Ceramic Morphologies. Precision and control in paste-based additive manufacturing

Abstract

Additive manufacturing techniques (AMT), commonly referred to as 3D printing, are emerging as a new area of study for the production of ceramic elements at the architectural scale. AMT may allow architectural designers to break from the established means of designing with ceramic elements – a process where designs are typically confined to a limited selection of building components produced by machine, die or fixture. In this paper, we report a method for the design and additive manufacture of customizable ceramic masonry elements via paste-based extrusion. A novel digital workflow allowed for precise control of part design, and generated manufacturing parameters such as toolpath geometry and machine code. 3D scans of a selection of elements provide an initial analysis of print fidelity. We discuss the current constraints of this process and identify several on-going research trajectories generated because of this research.