The Vulcan Construction System
Designed and engineered from the ground up for volume 3D printing of homes with precision and speed.
| Total Width | 46.5 feet |
| Total Height | 15.5 feet |
| Weight | 9500 lbs |
| Voltage | 230/240 V residential single phase |
| Print Height | 10.5 feet |
| Print Width | 38 feet |
| Print Length | Infinite |
| Print Speed | 5-10" /sec |
| Material Mixing & Pumping | Magma System |
| Material Input | Lavacrete |
Meet Vulcan
Our Home-Sized
3D-printer
Designed and engineered from the ground up for volume 3D printing of homes with precision and speed.
Print Suite
Robotics + Software + Materials
The Vulcan construction system is a combination of hardware, materials, and software to construct homes and large-scale structures. Every part of the system has been designed, engineered, and built from the ground up at ICON to build the highest quality homes possible.
The Vulcan construction system is comprised of the Vulcan printer and the Magma portable mixing unit that prepares ICON’s proprietary building material, Lavacrete, for printing. All of this hardware is driven by our BuildOS software suite. BuildOS generates and prepares architecture for printing, then controls the robotic hardware on-site to turn digital plans into physical homes.
Vulcan is a large-scale, construction 3D-printer that prints entire homes on location. The printer is designed to be rapidly transported to build sites, then moved quickly from site to site. Vulcan prints directly on the ground or a poured slab.
A portable factory that feeds a Vulcan printer on location. Magma ingests dry Lavacrete, hydrates, and then adjusts the formula in real time based on the conditions at the build site itself. Once material is mixed, Magma pumps the Lavacrete to Vulcan for printing.
Lavacrete is a proprietary material created by ICON’s material science team to be both highly printable and incredibly strong. Lavacrete has gone through rigorous testing and development yielding an extremely durable building material.
A collection of software products, BuildOS creates digital architecture and then helps control the robots that turn those designs into physical buildings. BuildOS software spans multiple device interfaces to accelerate construction through high-precision, parametric architecture for ICON’s construction operations.
Robotic Construction
The Vulcan is our third generation, large-scale 3D-printer system for additive construction. The current Vulcan system is 1.5x larger, 2x faster than our previous generation and capable of printing homes and structures up to 3,000 square feet without relocation. The Vulcan can produce resilient, single-story homes faster than conventional methods and with less waste and more design freedom.
- Vulcan Size 15'-6" x 46'-6"
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Build Volume 10'-6" x 38' x 100'
Mix Master
Magma is a smart, portable factory that feeds a Vulcan printer with material to print a home. Intelligent and working in perfect sync with a Vulcan printer on-site, Magma takes the guesswork out of complex, high-performance cementitious material.
The Magma system feeds Vulcan printers with ICON’s advanced cement-based material, Lavacrete. Using any of ICON’s proprietary Lavacrete blends, the Magma system mixes Lavacrete, additives, and water automatically, depending on current site weather conditions, then supplies the ready-to-print Lavacrete to the Vulcan. Think of Magma as an extremely smart print cartridge, super-sized for home construction.
Weather and environmentally aware, a Magma unit adjusts & mixes ICON’s Lavacrete material in real time for the best possible material.
Digital Native
ICON’s digital operating system controls every aspect of print operations via an intuitive, simple, and beautiful user interface.
The BuildOS system translates floor plans into print jobs and then directs both Vulcan and Magma, using real-time data down to the millisecond to produce the highest quality printed structures in the world.
From its powerful CAD and print planning to enable machine learning and predictive analytics for Vulcan robots, this advanced software brings construction into the 21st century.
ICON’s digital operating system controls every aspect of print operations via an intuitive, simple, and beautiful user interface.
The BuildOS system translates floor plans into print jobs and then directs both Vulcan and Magma, using real-time data down to the millisecond to produce the highest quality printed structures in the world.
From its powerful CAD and print planning to enable machine learning and predictive analytics for Vulcan robots, this advanced software brings construction into the 21st century.
Rock Solid
Science
ICON’s Lavacrete can be printed at high speeds while retaining form, enabling homes to be built faster while keeping construction projects on schedule and on budget. Lavacrete, a high-strength concrete, boasts a compressive strength of 2,000 - 3,500 psi. In structural tests, ICON's wall system exceeded building code design requirements by more than 350%.