Finland’s Hyperion Robotics, working with building materials supplier Tarmac and engineering company Mott MacDonald Bentley, made four 3D printed versions of a drawpit for Esholt wastewater treatment works.

A traditional drawpit, used to allow electronic cabling to change direction, would have been a 5.2-metre square structure, usually concrete

This 3D printed drawpit is a 2.2-metre diameter circular structure made from reinforced concrete, composed of two faces as formwork and sandwiching a traditional reinforced cast concrete core. Weighing five tonnes, it is almost half the size of a traditional drawpit.

Each drawpit took around two hours to ‘print’, with pipes and reinforcement installed. After curing, they were then cast with self-compacting concrete, before being shipped from Finland to Esholt.

The drawpits were installed at Esholt’s newly refurbished pumping station on Tuesday 21st November and have been positioned ready to accept the electronic cabling that helps with the water filtration on site.

Yorkshire Water senior project manager Joe Fisher said: “It’s a fantastic piece of innovation and it’s been great for Yorkshire Water to get involved.”

He said: “Forming partnerships and investing in products such as this, helps us achieve our aim of becoming more sustainable. This initiative has allowed us to achieve a 40% reduction in embodied carbon for this element of work, which is a great result.

“If this drawpit is successful, there are several other sites that are undergoing investment and upgrades that will benefit from this type of construction.”

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