*Proceeding Paper* **Early-Age Creep and Shrinkage Properties of Printed and Cast Cement Composite †**

**Rihards Gailitis 1,\*, Pauls Pudans 1, Krists Ziemelis 2, Girts Bumanis <sup>2</sup> and Andina Sprince <sup>1</sup>**


**Abstract:** In recent years, 3D printing has been more and more used in the development of buildings and building elements. Mostly-printed structures are subjected to compression that is oriented perpendicular to the layer laying direction. When applying load in this way, the printed structure exhibits characteristics similar to masonry structures. However, as the technology and application of 3D printing develop, the structures also become more complicated and subjected not only to direct compression but other stresses as well. In this paper, long-term properties together with compressive strength were determined for 3D-printed specimens with load applied in the same direction as the layers are laid. The long-term and mechanical properties were compared with cast same-composition specimens. Results show that for the printed specimens, the compressive strength was more than two times lower than cast specimens, while the creep properties were slightly lower for the printed specimens.

**Keywords:** cement composite long-term properties; 3D-printed cement composite; tensile stress

**Citation:** Gailitis, R.; Pudans, P.; Ziemelis, K.; Bumanis, G.; Sprince, A. Early-Age Creep and Shrinkage Properties of Printed and Cast Cement Composite. *Mater. Proc.* **2023**, *13*, 35. https://doi.org/10.3390/ materproc2023013035

Academic Editors: Katarzyna Mróz, Tomasz Tracz, Tomasz Zdeb and Izabela Hager

Published: 17 February 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
