American University of Sharjah

College of Arts and Sciences

English Department
ENG 207: Professional Communication for Engineers
Dr. Bruce Gatenby
Project Proposal
Contour Crafting
Date of Submission: Monday, October 11th, 2016
Mohamed Chazi
Ali Mokhtar
Ameen Awwad

58468
56840
55027

Industrial Engineering
Civil Engineering
Electrical Engineering

Figure 1:3D printed building in Dubai [1]

Table of Contents
Table of Contents

List of Figures 2
Background

Statement of the Problem/ Research Question

Methodology 5
Evaluation

Project Management 7
Team Qualifications 8
References

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List of Figures
Figures
Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Introduction
3D printing is the process of manufacturing three dimensional objects
from a digital design or model. Every 3D print starts as a digital design file,
like a blueprint, for the physical object. The printing process varies
by technology, for example, desktop printers melt a plastic material and lay
it onto a platform on machines that selectively melt metal powder at
extremely high temperatures. The printing can take hours to complete, and
the printed objects are often taken for further processing to reach the
desired finish.
The earliest use of 3D printing was in rapid prototyping in the 1980s1990s. Prototypes would allow manufacturers an opportunity to inspect a
design more closely and test it before producing a finished product. Rapid
prototyping (RP) allowed manufacturers to produce prototypes much faster,
often within days or sometimes hours of designing it. In RP, designers create
models using computer-aided design (CAD) software, and use machines to
follow the model to determine how to construct the object. The process
became known as contour crafting or 3D printing. This will be a major
advantage in the construction industry because buildings will be constructed
in 10% of the time it takes to build a building using conventional concrete.
Contour crafting also comes with some problems which we will be discussing
and solving in this group project.

Figure 2: On site 3D printer

Statement of the Problem / Research Questions

3D printers have many functions and uses and one of them is to print
buildings. This technology is also known as contour crafting where a 3D
printer would be brought on site and filled with the right building materials to
construct a house up to 4 or 5 stories high in a time period of about a week.
The main problems with contour crafting are:
1) What materials can be used instead of concrete to have the same
compressive strength?
Concrete is a material that is different in the way it is made unlike
plastic and metal powders where they can be broken down into smaller
pieces because their particles are homogeneous. Concrete cannot be broken
down to any random size and concrete also has specific proportions of
cement, sand, water and course aggregates that cannot just be blended
together blindly.
2) Are the printed layers able to withstand wind loads and earthquake
loads?
3D printers print in layers so therefore it should be structure differently
than conventional reinforced concrete to withstand different types of loads
3) How much will it cost to build and transport the printer on site?
Building the 3D printer is a costly process as well as moving it around
the site to different locations and positions

Methodology
To solve this problem, secondary research needs to be done. This
includes the use of already published information from books, journals,
scholarly websites, etc. To get access for such sources, the American
University of Sharjahs librarys new WorldCat discovery tool will be used
along with google scholar and other search engines like IEEE and ProQuest
Science. Likewise, engineering-related websites like asce.org are going to be
surfed. In addition to that, professors from the Electrical and Civil
departments will be consulted in order to seek advice. If capable, industries
that are involved in the process of contour crafting will be visited and
engineers present there will be interviewed to obtain a technical approach
towards the topic. Doing so will allow the group members to broaden their
knowledge about the issue at hand and target the required disadvantages in
a well concentrated manner.

Evaluation
A fascinating approach to contour crafting is using it to imitate natural
materials with unnatural mechanical properties. One of these bioinorganic
materials is nacre or mother of pearl. It is the iridescent material in the outer
layer of pearls and on the inside of many mollusk shells. It is formed from
hexagonal platelets of the common mineral aragonite, arranged in thin
layers separated by sheets of biological polymers. This makes the crystal
1,000 times stronger than ordinary aragonite crystals. A professor from
Purdue, Pablo Zavattieri has used
simulations to duplicate the basic
structure for 3D printing [2].

Although contour crafting

sometimes may be costly, the time gap
between regular manufacturing and using a 3D printer more than makes up
for the cost. "It's not the $10,000, it's the delay," said Gayle McEnroe,
regional account manager for Solid Concepts [1].
Also with 3D printing, inventory can be

Figure 3: Nacre

imported in small batches rather than large quantities all at once, therefore
lowering storage costs.

Project Management
Below is a brief plan of what schedule the group is following:

Group Schedule
Me e ti n g a n d P l a n n i n g Pre s e n ta ti o n

6-Jun

Re g u l a r M e e t i n g s Wi t h P r o f e s s o r

6-Jun

D e c i d i n g P r o j e c t To p i c

6-Jun
9-Jun

Re s e a r c h a n d D e v e l o p m e t o f I d e a s

P r o p o s a l Re p o r t

Task

35

12-Jun

Days to complete

Start Date

1-Jul

Po s te r De s i g n

5-Jul

Fi n a l Re p o r t

13

10-Jul

E xe c u t i v e S u m m a r y

12-Jul

P r e s e n t a t i o n Re h e a r s a l

15-Jul

M u l t i - D i s c i p l i n a r y Re p o r t

17-Jul

Pe e r E va l u a ti o n

Date and period

8
Figure 4: Group Schedule

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Team Qualifications
Industrial Engineering
In industrial engineering, 3D printing can prove to be vital, especially in
the manufacturing area of field. Industrial engineering is known for efficiency
and optimization, and with 3D printing, products will be manufactured more
efficiently as it cuts down on costs of massive machinery and labor. It also
reduces the time taken to manufacture the object as after designing it, the
computer simply implements the design into a three dimensional shape.
Also, 3D printing helps industrial engineers in another important field in their
work, simulation and testing. Using the printed models, engineers will be
able to simulate or test a prototype to see how it would fare before creating
the final product.

Civil Engineering
In civil engineering, 3D printers are the new beginning. They will
revolutionize the construction industry. Instead of waiting weeks to complete
a floor of a building, 3D printers will be able to speed up the process and
complete it within days instead. This is all due to the material used in the 3D
printer. They use polymer that are fast drying and workable at the same
time. They also have a unique structure that helps build a walk or slab

without falling or failing. The only problem is that they need reinforcements
in the polymers to make the structure strong in tension.

Electrical Engineering
The job of electrical engineering is to bring the printer to life. Without
electrical and computer sciences, the 3D printer is just a mechanical shell.
Using hardware and software, the artificial intelligence (AI) of the 3D printer
is

created.

Stepper

motors,

microprocessors,

and

various

electronic

components are the hardware adopted to build the autonomous 3D printer.

There is no much to say about the software since programs for the
microprocessors are already available. Three dimensional digital models,
created by computer-aided design (CAD) 3D scanners or cameras, are to be
recreated by the printer.

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References
[1] "3-D Printing Is Not Just Cool, It's Cost Effective Too", mddionline.com,
2014.
http://www.mddionline.com/article/3-d-printing-not-just-cool-its-costeffective-too-12-18-14
[2] Experts address promises and problems of 3D printing large structures,
news.vanderbilt.edu, 2015
https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/07/24/experts-address-promises-andproblems-of-3d-printing-large-structures/

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