CIRMAP project

The CIRMAP project (CIrcular economy via customisable furniture with Recycled MAterials for public Places) is an Interreg North West Europe project with a budget of €7 million running from 2020 to 2023.

The objective of this project is to print street furniture using a concrete 3D printer by developing cementitious inks made from recycled concrete sand.

The concept is to preserve sand that comes from natural resources by using recycled concrete sands as a substitute for natural sands in cementitious inks through a circular economy approach in order to reuse these materials rather than sending them to landfills. These recycled sands are challenging to work with due to their high porosity which leads to high absorption of water and in turn affects the properties of the concrete. One of the challenges is to be able to develop formulation methodology that can incorporate 100% recycled sands into cementitious inks that retain their pumpable, extrudable and buildable nature when in the fresh state and sufficient mechanical performance in the hardened state for printing urban furniture. The other challenge lies in developing the development of the control command for 3D printers to produce complex shapes by reducing defects and adapting to variations that can occur during printing (fouling of the pump, rheological changes in cementitious ink due to temperature for example) through the integration of sensors.

The final results, in the form of a proof of concept, will be to print five pieces of urban furniture, one per city from each country: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and England, using cementitious ink made from 100% recycled sand from each country.