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History of Formwork

The history of formwork began in ancient Rome, where early engineers used concrete but lacked modern formwork. They built vaults, domes, and arches to take advantage of concrete's compressive strength while avoiding its weaknesses. Throughout the Middle Ages, formwork techniques improved and became widespread in the 15th century as concrete was found to be easier to use than stone for most buildings. Modern formwork has become highly complex but traces its origins to early experimentation with concrete structures by Roman engineers.

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Abelardo Banaay Sumagang
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357 views2 pages

History of Formwork

The history of formwork began in ancient Rome, where early engineers used concrete but lacked modern formwork. They built vaults, domes, and arches to take advantage of concrete's compressive strength while avoiding its weaknesses. Throughout the Middle Ages, formwork techniques improved and became widespread in the 15th century as concrete was found to be easier to use than stone for most buildings. Modern formwork has become highly complex but traces its origins to early experimentation with concrete structures by Roman engineers.

Uploaded by

Abelardo Banaay Sumagang
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as RTF, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
Download as rtf, pdf, or txt
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History of Formwork

Although formwork is rather complex nowadays, the situation wasnt exactly


like that right from the start. In fact, the history of formwork is quite
impressive, because quite a lot of time had to pass for humanity to create
concrete formwork and the current concrete forms that you can see
nowadays on the market. Its a rather distinct and impressive history, which
we are going to outline now.

The first concrete slab examples were created during the Roman Empire
times. The Roman engineers did find a way to use concrete to build concrete
structures even at that particular time. They knew that concrete is very
powerful and good at resisting the compressive loads, but they also knew it
doesnt have a good torsional and tensile strength.

This is why the first concrete formwork examples had to use vaults, domes,
and arches. These allowed engineers to successfully create a mold that would
allow them to easily monitor and manage the way concrete would end up
looking as.
These building techniques were improved throughout the years, as the
construction materials became better to use and more complex. During the
15th century, the concrete forms started to be used in just about any type
of building because people found this process to be a lot easier when
compared to creating a stone-based building. Yes, during medieval times it
was a good idea to use stones for building castles and homes, but the
concrete became relevant soon after that.

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