Shaping Sustainability: Investigating the Structural Efficiency of Fabric Formwork in Concrete Beam Production

This poster explores an innovative approach to precast concrete beam fabrication using fabric formwork, diverging from traditional rigid formwork methods. Rigid formworks, while effective, often result in inefficient concrete use, leading to unnecessary material consumption and higher CO2 emissions. Recent literature on fabric formwork suggests its potential to create more organic and structurally efficient shapes, reducing both the amount of material used and the environmental impact. However, research on optimizing these methods for structural performance, ease of fabrication, and industrial applicability remains limited. Addressing this gap, our study employs form-finding techniques to optimize concrete volume in beam fabrication, ensuring ease of production while maintaining or surpassing the structural performance of traditional prismatic concrete beams. The hypothesis driving this research posits that fabric formwork can produce beams that not only match the structural strength of traditional beams but also offer material savings, potentially leading to a reduction in the overall carbon footprint of concrete construction. Results from testing are presented, indicating that fabric-formed beams exhibit comparable strengths relative to conventional prismatic beams. This finding suggests a potential paradigm shift in precast concrete production, where optimizing beam shapes through fabric formwork could become a standard practice. The implications of this research extend to the broader construction industry, offering a pathway to lower emissions and more sustainable building practices.