This Project Grant award of $499,999.00 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports the development of 3D-printed, self-healing sustainable concrete using industrial and household waste materials such as spent foundry sand, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, and marine organisms like algae. The key objectives are to: 1) Fabricate the 3D-printed self-healing concrete and assess its durability, using numerical simulations and experimental validation...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant, awarded to the Regents of the University of Michigan, provides $599,491 in funding from September 1, 2025 to August 31, 2030 to develop scientific principles for waste-free, extrusion-based robotic three-dimensional concrete printing. The research aims to create a novel data-driven, multi-objective optimization model that can generate optimal non-planar slicing and robotic printing instructions to enable...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering (CFDA 47.041) totaling $344,918 will establish a collaborative research program at Florida International University (FIU) to develop advanced data-driven approaches for additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing of materials with locally tunable electrical and mechanical properties. The research aims to create new polymer resin formulations for digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing that can...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program provides $250,000 to Texas State University to develop and validate a new type of eco-friendly concrete for manufacturing concrete pipes. The patented concrete leverages recycled steel fibers and recycled asphalt pavement aggregates to reduce costs by up to 40% and carbon dioxide emissions by up to 19% compared to conventional reinforced concrete pipes,...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award supports research at Temple University to develop novel multi-functional hybrid materials and internal carbon dioxide (CO2) curing processes for carbon-sink concrete materials. The $579,448 award, effective from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2029, aims to address limitations of carbonated concrete systems and advance technologies for long-term sequestration of anthropogenic CO2. The research will focus on...
This $404,595 National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program grant, awarded to the University of Delaware on March 1, 2024, supports research to enhance multi-material additive manufacturing (3D printing) through the use of advective assembly techniques. The project aims to develop modular 3D printing nozzles capable of rapidly structuring and depositing multi-material composites at higher resolution and volumetric throughput than conventional methods. This could enable new applications...
This $200,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering grant (CFDA 47.041) supports fundamental research at Texas State University to investigate material-process-microstructure-property relationships in the direct ink writing of high-viscosity rubber nanocomposites. The goal is to optimize material composition and manufacturing process parameters to achieve high-quality 3D-printed parts with enhanced mechanical, electromechanical, and time-dependent properties. Key activities include...
This $299,999 federal Project Grant, awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083), supports a research project at Louisiana State University (LSU) focused on the multiscale and multiphysics characterization of additively manufactured self-sensing concrete structures. The project aims to establish an innovative framework for investigating the critical manufacturing parameters and material properties of 3D printed self-sensing concrete...
This $399,161 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of Texas at Austin to develop new algorithms and simulations for co-designing the geometry and fabrication plans for direct-ink writing 3D printing. Funded under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program (CFDA 47.070), this three-year award will transform additive manufacturing design tools by allowing users to specify an object's desired mechanical behavior and automatically generate...
This $800,000 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) will enable Iowa State University of Science and Technology to develop new materials and manufacturing methods for 3D printing multi-material objects with varying mechanical properties. The key objectives are to use machine learning to create resins enabling extreme mechanical contrast, develop a multi-material 3D printing process using photoswitches, and...
The National Science Foundation awarded a $744,893 project grant to the University of Florida under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships federal grant program (CFDA 47.084) with a completion date of November 30, 2023. The grant will support the development of OpenMatFlo, a platform for designing, producing, and supplying greener inks for additive construction to address carbon dioxide emissions from the construction industry. Key activities include establishing an open source 3D concrete printing ink database, employing data analytics and machine learning to develop an ink mixture design tool integrating life cycle and material flow analyses, and developing a prototype transparent supply chain platform for 3D concrete printing. Subawards of $100,000 each were provided to Texas A&M University to develop a tool for regional 3D concrete printing project analysis and to the University of Tennessee to initiate an open source 3D concrete printing ink database, develop supported data analytics and a supply chain platform, and collaborate on a new related course. The overall goal is to accelerate innovation of lower carbon solutions for 3D concrete printing.