A bridge further with 3D technology The Netherlands-based company MX3D is a pioneer in the field of robotics additive manufacturing technology. Victoria Hattersley looks at one its most ambitious projects to date – a 3D printed stainless steel bridge to be installed over one of Amsterdam’s oldest canals.
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t’s the first project of its kind – a 12 metrelong stainless steel pedestrian bridge printed entirely using 3D technology. Due to be completed in 2018, the bridge will sit across Amsterdam’s famous Oudezijds Achterburgwal Canal in the old city centre, and will represent a major step forward in the use of additive manufacturing technologies. Engineers from Imperial College London worked with MX3D to test the novel material properties of the 3D printed steel and perform finite element modeling of the entire structure. This helped to anticipate the impact of pedestrian or cycling traffic over the bridge and inform its design. However, 3D printing in steel is still a relatively new field and the bridge has not been without its set-backs. Originally planned to be supported by a lattice of struts, further 12 Industry Europe
research suggested that this would have placed too much stress on the canal walls so an updated design was necessary. Although it will retain some of its original bends and twists, it now resembles a more ‘conventional’ pedestrian bridge.
Pioneering technology But what makes this project stand out compared to other 3D steel structures is not so much its aesthetic appearance as its pioneering use of robotics. MX3D is a company that equips multi-axis robots with 3D tools and develops the software to control them. According to Tim Geurtjens, the company’s CTO: “What distinguishes our technology from traditional 3D printing methods is that we work according to the ‘Printing Outside the Box’ principle. By printing with six-axis industrial
robots, we are no longer limited to a square box in which everything happens. Printing a functional, life-size bridge is of course the ideal way to demonstrate the endless possibilities of this technique.” Adam Hicks, group leader for additive manufacturing technology development at the University of Dayton Research Institute, had this to say about the importance of the project: “The methods they are using are unique, in that the process is entirely automated. MX3D has robotic arms laying down rows of welds, which the robots use to create structural shapes. “Secondly, these robots can, in principle, crawl out onto the structure they’ve just created, extending the bridge out onto free space. With two systems, one working from either side of the gap, meeting in the middle,
