Recyclable Sand Formwork (2022-04)¶

In times of climate change and increasing scarcity of resources, the construction industry is faced with the growing urgency of significantly reducing resource consumption, emissions and waste. The application of lightweight construction strategies in conjunction with circular production processes offers a holistic approach to this problem. In the following article, a method for waste-free production of lightweight concrete components using recyclable sand molds is presented. The use of water-soluble mixtures in a powder bed printing process enables the production of formwork for complex and optimized concrete structures and the reuse of the formwork material in subsequent production cycles (Fig. 1). The individual steps of the process are presented in detail and illustrated using the example of the production of a concrete prototype with a complex spatial structure.