What is formwork?

The formwork or formwork, is a mold of wood or steel that aim to maintain the armature and the concrete during the setting. By the quality of the concrete it is possible to make a great variety of elements of different structures for architectural purposes. But for this it is extremely important to contain the mixture while hardening to achieve the desired shape. To have a formwork, you can count on the wood or steel to give a correct support. The process of emptying generates pressure forces against the walls of the formwork, reason why it must have a good resistance because if it is made greater pressure it will cause deformations in the structures or at worst of the cases the loss of the emptied concrete. Inside the formwork is placed the armor or reinforcement basket, to be embedded in the element once set.

For a correct placement of this reinforcement and to leave the necessary coatings the basket must be separated from the edges and at the bottom use concrete separators (ice cream), these are made of concrete, usually extruded by a tube, it is not convenient to use wood, pieces of blocks or other elements that can reduce the capacity of the concrete. The usual thing in housing projects is the use of wood formwork, but strict quality control should be taken, a very soft or very rigid piece is not convenient as it can give us problems during the placement of the concrete or when the formwork is removed. In addition, in cases where the formaleta is reused, a lot of cleaning control must be taken to remove concrete traces from previous choreas or any type of dirt that could contaminate the mixture. In addition it is advisable to wet the wooden formwork since these tend to absorb water which is indispensable during the setting process.