A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF 3D PRINTED HONEYCOMB AND VORONOI MACROSTRUCTURES AGAINST FOAM CONCRETE AND SOLID CUBE

Abstract

The built environment sector has been blamed for the rise in carbon emissions, as well as the acceleration of the climate change. With approximately 39% carbon emission contributed by the sector, the production of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) accounts for 8% of carbon emission worldwide. Hence, there is a strong emphasis to reduce emissions in this sector. In recent years, lightweight concrete (LWC) has proven to improves sustainability issues faced in the sector. Despite having multiple advantages including high thermal insulation, high fire resistance, and relatively lighter than conventional concretes, LWC, being lightweight has compromised its mechanical strength. Various LWC (possessing a reasonable strength while achieving the lightweight properties) have been developed and experimented in the existing literature reviews. A new conceptual design of LWC inspired by nature is proposed. The bioinspired LWC macrostructure was fabricated though the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) technique in Addictive Manufacturing (AM) with 5% Polylactic Acid (PLA) infill. To better understand the mechanical properties and the effect of porosity in such macrostructure, a compression test together with Digital Image Correlation (DIC) was conducted. The data obtained from such macrostructures were compared against Solid cube and another LWC, namely foam concrete. Findings from this paper suggest that this bioinspired macrostructure with 42% and 55% porosity compressed in vertical orientation may have the potential to replace both the conventional lightweight and normal weight concretes due to its lower density and comparable higher mechanical strength. Further studies can explore the use of 100% PLA infill to further enhance the mechanical properties of such macrostructures.