• jmcs
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    7 months ago
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    You probably could make a 3rd printer capable of printing the steel components for a bridge. If you pour enough money and time down the drain, there’s no reason why you couldn’t have some robots handling the scaffolding and “3D printing” the concrete too. It would be several¹ orders of magnitude slower and more expensive than using the normal processes, but hey why build 10000 bridges when you can build just one that tech bros can masturbate to.

    ¹ this “several” is breaking the world record of heavy lifting

    • BakerBagel
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      7 months ago
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      I really doubt that 3D printed steel will be able to handle to stress of a bridge support. Maybe it can be used for uniquely shaped joining panels, but recombined powdered steel is nowhere near as strong ir durable as cold rolled or forged steel beams.

      • Spuddlesv2
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        7 months ago
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        A 12m stainless steel pedestrian bridge that took 6 years to make and was subsequently “strengthened” to meet safety requirements. Not quite the same thing.

      • pbjammEnglish
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        7 months ago
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        3D-printed by robots in a factory over a period of six months

        they needed to use better AI. Facts.

    • pbjammEnglish
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      7 months ago
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      Just have the AI design a smaller 3D printer to print the larger one.

      Its printers all the way down