor and formwork costs are the main expensive sources for the conventional cast concrete construc-
tion, as the labor cost is attributable to 50% of the total costs. Although, the consumed energy for 3DCP construction is mostly de-
pending on electricity, whereas this energy cost is not comparable to labor and formwork costs in case of cast in place concrete.
Hence, economic advantages of 3DPC are highly remarkable in construction phase. Based on sensitivity analysis, it was concluded
that the use of less cement might significantly alleviate environmental impact of 3DPC.
Anjum et al. [23] studied the status of adoption of 3DP in construction industry in India, and found that 3DP can: reduce the mate-
rial waste 79.3%, save the construction costs 68.1%, reduce the construction time 81.4%, reduce the labor dependency 77.5%, and
improve the construction safety 75.6%. Further, the “University of Tartu, Estonia”, and “Estonian University of Life Sciences” made a
collaboration for constructing an extremely low cost 3DP homes, by using a concrete that mainly composed of peat. Since the peat is
so common there and it is available locally and no need to be shipped, it can decrease the cost homes by 10 times [359]. Yassin et al.
[35] constructed a model to make a simulation for progress of concrete and steel printer robots, and to create a useful data for deter-
mining the optimum configuration of number of printing heads. To evaluate the time implication of 3DP, the total required time for
building a structure conventionally, was counted. The necessary resources and production rates were considered to estimate the nec-
essary time to complete each activity. It was found that, using more steel printers can speed up the building rate of concrete printing,
but decreases cost effectiveness, thus the most beneficial time gaining was when increasing 1 steel printer to 2, however the total
print time has reduced 11.5–1.27 days as the printer's number has increased 1–10. However, the price of new industrial steel printing
robot was $150,000–220,000 in 2018, which affects the optimization decision. In 2022, that cost has reduced to $50,000–150,000
[360] and the prices are declining. Based on a published report by “Boston Consulting Group”, the price of printers is estimated to fall
under $103,000 by 2025, also the performance of robots is improving 5% annually [358].
In parallel to the academia research efforts, the construction companies have an exceptional role in developing the 3DCP industry
and increasing the reliability of this technology to the world. ICON, a low-income-housing construction company has invented a
“portable-gantry-style printer” and used its exclusive cementitious paste for 3D printing. ICON's first proof-of-concept building was a
32.5 m2 printed home in Austin, 2018. It has been completed in 47 h (print time) and costed $10,000. The project formed a base for
collaboration with a building NFPO to construct low cost houses for low income people in Tabasco, Mexico. Their aim was to build 50
single-family seismic-resistance houses by 2020. In 2019, 18 months later, ICON finished their first two 3DPC houses in that project
(Fig. 16). Despite challenges, such as localized flooding and heavy rainfall, each two-bedroom (46.5 m2) building had completed in
24 h (printing time over the span of multiple days). Fifty families were chosen to live in the homes, whose income was below $80/
month, and had lived earlier in unsafe shelters [361,362].
An excellent example of time and cost saving is the World's largest 3DPC homes with the inclusion of aggregates, in which “the
German University of Technology has collaborated with COBOD and CEMEX to construct the largest printed real concrete building”,
in Oman. The homes have the area of 195 m2 and were constructed only in 5 days. The architectural design of the homes consists of 3
bed rooms, a living room, a kitchen, a reception, and 3 baths. On the fall of 2021, COBOD collaborated with CEMEX “the building ma-
terial developer” that had discovered a new cost-optimized 3DCP mix design by adding “D.fab Solution” to local aggregates. Based on
their earlier experience in first printed home in Angola which had costed only $1000, and developing of printers, it was possible to
speed up the construction much more, and incredibly decrease the cost of a single home to only €1600. This has been done through
using 99.5% of the locally available materials, and the rest 0.5% was supplied by CEMEX. This project has been completed since De-
cember 2021 [363]. Another example is the 3D construction of the “Office of the Future in Dubai”, that used 50% less manpower com-

Fig. 16. (a & b) One of the ICON's 3DPC homes in Tabasco, Mexico, costs $10,000 [361]; (c) Astonishing 3DP Office of the Future in Dubai, costs $140,000 and took 17
days to construct [106].

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pared to local buildings and produced 60% less waste. The printing time was 17 days, took two days for in-situ installation, and three
months to finish the building. Dubai, is also aiming to have 25% of the buildings using 3DP by 2030. This enterprise, improves impact
of 3DP technology as a modern construction method, through decreasing the construction costs 50–70%, the worker related expends
by 50–80%, and reduces rate of the wastes in construction process by 60% [106]. Lastly, it is worth showing several interesting 3DP
building projects that already exist, and presenting a few 3DP companies, groups or associations who had worked hard in commer-
cializing 3DCP technology. A selection of the most astonishing 3DP houses, mansion, and more structures are shown in Figs. 17–19.

Fig. 17. Innovative 3D printed structures: (a) SQ4D's eldest 3DPC house for-sale, New York (Price: $299,999–50% cheaper than similar traditional buildings): SQ4D
officially announced their first 3DP house received an occupancy certification in 2021. Their 2-story home has the area of 130 m2 and comprises of 3 bedrooms, 2
bathrooms, and a covered garage. The amazing part is the patent-pending ARCS “Autonomous Robotic Construction System” technology which consumes much lower
power, and along with the printing works of the interior and exterior walls, it can print utility conduits, siding and sheathing effectively, using a team of 3 labors,
48 h of printing over the span of few weeks. (b) 3DP house by Apis Cor (Price: $10,000-Russia): this incredible home built in 2017 in 24hr., when the weather was
snowing, but estimated to last 175 years (c) ICON 3DP Community-Texas (the home prices: $450,000): ICON has formally listed their first 3DP home for sale in
Austin. It consists of 4 types of houses, takes 5–7 days to print- 2021. (d) ICON & New Story 3DP house in Austin, Texas (Price: $10,000): the collaboration of “New
Story” and ICON made headlines when they constructed the house in 2021. The first house costs $10,000 and built in 24 h, although they assert that this cost could be
reduced to $4000 through development and experience. (e) First family moved to their 3DP home in France (price: £176,000–20% less than traditional homes): fin-
ished July 2018, 4-bedroom, 95 m2 house, the family becomes first who lived in a 3DCP home. It was a collaboration of city council, University of Nantes, and hous-
ing association. This 3DP home took 54 h, the team believes a similar home can build in 33 h, and 3DP homes becomes 40% cheaper after a single decade. (f)
Coachella's 3DP Neighborhood-2022 in California (price: $595,000): “Mighty Buildings + Palari Group”, built first 3DP community “Rancho Mirage”. They built 15
homes, each has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, swimming pool and a terrace, area is 135 m2. (g) Sustainable building com. “Kamp C” 3DP 2-story 93 m2 home in Bel-
gium's with the “Europe's largest 3D printer COBOD BOD2” which can print multi-floors in a circular design. Took 21 days in March 2020, but “Kamp C″ claims the
future homes can be built in 2 days. (h) Germany's first 3DP home: “PERI Group” started construction of a 3-story 3DPC multi-family apartment. The 380 m2 building
consists of a living space, 5 apartments and a basement. Construction began in Nov. 2020 and finished in 2021. (i) 3D Housing 05: A collaboration of “Engineering
Firm ARUP + Architecture Studio CLS Architetti + CyBe Construction”; this stylish 3DP home presented at “Milan Design Week” followed by building in Nov. 2018.
This 3DP house, built in 7 days in Milan-square with the use of recycled concrete, it is a 100 m2 home, consists of “a living area, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and roof
terrace”. Each 1 m2 costs €1,000, which is mostly decreased to €200–300 in near future. (j) The Floating 3DP Home PRVOK-Czech: This 43 m2 house includes a living
room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. PRVOK's has focused mainly on the construction speed and efficiency, the team claims to be 7 times faster than construction of a
traditional brick house. The home made from a special concrete contained nano polymers. (k) “Gaia Italy” 3DP Concrete House (cost: $1000): “Italian 3D printing
company WASP” has constructed this 3DP hut with a mixture of concrete-soil. This 20 m2 home took 10 days to print. The impressive character of this project is its ul-
tra-low-cost, which was just $1000. (l) “Project Milestone, Eindhoven Building 5” Netherland: the aim was to build 5 habitable homes from collaboration of “Houben
and Van Mierlo Architecten + Van Wijnen + Eindhoven University of Tech.”. It carries typical solutions to labors shortage in Netherlands, this 3DP home for sale at-
tracted more than 20 seriously interested customers in a single week [104,359].

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Fig. 18. Apis Cor has opened the waitlist for 3DP homes in Florida and throughout mainland USA. Customers can choose from one of Apis Cor's spec designs or custom
design their own home. “Spirit” and “Liberty” are two of spec homes. SPIRIT: is a 2 story house, 214 m2, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, Garage space for two cars, and
Rooftop observation deck. LIBERTY: is a 1 story house, 167 m2, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and Garage space. Apis Cor's homes are available for reservations to be
printed in the 48 contiguous states, estimated start for the first in waitlist is in 2024 [364].

Fig. 19. AICT “builds world's first 3D printed park, with recycled aggregates” (2021): AICT's 3DP technology incorporates advanced digital systems and robots, per-
formance based cementitious mixture, and parametrical design to construct largescale structures. The company utilizes 6-axis robotic multiple-arm technology com-
bined to their special construction material to build low-cost and aesthetically pleasing structures. AICT's 3DPC is made up of almost 50% sand that can easily be ob-
tained locally, which can save the transportation costs and decrease the potential of carbon emissions. In addition to 3DP homes, and small span bridges, the newest
implementation of AICT's was building a public park having an overall area of 5523 m2. This sophisticated park has the green area ratio of 88%, its design is just like
an aesthetic showpiece of 3DP technology, catches the eyes to a futuristic vision. Using their digital fabrication technology, AICT creates flower beds, sculptures
benches, curbs and the retaining walls of the park. They have completed over 2000 concrete elements only in 2.5 months, at a cost similar to the traditional construc-
tion techniques. The Tongji University researchers tested the concrete and concluded that using recycled aggregates that sourced of the demolition or construction
waste have almost similar mechanical properties compared with the normal cast concrete, while it is much better regarding economic considerations and environ-
mental sustainability [365]. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

11. The remained 3DCP challenges

Although 3D printing of concrete has presented a promising and a novel technology that surprised humanity and construction spe-
cialists all over the world, it has several obvious advantages and potentials of largescale 3DP to upgrade or provide a fully new version
of structures, however, there still a handful remained challenges or difficulties that restrict its wide-spreading globally, a few draw-
backs that need technological development and further research [31,70]. In the last 10 years, 3DCP technology passes through and
enables to solve several challenges presented in the previous research, whereas the following challenges are still requiring additional
work and collaboration of research and constructions companies to overcome.

11.1. Development of technical-international-specifications

The ingredients of 3DCP are different in those commonly employed in traditional concrete, raw materials, mixing method, cast/
deposition process, mechanical properties, etc. Test methods and evaluation standards used for the cast concrete materials/structures
are not suitable for their 3DP correspondents. A standard specification for 3DPC requires new regulations and revising criteria to as-
sess the rheological performance, mechanical properties, long-term durability, theoretical/analytical modeling or numerical simula-
tions, serviceability or life cycle prediction investigations to evaluate different printed structures with various architectural functions.
When 3DP is adopted to real life building industry, modern assessment criterions or design standards could be of great interest to
guarantee 3DCP buildings have sufficient resistance to withstand different severity level structural loads, like, gravity loads, cyclic
loads, lateral loads such as wind, seismic, and deformation loads like creep, settlement, etc., as well be satisfactory regarding the
durability requirements like, corrosion, carbonization, freezing/thawing, chloride/gas/ion permeability, etc. [28,107]. Recently,
Chung et al. [366] proposed a technical specification framework for 3DCP through analyzing of 139 academic articles (1997–2020),
98 printer models, and a Delphi survey with 22 experts. The authors compiled 1604 technical items, classified into 9 categories and
90 items. As a result, a technical specification framework with 19 core and 67 supplementary items was proposed.

11.2. Optimization of the mix design for desirable fresh/hardened properties

Reliable, strong, durable, printer-compatible materials are critical parameters to successfully implement 3DPC in construction
technology [129,367]. The key challenge herein is, balancing the entire fresh properties of the concrete paste for a typical coordina-
tion and compatibility with the implemented printing technology. The mixtures must possess favorable characteristics to be compati-
ble with the 3D printer, like easiness in pumping, fluent flow, smooth extrusion, low-shrinkage, as well as dimensional stability. How-
ever, due to the different printer characteristics, and various kinds of ingredients and admixtures that could be considerably differ in
those utilized for ordinary cement-based mixes, optimization and compatibility of the mixes can hardly be achieved [28,69]. The typ-
ical solution in this case can be found through material suppliers, which can prepare perfect ready-mix powder sacks especially pro-

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duced for 3DCP. This process can be done in parallel with the leader superplasticizer producers, who can prepare an optimal accelera-
tor-retarder-viscosity modifier solution for setting time, buildability, shrinkage and interlayer bond controlling. A successful example
of this approach was combination of “COBOD and building material developer CEMEX”, through which, a normal concrete had ex-
changed to a highly cost effective 3DPC, by mixing “D.fab” and the local aggregates [363]. Another drawback for 3DPC is its
anisotropic structure, in which the side-by-side filaments and subsequent layers have different behavior, due to the time-gap of print-
ing, applied pressure, and changes in the rheological behavior due to cement setting. Anisotropic behavior results the variations in
mechanical behaviors of the 3DPC part in various directions under different loading conditions [368,369].

11.3. Construction-scale limitations and full-automation

The overall dimensions of 3D buildings are limited by the printer size and its system. the printer types can either be robotic arm
used by XtreeE, Apis Cor, etc., gantry system used by ICON, COBOD, etc., or Delta system used by WASP. The largest achieved print-
able dimensions can be: limitless in driving direction (x) but usually around 10 m, in y-direction its again around 10 m commonly but
can be as long as 50 m, ∅6 m for circular or rotating printers, whereas in z-direction, the best printer can print only to the height of
6–8 m. Now, 3D printers are commonly used in printing structural precast members up to two-story structures, still not suitable for
printing even medium rise multistory structures [315]. Making 3DP into real architectural domain and realizing the construction of
multi-story building depends on determining technical solutions to a chain of serious problems [107]. In practice, some famous 3DPC
construction projects appeared in past decade, including a concrete castle in the US, the canal house in the Netherlands, the 3DP of-
fice building in Dubai, etc. [22,83]. Scalability should be regarded as a true challenge, since 3DCP could face material and physical re-
strictions in a mega-scale construction process. Therefore, research shall be continuing in moving to largescale experiments and not
only focusing on the lab-scale lab-environment projects [70,370]. Full-digitalization or minimum human intervention is one of the
main challenges to date, and was the basic goal in developing 3DCP. But this has not been fully achieved to date, due to the direct hu-
man assistance to the robotic systems in many cases, such as bridging beams for filament crossing on openings, manual installation of
reinforcement, placement of drainage and electricity pipes, etc. [30,69]. Some of these complementary tasks potentially can be done
with the additional robot-arms, in the future [28,301].

11.4. Reinforcing 3DPC members and structures

Implementation of reinforcement is still one of the major obstacles in the way of 3DPC to become a real alternative for convention-
ally constructed load-bearing structures. An ordinary RC structure cannot be constructed only by deposition/extrusion of cementi-
tious material, 3DPC similar to cast concrete, is brittle and weak in tension, and the tensile stresses and crack propagation in 3DP
structures even cannot be achieved through fiber-reinforcement alone [3,371]. Despite of rapid evolution of 3DCP in materials-
science direction, still a few research has been dedicated to the development or invention of a perfectly fitted reinforcing method for
this technology. A successful reinforcing method should: ensure ductility of structural members, not restrict 3DCP from its geometric
flexibility, be cost effective; and has a low environmental impact [9,73]. To date, the existing reinforcing methods do not, or might
only partially fulfil the mentioned conditions. Although some reinforcement technics have showed auspicious mechanical perfor-
mance at the prototyping scale, it has rarely been investigated at large construction size [20,92,372–374].
Based on the literature review, the most investigated reinforcing strategies for 3DPC so far include: premixed polymeric or metal-
lic fibers (such as steel, glass, carbon, etc.) with printing materials or placing of the fibers in the interlayer [192,288,375–378]; plac-
ing steel bars before the printing process [19,316,379]; placement of conduits before concrete printing, later insertion and tensioning
of strands after production, just like posttensioned members [222,334,380]; and simultaneous cable application during printing
which can be bent easily following the printing path [12,41,184,381–383]. Another investigated strategy is 3D printing of steel/FRP
bars [371,384] or fibers as reinforcement [26,190,258], after that using them in 3DPC members, although it is seemingly possible,
but still too early to ask for simultaneous printing of concrete and reinforcement, due to the huge differences in printing heads sys-
tems, material printing process, and curing conditions [35]. Hass et al. [385] used helical reinforcing rods through a screwing motion
into fresh 3DPC, and Hojati et al. [386] used barbed-wire reinforcement, and both studies found a high mechanical interlock and
bond strength. Xu et al. [26,387] proposed an alternative approach by applying 3DP polymeric reinforcing meshes. In combination
with the high customizability of 3DCP, structured functionally graded polymeric lattice can remarkably reduce reinforcement amount
and improve mechanical properties [388–390]. So that, for an optimized structured polymeric lattice, reinforcing ratio has decreased
48%, the failure strength had increased 57%, and the overall rupture energy by 50%. Another proposed technique for reinforcing
3DPC is the interlayer lapping reinforcement method, in which a reinforcing mesh can be integrated during printing process, and the
continuity can be maintained through overlapping to that which embedded simultaneously with filament printing [391,392]. Re-
search showed that by using this method, the flexural strength can be increased by 170–290% [222].
All of the mentioned reinforcing techniques can be perfectly fitted to some applications but very hard to be applied for others
cases, due to their limitations. One optimistic alternative can be posttensioning, because, it is efficient, allows geometric freedom, and
since it is installed afterwards, it does not interfere with the production. However, posttensioning still needs complementary reinforc-
ing method so as to avoid section cracking and transferring of minor stresses. Hence, for now, the best solution could be maintained
through combination of various alternatives. In this direction, a printed concrete member requires: using aligned interlayer fibers to
maintain minimum reinforcement limits, premixed fibers or simultaneous cable might be added to carry shear and/or torsional
stresses, whereas flexural and tensile stresses should mainly be resisted through preinstalled bars for wall like structures, or postten-
sioning for curved or complex geometries [92,377,381].

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G.H. Ahmed Journal of Building Engineering 66 (2023) 105863

11.5. Cost and environmental considerations

In the last decade, the cost of 3DPC homes and structures has been rapidly decreased due to the development of the printable ma-
terials, reduced printer costs and implementation of mega-scale robotic printers, and increased number of specialized 3DCP compa-
nies. However, it is still too early to compute the ratio of the 3DPC homes to the conventionally cast concrete homes. One of the rea-
son behind this fact is the high cost of such homes in the majority of the world countries compared to the alternative homes made
with local materials and manpower, in addition to the trust and awareness toward 3DCP technology. These days, 3DCP is not the only
alternative for traditional concrete homes, there are some serious and strong alternatives which can compete 3DCP in several aspects
and are growing rapidly. The obvious examples of these alternatives are BOXABL foldable ready homes, and TESLA $10000 tiny
homes, and movable cabins (Fig. 20) [393–395]. On the other hand, while the low environmental impact is an excellent supporter for
3DCP, but other techniques have equal or even better characteristics in some cases, such as Tesla solar-roof homes [396].

12. Summary and conclusions

Conventional housebuilding techniques may have developed in the last two centuries, but one key element has remained un-
changed is humans' interference, or specifically the manpower, including labors, technicians and engineers. Even with the most mod-
ern machines and cranes, human is still necessary for operation. However, largescale 3D printer enables extrusion of concrete or ce-
mentitious materials based on a 3D designed model to construct an entire home autonomously, only in few hours. To discover 3DCP
viability, the seven tradeoffs parameters should be considered, including materials and mix design, structural performance, efficiency
of the process, environmental impact, logistical requirements, labor, and cost. Success of the 3DCP technology can't be claimed by op-
timization of individual factors, it should be done with the whole process parameters.
Materials: development in the material science and research related to 3DCP is going on the right path, and several remarkable
achievements has been obtained in the last decade. The startup works was focusing the mortar or 3D printing of cementitious mix-
tures, but by turn of previous decade, the real concrete printing with the inclusion of local and even recycled aggregates has been
started, for instance: Oman largest 3D real concrete printing, AICT park in China, and Holstebro House in Denmark, using D. fab by
COBOD-CEMEX in 2021, as a highly cost effective material in combination with local aggregates. To make the hard work much easier
for researchers in optimizing the powder proportioning in the mix design stage, the leader supplementary cementitious material sup-
pliers can prepare an optimized pre-mix sacks of 3D printing powders (such UHPC-Premix), to be available globally with recom-
mended dosage of water and superplasticizers. On the other hand, the superplasticizer suppliers such as Basf, Sika, Arkema, Muhu,
etc., can produce a special 3DP agent optimized for different behaviors needed at different printing stages, such as: increasing pumpa-
bility of the materials, accelerating the layer hardening to withstand pressure from upper layers, maintain a good bond between
printed layers, and minimize the autogenous shrinkage. Recently, Sika has claimed “they have mastered the required steps to 3DPC
on industrial scales using their industrial robot arms. This is aided by Sika's material developments, a range of mortar-mixed additives
that dry within seconds, so additional layers can be printed on top with no ill effects”.

Fig. 20. (a–c) Baxable Casita homes ($50,000) can be unpacked in less than 1 h (full-size kitchen/bathroom/living/ultra-low utility bills) [393] (d–f) TESLA $10,000
home for sustainable living [394], (g) Prefabricated Container 30 m2 solar house ($20,000), Economic modular home, made of vinyl, aluminum, and alloy steel
[395], (h, i) Energy efficient buildings, Tesla solar panels for existing roofs and solar roof [396].

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G.H. Ahmed Journal of Building Engineering 66 (2023) 105863

Structural performance: to date, the majority of the structures or structural members made with 3DCP are load-bearing compres-
sion members for which concrete is inherently strong in resisting compressive stresses, although in some cases tensile stresses have
also been applied, such as precast members or when temporary lintel or opening supports have been removed, after 3DPC hardening.
A real research gap can be found in testing the structural performance of 3DPC precast members under different stress conditions
(tensile, compressive, shear) from different types of loading such as live, impact, cyclic, creep, etc., or combination of the various
loads. The absence of an efficient reinforcing method could also have a great role in the lag of research to perform hundreds of studies
on the structural performance of full-scale beams, columns, precast slabs, etc. For now, preinstalled reinforcement is a good solution
for straight members and walls. In case of the bearing walls, when the minimum reinforcement can be sufficient, the premixed and/or
interlayer placement of steel or polymeric short fibers can satisfy the requirements. For curved structures or long precast 3DPC beams,
the most promising method is posttensioning by prestressing with additions of steel fibers to resist shrinkage and temperature strains.
Currently, development of 3DCP technology is mostly depending on the research applications from large 3DP construction companies
and their researchers to announce new achievements and their innovative projects.
Environmental impact: especially in the last two decades, the environmental impact of the human activities has been on the fore-
head of many global meetings and conferences, several agreements have been signed to reduce weather changes, energy emission,
sustainability, CO2 emission, global warming, etc. In this direction, 3DPC enables to reduce the environmental impact by 50% when
compared with cast concrete, and the environmental impact of 3D printing is negligible compared to that from materials production
process. 3DPC can reduce the material usage by 40%, and reduce the material waste by 30%. Further, the noise pollution produced
during the construction process can be eliminated. 3DP can also reduce the consumption of fuel, impact of transportation, and associ-
ated emissions by reducing of needed heavy construction equipment. While the only environmental weak point of 3DCP was high ce-
ment consumption which is production produces high rates of CO2, utilizing of the local aggregates and recycling of the wasted mate-
rials, glass, and organic materials, can reduce the cement content and serve to improve 3DCP sustainability. Furthermore, although
Holstebro-House in Denmark is a promising technique in solving the roof problems of 3DCP houses through printing of the roof as a
precast slab, a better solution in environmental sustainability view point could be solar roofs, such as those provided by Tesla.
Economic considerations: although 3DP printed homes and buildings are making headlines today, 3DCP as a market, is still in the
development phase. 3DPC offers a construction automation that can highly reduce the cost compared to the traditional construction:
in terms of time by decreasing the constructions time by 25% compared to that needed to build an equivalent house; in terms of mate-
rials cost through minimizing the material waste; in terms of manpower can reduce 50–70% of the overall cost of the project; can re-
duce labor cost by 50–80%, and labor injuries due to the reduction in the project staff that in most cases a team of 3–5 person is suffi-
cient to complete the structure; can eliminate the cost of human errors during construction, and most importantly can save 35–60% of
the overall project cost through elimination of false-work. In its first steps, the cost of 3DCP houses was higher than conventional
building methods, while for now the costs are incredibly decreased especially for tiny one-story houses. With further development of
3DCP, it is possible to build hundreds of homes or communities for low-income peoples and solving the residential crises in many
counties, noting the shortage of homes in USA alone was 3.8 M homes in 2020 and has raised to over 5.0 M in 2021.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability
Data will be made available on request.

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