1 Apr 2024

Infrastructure Innovation: New Poe Lock arrestor arm is the largest U.S. civil works component produced by 3D printer

As America’s civil works infrastructure ages, managers need innovative solutions to replace parts that have been in service for nearly a century. Often, these original components were fabricated using vintage material and manufacturing methods, making them costly, burdensome and time-consuming to replace. Responding to this need, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is employing cutting-edge 3D-printing techniques to manufacture these parts faster and at a lower cost while maintaining, and even improving, their properties.

1 Apr 2024

Infrastructure Innovation: New Poe Lock arrestor arm is the largest U.S. civil works component produced by 3D printer

As America’s civil works infrastructure ages, managers need innovative solutions to replace parts that have been in service for nearly a century. Often, these original components were fabricated using vintage material and manufacturing methods, making them costly, burdensome and time-consuming to replace. Responding to this need, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is employing cutting-edge 3D printing techniques to manufacture these parts faster and at a lower cost while maintaining, and even improving, their properties. In early March, the USACE Detroit District installed the largest U.S. civil works infrastructure component produced by a 3D printer – a 12-foot-long metal part for the ship arrestor system on the Poe Lock, one of the two active locks on the Soo Locks facility. Building on years of research performed by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), the part was manufactured in 12 weeks, compared to a projected 18-month lead time for conventional manufacturing. The part was installed, tested and commissioned during the Soo Locks’ winter maintenance cycle. The rapid repair ensured normal operations at Poe Lock, a major transit point for domestic iron ore.

6 Aug 2021

Print Time vs. Elapsed Time: A Temporal Analysis of a Continuous Printing Operation for Additive Constructed Concrete

Abstract: In additive construction, ambitious goals to fabricate a concrete building in less than 24 hours are attempted. In the field, this goal relies on a metric of print time to make this conclusion, which excludes rest time and delays. The task to complete a building in 24 hours was put to the test with the first attempt at a fully continuous print of a structurally reinforced additively constructed concrete (ACC) building. A time series analysis was performed during the construction of a 512 ft2 (16’x32’x9.25’) building to explore the effect of delays on the completion time. This analysis included a study of the variation in comprehensive layer print times, expected trends and forecasting for what is expected in future prints of similar types. Furthermore, the study included a determination and comparison of print time, elapsed time, and construction time, as well as a look at the effect of environmental conditions on the delay events. Upon finishing, the analysis concluded that the 3D-printed building was completed in 14-hours of print time, 31.2- hours elapsed time, a total of 5 days of construction time. This emphasizes that reports on newly 3D-printed constructions need to provide a definition of time that includes all possible duration periods to communicate realistic capabilities of this new technology.

21 Apr 2020

Corps electric engineer ‘makes’ much needed shields

It’s no secret our country is experiencing a shortage of face masks. Ever since this virus was declared a pandemic, even those working in hospitals can’t seem to get their hands on the very medical supplies they need to do their day-to-day job. Some hear of the shortage and scramble to get their hands on whatever masks they can find, but not Navigational Electrical Engineer Jeffrey Farmer and the nonprofit group he’s apart of called the “Midsouth Makers.”