A Preliminary Study on Fabric Formwork for a Mud-concrete Slab System

Mud concrete and fabric formwork are existing technologies in construction industry which are gaining importance with the drive towards a climate conscious construction industry. The current work aims at combining these two technologies toward developing an earthen slab system. A preliminary study was done to assess the viability of fabric formwork for mud-concrete casting and identify potential challenges in developing such a technology. A series of tests were done to identify the performance of commonly available grey fabric ('amu redi') with changing unsupported span lengths of fabric, thickness of overburden mud-concrete layers, and water content of the mud-concrete wet mix. The experimental work verified the viability of using commonly available fabric as formwork for typical mud concrete mixes. The study showed an upper bound on the thickness of the overburden mud concrete layer beyond which the influence on the fabric, measured as the maximum deflection, was negligible as arching effects transfers the loads laterally. A peak water content at which the maximum deflection of the fabric was the highest was observed. In addition, the use of fabric formwork was observed to give a smoother surface finish.