In the latest move towards more sustainable construction , engineers at MIT have derive up with an clever agency of grow 3-D - impress , recyclable brick – but the material they ’ve select might just storm you . They ’re made of glass , but their clever construction think they ’re every bit as good as concrete , with better green credentials .
“ Glass as a structural material sort of break people ’s brains a little bit , ” say researcher Michael Stern in astatement . Stern is founder and director of Evenline , the MIT spinoff that develop the impost 3D printing applied science that was used to make the bricks .
It ’s true that when we think ofglass , we tend to think of words like “ fragile ” and “ breakable ” – not usually worthy qualities in a morphological fabric . However , publish each brick in multiple layers give a issue that , in tryout , hold up to a alike amount of insistency as aconcreteblock . They ’re also shaped like a figure of speech of eight , meaning multiple bricks can be lock just like LEGO , but with the possibility of building sheer shapes .
One of the bricks being printed.Image credit: Ethan Townsend (CC BY-NC-ND)
“ I found the material fascinating , ” said Stern , recalling when he had first learned about glassblowing as an undergrad . “ I started thinking of how glass printing can find its lieu and do interesting thing , building being one possible route . ”
As colleague Kaitlyn Becker , an assistant professor at MIT who was also an undergraduate with Stern , points out , “ Glass is a highly recyclable material . ” Almost infinitely so , as it turns out . Stern and Becker team up , along with colleagues at MIT and Evenline , to investigate the possibleness of get methamphetamine brick that were as sturdy and stackable as their concrete equivalent .
The system can useglass bottles – so the recycling is baked right in – which are crushed and melted down for the printer to situate bed by layer . The strong image bricks were manufacture mostly from glass with a separate interlocking feature of speech that expend pegs , much like the oh - so - painful macho-man on aLEGO brick . These interlock elements currently need to be made from a different cloth , but when this is removed the brick themselves can be repositioned or melt down down and reused .
This is an example of round construction , which seeks to minimize the need for new edifice materials wherever possible to aid reduce thegreenhouse gas emissionsassociated with the construction diligence .
The squad build a curved wall to show the potential drop of their innovation , and they ’re now aim even higher .
“ We ’re thinking of stepping stones to buildings , and want to start with something like a marquee – a impermanent anatomical structure that humans can interact with , and that you could then reconfigure into a 2nd pattern , ” Stern said . “ And you could suppose that these auction block could go through a destiny of lives . ”
“ We ’re exhibit this is an chance to press the limits of what ’s been done in architecture . ”
The study is published in the journalGlass Structures & Engineering .
