Types of fabric formwork
| Beams Efficient reinforced concrete beams, shaped to follow their bending moment curves, can be constructed using fabric sheets. The ability to easily form curved, variable-section beams has prompted University-based engineering research in North America, Europe, and the UK, into the performance characteristics of these efficiently curved beams. |
This reduced volume, variable section, reinforced concrete beam was shaped to follow the bending moment curve for a double cantilever beam supporting a uniform load (CAST, 2005). |
| Columns The use of fabric tubes to form columns is a natural application of fabric forming. Symmetric fluid pressures force the fabric to form a perfect circle. As the fabric tube forms fold flat, significant savings in shipping and storage are achieved over rigid formwork. Unattractive spiral lines of cardboard tube forms are avoided. |
The columns for this Church in Corinto Nicaragua were formed with fabric (Fab-Form, 2006). |
| Footings Fabric formed footings offer significant benefits over lumber:
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Fabric formed footings eliminate jobsite waste (Fab-Form, 2004). |
| Panels Unique precast concrete panel designs can be constructed using flat fabric sheets as molds. The natural deflections of a fabric sheet, supported from below, produces beautiful and structurally efficient shapes. |
Precast wall panel formed from a fabric-cast mold (CAST 2002). |
| Thin shell structures Molds for lightweight compression shell structures and building components such as thin-shell compression vaults and double curvature wall panels can be made by placing concrete on a hanging sheet of fabric. Pure compression geometries are directly produced by simply inverting the tension-resistant shapes given by the fabric membrane. |
Fabric sheets deflect into naturally occurring funicular geometries, producing molds for lightweight funicular compression vaults (CAST). |
| Trusses A simple mold technology using flat sheets of fabric stretched over plywood supports, makes possible the economic construction of reinforced concrete trusses. Construction details and structural design methods are being developed in University-based research at the University of Manitoba (Canada). |
Structural tests have been taken on this four meter fabric-cast truss (CAST, 2006). |
| Walls Architect Kenzo Unno has developed several different methods for constructing beautiful fabric-formed walls. These methods provide large reductions in the materials consumed in construction. Sheets of rigid insulation are used in place of plywood on the flat side of a fabric-cast wall, while a fabric formwork membrane provides a beautiful architectural finish on the other side of an insulated, cast-in-place, structural wall. |
Fabric-formed wall by Kenzo Unno of Umi Architectural Atelier, Tokyo Japan. |
Walls, modified The use of structural fabric form-liners, installed in modified plywood wall formwork, can produce unique architectural and structural designs.
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Cut-outs in a standard plywood wall forms allow fabric form-liners to deflect outwards to form pilasters or columns (CAST 2007). |
| Domes Domes
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| Furniture Furniture
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| Composites Composites
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