THE THEORY OF CRITICAL DISTANCES TO MODEL THE STATIC STRENGTH OF ADDITIVELY MANUFACTURED CONCRETE/POLYMERS CONTAINING MANUFACTURING DEFECTS/VOIDS [Keynote]

The present paper deals with the use of the Theory of Critical Distances to model the detrimental effect of manufacturing defects and voids in 3D-printed concrete/polymers subjected to static loading. The validity and robustness of the proposed approach is assessed against a large number of experimental results that were generated by testing 3D-printed specimens of both concrete and polylactide (PLA) containing manufacturing defects/voids. The sound agreement between experiments and predictive model makes it evident that the Theory of Critical Distances is not only a reliable design approach, but also a powerful tool suitable for guiding and informing effectively the additive manufacturing process.
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