Do you think the Creatbot F1000 has a large build volume? No wonder you think so. After all, it's been used to print entire car bodies. More on this here. But in this article we'll explore a project that allowed printing an entire bridge.

A bridge with a 20-meter (65 feet) long 3D printed section appeared in Chengdu, China. The section is printed with a polymer composite material. The practical purpose of the bridge is not clear: it doesn’t connect two shores, both ends are located on the same side.

The overall length of the construction is around 67 meters (220 feet). It’s located in Yimahe park. A 3D printed segment is 21.58 meters (71 feet) long, 8 meters (26 feet) wide and 2.58 meters (8.5 feet) tall.

The 3D printed section is made with a polymer composite material instead of concrete: it’s acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) filled with glass fiber to increase its strength and longevity. Additive manufacturing took 35 days and more than 12 metric tons of polymer composite were used.

According to Cheng Rui, director of the China Northeast Architectural Design and Research Institute, manufacturing was done by a Shanghai-based team that uses the biggest polymer additive manufacturing system in the country. It’s likely that he is talking about Shanghai Construction Group that uses equipment by Coin Robotics. In 2018, this company already made a 15-meter-long (almost 50 feet) 3D printed bridge from the same material. It’s located in the Taopu Smart City science park, Shanghai, China.

3D Printed Bridge to Nowhere