What if you turned a tower crane into a 3D concrete printing robot? It all depends on the fact that we already have such a solution. The Ascend gigadevice is intended to raise the threshold of usefulness of 3D printing in construction: the scale and height of the created project.
Australian company Luyten presented Ascend: a tower crane transformed into a platform for large-scale 3D concrete printing. According to the manufacturer, the device is to work in multi-story buildings, infrastructure facilities, industrial projects and can also cope with high-rise buildings. That’s right: creating a high block will not be a problem for him. Maximum parameters are a truly powerful promise: up to 100 meters of structure height and up to 45 meters of working radius. Yes, at this level it is mainly a technological announcement by the manufacturer, but great things begin with this type of announcements. Polish developers are probably looking at Ascend with quiet admiration at this point.
A tower crane is no longer just a crane
Someone finally thought about it: instead of adding a separate layer of building automation next to construction, you can use a machine that already dominates many large construction sites. The tower crane is a true symbol of high-rise construction: it easily transports steel, prefabricated elements, formwork and heavy structural elements. Ascend is intended to go further and turn the same logic of movement into the controlled application of subsequent layers of… concrete. The construction site automatically (literally) becomes a factory, and one that works directly at the place where the object is being built. Why create such a building from scratch in a printer and then transport subsequent parts of the building across, for example, half the country? You can bring the “printer” to the site and do the work where the facility is ultimately to be built. Brilliant.
Luyten describes Ascend as the world’s first platform of its type for tower crane and structural printing. 3D printing from concrete is not a novelty in itself, as houses, small objects and demonstration projects have been appearing for years, carried out by, among others, portal systems or mobile printers. Scale remains a problem, especially in multi-story buildings, where height, range, operational stability and material logistics quickly complicate the process. Ascend is trying to fill this gap.
Concrete from a nozzle, design from a file and real-time control
It is not surprising that artificial intelligence is used to determine printing paths, optimize the construction process and monitor progress in real time. This is, in fact, a natural direction: today we have such advanced models that it would be a sin not to use them in this application. Such a design is to be translated into machine movement and mixture application parameters. If the system works as the manufacturer says, it can shorten some of the stages in which time is wasted on coordination, corrections and manual setting of elements.
Ascend will use its own Ultimatecrete mixture, developed for 3D printing of large structures where strength, fluidity, layer adhesion and predictable behavior after exiting the nozzle are important. The manufacturer states that its materials for concrete printing come in variants with compressive strength up to 82.5 MPaalthough “at the end of the day” everything depends on the mixture itself, the design and the conditions of execution. In structural printing, concrete must be fluid enough to be pumped and placed, and stable enough so that subsequent layers do not deform under their own weight. The building has to “last” and be fit for use, not just stand.
Automation above all
It is not that the use of Ascend will mean that everything that is currently being done on construction sites will go to waste. Construction companies are reluctant to adopt technologies that require a complete reconstruction of what building construction looks like “here and now”, and this is understandable. Tower cranes, on the other hand, are well-known equipment, present in large investments and understandable to contractors. This will not be a complete “revolt”, but an extension of a well-known and widely used idea. This is a specific advantage.
The manufacturer points to several further advantages: less dependence on manual work, reduced formwork, better use of material and the ability to quickly start up the equipment. The declared installation and commissioning time of one to two days sounds extremely good: remember that delays and the associated penalties may be even more expensive than the equipment itself. The calculation will be simple: it may be economically more reasonable to use an innovative device that prints a building in 3D rather than expose oneself to unnecessary, high costs. Of course, as long as the equipment can handle it and proves the validity of the idea behind it. Until Ascend “manages” several larger projects at the appropriate level, it will remain only an interesting platform, not a ready answer to the housing crisis that is also happening in Poland and not only in Australia.
3D printing is a promise that cannot be missed
We will not solve all construction problems this way. Constructing a building is one thing. Its finishing, installations and preparation for use/inhabitation are the second ones. Tall structures add to this load from wind and other natural phenomena. These also include fire protection requirements, expansion joints, vertical transport and very stringent safety procedures. Ascend is here to speed up a critical process, but not to replace everything.
Read also: The French will print car equipment on Polish 3D printers
Nevertheless, it’s still a good chance. The construction industry has been struggling with a shortage of workers, cost pressures and growing demand for housing and infrastructure for years. Using a good old crane. this is a great idea and it needs to be said clearly. Progress is needed because we need to have more buildings, we are developing and, undoubtedly, the construction industry cannot keep up with our needs. Developers will also welcome Ascend with open arms: they will be able to create more, faster and better. This is a good arrangement, as long as ordinary “citizens of the world” also benefit from it.
