3D printed building

The façade of the ‘Europa-Haus’ in the Amsterdam Marine Quarter, built for the duration of the Dutch Presidency of the EU, has been constructed by 3D printing. Based in Amsterdam, Actual, a part of DUS Architects, developed the idea of building entire houses in this way using a mobile 3D photo wall printer in extra-extra-large (XXL) format, which is housed in a shipping container.
The load-bearing structures are manufactured from biodegradable plastic, which can be recycled at the end of its life. This makes the structure both eco-friendly and sustainable. The interior decorations, such as the seating elements, were also 3D printed.
The architects were keen to point out that while pre-fabricated architecture is cost-effective, it can restrict design freedom in terms of creativity. The structural elements of the façade were 3D-printed, and then concreted into position on-site. This process of construction can also work to build new homes in disaster areas, for example.
The first generation 3D printer had a separate room for the control, this limited the part size to a maximum 2.5 x 2.5 x 3.5m. There was also need for improvement, both in precision and in the printing speed. Project partner, igus optimised the design of the mobile 3D printer and developed a linear robot for the print head.
During the planning stages, the engineers used the modular drylin system multi-axis linear robots. They are available as line, flat and room gantries for one, two and three axes, and depart from pre-defined surfaces and spaces. To enable the print head to move precisely, self-lubricated drylin toothed belt units were used. The leadscrew units were used to position the gantry vertically, which integrate drives that provide position detection.
The engineers also supported Actual with integration of the printer, which can now print structural elements of up to 6.5m. In addition to the linear robots, other parts from igus were included in the construction of the 3D printer, including plain bearings, cable management systems and linear systems.
Among the projects being undertaken by Actual at present is the ‘3D print Canal House’, which is currently being built on a town canal in Amsterdam.

What it does: Manufactures food-processing equipment

Before bacon nabbed a starring role in everything, the lowly pork belly inspired some cutting-edge technology at the Chicago headquarters of Provisur Technologies. The company’s meat processing machine cuts about 80 percent of the bacon sold in grocery stores. Utilizing scanners, lasers and cameras to turn slabs into slices, the equipment is so sophisticated it can automatically vary the thickness of its cuts on the fly in order to fill packages with a precise weight and number of strips.
“People think of food processing as nuts and bolts, something that’s not very sexy,” CEO Mel Cohen says. “When I describe the precision engineering involved, I get the ‘wow’ or ‘I saw something like that on the Discovery Channel.’ ”
Provisur is sixth on Crain’s innovation list for the quality of its patents issued last year, according to an exclusive analysis by OceanTomo, a Chicago boutique advisory firm and merchant bank for intellectual property. Provisur’s most highly rated innovation was for technology that automatically loads sliced meat into packages for sale.
“In the past, it often was hand-loaded into packages after it was sliced,” Cohen says. “This doesn’t eliminate the need for operators, but it reduces the need for hand packaging. You can do variety packs of meats. It makes the packaging more attractive, which makes it more appealing to the consumer.”
Inventions such as continuous-feed equipment can improve output 15 percent, and autoloaders can reduce the amount of labor.
“Patents have become a competitive advantage,” Cohen says. Provisur was awarded seven in 2015.
“We’re innovators,” he adds. “There are a lot of copycats. People are always waiting for patents to expire or trying to design around patents.”
Provisur, which is owned by the Crown family’s CC Industries, traces its roots to Formax, a Mokena-based company that got its start in the 1970s by providing machines to McDonald’s suppliers when the restaurant chain outsourced the making of hamburger patties. After several acquisitions, Provisur now makes machines that form hamburgers and chicken nuggets and filets, as well as grinding, mixing, cooking and slicing equipment.
Food machine has become increasingly high tech in recent years. Provisur’s machines are controlled by computers and touchscreens. Nearly 100 of Provisur’s 550 employees are engineers. “We have as many electrical and software engineers as mechanical engineers,” Cohen says. “Twenty or 25 years ago, it was more mechanical engineers.”

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