Formwork Design Research Articles

User-Centered Design of Architectural Models Adapted to Monolithic Structure Technology

Monolithic Structure Technology (MST) is a new construction process patented in Morocco, offering significant advantages in terms of durability, resilience, and energy efficiency. This technology enables the mass production of low-rise green buildings thanks to the design of a monolithic metal formwork with a high reuse rate for the bonding of the structure working mainly in compression. Unlike conventional approaches to construction, the architectural design and load-bearing structure are studied simultaneously from the formwork design phase, as the structure mobilizes its form to guarantee stability. The design of architectural models adapted to MST is therefore of paramount importance if we are to exploit the full potential of this innovative technology. In this context, we developed the most suitable designs for MST based on a user-centered approach by directly involving the presumed future operators through a structured questionnaire to identify their preferences.115 respondents were interviewed, and the results were analyzed and used to design 10 different models. We then complemented the design process with a neuro-architectural approach to optimize design factors (facades, levels and rooms, shape and openings, roof type, interior layout, green spaces, and materials). The 10 designed models were then used for a closed card sorting study, followed by another semi-structured interview. User preferences were synthesized and the optimum design for the Moroccan countryside was selected.

EarthWorks: Zero waste 3D printed earthen formwork for shape-optimized, reinforced concrete construction

Rapid global urbanization is driving governments and builders to seek paradigm-shifting technologies to speed the construction of housing and infrastructure at a low economic and carbon cost. Here, we present a novel method for fabricating materially efficient, shape-optimized, code-compliant, reinforced concrete structures cast in directly recyclable 3D printed earth formwork, hereby referred to as EarthWorks. This research demonstrates the potential of zero waste, circular formwork that can be manufactured with construction waste soils directly on site. Methods are described for formwork design and toolpathing that accounts for hydrostatic pressure, conventional reinforcement, high accuracy connections, and the fabrication of complex, 3D-shaped geometry with continuous extrusion. In addition, the building design and performance potential of the EarthWorks method are assessed and compared to existing additive formwork technologies from a carbon perspective. Case studies are fabricated demonstrating cast-in-place, tilt-up, and on-site prefab methods to produce bespoke columns, beams, and frames designed to California building code.

Integrated BIM-GA approach for slab formwork design optimization

Purpose Formwork design and construction for reinforced concrete buildings take significant time, effort and money. Construction procedures are time-consuming for designers and costly for the contractor. Poor engineering decisions have led to several workplace accidents in the construction industry. This paper aims to present an integrated building information modeling – genetic algorithm (BIM-GA) model to automate formwork design, 3D visualization and optimization. Design/methodology/approach Data are precisely extracted from a 3D structural model and used to optimize formwork design based on available formwork components and prices. Optimization models are made using GA approach. A library of 3D formwork components was modeled and stored using Revit. The optimized design solution thereafter would be visualized automatically in Revit to readily acquire formwork quantities schedules and shop drawings. Findings A case study illustrating the proposed approach demonstrated that using BIM will reduce formwork design, quantification and drawing time by more than 50% of the traditional approach with safer design and accurate results due to process automation and optimize cost for the given data. Originality/value This research introduces an innovative integrated BIM and GA model for the optimization and automation of slab formwork design, which has significantly benefited the construction industry. The utilization of GA in the optimization process allows for the attainment of an optimal formwork design, ultimately leading to a reduction in construction cost and time.

Pulp ‐ Studio‐Based Research in Thin‐Shell Cast Paper Structures

This paper reflects upon a sequence of seven research studios, taught within a six-year timespan in three different architecture schools, in which we developed approaches to casting thin-shell (monocoque) paper structures at full scale. Processes of material selection and material harvesting/processing, formwork design and fabrication all informed the formal expression of the shells. In the context of architectural education, fabricating at full-scale can make structural principles accessible, but large constructions can be expensive for students, and can also create unnecessary material waste. This sequence of studios, called PULP, allowed students to fabricate spatial structures at full-scale using materials available at little to no cost. The large structures have the potential to biodegrade completely, creating no landfill waste, and no adverse impact in their final resting place. The dearth of research or precedents in cast‐paper‐as‐structure offers a unique opportunity for novel, basic or “blue skies” research in this area. Processual knowledge gained through leading this studio‐based research over several years has allowed us to focus more recent research on scaling-up and using material combinations and fabrication techniques that are simple and effective. The increasingly focused investigations and larger scale of the paper cast structures in the most recent (last two years of) studio research suggests that there is something like a paper-specific formal vocabulary in thin shell structures.

Concrete and Development: Context-driven Formwork Design for Scalable, Accessible and Low-carbon Concrete Structures

Society is building at an unprecedented rate: building stock will need to double by 2060 (UNEP 2021), adding over 230 billion m2 (24.7 billion ft.2) of floor area in new construction, equivalent to a new Paris every week (Abergel et al. 2017). Most of this construction will occur in Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs). This article advocates using materially efficient design methods that enable sustainable development through scalable, low-cost, low-carbon concrete structural systems for LEDC construction. This article presents a generalized framework for evaluating contextual design and fabrication methods before demonstrating its use by evaluating several lab-scale structurally optimized prototypes. It begins with a discussion of the motivating factors for low-carbon concrete construction in LEDCs.

Digital Fabrication of Ribbed Slabs With Post-Tensioned 3D Printed Concrete Formwork

This paper presents a novel digital prefabrication concept for the ribbed slabs, wherein post-tensioned 3D printed concrete (3DPC) serves as a lightweight stay-in-place formwork. The formwork is designed to withstand the dead loads from its own weight and the cast concrete topping, along with live loads from construction equipment. The proposed concept simplifies the construction process for reinforced concrete (RC) slabs by eliminating the need of temporary formwork, temporary shoring or scaffolding typically required in traditional construction. To evaluate the feasibility of the concept, design calculations were performed for a ribbed slab formwork with 30 mm thickness. The results showed that the proposed concept is feasible for span lengths of 4 to 6m for various eccentricities of the post-tensioning tendons. The printing feasibility of this slender formwork design was evaluated by printing it to a height of 2 m. The paper concludes with a discussion on the design implications of the corrugated surface of 3DPC compared to flat surface of conventional concrete. For this purpose, a detailed analysis was conducted to assess the stress concentration arising from the corrugated geometry of 3DPC and its consequent effects on the cracking loads.

Formwork Engineering for Sustainable Concrete Construction

This study provides a comprehensive review of the engineering challenges of formwork in concrete construction. The paper investigates different formwork systems, their design based on form pressure, and the difficulties of form stripping. Alternative binders are gaining more and more interest by opening new opportunities for sustainable concrete materials and their impact on form pressure and concrete setting is also investigated in this paper. The discussion involves several engineering challenges such as sustainability, safety, and economy, while it also explores previous case studies, and discusses future trends in formwork design. The findings pinpoint that choosing an appropriate formwork system depends significantly on project-specific constraints and that the development of innovative materials and technologies presents significant benefits but also new challenges, including the need for training and regulation. Current trends in formwork design and use show promising possibilities for the integration of digital technologies and the development of sustainable and ‘smart’ formwork systems. Continued research within the field has the possibility to explore new formwork materials and technologies, which will contribute to the implementation of more effective and sustainable practices in concrete construction.

Digital design and fabrication of clay formwork for concrete casting

Digital design and fabrication of clay formwork for concrete casting

Time-Dependent Reliability Analysis for Deflection of a Reinforced Concrete Box Girder Bridge

Prior to casting of concrete, proper supervision and attention to camber provision in bridge construction are required. It is also critical to use an appropriate quality control manual, pay due attention to reinforcement bar placement, and have a high level of formwork design before construction begins. If these issues are not properly addressed, performance of structures will be affected. In this research, performance of a 40.5m box-girder reinforced concrete bridge which was constructed without having proper camber is studied. As camber was the most important issue of the bridge under investigation, the impact on strength and serviceability requirements is compared to the standard. A dynamic load test with an Arduino type accelerometer is performed to assess the bridge's current condition in relation to the serviceability limit requirement. The deterioration of reinforced concrete (RC) sections due to reinforcement corrosion, creep, and an increase in load intensity, as well as the corresponding statistical distributions are considered to estimate the long-term effect of bridge deflection. The time-variant analysis results show that a linear decrease in deflection reliability indices with the bridge's expected service life of 58 years and strengthening it increased to 85 years.

Digital design and fabrication of clay formwork for concrete casting

This paper investigates the potential of clay extrusion as formwork for casting customized and building-scale fiber-reinforced concrete elements. Customizable shapes are produced using clay as cheap, sustainable, and easily demoldable formwork, extending its printable height limit. The coupled incremental clay 3D printing and concrete casting process allows the layered casts to start curing and reduces the hydrostatic pressure from concrete. The concluding case study, the Cocoon, demonstrates the method’s capability to achieve building-scale height, integrate openings, and create complex surfaces. The introduced method seeks to challenge techniques and materials for 3D-printed formworks, demonstrating the ability to reduce the environmental impacts of concrete construction without compromising the complexity and time efficiency of bespoke elements.

Design of Short Wall Timber Formworks Using New Formulas

The construction of reinforced concrete requires formwork, whether from timber, steel, or any other material. Generally, formwork accounts for 20% to 25% of a project's cost. This research aims to come up with new formulas that can guide the engineer in designing timber formwork in a safe, easy, and economical manner. By using the statistical analysis program in this study, we calculated the spacings of studs, wales, and ties in a faster manner than the traditional method by analysing the results of bending, shear, deflection, crushing, etc. The results of the study involve the effects of placement rate, concrete temperature, sheathing thickness, pressure values, and stud and wale sections on the spacing of components of the formwork. There are seven equations built to calculate the spacings of individual components.

Research on Formwork Construction Technology of Railway Bridge

With the continuous development of railway bridge construction, the application of new technology, new technology and new materials is becoming more and more extensive, which puts forward higher requirements for the design and construction of formwork. This article takes railway bridge templates as the research object, and focuses on the technical difficulties in the design and construction of prefabricated and assembled bridge templates for segments. Combined with the currently under construction Zhengzhou to Xuchang railway elevated bridge project, the short line method is used for construction, and the types of railway bridge templates, design and construction techniques of templates are introduced. Combining engineering examples to illustrate the characteristics of template design and construction, this provides a reference for the design and construction of similar bridge templates in the future.

Symbiosis as a method in architectural morphology in the beginning of the ХХІ century

This article explores the processes of form making, which relate to the design of the overall shape and mass, volume of a building or group of buildings, usually carried out in the early stages of the architectural design process. They involve the creation of physical or digital models that are used to explore different options for forming and iterations of them. Architects use a number of specific form making techniques, which are divided into types and subtypes according to their building properties. This paper aims to study the concept of building form creation based on biological principles of forming and interaction between certain morphological types: commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism. The search for forms in architecture is a process of research and identification of the most suitable form for a building or structure, taking into account functional, aesthetic and environmental requirements. It is an iterative process that involves the analysis and synthesis of information from various sources, including context, program requirements. The theory of architectural morphology includes the concepts of commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism as methods of finding form.
 Biological analogues in architectural form-making reflect the idea of using biological principles and mechanisms to create new methods of design and form-making. One such method is symbiotic architecture, a design concept based on the idea of a mutually beneficial interaction between buildings and their environment. This concept is based on the idea of symbiosis, where different organisms work together and benefit from each other.
 In the context of formwork, symbiotic architecture can take many forms and manifest itself in different aspects of formwork design. In this work, the main attention is paid to the form-forming aspect of design.

BIM-Based Timber Formwork Design and Modeling

Building information modeling (BIM) is one of the most promising new technological developments that can be used to facilitate design and construction automation. Prior BIM research has primarily focused on permanent building components; temporary structures such as scaffolding and concrete formwork have received little attention. The design and planning of concrete formwork systems, however, would substantially benefit from the capabilities of BIM. Formwork design is repetitive and can be very time-consuming due to the need to analyze multiple parameters of individual permanent components, the latest formwork design guidelines, methods, and procedures, and the available materials. In this study, a BIM-based tool is developed and proposed to assist designers and builders in planning, designing, and generating concrete formwork design models for planning purposes. By integrating the design procedures recommended by the American Concrete Institute (ACI), the streamlining tool automates the design and modeling process for timber concrete formwork through an application programming interface (API) in Revit. The workability of the proposed tool was demonstrated through a case study. The study also employed the survey method to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed tool and its potential for improving worker safety and health from the perspectives of formwork professionals. Using the tool, form designers and planners will be able to determine the most applicable formwork design based on the permanent facility structure along with the availability of construction materials, site conditions present, and worker safety and health considerations. The study also provides contractors with a new tool for planning concrete operations and expands the scope of BIM design.

Generating integrated bill of materials using mask R-CNN artificial intelligence model

Concrete formwork is a crucial temporary structure for concrete placement not only in structural design but also in budget planning. Artificial intelligence (AI) possesses great potential in planning and managing this temporary structure and can automate quantity take-off and cost estimation. The objective of this paper is to integrate AI with a cost database for automatically generating formwork bills of materials (BoMs). A BoM-generation AI model (BoM-GAIM) is presented that can automate BoM generation based on Mask R-CNN and the image segmentation technique. The proposed model, trained using the images of 2D CAD formwork drawings, can recognize, classify, and extract formwork components. The mean average precision (mAP) of the trained Mask R-CNN was found to be 98% at intersection-over-union (IoU) = 50% and 85% at IoU = 75%. The optical character recognition (OCR) is also used to extract the numerical information from dimension objects. Finally, integrated with a cost database, the BoM-GAIM generated a BoM for concrete formwork in a user-interface environment. The application of BoM-GAIM streamlines the BoM generation and increases the concrete formwork design efficiency.

Insights into Concrete Forming, Reinforcing, and Pouring in Building Construction

The goal of this paper is to yield insights into the forming, reinforcing, and pouring of concrete buildings, focusing on design, functionality, failure, and safety aspects. The concrete construction process has different moving parts along the form–pour–strip cycle, and the authors aimed to analyze the information pertaining to formwork and rebar design, reasons for failures of formwork and hardening concrete, various hazards on jobsites, and safe work practices. The intent of this study was to seek and analyze the experiences of industry professionals on the above-stated aspects. In total, five well-experienced industry professionals working in concrete forming, reinforcing, and pouring were interviewed. Through comparative analysis of the interview results, the authors were able to gather valuable data related to designs of formwork system and rebars, field practices, jobsite hazards, and safety requirements. Interview results revealed that functionality and applied loads are the determining factors in any design considerations when it comes to formwork system and rebars for concrete buildings. Another finding was that a construction project does not wait for a concrete element to reach its full compressive strength at 28 days before proceeding with the work since the element can hold most construction loads after 3 or 4 days. In addition, the failures which occur in concrete buildings are a result of formwork breakdown, defective formwork layout, and concrete damage due to corroded rebars and inadequate curing procedure. Lastly, interview results revealed that the single leading hazard during concrete works is working at heights which can be minimized using fall arrest systems or engineered guardrails for improved safety.

Design and Characteristics of a Novel Casuarina Glauca Wooden K-Truss Formwork

Design and Characteristics of a Novel Casuarina Glauca Wooden K-Truss Formwork

Design and Performance of Polystyrene Modular Composite Dismantling-Free Formwork

A new type of no-demolition insulation formwork was designed with EPS foam concrete as the frost and fire resistant protection layer and polystyrene board as the insulation layer. Tests were conducted on foam concrete to analyze the flexural performance and safety of the formwork. The results show that EPS foam concrete has excellent performance, and when EPS foam concrete with density grade A08 is used as the protective layer, the mechanical properties of the formwork meet the requirements of "Thermalinsulation free from demolition template for buildings" JC/T 2493-2018, which provides a reference basis for its application in the construction field.

Lateral Pressure Test of Vertical Joint Concrete and Formwork Optimization Design for Monolithic Precast Concrete Structure

When the vertical joints of monolithic precast concrete structures are cast by self-compacting concrete, the design of the formwork under rational lateral pressure of self-compacting concrete becomes a key technical issue. In this paper, a prototype simulation test was conducted for the pouring of self-compacting concrete in the vertical joint of precast concrete walls. The self-compacting concrete was continuously poured from the top of vertical joints with a height of 2.8 m without any assistance such as a delivery tube. The formwork pressure of self-compacting concrete was measured at different heights with varying casting time. Results showed that the lateral pressure increased with the increase in slump-flow of fresh self-compacting concrete, reaching a peak value of about 70 kPa at a height of about 600 mm from the bottom of formwork. Compared to the concrete with a slump-flow of 550 mm, the self-compacting concrete with the slump-flow reached 655 mm and 755 mm, presenting an increase in the peak lateral pressure by 31.5% and 44.9%, respectively. A method for calculating the lateral pressure of self-compacting concrete on the joint formwork is proposed using the analysis of enveloped test curves. Under the condition with enough strength and limited deformation of the joint formwork, the optimal design of aluminum alloy formwork is determined using finite element analysis. This provides a sci-tech foundation of the optimal design to lighten the weight of joint formwork to improve the installation efficiency and reduce the manual power cost.

Study on the Universal Tapered Segmental Ring Assembly Simulation Algorithm and Deviation Assessment: A Case Study on Metro Line Tunnel

Universal tapered segmental ring system has been adopted to assemble tangent and curve line elements into the shield tunnels through the relative rotation of the adjacent front and rear rings, which simplifies the formwork design, demonstrates strong universality, and is easy for quality assurance. To evaluate the position deviation caused by the taper value and propose the assembly scheme for the contractor, this article developed the universal tapered segmental ring assembly simulation technology. Firstly, the assembly procedure of the universal tapered segmental ring system both in normal case and in special case is introduced, including the interval tunnel of special rings and actual engineering that needs deviation correction. Secondly, relevant core algorithms are introduced in detail, including the coordinate position algorithm of horizontal and vertical curves and computer graphic algorithm of spatial point rotating around any axis. Finally, this article takes a background metro line tunnel as a case to validate the algorithm and illustrate the assessment methodology of universal tapered segmental ring assembly accuracy. The sections with maximum deviation are found as an alert ahead of the shield advancing. In conclusion, the algorithms and methodology proposed in this article illustrate the excellent suitability and robustness in shield tunnels adopting a universal tapered segmental ring system in the stage of both design and construction.