Near future
No Result
View All Result
October 2, 2023
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
CES2023 / Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine
Near future
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+

Understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result
Technology

China, 3D printed dam built by robots. "It will be ready in 2 years"

For the team of Chinese scientists, the Yanggu dam in Tibet will be made with 3D printing and built by AI-controlled robots

May 9, 2022
Gianluca RiccioGianluca Riccio
⚪ 4 minutes
Share244Pin56Tweet152SendShare43ShareShare30
china dam 3d

china yangqu dam

READ IN:

According to the researchers involved in the project, China is using artificial intelligence to transform the construction of a dam on the Tibetan plateau into the largest 3D printed work in the world.

The Yangqu hydroelectric power plant will be 180 meters (590 feet) high and made "layer by layer" in 3D printing. It will employ unmanned excavators, trucks, bulldozers, pavers, rollers and AI to assemble everything: piece by piece.

Once finished in 2024, the Yangqu Dam will send 1500 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year from the upper reaches of the Yellow River to Henan, an area inhabited by over 4,9 kilometers. million of people.

3D printing: ideal for a dam

According to the lead scientist of the project Liu Tianyun, in an article published in the Journal of Tsinghua University (Science and Technology) peer-reviewed, dam building and 3D printing are "identical in nature".

The article continues after the related links

Nobel Prize for Medicine to the creators of the mRNA techniques behind the Covid vaccines

SciMatch: take a selfie and meet your soulmate

Liu and his team came up with the idea of ​​"printing" large-scale construction projects about 10 years ago. Today, large-scale infrastructure 3D printing technology is mature enough to go mass and free many humans from heavy, repetitive and dangerous work.

If you think how long these devices have gone from creating small components to entire buildings (the first just 6 meters tall, in Dubai), you will be amazed.

dubai building dam 3D printing
The Headquarters of the Dubai Future Foundation: it is the first building in the world entirely 3D printed.

The role of artificial intelligence

Chinese civil engineers are no strangers to the use of AI - it has already happened for Baihetan, the second largest dam in the world, completed in just four years. 

This could be a much more challenging test bed: intelligent machines will be able to do even better jobs than humans, especially in difficult and dangerous conditions. The Yangqu dam construction site, which started at the end of 2021, is already making full use of the most advanced versions of this technology.

How? By "cutting" a 3D model of the dam into layers and assigning a specific team of specialized robots to each "layer".

Unmanned excavators, capable of identifying and loading materials from a storage depot. Automated trucks (some of them electric), which will deliver materials when needed, without waste. Robotic bulldozers and pavers that will transform these materials into physical layers of the dam, which will come on "slice" by slice. Finally, sensors capable of monitoring the quality and compactness of the construction, analyzing the vibrations of the soil and other data.

An army of robots who, when they get it wrong, they learn right away

The study authors write that this technology can be used to analyze huge amounts of data in real time and make accurate and informed decisions. Machine learning allows computers to recognize almost any object in real time, deal with the unexpected and adapt.

Without committing human errors, however. Truck drivers can deliver materials in wrong locations, strong vibrations prevent rollers from keeping perfectly straight paths.

Above all, humans die. And they die from mistakes, impossible rhythms of work, dangerous conditions. Things that the development of a technology like this has a duty to make a thing of the past.

Of course, even this dam will always need human figures, but none in dangerous working conditions.

3D printing: not just for a dam

Liu's team says this method can also be used for other infrastructures such as airports and roads. Building AI is a very important tool that will shape our future.

There are some limitations to overcome: today 3D printing for large infrastructures cannot print things composed of different materials, such as reinforced concrete (steel reinforcement and concrete together).

Later, however, it will find even more uses.

Latest news

  • Nobel Prize for Medicine to the creators of the mRNA techniques behind the Covid vaccines
  • SciMatch: take a selfie and meet your soulmate
  • The future glucose monitoring? A new, ingenious sweat sensor
  • From death to passion: if spider venom overcomes erectile dysfunction
  • Getting old? No, thanks: the future of longevity between research and speculation
  • Videogames and photorealism: increasingly thin border between game and reality
  • This is how a war between humans and artificial intelligence would end
  • The alarm of Japanese scientists: microplastics also in the clouds
  • Lawk One AR Glasses: augmented reality for high-tech cyclists
  • SolarisFloat, the solar island that follows the sun to maximize energy


GPT Chat Megaeasy!

Concrete guide for those approaching this artificial intelligence tool, also designed for the school world: many examples of applications, usage indications and ready-to-use instructions for training and interrogating Chat GPT.

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff

Enter the Telegram channel of Futuroprossimo, click here. Or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon e LinkedIn.

FacebookTwitterInstagramTelegramLinkedInMastodonPinterestTikTok

The daily tomorrow.


Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Gadgets
  • concepts
  • Design
  • Medicine
  • Spazio
  • Robotica
  • Work
  • Transports
  • Energy
  • Edition Francaise
  • Deutsche Ausgabe
  • Japanese version
  • English Edition
  • Portuguese Edition
  • Read more
  • Spanish edition

Subscribe to our newsletter

  • The Editor
  • Advertising on FP
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 Near future - Creative Commons License
This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

No Result
View All Result
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+