3D printed grid shell in ice composite

This paper presents the design of a grid shell that is made of fibre reinforced ice and constructed by combining additive manufacturing with an inflatable mould. While previous fibre reinforced ice structures were constructed by spraying, additive manufacturing with ice has not yet been tested before. Additive manufacturing is a stepwise production technique where material is being added layer by layer, resulting in a high degree of formability. Combining this printing technique with sustainable materials such as ice makes it possible to develop more sustainable structures and building applications in cold environments such as Mars or the poles. To test this application, a grid shell of fibre reinforced ice was designed and eventually constructed. The grid shell was designed by considering the design constraints of the inflatable mould that needed to support the wet ice layers during construction. The structural capacity of the grid shell was enhanced by performing an optimization procedure on the gridlines. In the end, a theoretical failure load calculation shows that the middle part of the structure could carry more than 6000 kg of additional load. To test this finding, the constructed grid shell was loaded on site with approximately 3000 kg, without showing any signs of failure. By designing and testing this innovative object, this project illustrates that additive manufacturing can successfully be applied for other structural applications such as sculptures, moulding and Mars missions.