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The Pondicherry Coastal System is Getting a Boost Thanks To 3D Printing

Worldwide, there have been plenty of efforts to 3D print artificial coral reefs. Ever since Alex Goad invented the Modular Artificial Reef Structure, better known as MARS, and funded Reef Design Lab in Australia, he sparked a lot of interest in this type of 3D printed structures. Now, a seventeen-year-old student from Mumbai has also created his own 3D printed coral reef in Pondicherry, a quaint beachfront city in the Eastern coast of India very popular among scuba divers. A scuba diver himself, Siddharth Pillai, said in many interviews with local news outlets that he has been actively diving for the past five years, and during that time he witnessed first-hand how rising ocean temperatures have bleached coral outcrops. In May 2018, on a trip to Pondicherry, Pillai and his youngster sister went diving and were deeply affected by the conditions underwater.

“They (coral reefs) lose colour, crumble and die in 30 days. Seeing dead coral on the sea floor is disgusting and heart-breaking,” said Pillai. “When I was sixteen, while scuba diving in the Andamans, I learned about coral bleaching and the precariousness of the global situation regarding the overall marine ecosystem. Since then, I decided to work to the best of my ability to contribute towards rescuing these marine animals, as I felt I owed it to them.”

Siddharth Pillai and his sister in Pondicherry with the 3D printed blocks for the artificial coral reef

The shallow coral reef ecosystem along the Indian coast is being savagely destroyed, threatened by global ocean warming, and is affecting the reef habitats, which are an essential source of larvae and livestock. Sedimentation, dredging, overfishing, pollution, unsustainable tourism and coral mining are damaging near-shore reefs, while the use of explosives and bottom nets in fishing are damaging offshore reefs in specific sites.

But it’s not just India: according to National Geographic, half of the Great Barrier Reef, in Australia, has been bleached to death since 2016. Mass coral bleaching, a global problem triggered by climate change, occurs when unnaturally hot ocean water destroys a reef’s colorful algae, leaving the coral to starve.

After seeing the problem in his country, Pillai designed and patented a system of interlocking blocks which he chose to assemble along the Pondicherry coast to create the country’s first 3D printed modular artificial reef. The young student, an 11th-grader at Mumbai’s BD Somani School, christened the project Bennington’s Reef, in honor of the late musician and frontman from the alternative rock band Linkin Park, Chester Bennington, who died in 2017.

Last year, after Pillai joined Curiosity Gym, an innovation hub based in Churchgate, South Mumbai, he took a 45-day 3D printing course. Simultaneously, he got in touch with Suneha Jagannathan, a marine biologist and CEO of the Temple Reef Foundation (part of Temple Adventures), in Pondicherry, who has been working hard to restore the balance in the reef’s ecosystem for many years, as well as diving to find ghost nets and take them out of the water and overall protecting marine life. She agreed to help him with the necessary resources and guided him on the project.

After that, Pillai started working on the design and structure that would resemble the natural coral bed and came up with a way to make the model porous so that coral can latch on to it. He filled the prototype mold with cement mix at home first and eventually raised 200,000 Indian Rupees (2,798 dollars) through crowdfunding and managed to produce about 200 3D printed blocks, weighing 11 kilograms each, that were later sent to Pondicherry. Then, Temple Adventures, a dive center in the area, helped him install it last July and estimated that it will start hosting marine life this month.

Pillai said that “it was a complicated structure to develop because it had to be porous, there should be crevices and it should be conducive for organisms to grow and thrive on it.”

The 3D printed artificial coral reef blocks

The first design he created was a plastic model that he built at home. But that didn’t work and after a few trial and error runs he went for blocks using cement and dolomite (composed of calcium magnesium carbonate) and took help from a company that agreed to print out the new blocks. The blocks were designed with manual crevices so that they can connect to each other, making the process easier to build, assemble, and scale.

But the question still remains, will 3D printed coral reefs be enough to help save our oceans? Millions of people depend on the reef for food, jobs, and coastal protection, the ridges in coral reefs can even help reduce wave energy providing protection from tsunamis, erosion, and storms. Efforts to manage some of the impacts of climate change and high sea temperatures are focusing on restoring degraded reefs, many using 3D printing to develop similar structures that can help the marine life ecosystem. Famous marine biologist Jaques Cousteau’s grandson, Fabien Cousteau, helped develop 3D printed coral reefs in the Caribbean, attracting marine life again. But reefs need growing, healthy corals to subsist and function normally, so perhaps other global issues will need to be tackled before the 3D printed structures become incredibly relevant for the oceans. In the meantime, it is a great way to get people interested in marine conservation, to learn about the fantastic coral reefs, and how important they are for our survival.

The 3D printed coral reef in place

[Images: Temple Adventures]

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World’s Largest 3D Printed Coral Reef Now Resides in the Maldives

Coral reefs are important not only to the millions of species that live in them, but to humans as well. Reefs protect coastlines from storm surges during violent storms, and they also offer a great deal of income from tourism and fishing. Coral reefs are in quite a bit of trouble at the moment, though. 50 percent of the world’s reefs have died in the last 30 years, and 90 percent of the surviving reefs may die off in the next century if action isn’t taken to save them. The reefs are suffering from numerous threats – climate change, overfishing, damage from boats, and other human-caused damage.

Humans may be responsible for threatening the coral reefs, but many humans are also taking responsibility for saving and restoring them. 3D printing has been found to be an effective way of creating artificial coral reefs, which are then dropped into the ocean where it’s hoped, free-floating coral polyps will attach themselves to them and grow into new coral structures. That coral will then attract the fish and other species that make their homes in reefs, and a new, natural reef will grow from the artificial seed material.

Several reefs have already been 3D printed and sunk into the ocean, and now Reef Design Lab, an Australian organization dedicated to the creation of artificial reefs, has created what, it turns out, is the largest 3D printed artificial coral reef so far. 3D molds of the reef structures were 3D printed over 24 hours, then used to cast the structures in ceramic, which is similar to the calcium carbonate found in actual coral reefs. The 3D printed molds were printed in Australia and shipped to the Maldives, filled with concrete, assembled at Summer Island and then dropped into the ocean, where they now rest seven meters below the surface.

Live coral was then transplanted into the artificial reef, where it will hopefully grow and colonize the artificial structure, forming a new, living reef.

“3D printing technology helps us to develop more innovative ways of protecting coral reefs. The technology allows us to mimic the complexity of natural reef structures, so we can design artificial reefs that closely resemble those found in nature,” said Alex Goad of Reef Design Lab. “We hope this will be a more effective way of growing and restoring corals.”

The creation of artificial reefs isn’t new – humans have utilized sunken ships and concrete blocks to attract coral in the past. 3D printing, however, allows for the natural structure of coral reefs to be imitated, which attracts more marine life. In this case, Goad used CAD to design replicas of naturally-occurring coral reef structures before 3D printing them. The complex shapes of natural reefs are difficult to create in any other way, so 3D printing has become a valuable asset in the creation of these reefs.

It will take several years for coral and the other species that make reefs their home to populate the artificial structures, so we won’t know for some time if these 3D printed experiments are truly working. They show a lot of promise, though, and for the 25% of marine species that depend on coral, help can’t come soon enough. Scientists are hoping that the Summer Island reef will be covered in coral within the next two years, and if the project succeeds, more will likely follow.

“Projects like the 3D printed reef are popular among guests, who like that we protect our environment,” said Mari Shareef, Manager of the nearby Summer Island Resort. “And it’s not only for the guests. Our staff, most of whom are Maldivian, want to protect their environment. “Ultimately, we want to help promote a culture of environmental stewardship, not just at Summer Island, but across the Maldives.”

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[Source: Verdict/Images: Reef Design Lab]

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Team Effort Uses 3D Printing to Restore Coral Reefs

[Image: SECORE: Paul Selvaggio]

Coral reefs are the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, with thousands of animal and plant species living in their colorful ocean-floor habitats. These reefs are in quite a bit of trouble currently, however. In the past 30 years, 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs have died and if changes aren’t made to slow the progression of climate change and curb other human-caused damage to the reefs, 90 percent of them may die in the next century. Coral reefs aren’t just vital to the plants and animals that call them home, but to humans as well – they provide a lot of income through tourism and fishing, as well as protecting coastlines during violent storms.

Saving them, therefore, is critical, and involves some human intervention at this point. Coral are sessile animals, meaning that they take root like plants but capture their food from the ocean water. Coral polyps root themselves in ocean rocks, gradually reproducing and growing until they form the lush, brightly colored reefs that people travel thousands of miles to see. It’s a slow process, though – coral reefs grow by centimeters each year, taking thousands of years to become large and thriving. Right now, coral reefs don’t have thousands of years, so they need our help.

Several organizations have been trying to help coral by 3D printing artificial reefs and sinking them in the ocean in hopes of attracting free-floating coral polyps to embed themselves and begin reproducing. An organization called SECORE International (Sexual Coral Reproduction) is also using 3D printing, but taking a more hands-on, aggressive approach. SECORE is a nonprofit global network of scientists, public aquarium professionals and local stakeholders working to protect and restore coral reefs. Along with its partners, which include the California Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Nature Conservancy, SECORE is developing restoration processes that leverage the natural reproductive habits of coral.

3D printed seeding units. [Image: SECORE/Valérie Chamberland]

Certain coral species naturally broadcast egg and sperm cells, which are collected by SECORE, fertilized, and then raised in tanks until they become freely swimming larvae. Those larvae are then introduced to 3D printed “seeding units” that resemble places on natural reefs where coral would attach. Once the coral have embedded themselves, the seeding units are planted on reef areas in need of restoration.

It’s an effective approach, but a costly one, unfortunately.

“One of the ways SECORE is aiming to reduce these costs is by designing seeding units that do not need to be manually attached to the reef, but rather can be sown from a boat or other method, similar to how a farmer would sow seeds in a field,” said SECORE Project and Workshop Manager Aric Bickel.

3D printing is another way to keep costs down, as well as to rapidly produce the seeding units. SECORE aims to produce a million of the units by 2021, and hundreds of thousands of units annually by then. Phase One of the project is taking place in the Caribbean, with research and training hubs in Mexico, Curaçao and the Bahamas.

“3D printing allows us to do a bit of rapid prototyping. We were looking at several different materials, and 3D printing allows us to print a variety of materials,” Bickel said. “It also saves the cost of having to make molds or castings which, particularly for the initial prototypes, would be a significant amount of money invested.”

A diver with a tray of the seeding units [Image: SECORE/Benjamin Mueller]

CAS is one of SECORE’s primary funding providers, and because SECORE is a small team with limited engineering capabilities, CAS turned to the Autodesk Foundation, with which it looked into various design firms for help with the development of the seeding units.

“In collaboration with the Foundation, we reached out to several design firms,” Bickel said. “Emerging Objects seemed like they would be the best folks to help us out with this next design phase and hopefully with the iterative design phases as we go forward.”

One of the main challenges SECORE has been having is finding the best material and design combination for the seeding units. Not just any shape can be used – the units need to be able to wedge themselves into the reefs without manual assistance. The material is an issue, too. SECORE had been using rough cement for the seeding units, but that material worked a little too well – in addition to attracting corals, it also attracted quite a few competing organisms.

“One issue was with competition from other species on the units themselves,” said Bickel. “What the trials showed is that a slicker surface will cut down on that potential competition. The needle that you have to thread here is having a surface that’s rough enough for corals to settle on and to attach to but smooth enough that it’s not a good location for other organisms such as sponges and algae to attach to.”

Several years of trials and experiments revealed ceramic to be a good potential material for the seeding units. Emerging Objects has plenty of experience in the experimental use of 3D printed ceramic, but needed to be able to 3D print the material on a large scale, so the company reached out to Boston Ceramics for help.

“Boston Ceramics is one of the few companies we’re aware of in the world that can potentially meet some of the demands for the number of substrates we’ll be using,” said Bickel.

The team used Autodesk Netfabb to design the original shape, a tetrapod, for the seeding units, and has been experimenting with other designs that are better suited to landing and wedging themselves in the surfaces of the reefs and protecting the larvae. One of those designs looks like a ninja throwing star.

[Image: SECORE/Valérie Chamberland]

“The question we posed to our working group was, ‘Can you give us your best impression of what promotes coral larvae to grow, and what’s going to allow them to survive in the ocean as they grow up in these early life stages?’” said Bickel.

The SECORE project is not one of immediate gratification. The organization grows its corals from embryos in small conglomerations of cells, and depending on the species, it can take several years for the corals to become sexually mature. In earlier life stages, however, the coral can still provide habitats for fish and other species.

This elkhorn coral was outplanted by SECORE five years ago. Since then, it has grown into a mature colony, which now spawns with other elkhorn colonies in the waters of Curaçao. [Image: SECORE/Paul Selvaggio]

“It’s definitely an investment in the future,” Bickel said. “I think that with really complicated ecosystems, we’re talking many years before you start seeing comparable structure return to areas that are being restored. The main focus at the moment is, can we improve our methods and our technologies to upscale this type of restoration to the levels needed to counteract the decline?”

SECORE isn’t the only organization working to do so, and the hope is that with enough of them putting effort into restoring coral reefs, the damage can be mitigated and even reversed.

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[Source: Autodesk]