Technology that prints houses
Founded in 2016, Tvasta is a Chennai based start-up that provides 3D printers and printing solutions for the construction sector. However, Tvasta’s story starts back in 2014, when four bright, young and driven IIT Madras students started working on a project for their 3D Printing Club, set up under the Centre for Innovation of the university. Despite coming from different engineering streams, the students came together and created India’s first selective laser sintering 3D printer. Two years later, Adithya VS, Parivarthan Reddy, Santosh Kumar, and Vidyashankar C co-founded Tvasta.
Adithya VS, while narrating the story behind the start-up, says “I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur and became sure of this by my second year in Engineering. Initially, I knew nothing about 3D printing, but had this strong conviction that it had a bright future.” This led him to rope in his friends for his 3D printing club’s project. The team’s success in inventing India’s first SLS 3D printer, and their passion towards their work, drove them to take it further and form a start-up to bring a viable business product to the market.
Today, Tvasta is comprised of 12 collaborators, including the four co-founders, and the start-up is now nationally recognized for their 3D printing technology for construction — something that the start-up had not originally foreseen.
In 2016, soon after the incorporation of Tvasta, the team attended a conference at IIT Madras on 3D printing in construction. The engineers turned entrepreneurs were unable to resist the temptation of exploring opportunities of 3D technologies in the construction sector. They went back to their alma mater for support, with the objective of developing their own concrete 3D printer for construction. But this wasn’t an easy task because concrete doesn’t function like plastic, the material traditionally used in 3D printers. To succeed in developing the technology of concrete 3D printing, the start-up had to develop the printer (machine) as well as the cartridge (concrete) for the printer from scratch.
With that plan in mind, a phase of rigorous research and development began. It was important to design the machine as well as to find the accurate proportion for the concrete mix, so that it could provide the required strength while also maintaining the consistency for use as a printer cartridge. “We used to have at least one test for concrete every day. Till date, we have carried out almost 1,500 tests,” says Adithya. The research and development center for Tvasta was established at IIT Madras where the team worked with Professor Manu Santhanam from the Department of Civil Engineering and other faculty members to perfect their products. The start-up has been successful in manufacturing stable concrete building blocks, assembled at IIT Madras as product demonstrations. So far, the team have come up with three different concrete printers.
Tvasta is currently perfecting their third printer, which has the capacity of printing large scale panels that can be put together at site to create entire houses. In 2018, the founders have moved the company’s headquarters from Bangalore to Chennai, which enabled them to stay near the research setup while also developing business networks in the city.
Although 3D printing is a well-established technology in fields like medical devices and manufacturing, 3D printing in the construction industry is still a very new and emerging market. This, like its industrial counterpart (Industrial 3D printing), can brings costs and labour savings to the construction value chain. Tvasta’s team won the prestigious Vishwakarma Award in 2018 awarded by ‘Construction Industry Development Council’ for their concrete 3D printer and is aiming to leverage the increase in mobility and acceptance witnessed in the construction industry in the past few years, and disrupt the affordable housing industry through their innovative products and services.
While many 3D printers have been developed as university research projects, Tvasta’s invention is gearing up to impact the construction market, bringing new energy and fresh ideas to this rapidly changing and expanding industry.
