Gulf Construction Online - Meva systems help Iranian builder

Scaffolding & Formwork

Preassembled AluFix panel gangs ... crane-lifted at site.

Meva systems help Iranian builder

01 December 2011

A LEADING contractor in Iran has turned to Meva formwork to help build an ambitious large-scale housing project in the Western Iranian city of Kermanshah, where 57 residential buildings, 15 storeys each, are being built to provide new homes for more than 5,000 citizens.

With the apartment blocks scheduled to be completed by 2014, work flow and schedules are tight. The buildings all have the same layout – four large-size apartments grouped around a central lobby with its staircases and lift shafts. Each apartment is designed to provide the flexibility to be reconfigured into two separate units, if required. The walls, beams, slabs, staircases and lift shafts all have similar dimensions.

"Thus all formwork is going to be used hundreds of times throughout the construction process. Therefore, it needs to be robust and suited for tough on-site conditions as the tight schedule will not allow for any delays for repairs or time-consuming job-built solutions," says a spokesman for Meva, a leading German formwork specialist.

The contractor, Payahoor, has been using Meva systems successfully since March 2010 and has pioneered the use of new building methods in Iran, where heavy steel formwork with plywood is typically used.

"To Payahoor, plywood is no longer a viable option: The 100 per cent wood-free, all-plastic facing used by Meva in all its formwork systems proved the ideal opportunity to improve quality, safety and speed on all the company’s building sites," the spokesman adds.

The contractor is using a number of formwork systems on the project, including the alkus all-plastic facing, AluFix modular formwork, Meva FormSet (MFS) programme to form slab stop ends, and MevaDec slab formwork as well as the KAB working scaffold for work safety.

Elaborating on the advantages of alkus, he says: "The polypropylene alkus facing, which is reinforced on the inside with thin aluminium foil, lasts as long as the frame and makes re-facing redundant. No wood needs to be purchased and none is wasted. There are no interruptions to workflow, which is a major benefit for this project. Minor damages such as nail holes are repaired on site using identical material. As it can be cut, welded and bent for custom-made solutions, special angle-shaped forms were made from alkus to avoid time-consuming job-built solutions. The alkus angles are used to pour the change in ceiling height that occurs along the inside walls between the lobby and the flats."

Meva’s hand-set formwork system AluFix, made of lightweight aluminium, is used to pour the walls, beams and slab edges.

Designed for flexible use, AluFix contributes to speeding up work in more than one way, states the spokesman. "With its panel sizes matched to typical layouts in housing construction, AluFix drastically reduces the need for job-built compensations or fillers," he says.

The 300-cm panels are used to pour the 275-cm-high walls while the 35-cm-high slab edges and beams are poured using slender 40-cm panels. They also handle the 20 cm (or 25 cm) underside of the beams. All panels can be used and combined both horizontally and vertically, enhancing flexibility on site.

AluFix is fully compatible with its twin system, the steel frame hand-set system, EcoAs. The 240-cm-high wall end below the beam is poured with the 240-cm EcoAs panel, which is attached to the adjacent AluFix panels with the same assembly lock.

"Because they are light, the few panels required for the beams are moved into pouring position by hand, while the large panel gangs needed for the walls are lifted by crane from one pouring cycle to the next. This saves assembly and stripping time," continues the spokesman.

The slabs are poured using the MevaDec slab formwork applying the drop-head-beam-panel method. The drop head allows for early stripping, that is the props remain under the poured slabs while the panels and beams can be removed early for the next slab. Thus the site needs two sets of props but only one set of panels and beams to do all the slab jobs.

"With a total of 855 slabs of 700 sq m to be poured, MevaDec’s early stripping advantage saves the site substantial time and material. MevaDec is also easy to use and avoids assembly errors. The Kermanshah teams, previously not familiar with MevaDec, have been using it correctly from the beginning and after only a short training session," says the spokesman.

All other building parts are also poured using standard systems without the need for job-built formwork solutions – the staircase walls with AluFix panels on shaft platforms and the lift shafts with AluFix panels on KAB working scaffolds.

"The KAB is also used as a fall-down protection and supports the slab formwork props. The AluFix panels for the slab edges are attached to the walls using the stop-end rails and stop-end spindles of Meva FormSet programme (MFS)," concludes the spokesman.