Trends in 3D Printing Technology for Construction Automation Using Text Mining

Abstract

3D printing technology, which enables mass production and customized small-volume production, has attracted widespread interest throughout many industries. Applying 3D printing within the construction industry has now been well researched. There are also studies that show research trends related to 3D printing in the construction industry. These studies have mainly referred to equipment, materials, and related software. However, they have discussed only specific fragmentary aspects such as the number of articles published per year or research trends by country. Therefore, this study aims to broaden the discussion by extracting keywords from papers published during the last 20years that point to research trends in 3D printing, using text-mining-based relationship analysis. These results enable us to identify the necessary research fields for 3D printing in the construction industry of the future.