Prof. Erik Schlangen

Talk title: 3D-printing for construction at different scales.

3D printing is the new method for construction of concrete elements and structures. The material to be used for printing is completely different than the conventional concrete for construction. Designing and optimising materials for this purpose with excellent properties during printing, but also in the final product is still a challenge. Different approaches leading to different final products will be presented as well as methods for improving ductility of the printed material and increasing bond strength between the layers. 3D printing can also be used on a smaller level by printing fibres or micro-reinforcement or creating material shapes and structures with special properties. Several ideas for this will be discussed. Final aspect that will be presented is the use of printing to create smart structures by adding sensing or self-healing capacity to a structure in certain location.

Short CV

Dr. Erik Schlangen is Professor in the chair of “Experimental Micromechanics” and head of the Material & Environment section at the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He is also the director of the Microlab for micromechanical and material research which is part of the same University. He is specialized in fracture mechanics of quasi-brittle materials like concrete, durability mechanics, finite element modelling, design of experimental techniques and self-healing of concrete and asphalt. He is the inventor of the Delft lattice model for simulation of fracture. He owns a patent on healable concrete. He initiated the self-healing bacterial concrete and is the inventor of the self-healing asphalt with steel-wool and induction heating that is applied in several applications. In the group 6 PhD students are currently working on developing 3D printing techniques at different scales and materials for 3D printing.

He is editor of several state of the art reports and conference proceedings and has (co)authored more than 400 technical papers in Journals and conference proceedings and has given many key-note and invited lectures at conferences. He has an h-index of 47. He is editor of Construction & Building Materials and he is Editor in Chief of the journal Advances in Concrete Construction.