Flow Characteristics of Cement Mortar with Varied Silica Fume for Additive Construction

3D concrete printing (3DCP) technology is a new age construction technique using a novel cementitious mix to construct an object by depositing the material in layers without the presence of any formwork, unlike the conventional construction technique. It is a novel concept in the construction field which reduces the wastage of material, saves precious project time and also reduces the overall construction cost, making it of greater importance from a research point of view. Cement mortar for 3D concrete printing also called additive construction, must possess the optimum flowability, extrudability, open time, and buildability characteristics to pass through the batch mixer hose into the pump hopper and then extrude through the hose, and lastly the printer nozzle to print the structural component in pre-defined computer programmed structure. Characteristics of the cement mortar are influenced by the inclusion of additives in the mix. This paper focuses on the flowability characteristic of the design mix, particularly the effect of variation of silica fume and polycarboxylate superplasticizer in the mix.