Experimental Evaluation of a Novel 3D-Printed Permanent Concrete Formwork (2025-11)¶

Despite being necessary, traditional construction frameworks have numerous disadvantages, i.e., waste of materials, labor-intensive, additional expenses, etc. On the other hand, the emergence of 3D printing offers a revolutionary way to improve construction methods by creating permanent concrete formwork that is 3D printed (3DP). The goal of the current study is to demonstrate the feasibility of 3DP concrete formwork as an effective substitute for traditional formwork systems by examining its structural performance. A novel strengthening method is proposed in this study where the 3DP concrete formwork will act as a structural component and increase the structural performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams. Two full-scale RC beams were cast with a 3D printer, where one specimen served as a reference specimen and another specimen was reinforced with high-strength fiber-reinforced concrete (HFC) and steel bars. The obtained results revealed that the proposed method can improve the loadcarrying capacity, cracking strength, and displacement capacity by 50%,78.5%, and 13.4%, respectively.