The breathable stay in place concrete form that allows a full visual inspection of the pour and cure process.
Benefits
|
|
Centrally located and manufactured in St. Louis, MO to serve you better.
Most important – Made In U.S.A.
We offer a stronger, more economical, and versatile design in a wide range of widths and lengths to fit all your special fabrication requirements.
Special Widths: 4″, 8″, 12″, 16″, 20″, 24″, & 28″ Wide
Special Lengths: 12″ to 240″ Long
Standard Sheet Size – 27-1/8” x 96″ ~ 18 Sq. Ft. ~ Approximate Weight 15 lbs.
| Standard Bundle Sizes | ||
| Sheets Per Bundle | Coverage | Approximate Weight |
| 5 | 90 Sq. Ft. | 75 Lbs. |
| 10 | 180 Sq. Ft. | 150 Lbs. |
| 25 | 450 Sq. Ft. | 375 Lbs. |
Concrete Form Usage
Expand-A-Form offers a taller stronger ribbed expanded metal leave in place concrete form for pour in place concrete. The recommended slump mix is approximately 3″ – 4″ but with proper precautions 6″ slump can be poured. This is depending on the ambient temperature, support spacing and bracing.
Use Expand-A-Form for forming bulkheads, pile caps, grade beams, blindside walls, construction joist, column and beam pockets, thrust blocks and anywhere it’s difficult to remove the forms. A smooth concrete finish would need back plastering. Expand-A-Form is excellent for below grade level forming or non-finished areas.
Concrete Form Installation
Preparation and Cutting
In contrast to many specialized building materials, Expand-A-Form requires no proprietary tools for installation. You can easily cut sheets to length or notch them using a circular saw with a metal cutting blade, tin snips, or a small cutting torch. Additionally, field crews often save time by simply punching the end of a rebar through the expanded metal when constructing bulkheads.
Comparative Ease of Setup
While the process of erecting and installing Expand-A-Form mirrors conventional plywood form panels, these metal sheets offer a lighter, easier, and significantly faster alternative. To begin, place the panel ribs perpendicular to your supports. Specifically, you must ensure the rib spacing spans correctly between the studs or walers. Next, secure the Expand-A-Form panel to the supports using nails or wire ties, making sure you position the ribs to face into the first pour.
Placement and Overlapping
Regarding vertical forms, you should always place the bottom panels first to establish a solid base. From there, overlap and nest the panel ribs along the length of the sheet before joining them to the support. Furthermore, you must overlap the panel ends by approximately 2″ to 3″. Once overlapped, join them securely at every single rib to maintain structural integrity.
Fastening and Staggering
To ensure the mesh remains stable, you must wire-tie overlapped side joints every 12″ between the supports. Similarly, fasten the panels every 8″ along the actual supports. Moreover, you should always stagger the overlapped panel end joints between courses; consequently, this prevents weak points from forming in the formwork wall.
Bracing and Pouring Precautions
Finally, you must brace the panels against concrete pour pressure just as you would in all conventional form construction. Because excessive pressure can cause deflection, do not exceed the recommended bracing or pour rate guidelines. Furthermore, when using a vibrator to consolidate the mix, keep the head at least 2″ to 3″ away from the panels so that you do not inadvertently damage the mesh surface.
Material Specification
Thickness: 26 Ga. (.018) Type 66 Galvanized Mild Steel per ASTM A525-83 with physical and load bearing safety factor per C1-347.
Fabrication in accordance with ASTM C947 from Hot Dipped Galvanized Coil Strip meeting ASTM A653 / A653M.
Expand-A-Form is a coil fed process designed to lance the sheet and rollform eight (8) ribs down the length of the strip as it expands the lanced mesh areas between the ribs. Our ribs are deeper (.24mm) .88″ tall providing added panel strength. The ribs are spaced approximately 3-7/8″ apart. The material between the ribs produces an expanded mesh with a parallelogram opening size of 1/4″ x 3/8″.
Standard finished panels are 27″ wide and 97″ long. For special applications, we can make the panels in lengths of 12″ to 240″ long. We also offer panels in widths of 4″, 8″, 12″, 16″, 20″, 24″, and 28″ wide.