The COBOD concrete 3D-printing system passed a milestone recently with completion of a three-story residential building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

After a few uncertain years and a truncated event in 2021, the World of Concrete trade show brought together tens of thousands of contractors and construction equipment gearheads in Las Vegas on Jan. 18 to 21.

Efficiencies in design, construction and building use are being unlocked thanks to analysis and proactive changes informed by construction data. Even 3D printing for a NASA project on structures on Mars is on the table.

A construction tech company that printed the walls of a 350-sq-ft “tiny house” in 48 hours in Austin, Texas, in March is now partnered with a nonprofit that aims to start printing walls for 800-sq-ft homes in El Salvador—in 24 hours for each—by the end of the year.

A standard, industrial robotic arm has “printed” about a third of a 12-meter pedestrian bridge that is destined to span an old Amsterdam canal in the Netherlands as early as next year.

When Caterpillar began its current investment in 3D-printing components for heavy equipment earlier this decade, the company’s engineers and chemists tried to manage their expectations.

The nascent 3D-printing industry is working toward the goal of printing large-scale structures with specially designed feed material, but researchers working at a smaller scale are currently exploring techniques for printing a wide range of materials in complex shapes.

NASA’s challenge to adapt additive manufacturing for robots on Mars is only one sign 3D printing is becoming a reality in construction