Full scale Curtain wall panel.
THIN-SHELL PANELS
Thin-shell concrete panels can be constructed by spraying concrete onto hanging sheets of fabric. Like all the work done at CAST, this research uses only flat fabric sheets – in this case sheets that are hung like curtains in order to produce deeply corrugated, and beautiful, thin-shell wall panels. This method was developed through a series of small model constructions using a light nylon fabric and sprayed plaster. The first full scale tests (2007) were done at the Lafarge precast factory in Winnipeg, Canada using a random fibre-reinforced concrete sprayed onto an inexpensive woven polypropylene geotextile.
Future tests will investigate the use of coated fabrics that will permanently attach themselves to the sprayed concrete in order to make a rigid mold. This will provide a plastic-coated mold, made from a hanging fabric sheet, that can be used for pre-cast production of thin-shell glass fibre reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels.
The pdf article “Thin-Shell_Concrete_From_Fabric_Molds.pdf” (see below) provides a more detailed description of this research project.
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