3D printing can be used to automate the manufacturing of building elements for large-scale structures such as skyscrapers, aircraft, rockets and space bases without human intervention. However, challenges in materials, processes, printers and software control must first be overcome for large-scale 3D printing to be adopted for widespread applications.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (no. 2018YFC0705800), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (no. 19QB1403300) and Shanghai Construction Group R&D Program (no. 14GLXX-05 and 16JCYJ-02). The authors acknowledge J. Gong of SCG for his help in implementing research and engineering projects of LS3DP over the years. The authors thank M. Gong and C. Lu of SCG and C. Gao of KENYO for their help in preparing the figure.
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Z.Z., Y.H., X.C., J.L. and Longlong Zhang researched data for the article. Z.Z., W.D.C. and V.M. contributed substantially to discussion of the content. All authors wrote the article. Z.Z., W.D.C., Y.Z., J.X., Y.Y., K.Z., Lulu Zhang and V.M. reviewed and edited the manuscript before submission.
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Zuo, Z., De Corte, W., Huang, Y. et al. Propelling the widespread adoption of large-scale 3D printing. Nat Rev Mater (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-023-00626-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-023-00626-1