Ng Andrew - Assignment B1: BIM and 3D Printing (Group B)

BIM and 3D Printing: Technologies of the Future

For industries to advance to more efficient means of production, “state of the art” technology must be implemented. Technology has been the drive to bring industries to the “next step” as it provides methods to increase productivity, whether it be decreasing costs or improving qualities of designs. Two technologies that has been introduced this century are Building Information Modeling (BIM) and 3D Printing. The uses of these two specific technologies in architectural and structural design evoke “futuristic” concepts since there would be more instances where robotics is used in human life, in this case human work for building design. Both are going to be major aspects, once developed further, in the building process.

The revolutionary, building design construction technology, BIM, creates 3D models before construction to increase design productivity. Producing a prototype before a final design allows for people to better-understand system properties or behaviors before construction. Additional benefits include cost-savings and much more intriguing designs. The prototype will also render any issues that may have gone unnoticed when drafting. Catching these mistakes, which includes failing scenarios, before construction contributes to ensuring that the designer and client have, in most cases, a successful project. ^[1} Predicting building performances and visualization has been made more conveniently with BIM; the quality of the construction is typically much better. EMCOR Group Inc. and Dynalectric Co, early adopters of BIM in 2008, embraced using BIM and said that “if a picture is worth a thousand words, a BIM model is worth a million.” ^[1} The two companies found that by using BIM, their projects had “reduced rework, higher safety and better ability to control costs.” Communicating design intents through a BIM model enables architects, engineers, contractors, clients, etc., to see where the designs could be modified and made better.

The building above, the Central Library in Manchester, England, is just one example that proved to have ultimately save time and costs by using BIM.

                BIM is becoming very popular in this day of age. The adoption of BIM in North America increased from 17% in 2007 to 71% in 2012. ^[2] As BIM increases quality, cut costs, and eases the construction process, the economy is pushing for it. Large companies such as Bentley, Graphisoft and Autodesk are working with numerous construction companies to develop their programs, like Revit and Microstation, as the market is demanding for it. Governments are even starting to incorporate polices with BIM. BIM has been engrained into the U.K.’s governmental construction strategy to reduce carbon and costs for economic development. Keith Howells, a leader of an engineering firm working with government, declared that “if you’re not using BIM in five years, you’ll probably be out of business.” ^[2] Many are expecting the technology to evolve much further and be used at a greater extent soon.

                3D printing is another technology of importance that is becoming a great factor in numerous industries. By allowing objects to be built through layering of materials, objects with complex 3D geometric shapes can be printed without custom-designed machinery that could be more expensive. 3D printing, in technical terms, converts a digital file containing 3D information to reality. ^[3] The creation of parts or structures through 3D printing attracts many industries as it can be used to print designs for tools, toys, sculptures, etc. Almost any physical object can be printed. The idea of printing structural parts makes many opportunities in numerous applications.

Builders and manufacturers use BIM to come up with parts used in buildings such as the products shown above.

3D printing will benefit the future as it will help alleviate a lot of issues. One example is for the Apollo 13 incident. To save the astronauts from dying of carbon monoxide asphyxiation, NASA needed a square peg object to fit into their expedited device placed together. ^[3] If they had a 3D printer, the problem could have been solved much faster as the part they needed could have just been printed instead of constructed from various parts they gathered from their surroundings. Other examples that 3D printing could be used in are: manufacturing such as printing make-up, replacement teeth, shoes, etc., large systems for producing buildings and structures 24/7 until completion, un-borned babies models, and 3D printing of mug shots from DNA for crime investigation. ^[4]

A combination of BIM and 3D printing can make pretty amazing stuff such as this building from HOK and buildingSMART International above.

Works Cited:

[1] Gavin, J. (2009, January). Building Information Modeling: The Future Today? Retrieved January 16, 2017, from http://www.ecmag.com/section/systems/building-information-modeling-future-today

[2] Sullivan, C. C. (2013, February 13). The future of construction: Meet BIM (or else). Retrieved January 17, 2017, from http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-future-of-construction-meet-bim-or-else/

[3] Hoffman, T. (2016, January 04). 3D Printing: What You Need to Know. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394720,00.asp

[4] Ludwig, H., & Adams, P. (2016, August 10). 72 stunning things in the future that will be common ten years from now that don't exist today. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from http://www.futuristspeaker.com/business-trends/72-stunning-things-in-the-future-that-will-be-common-ten-years-from-now-that-dont-exist-today/?nocache=1

Amusing video showing robotic construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiJ8wt75SYo

Comments:

Nick Pawlikowski – Your explanation of the process of 3D printing is amazing. Reading about the fused deposition modeling and stereolithography, an earlier method, was interesting. The science behind the method of 3D printing must be very complex. To get the intricate details of an object and the conditions to get the object to be printed properly probably required a lot of research to make it possible. When writing my 3D printing section, I didn’t get to see an article mentioning the process or development of 3D printing, but rather just the benefits.

Alexander Koo – When you compared AI to science fiction, I started laughing. Like you said, I visualized something like I, Robot, and a futuristic world where robots have taken over the world. But as you later explained, “Realty is however, far from that.” In my opinion, computers and robots are only instructed to do as they’re programmed. Perhaps if a code sequence of code to generate more code is made in a complex way that somehow the computer “thinks”, robots having something like “human intelligence” would be made possible. Perhaps, we’re already dominated by computers and are in a system like in the Matrix.

Ronald Herazo – Computer technology is improving at an expedited rate. When you mentioned the “synchronization of the human brain with computers”, I started thinking of androids. If we were to sync together with machines, perhaps, eternal life would be made possible. If biological processes were to come to a halt by robotics, cells and living organisms would not have to die. This may however cause a lot of controversial issues on ethics and power.