(Observer network Wu Yakun) China high-speed railway, mobile payment, flammable ice... After three decades of economic miracle, Chinese technology is starting to turn the world around, and 3D printing may be next.
On May 18th, Ma Yihe, Just back from the One Belt And One Road international cooperation summit forum, participated in the press conference of “Yingchuang 3D printing architecture global strategic pattern” held by Yingchuang Building technique (Shanghai) Co., Ltd in Suzhou factory, presenting the latest exploration of China's 3D printing architecture commercial application to global partners.
At present, 3D printing technology is still used in small objects. 3D printing architecture technology is generally in the experimental research and development stage, but Chinese enterprises have already walked in the front of the field.
After the meeting, Ma Yihe announced to the media that Yingchuang had signed a contract to build a super high-speed rail project with a speed of 1200 kilometers per hour. Previously, the little-known company has signed agreements with more than 20 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the united Arab emirates, Qatar, Morocco, Tunisia, the United States and Germany to promote 3D printing architecture, especially offering cheap and convenient for lower income people in Middle East, Africa.
Imagine how 3D technology can print architecture?
At the news conference, Yingchuang chairman Ma Yihe broadcast the scene of the first generation of 3D printing construction technology equipment and demonstrated the performance of the wall with the 3D printing technology.
In video, a large instrument moves quickly, and a steady stream of grey ooze is pouring out of the top of the long, elongated bar. A single piece of soft mud is arranged in a zigzag pattern, with no more than a few back-and-forth, and then a high wall has been built.
This is the real application of 3D printing technology, known as the "top ten technology in the world", in the field of architecture.
In fact, the Chinese enterprises are not in the minority which is famous with an advanced technology in the world but there are few known in China.
"One Belt And One Road" has become a huge stage for these companies to show their strength and is also an important driving force for these enterprises to take off.
Construction workers are going to lose their jobs if 3D printing technology can build a house in a day
3D printing is a kind of additive manufacturing technology that used to be used to produce small objects with diameters of less than one meter in the past few years. But in recent years, printable objects have grown larger and larger and have become more and more widely used, including aerospace and automotive.
Building 3D printing technology, is a kind of drawing program according to the preliminary design, using new materials as print "ink", intelligently printing out automatically by the machine equipment to building construction standard construction techniques.
Compared with traditional buildings, the technology requires no large number of construction teams and heavy and cumbersome template support and disassembly. The high efficiency of the construction of integrated integration can effectively improve the efficiency of production, and can reach a speed of building a house in a day.
In addition to precision and speed, the advantages of 3D printing architecture are green and low cost.
The raw materials for printing "ink" can be obtained from the construction anticipations, industrial refuse and mine tailings. Construction dust and noise can be avoided by dry construction.
For example, the scrap steel of Baosteel can be used as the raw material of "ink" for only 5 yuan per ton; Sandstones in the Middle East can also be used as raw materials for inks.
In addition, hollow building materials mean that the structure is lightweight and convenient, which can be printed locally or printed in a factory, assemble after transportation to your destination.
At present, 3D printing technology is still used in small objects. 3D printing architecture technology is generally in the experimental research and development stage, but Chinese enterprises have already walked in the front of the field.
In August 2014, 10 3D printed buildings, built by Yingchuang, were built in High-tech Qinpu park of Zhangjiang in Shanghai as as the office space for the local relocation project, which was officially delivered.
The print out of the building wall is made of special construction waste "ink", according to the drawings and scheme of computer design, by a large 3D printers print cross-fertilized.
The release of the 10 small houses sparked a wave of discussion at home. Industry experts and hobbyists have expressed their views on the construction technology, construction cost and safety of the house.
China technology spreads to Dubai
When this technology is still on the discussion at a technical level in China, foreign buyers have come here to seek cooperation.
In 2014, the prime minister of Dubai, Mohammed, sent people to Shanghai to examine the merits of the technology and asked for further cooperation with the company; An US company has previously found the company to set up a joint venture. In this way, the first project of Chinese 3D building technology in Dubai was finalized.
It is the first time that Yingchuang go abroad, which receives strong support by local government in Dubai. To this day, the chairman of Yingchuang, Ma Yihe, is very excited about the cooperation, “We didn't expect the Dubai government to be so supportive when we brought our technology for the first time. We were not confident, we didn't know whether our technology would be admitted or what the local people would think about it, how would they evaluate it. But the government's support reassured us. The government of Dubai encouraged us, believed in us, said we were great and helped us a lot. It was this trust that made Yingchuang's first project go well and gave us a lot of confidence.
Mr.Ma said that while doing this project, Yingchuang did not have very good designers. It was Dubai government that had found more than 30 top architectural design companies around the world and designed 17 houses for the project for free, including global famous design company and one of designers in Shanghai design center, Gensler.
Last Thursday, the company reached a strategic partnership with Aecom, the world's No. 1 architectural design firm, which means that Yingchuang's 3D printing architecture will have a better design.
Back to Dubai project. After working with the world's leading architectural design company, it took only 17 days to print the Dubai office building in Yingchuang Suzhou factory and export it to Dubai.
In Dubai, these removable green buildings have passed the local acceptance test with the strength of building walls more than five times stronger than traditional buildings.
The success of this project directly contributed to the creation of Dubai's 3D printing industry park by Dubai Hydropower group, which was also introduced into the park.
Since then, Yingchuang has built a series of other Dubai building facilities, including smart palm trees with a touch screen, a built-in camera, and a smart palm tree that lights up at night.
One Belt and One Road of China technology enterprise
In addition to the united Arab emirates, China's 3D printing technology is now accelerating overseas. Especially after the big ship "One Belt And One Road", China's advanced construction technology has become more dynamic in overseas market.
As of now, Yingchuang has signed project agreements with more than 20 countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Morocco, Tunisia, the United States and Germany to promote 3D printing architecture, especially offering lower-income people cheap and convenient house in Middle East, Africa.
In the process of "going out", China will not only export its buildings overseas, but also win more market in terms of technical authorization.
Taking Saudi Arabia as example, the king of Saudi Arabia witnessed the signing ceremony of the Yingchuang with the Saudi local construction group when he visited China. The two sides will launch projects worth more than 10 billion yuan in Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with Yingchuang light asset.
According to the Memo, Saudi Arabia will work with Yingchuang to build a 3D printing construction project of no less than 3,000 square meters and lease 100 units of the 3D printing construction equipment; At the same time, Yingchuang will jointly build 3D printing dream factory with Saudi joint venture company with 3D printing architecture technology brand and usage situation of technology resource.
The same goes for Germany. As the industrial giant of the world, Germany has its advantages in mechanical manufacturing automation, but labor costs are high. Based on this feature, Yingchuang chose to cooperate with German enterprises. While bringing the existing 3D printing technology to Germany, Yingchuang completed the upgrading of the technology with the power of local equipment companies.
Yingchuang is invited to build US super high speed rail
Nowadays, people are becoming more and more individualistic about architecture and pay more attention to the design. Some people describe 3D printing like these: Traditional architecture is like a large printing plant. If you want to print a lot of it, the unit cost will be very cheap. Personality customization is like writing a letter. You can write anything you want, but it's slow and hard. And 3D printing is more like a small home printer. It can be more nuanced than the product of a large printing plant, but it also avoids the time-consuming and costly work of writing letters.
The advantages of 3D printing construction technology are also obvious in terms of personalized, artistic, aesthetic and customized services.
Whether it is the most beautiful decoration "hall" in the phoenix international media center, the hardest exteriors installation Shanghai Hongqiao Letter centre, or Nike brand flagship store aiming at returning to true colors, as well as interior of China's national grand theatre, the garden sculpture of the KIP pavilion at the expo, they all fully utilized the advantages of 3D printing building technology in personalized customization.
Even the development of 3D printing technology has also promoted travel change.
In August last year, an American super high-speed rail company (HTT), which is studying future traffic, signed a contract with Yingchuang. They invited the company to participate in a series of facilities such as railway pipeline facilities and stations and platforms.
Super high speed rail is proposed by founder SpaceX 4 years ago. He envisaged placing "aluminum capsules" in a steel tube, then pumping the tube into a vacuum and launching it into a destination like a projectile, achieving a speed of 1200km/h.
Crowdsourcing technology refers to that Yingchuang don't get paid directly in the cooperation with HTT. They get shares by a certain way of using the working time of the workers in the super high speed rail project. It is not Yingchuang, Boeing, NASA, tesla, SpaceX all adopts this approach in the cooperation with HTT.
We expect domestic industry standard
The chairman of Yingchuang, Mr. Ma’s feelings of pride and joy were all over the table when talking about their projects abroad in an interview with the observer network. But when the author asked, "Why the foreign project is welcomed while the domestic project is still in the experimentation?” Ma Yihe immediately retorted, "we have a lot of work in China, which also receive high evaluation. We have a lot of participation in various urban facilities, infrastructure, including real estate projects. Our current technology is very mature. It is a part of national industry standards that limit our development. We don't want to just do interior decoration. We have enough strength to do the structure and we want to do the house that is built entirely in 3D printing."
Ma Yihe said that the country has not yet introduced the relevant standard of 3D printing architecture. So many of the buildings that are currently in use will be a little more complicated than the traditional building. Due to the lack of national standards, Yingchuang had made a lot of buildings that could completely meet the use requirements and safety requirements. But we had to fill them with steel bar for quicker use.
Ma said: “ It is easy for us to build a two-story building. Even a few years ago, the two floors of buildings where we weren't technically familiar without a strict foundation are now solid. Last year, we built six floors in a few days, and passed the inspection with great success. This year, we are planning to build a 103-meter tall building in Suzhou industrial park. We also have full confidence in this building. As long as the building is successful in acceptance, our technology will definitely be recognized by more people.
China government also know that Yingchuang has received a lot of good praise in the world with China 3D printing architecture.
In August last year, the ministry of housing and construction issued the outline for the development of construction industry informatization from 2016 to 2020, which encourages the study of 3D printing equipment and materials in construction industry and to explore the use of 3D printing technology in construction parts and components production combined with the application of BIM technology.
3D printing architecture has become important technology and industrial resource in the platform of China One Belt and One Road. Yingchuang, who specializes in 3D printing, has also become a benchmark for China's advanced green industries.
Ma said that top officials have directed the relevant departments to help Yingchuang to promote the national standard of 3D printing architecture technology with the policy of One Belt and One Road.
As Professor Ning Zhong said, the emergence of new technologies in our country is always put into practice first. After the practice test, the local government will refer to the production standards of leading enterprises and formulate local standards, encouraging and standardizing the development of new technologies.
Ning Zhong also said that such technical standards only appears in right time that can better play its due role.
Ma said that their latest creation of the 3D printing industry park in Shanghai has chosen to work with a well-known construction worker, Shanghai construction worker, which is a “production + R&D + office" base entirely built by 3D printing architecture. After the completion of Shanghai construction, the building quality and building level credibility will leap up a step. The influential and widely recognized work is the best driving force for the rapid introduction of 3D printing building technology standards.
“3D printing architecture technology standard referred to the production requirements of Yingchuang will be released in a year by Shanghai. Next, our goal is to get the country to refer to our production requirements and to make the standard work next year."
Questions raised by the Observer network, “The government controls the property market, which makes the steel and cement industries depressed. Will the company be afraid of the negative effect of the regulation on the enterprises?” Ma said: “ Good technology and good companies are not afraid of competition. In my opinion, it is better that the price of house reduces. The lower the price, the more the ability to make 3D printing of building technologies cheap, green, environmentally friendly and advanced conspicuous.
Perhaps, the best time is coming for those China enterprises which is famous overseas but has a little known in domestic market.