FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — New Mexico based engineering firm, Applied Research Associates (ARA), granted University of Arkansas College of Engineering faculty $3.5 million to study beneficial ways to use 3D printing horizontal mission structures for the U.S. military.
Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Michelle Barry will be leading the team as the principal investigator. Wenchao Zhou, associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Cameron Murray, assistant professor of civil engineering, will act as co-principal investigators.
Barry's responsibilities in the project will include exploring new material structures and geometric configurations, which will mimic naturally occurring designs, to increase performance and efficiency as well as reduce material use and increase strength. Barry will also catalog and characterize indigenous soils to be incorporated into concrete in order to remove the need to ship cement and aggregates across ample distances. Murray, who specializes in concrete, will assist with analyzing the composition of concrete.
Zhou, who is the director of the Advanced Manufacturing Modeling and Materials Lab at the university and co-founder of AMBOTS, a local startup company developing "swarm manufacturing technology," will be overseeing the conversion of computer-aided design models created by the team into machine instructions. AMBOTS will develop the software for the construction of 3D printing robots which will be able to adapt to different concrete mixes.
The use of indigenous soils is of interest to Barry due to its lower environmental impact.
"We can build structures or roads in disaster relief areas,” she said, “where you’re just bringing in a piece of equipment because you might not be able to bring in other construction materials. If the local soils will work, you print with them for the time being, people are sheltered and then once it’s not needed, it dissolves back to the original landscape.”
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