Concrete is consistently in a period of transformation; methods and techniques developing to meet increasing architectural and structural ambition. Construction time and costs remains the fundamental by which projects are evaluated. However, an increased demand on concrete is offset by a need to acknowledge the need for sustainability.
What’s so special about K-FORM?
• K-FORM Screed Railing provides the construction industry for the first time with a truly economical, efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to steel road
• Made from recycled materials, K-FORM is lightweight, durable and does not require removal after concrete
• All of K-FORM’s innovative and evolutionary product profiles make concrete slab forming incredibly simple.
• Furthermore, KFORM’s simple yet highly effective design means that it substantially helps to reduce time and money when compared to other alternatives on the market.
A profile for the future of formwork
Concrete is consistently in a period of transformation; methods and techniques developing to meet increasing architectural and structural ambition. Construction time and costs remains the fundamental by which projects are evaluated. However, an increased demand on concrete is offset by a need to acknowledge the need for sustainability. Author of K Form reports.
As the most used construction material in the world, the concrete and its industry must be able to respond to the challenges of global warming and questions and demands of sustainable construction, both through the material itself and its manufacture, but also by utilising and embracing industry innovations.
Working smarter and more efficiently is a requisite by which the industry will be judged, and for many, the future hinges on what and how concrete embraces innovation and what it offers for sustainable construction.
K-Form has managed to combine all of the benefits of the savings, while enhancing the green credentials of a project by the use of its 100% recycled PVC screed rail system.
Calculations have shown that the carbon footprint of the K-Form PVC screed rails is 76% lower than the carbon footprint of steel road forms when comparing K135 on a 150mm-thick concrete slab to using 150mm metal road forms.
Window frames
The screed rails are produced from window frames that have been diverted from landfill disposal, cleaned of all glass, gaskets and catches etc and then ground down into a 5mm chip form. These chips are then magnetically cleaned of any metals that may have got through the manual cleaning process, colour sorted by a spectrum analysing machine that will detect and remove any non-white PVC which thus removes any traces of the black rubber gaskets. The finished recycled chips are then moved to the bespoke production facility in south Wales, which houses high-temperature and high-pressure plastic extrusion machinery which re-melts the chips and then forces them through tooling to form the final required profile.
Advantages
The profile of the K-Form is hollow in its vertical structure to give a compressible characteristic, which is in most cases appropriate to form an expansion joint between the adjacent slabs (subject to the requirements of each individual slab design and subsequent engineer’s approval).
This design allows for continuous pouring of adjacent bays of a concrete slab, thus allowing the contractor to realise huge time and cost savings within the project. Also eliminated is the need for saw cuts to the joint area in order to place a gunned in seal as the top strip of the profile is simply removable to allow the sealant to be applied to a clean and dry void perfectly aligned with the joint.
K-Form is being used extensively on project all around the world that range from small agricultural or domestic projects, right the way through to large concrete slabs on major distribution centre projects.
Project case study:
Contractor Morgan Sindall was commissioned to build a new £6 million Agri-Business Centre in Holsworthy, Devon. This new 30-acre (12-hectare) site is to replace the existing site being sold off to a major supermarket chain. Bad weather in the south-west had an impact on the time deliverable on the project and the original specifications were reviewed to include K-Form use in all the concrete slab work.
The net floor area within the Agri-Business centre for livestock was 135 × 100m. The net concrete area required was 13,500m2 (internal/external) and the total quantity of K-Form K135 ordered was 2800 linear metres.
This saved 60% in labour time, as there were no steel forms to be laid or struck and no edge damage, with the associated manual handling issues. Overall programme time saving was considerable (three to four weeks) as at least six to eight bays could be set up in advance and pre-meshed/pre-earthed (a livestock earthing requirement), without tying up large quantities of steel forms.
