Phd Position -MISCEA thesis offer ESR10 – Sustainability and digital transition in the construction industry can 3DCP emerging technologies help?

The construction sector is currently facing a double constraint. While the build environment accounts for 39% of global energy related CO2 emissions and construction generates 13% of global GDP (Orr, 2019), it will however have to meet growing needs, a doubling of the number of urban dwellers by 2050, and face a resource problem.

For example, in 3 years (2011-2013), China consumed more concrete than the United States during the entire 20th century, and the curve remains exponential (Swanson, 2015). Despite this, 84% of designers consider that the priority is not saving materials but the ease and costs of execution (Dunant et al, 2018), and 40% of structural materials are overabundant (Orr et al, 2019).

Seen as unattractive, painful (tools and productivity have stagnated since the 1950s) and dangerous (150 fatal work accidents in France in 2020), the sector is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit employees. In France 44% of managers face such difficulties, it is even between 70 and 88% for the construction industry (CPME, 2022).

How then can we deal with the urgency of environmental and societal challenges? How can we build the 500,000 housing units per year in France estimated to be necessary over the period 2015-2035 (Rebsamen, 2021) and how can we rehabilitate the 7.2 million thermal sieves?

One of the solution lies in the transformation of the industrial model, in order to improve productivity, quality of construction and working conditions, drawing inspiration from what is achieved in other sectors of activity such as automobile or aeronautics, or in other countries more advanced in terms of automation and construction integration (Japan, Sweden, Germany, etc.).

Prefabrication must be reinvented with the help of today’s tools, those of industry 4.0, to move towards a real industrialization of construction. 

This digital revolution, which provides new tools such as object-oriented programming, parametric design, robotization or cobotics must make it possible to deploy a real DfMA (Design for Manufacturing and Assembly) approach adapted to construction sector, which should result in tailor-made serial productions (Mass-Customization).

In this context, 3D printing of cementitious mortars, also known as 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP), is one of the techniques which has emerged in recent years as a highly publicized bridgehead for disruptive construction technologies linked to the automation and digitalization of designs and processes for construction.

Many advances have been made in this field in recent years, both with regard to the question of material (formulations, alternative binders), the question of processes (technology, rheology), but also with regard to new construction systems. potential and relevant.

Initially confidential and limited to a few fundamental research experiments (the first work dates from 1997), 3DCP technologies have rapidly gained reputation, as evidenced by the growth in the number of researchers and private enterprises active in this field (Buswell, 2018).

Albeit a steadily growing number of 3DCP projects as well as a substantial progress in the processes developed in this field (Lowke, 2024) (Kloft, 2024) and recent pilot projects that have confirmed the potential of 3DCP – to improve productivity, sustainability and working conditions in concrete construtions (Vasilic, 2024) – 3DCP technologies are still consider in their infancy (Bos, 2016) and trying hardly to make their way into the construction industry. Up to now, it remains unclear whether 3DCP technologies are ready for mass-market adoption.

In sum, the construction sector is facing two main challenges: on the one hand, supporting the urbanization of societies by adapting it to climate change, and on the other hand, limiting its environmental footprint (carbon, materials). Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) is a potential way to respond to this. This then requires implementing a dual transition, digital and ecological, within the construction sector. 

The present PhD offer is entitled “Sustainability and digital transition in the construction industry: can3DCP emerging technologies help?”. It is an opportunity to investigate and question the classic linear adoption model documented in the AMT literature, while studying the 3DCP technologies diffusion still in progress. The thesis project aims to examine to what extent and under what conditions 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) constitutes a support point for operating the dual sustainability and digital transition in the construction sector. 

Research work on technological change (Rip and Kemp, 1998) and technology management has shown that this type of profound transformation is not self-evident. 

This is what has already been observed for AMT in other sectors. Some Operations Management (OM) studies in the field of Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) (Holmström, 2019) or 3D printing (D’Aveni, 2015) have highlighted that DDM emerging technologies will lead to fundamental structural changes in established business models (Holmström, 2014), replacing all traditional manufacturing (D’Aveni, 2018). However, to date and because of DDM’s higher costs, the economic business rationale of DDM is not the main criteria to guide managerial decision-making regarding emerging technologies.

The transformation of existing sectors comes up against inertia of all types (institutional, organizational, technical), particularly when it comes to greening them (Geels and Schot, 2010; Grin et al., 2010). Multiple parameters guide the adoption processes of new technologies, notably emerging ones. For instance, AMT-related literature has given some important analysis about why and how companies adopt emerging technologies (Maghazei, 2022). The main challenge is not a problem “in the technology itself, even though it is new and unstable, but instead is determined by the appropriateness of associated decisions and processes – primarily in terms of the technologies’ fit or match with a range of internal and external contingencies” (Maghazei, 2022). Three types of fits have been identified in the AMT literature: the fit between the technology and (1) economic and strategic factors, (2) operational and supply chain factors, and (3) organizational and behavioral factors. Therefore, technology adoption patterns for emerging technologies do not always follow the traditional linear of technology fit, but instead are characterized by “a dynamic interaction between technology push from a thriving ecosystem and market pull from companies exploring meaningful operational and business value using the concept of use case”.

As a result, in order to happen, the transformation/transition of an industry must be the subject of specific management and governance work and implement a range of tools, beyond just financial support: experiments, pilot projects, prospective studies, creation of standards, etc (Grin et al., 2010; Schot and Geels, 2008; (Loorbach, 2010)). 

The thesis project will be able to draw on the experience and work of the CIRED which focused on monitoring the “transition in progress”. An example of this kind of research is the action research work carried out between 2015 and 2020 within the framework of European industrial consortia (CORRIDOOR and UNITe projects) which gave rise to a thesis (Guillemot, 2022). The objective of this work was to analyse the transition to electromobility in Europe from a specific input, the deployment of a charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.

Work environment

This multidisciplinary study will be supervised by experts in:

– Technology management;

– 3DCP structural, numerical and experimental study.

Associate partner

In discussion

Mobility

In discussion

Requirements

Research FieldManagement sciencesEducation LevelMaster Degree or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

Must be in possession of a Master’s degree in Science, Engineering, Technology management, or Innovation management. LanguagesENGLISHLevelExcellent

Additional Information

Eligibility criteria

Description of the project and the candidates’ eligibility criteria:

This position will be part of the EU-funded project MISCEA, which is an ambitious inter- and multidisciplinary Doctoral Training Network under the Horizon-Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. 

PhD candidates’ can be of any nationality but you have to meet these eligibility criteria:

• Not being a current employee working at ENPC.
• Not having resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in France for more than 12 months during the past 36 months immediately before the deadline of the MISCEA Programme’s call. Compulsory national service, short stays such as holidays and time spent as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention are not taken into account.
• Holding a Master’s degree (or about to obtain one) or having a University degree equivalent to a European Master’s degree (5-year duration) at the deadline of the MISCEA Programme’s call.
• Researchers must be doctoral candidates, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the deadline of the co-funded programme’s call. Researchers who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis but who have not yet formally been awarded the doctoral degree will NOT be considered eligible.
• Signing a declaration of the veracity of the information provided (Declaration of honour, free of form).

If you comply with the eligibility criteria and you wish to submit your application, you must:

• Contact the thesis supervisor and explain your thesis project to her/him so that she/he validates your application.
• Submit a 5-pages thesis proposal under the proposed research areas, with the agreement of the future supervisor + 1 page cover letter with: the relevance of your educational/professional background to carry out your thesis topic. Additionally, to the submission of the 5-pages thesis proposal, the applicant will have to complete an ethics checklist based on ethics guidance from the HorizonEurope programme guide.
• English-translated transcripts from the master’s degree or equivalent.
• Any specific requirements of the Doctoral School corresponding to the targeted MISCEA fellowship offer.
• English curriculum vitae, including information about the level on English language knowledge.
• One letter of reference, at least.

Templates are available on the MISCEA website (link).

Then your candidature is complete, please send inquiries to miscea-program@enpc.fr

Additional comments

The present offer of a doctoral contract in France is for a period of three years.

Full-Time employment : estimated monthly brut salary : ~2700euros (estimated monthly net salary before income taxes: ~2100euros)