Soldiers headed to Fort Bliss, Texas for annual training rotations will live in 3D-printed barracks built by a five-ton printer using a form of concrete.
The Fort Bliss building is now the largest 3D-printed barracks in the U.S. with each building able to house 56 soldiers within its roughly 5,000 square-foot interior. In late January, three 3D-printed buildings were officially opened at the base: two in the Pershing Heights area and one at Camp McGregor on the base’s training complex in New Mexico.
The base hosts around 70,000 service members annually for training and includes Army Reserve and National Guard units that deploy there for annual rotations. The first occupants of the Pershing Heights barracks will be the 382nd Military Police Detachment, an Army Reserve unit from Massachusetts, which is scheduled to travel to the base for the installation’s Mobilization Force Generation Installation mission.
To 3D-print a building, computer-aided design software was used to design the structure which was “virtually sliced into horizontal layers and vertically rejoined,” according to a DVIDS release.
ICON, the company in charge of the project, then used its five-ton, 16-by-47-foot wide Vulcan printer to build the barracks with a proprietary concrete-based material called “lavacrete.” According to an Army release, lavacrete can be tailored to the local environment’s humidity and temperature and is meant to last longer than traditional building materials.
“One of the most compelling aspects of 3D printing is its ability to print high-quality structures faster and more cost-effectively than traditional methods of construction,” Lt. Gen. David Wilson, deputy Army chief of staff for installations said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new barracks. Wilson added that 3D printing brings down the cost by reducing the amount of labor, allowing for customizable designs, simplifying the construction process and reducing waste.
However, the cost of the 3D-printed barracks at Fort Bliss was not immediately clear. Army officials referred questions about the project’s cost to ICON, which did not respond to requests for comment.
This is the latest example of the Pentagon using modern methods to build troop housing cheaper and faster. Up north, at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin Army officials recently undertook their own cost-effective housing endeavor by physically moving World War II-era barracks across base.
In recent years, the Department of Defense began investing in 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, to build spare parts for weapons faster and cheaper — even sending one to Ukraine to help Ukrainian forces print replacement pieces for U.S. military equipment.
More recently, the Pentagon updated its construction criteria to account for it and is looking at 3D printing as an “expeditionary solution in forward deployed locations,” Wilson said.
“This post has evolved with the times, embracing new technologies, new strategies, and new ways of serving our country,” Wilson said at the ceremony. “It’s fitting that we gather here today to open new barracks that embody the same spirit of evolution and progress.”
ICON, the company doing the 3D printing, was previously contracted to build barracks at Camp Swift Training Center in Bastrop, Texas in 2021 and even signed a $57.2 million contract in December 2022 with NASA to develop technologies for building landing pads, habitats, and roads on the Moon.
The 3D-printed barracks at Camp Swift were built as an energy-efficient option intended to reduce maintenance and operations costs, replacing temporary buildings that “exceeded their intended lifespan,” Wilson said.