Techniques for additive construction of structures and production of additive construction materials are described, including a 3D printing assembly including a container configured to store a material, a mixer configured to mix the material to provide an extrudable mix including cementitious material, and a dispenser configured to receive the flowable mix from the mixer and to provide the flowable mix under one or more controlled parameters to form a structure, and a controller configured to receive a value associated with a material property parameter of the material, to generate a mixture by inputting the value into a machine learning algorithm, the mixture being generated using, by the controller, another value associated with a control parameter configured to control operation of the 3D printing assembly, and using the 3D printing assembly to print a structure using the mixture.

A building material apparatus includes at least one building material transport part which follows a building material drum, wherein the building material transport part is designed to transport building material which is to be at least partially cured, and at least one part sensor. The part sensor is arranged on and/or in the building material transport part and is designed to detect at least one intensive variable, or at least one variable which corresponds at least to the intensive variable, of the building material in the building material transport part.

A pump for use with a material sprayer includes a cylinder, a piston, a pump head, first and second check valves, and an elbow connected to the cylinder. The cylinder and the piston are coaxial with a pump axis. The pump head is configured to make a mechanical connection with the reciprocating drive mechanism so as to allow the reciprocating drive mechanism to reciprocate the piston along the pump axis. The elbow includes a first end, a second end, and an inner fluid channel. The first end is configured to make a fluid connection with the hopper. The second end is configured to be fixed with respect to the cylinder. The inner fluid channel extends from the first end to the second end. The pump head and the first end of the elbow are configured to make mechanical and fluid connections with a single linear motion of the pump.

Methods, systems, and devices, are developed for creating a means of in-situ placement of a concrete mix that can have the thixotropy to hold vertical dimension without containment, while maintaining pliability to be pumped into place and manipulated to a desired shape, and can be combined with concrete set accelerators, allowing subsequent layers of this concrete mix to be continuously stacked in place to build tall walls and such without the use of forms. Concrete without these special properties is pumped toward the point of placement where it is modified by injecting and mixing, into that line of pumped concrete, an admixture containing thixotropes, thickeners and/or set accelerators or other modifiers to provide these properties and other improvements. This method allows conventional plant batching with commonly available constituent materials for batching an economical concrete that is delivered to a jobsite and then is pumped most of the way to a point of placement, before inline modification; allowing minimal conveyance and pumping of a zero-slump and set-accelerated concrete mix, avoiding difficulties and risk associated with pumping such a modified concrete mix. Various means of metering the injection of the admixture flow rate to correspond proportionally to the concrete flow rate are also disclosed. Alternatively a means for modifying a volumetric concrete batching and mixing system to achieve the same result is disclosed. A system is disclosed for defining a vertical or sloped concrete surface utilizing a movable beam attached to guide elements with sliding brackets, with the beam contact surface optionally having an active non-stick system.

A slurry dispense system utilizes a buffer chamber to release the pressure from the supply pump, and buffer the irregular flow rate of the supply pump. It also utilizes a positive displacement pump to control the dispense flow. With the help of the buffer chamber, the positive displacement pump is able to provide a constant flow rate, and can be accurately controlled. A high resolution and a high speed can be achieved at the same time.

The present invention is a three-dimensional printing system which is capable of printing with multiple different printing materials, including homogenous materials, such as cement paste, or heterogeneous materials, such as concrete. Functionality is accomplished by novel, critical structures including but not limited to a movable gate capable of controlling the flow of printing materials without clogging or becoming otherwise damaged. The system has a print head that discharges printing material through a discharge aperture. The movable gate is rotatably connected to the print head, allowing it to cover the discharge aperture and cut off the flow of printing material when actuated and rotated into position. Certain embodiments also include hose positioning systems to prevent hoses delivering printing material from disconnecting or damaging the printed structure.

A system and method for placing and circulating concrete is disclosed. The system includes a hopper body, a feed auger, one or more circulating elements, a pump, a valve with two or more outlets, a return conduit, and two or more hoses. The hopper body of the system may additionally include a heat exchanger. Concrete slurry is placed into the hopper body, continuously circulated within the hopper body, and drawn from the hopper body by the pump and conveyed through the hoses, or through the return conduit, or both. Concrete slurry within the hoses may be returned to the hopper body.

The present invention discloses a centrifugal intelligent construction device for excavating concrete structure: a push-type excavation equipment, excavating rocks and soil, and collecting crushed stones, sand, soil, and water; a centrifugal screening equipment, performing centrifugal screening and classification collection on the collected crushed stones, sand, soil, and water; the intelligent batching equipment, which matches the classified crushed stones, sand, soil, and water according to their quality and fineness, adding cementitious materials, auxiliary materials, additives, and activators, and mixing them to obtain a mixed wet material; a centrifugal printing equipment, pumping and extruding the mixed wet materials, and using a centrifugal rotating outer cylinder to print and compact them into dense shape; an intelligent reinforcement equipment, integrating reinforcements between the layers of printed concrete strips by using the wall mounted laying, positioning and inserting reinforcements inside the printed concrete strips during the centrifugal printing process to form an integrated reinforced concrete structure. The device can achieve the additive and intelligent construction of closed concrete structures in underground, underwater, and extreme construction environments, solving the technical dilemma of insufficient engineering application scope of open additive manufacturing technology.

A method and a device for controlling the delivery rate of a concrete pump for filling a formwork arrangement with a pumpable filling compound as a function of curing-relevant material and environmental parameters, after which the installed filling compound sets within the formwork arrangement, comprising the following steps: determining a permissible climbing speed for filling the formwork arrangement with the filling compound on the basis of the material and ambient parameters, measuring the static filling compound pressure acting on the formwork arrangement during filling, and calculating the permissible delivery rate of the concrete pump as a function of the determined permissible rate of ascent and the measured static filling compound pressure at the formwork arrangement.

A pump for use with a material sprayer includes a cylinder, a piston, a pump head, first and second check valves, and an elbow connected to the cylinder. The cylinder and the piston are coaxial with a pump axis. The pump head is configured to make a mechanical connection with the reciprocating drive mechanism so as to allow the reciprocating drive mechanism to reciprocate the piston along the pump axis. The elbow includes a first end, a second end, and an inner fluid channel. The first end is configured to make a fluid connection with the hopper. The second end is configured to be fixed with respect to the cylinder. The inner fluid channel extends from the first end to the second end. The pump head and the first end of the elbow are configured to make mechanical and fluid connections with a single linear motion of the pump.