Printing Below the Waterline: Autonomous Underwater Additive Manufacturing for Next-Generation Infrastructure
Project Description
Conventional additive manufacturing assumes a controlled and predictable environment. Underwater construction offers the opposite: moving water, salinity, buoyancy, limited visibility, difficult access, and materials that must be placed, stabilized, and develop structural performance while continuously interacting with the surrounding fluid. Our team has demonstrated extrusion-based printing of infrastructure materials underwater, including saline conditions. This project will move beyond feasibility to establish a new science of autonomous underwater manufacturing.
The Gilbreth Fellow will investigate the coupled material-process-robot interactions governing submerged fabrication, including rheology and chemistry-on-demand, washout and interlayer bonding, anisotropy and mechanical performance, hydrodynamic disturbances, geometric accuracy, and structural stability during printing. These principles will be integrated with robotic sensing and closed-loop control so an autonomous system can detect changing environmental and material conditions and adapt extrusion, toolpaths, deposition orientation, and process parameters in real time. We will also explore new strategies for freeform deposition, overhangs, repairs, and support-free geometries, including patent-pending concepts.
The goal is to establish fundamental design rules for adaptive, autonomous additive manufacturing of resilient coastal, marine, and underwater infrastructure, turning the submerged environment from a manufacturing constraint into a design opportunity. The project will leverage Purdue’s established interdisciplinary 3D-printing expertise across Civil and Materials Engineering.
Start Date
Summer or Fall 2027; flexible depending on candidate availability.
Postdoc Qualifications
PhD in Civil, Materials, Mechanical, Chemical, Construction, Robotics, or a closely related engineering field. We seek a creative experimental researcher with expertise in one or more of the following: additive manufacturing, cementitious or reactive materials, rheology, mechanics of materials, robotics, sensing, or autonomous systems. Experience with robotic fabrication, closed-loop control, underwater systems, multicomponent extrusion, or mechanical characterization is desirable but not required. The ideal candidate will be comfortable crossing disciplinary boundaries, developing new experimental systems, and working at the intersection of materials, mechanics, manufacturing, and autonomy. Applicants are not expected to already be experts in all of these areas.
Co-advisors
Pablo D. Zavattieri
Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering
Purdue University
zavattie@purdue.edu
Jan Olek
Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering
Purdue University
olek@purdue.edu
Jeffrey P. Youngblood
School of Materials Engineering
Purdue University
jpyoungb@purdue.edu
Bibliography
R. Moini, J. Olek, J.P. Youngblood, B. Magee, P.D. Zavattieri, “Additive manufacturing and performance of architectured cement-based materials”, Advanced Materials, 30(43), 1802123, 2018.
Rodriguez, F.B., Olek, J., Moini, R., Zavattieri, P.D., and Youngblood, J.P., “Linking Solids Content and Flow Properties of Mortars to their Three-Dimensional Printing Characteristics,” ACI Materials Journal, 118(6), 371–382, 2021. DOI: 10.14359/51733136.
R Moini, J Olek, PD Zavattieri, JP Youngblood, “Early-age buildability-rheological properties relationship in additively manufactured cement paste hollow cylinders”, Cement and Concrete Composites, 104538, 2022.
F. B. Rodriguez, R. Moini, S. Agrawal, C. S. Williams, P. D. Zavattieri, A.H. Varma, J. Olek, J.P. Youngblood, “Mechanical response of 3D-printed concrete with additively manufactured steel reinforcement”, Cement and Concrete Composites, 154, 105795, 2024.
Y. Wang, A.E. Douba, N. Rajendiran, D. L Cubillos-Gamez, A. Verma, R.D. Bergman, T. Runge, J. Olek, P.D. Zavattieri, J. P Youngblood, Cellulose nanofibers and limestone filler enable high-performance, sustainable, and cost-efficient printable concrete, Nature Communications, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69373-
Y. Wang, L. Shyamsunder, P.S. Dasika, A. Nguyen, D. Kisailus, J. Olek, J. P. Youngblood, P. D. Zavattieri,”Non-Planar Bouligand Architectures for Enhanced Mechanical Performance in Cementitious Composites”, in review, Adv.Mat. 2026.