Water industry printfrastructure (WIP)
Amount awarded: £1,543,610
Led by: United Utilities
Partners: ChangeMaker3D, Manchester Metropolitan University (PrintCity), Scottish Water
As technology for concrete and polymer printing has developed, so too have the opportunities for adoption within the water industry, particularly with regard to bespoke infrastructure designs. Our partnership takes experience from current working practices in the rail industry and learnings from academia, and converts these to actionable, operational demonstrations for the industry. With the ever increasing requirement to provide more detailed, unique and often resource intensive solutions, we believe we have a toolbox of options that will help the water industry and its customers plan and realise a more sustainable future for the implementation and maintenance of infrastructure assets.
The WIP project is on schedule with the agreed plan. In the past quarter we have successfully completed the demonstration of both the concrete and polymer printing systems and are ready to progress with the testing of printed assets, carbon assessments and our commercialisation studies. Over seventy visitors attended our concrete printing demonstration at Wigan WwTW from organisations including Scottish Water, Sellafield, Anglian Water and Ofwat. Many more joined the online sessions provided during the two weeks of printing. More information can be found via the following LinkedIn articles.
United Utilities
Changemaker3D
Scottish Water
“The water industry requires unprecedented levels of construction to deliver environmental improvements and maintain existing aging assets. We must address these challenges sustainably, efficiently and at lowest cost for our customers. Our WIP project will move 3D printing from good idea into a valuable tool for our business.” – Lisa Mansell, Chief Engineer (Innovation), United Utilities
Learn more about this initiative in this video:
