The Role of 3D Printing Concrete in Intelligent Construction

Abstract

3D printed concrete is an important emerging technology in intelligent construction because it connects digital design, automated execution, material control, and process monitoring within a continuous construction workflow. This paper reviews the role of 3D printed concrete in smart buildings and intelligent construction, focusing on its technical principles, workflow, application scenarios, advantages, limitations, and future development directions. The study first explains how digital modelling, slicing, path generation, automated extrusion, monitoring, and post-processing work together to transform design information into machine-executable construction actions. It then discusses typical applications, including printed housing, bridge components, prefabricated production, customised structures, and emergency construction. Compared with traditional concrete construction, 3D printed concrete can reduce formwork use, decrease labour dependence, improve material utilisation, and support complex or personalised structural forms. However, wider engineering applications are still constrained by material rheology, interlayer bonding, reinforcement integration, equipment cost, construction-site uncertainty, and incomplete standards. The paper concludes that 3D printed concrete should be understood not only as a faster construction method, but also as a key pathway toward digital, automated, and controllable intelligent construction.