3D printing making headway

The longest bridge ever built using 3D printing is located in Nijmegen, Netherlands, at the Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix factory.

Pont 3D
©Nijmegen municipality/ Michiel van der Kley

The city of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, elected European Green Capital in 2018, is now home to the world's longest 3D printed concrete bridge. Saint-Gobain, in partnership with BAM (a Dutch construction company), won the "Bridge Project," designed by architect Michiel van der Kley at the request of the Rijkswaterstaat (government agency in charge of building and maintaining public infrastructure).

The 29-metre-long pedestrian and cyclist bridge was printed in several blocks at the Weber Beamix 3D printing center and then assembled directly on site. It took almost 57 km of print path (sum of the layer lengths), 120 metric tons of Weber mortar and 160 hours to complete this unique infrastructure.

3D printing meets economic and environmental challenges as it allows for cheaper, more durable and faster construction.