3D printed infrastructure & civil
The core advantage
01
Design freedom
Print the shape the load actually needs, not what a straight form allows.
02
No formwork
Building and stripping formwork is slow, labor-heavy work. Printing skips it, cutting both labor and schedule.
03
Local production
Precast is limited by what fits on a truck. A printer goes to the site, using local materials, at whatever size the project needs.
Energy — wind turbine bases
Taller towers start with a printed base
Steel and precast towers are capped by what fits on a truck. Printing the base on-site removes that limit, opening the way to hybrid towers that reach taller, stronger winds.
200 m
Target tower height
With 3D printed bases, hybrid towers can reach heights steel and precast can't transport.
Today's limitations
Tower sections are sized for roads and bridges, which keeps conventional towers under 100 m and caps energy output.
Water — storage tanks
Thick where the pressure is, thin where it isn't
A cast tank wall carries the same thickness top to bottom. A printer tapers the wall as water pressure drops, from 40 cm at the base to 20 cm at the rim, without losing certification.
25%
Less concrete and reinforcement
Than a uniform cast wall, from tapering thickness with load.
38 h
To print a 300 m³ tank
Certified for drinking water by the National Institute of Public Health, Poland.
Precast elements
Trenches, panels and utility covers
Repetitive precast elements, printed instead of cast, cut mould costs and let each run be adjusted without a new form.
TECHINT | ARGENTINA
Precast trench and foundation elements
Printed on-site for an industrial facility, replacing cast-in-place formwork.
CEMEX | MEXICO
Precast trench sections
Printed in a materials partnership with CEMEX, evaluating printed precast at scale.
Bridges
A fraction of the material
Minimass designs structural beams shaped by where load actually travels through them, not by what a straight form can produce. Printed in concrete, the beam replaces conventional bridge and building beams while cutting most of the material out of the middle.
78%
Less concrete
Than a conventional beam of equivalent strength.
70%
Less steel reinforcement
Standard post-tensioning cable carries the tension load.
Infrastructure is built around the limits of formwork and transport
One wall, one thickness
Formwork gives tanks the same wall thickness top to bottom, so the upper walls carry concrete and steel they don't need.
Road limits on size
Tower sections are sized for roads and bridges, which keeps conventional towers under 100 m and caps energy output.
Slow, labor-heavy builds
Formwork, rebar fixing, and curing stretch timelines on projects communities need quickly, like water supply.
Thick where the pressure is, thin where it isn't
Formwork forces a tank wall to keep one thickness from base to top. A printer can follow the water pressure instead, so the wall gets thinner as the load drops.
Variable wall thickness
of 40, 30, and 20 cm in the Kuwait tanks
25% less concrete and reinforcement
in the walls vs. a uniform 40 cm cast wall
Certified for drinking water
in Poland by the National Institute of Public Health
GLOBTANK & HOLCIM POLSKA | POLAND
World's first 3D printed drinking water tank
A certified municipal tank in Barczewko, printed in 38 h without formwork or traditional reinforcement.
ABYAN | KUWAIT
First on-site 3D printed large water tanks
Fiber-reinforced walls tapering from 40 to 20 cm, with 99% local raw materials.
Taller towers start with a printed base
Steel and precast towers are capped by what fits on a truck. Printing the base on-site removes that limit, opening the way to hybrid towers up to 200 m that reach stronger winds.
15.1 GWh/yr
5 MW turbine at 80 m
20.2 GWh/yr
Same turbine at 160 m, 33%+ more energy
GE RENEWABLE ENERGY | DENMARK
10 m printed tower pedestal prototype
The first prototype of the GE Renewable Energy, COBOD, and Holcim partnership, printed in Copenhagen in 2019.
GE RENEWABLE ENERGY | USA
Tower base R&D facility
A 3-story COBOD system with a new large printhead, built to print lower tower sections on-site at onshore wind farms.
Custom drainage parts, printed without formwork
Industrial sites need drainage pieces in shapes that standard precast doesn't cover. Printed off-site and shipped ready to install, they skip the hours of manual on-site work these parts used to take.
No reinforcement needed
for low-load structural parts like storm drainage trenches
No timber formwork
to buy, build, or throw away
Coarse aggregate and fibers
in the mix, allowing larger printed volumes
TECHINT E&C & CEMEX | MEXICO
3D printed storm drainage trenches
Techint E&C designed the pieces for the Southeast Gateway Project, and CEMEX printed them on a COBOD BOD2 in Mexico City, its first structural elements for an industrial project.
Why construction 3D printing
The same technology that builds housing and industrial structures on land applies directly to the coast. Three properties make it a fit for marine work.
01
Design freedom
Printing places material exactly where the structure needs it. That allows anti-funicular caisson shapes that cut reinforcement, along with reef textures and cavities that molds cannot reproduce affordably.
02
Material flexibility
COBOD's open materials approach lets partners print with CO₂-reduced cement, local aggregates, steel fibres in place of rebar, crushed mussel shells, and bioreceptive mixes tuned for marine settlement.
03
Efficient production
Modules and caissons print in days with small crews, using less concrete and steel than conventional methods while cutting waste, cost, and emissions.
Ready to build better?
Tell us about your project or production plans, and we’ll help you find the right COBOD setup.