Over the last decade, 3D printing technology in construction has become a popular buzzword–and with good reason. The 3D printing and construction industry has improved to the point that it has emerged as an important participant in a range of sectors, despite its origins as a tool for a product prototype.

While 3D printing has certainly shown advantageous in the medical, aeronautical, and tool-making industries since its debut, there is one other profession that may be set to break out: construction. The technology might help transform construction as we know it, with 3D printers already capable of producing building walls and processing cement. But, as a technology, does 3D printing in the building have any staying power as a long-term solution, or is it just a fad? We'll look at how 3D is already making ripples in the building industry and what the future holds.

Before we go into the history of 3D printing in the construction business, it's vital to go back to the beginnings of technology. Stereolithographic, or SLA, was invented in the mid-1980s, and here is where 3D printing got its start. SLA works by converting a liquid resin into a solid substance using a high-powered laser. SLA is an additive technique, which means it entails building a product layer by layer from the ground up. SLA is still one of the most common 3D printing methods today, while any process that generates components in an additive manner is called 3D printing. Selective laser sintering (SLS), fused deposition modelling (FDM), and direct metal deposition are among other prominent additive methods (DMD).

Initially, 3D printing was used to swiftly and precisely create prototype items. However, as additive techniques advanced, the range of possible applications grew. Before the use of building information modelling (BIM), architectural firms employed 3D printing to create scale models. It wasn't long before it was used for more ambitious building projects.

Though 3D printing concrete has a lot of potentials, it's important to remember that the entire technology for concrete is still in its infancy. In reality, most concrete-processing 3D printers are still being tested and refined today, and aren't yet ready for production. As technology advances, however, we will be able to additively create anything from foundations to walls to individual cinder blocks to bridges in a faster, more inexpensive, and ecologically responsible manner, as shown in the video above.

According to the 3D printing and construction industry, global construction waste now totals more than 1 billion tonnes per year, and this quantity is predicted to treble by 2025. While 3D printing will not be able to alleviate all of the difficulties associated with building debris, it can assist. This is since 3D printing is an additive manufacturing technique that only employs the amount of material required to create a structure. When combined with other waste-reduction procedures and construction approaches such as prefabrication and lean construction, the possibility of a waste-zero building becomes even more plausible.