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Dive brief:
- As 3D printing gains more traction in construction and academia, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created 3D-printed glass bricks that have crush resistance comparable to that of concrete blocks, announced the university in a Announcement of September 20.
- For this study, the engineering team used the Glass 3 3D printer, the latest offering from Rochester, New York. 3D printed glass company uniform linecombined with a furnace that melts the crushed glass bottles into a molten, printable material.
- The printer then deposits the molten glass in layered patterns in a figure-eight shape, according to the release. The team added two round pegs to each printed brick, which allow the materials to interlock, similar to LEGO pieces, and assemble into larger structures.
Diving knowledge:
Kaitlyn Becker, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, and Michael Stern, a former student and founder of Evenline, an MIT spin-off, led the team.
Becker and Stern’s inspiration for the design came in part at MIT’s Glass Lab, where the two, then undergraduates, first learned the art and science of glassblowing, according to the release.
They were also inspired by circular building principles, which aim to reuse and re-use a building’s materials wherever possible to limit the carbon incorporated in the industry.
Construction is one of the world’s worst polluters: the building and construction segment it represents 37% of global emissionsaccording to the United Nations Environment Program.
“Glass is a highly recyclable material,” Becker said in the statement. “We’re taking glass and turning it into masonry that, at the end of a structure’s useful life, can be taken apart and reassembled into a new structure, or it can be glued back into the printer and become a completely different form.”
MIT students and researchers have explored innovative construction methods and solutions in the past. Some examples include:
- Earlier this year, researchers presented an artificial intelligence-based model that can teach robots multi-step tasks with higher success rates than comparable training methods.
- In 2022, a hardworking team 3D scanning to reuse wood scraps and recover the single-use parts as new building components.
- In 2018, an MIT class designed a massive wooden structure — an 82,000-square-foot prototype community building — called the Longhouse, which he submitted for presentation at that year’s Maine Solid Wood Conference.
Stern said the latest foray into glass bricks could eventually be used in building design.
“Glass as a structural material breaks people’s brains a little bit,” Stern said in the statement. “We’re showing that this is an opportunity to push the boundaries of what’s been done in architecture.”
