Site report: Pumping permanent concrete wall shuttering at East Winch

Concrete pumping, as a construction technique, is central to many of the new building systems that aim for a high quality build combined with speed of construction. One system that has started to gain popularity in the UK, and is reliant of the use of concrete pumps, is the AFS structural wall system.

This is a permanent formwork, structural walling system that consists of lightweight panels created by bonding fibre cement sheets to galvanised steel stud frames. The panels are custom-made for each project from the construction drawings and coded at the factory for easy identification on-site. The panels can be made to a variety of sizes to suit a range of architectural and engineering design requirements. The panels are delivered to site, as and when needed, flat stacked on pallets.

Once on site, the panels are quickly and simply erected, building off a steel floor track with starter bars for the reinforcement. They are plumbed and braced and the reinforcing steel is inserted. 10 mm aggregate concrete is then pumped into the panels to form the load-bearing walls. This formwork solution is licensed in the UK from the Australian company that originally designed the system. In Australia, the AFS structural wall system is used extensively for office blocks, apartment blocks hotels, shopping centres, hospitals and prisons.

This year, Camfaud has built on its experience pumping ICF structures to pump this structural wall system. For the new Church in East Winch, we supplied two M44 mobile concrete pumps to achieve full coverage of the site and thus ensure that the concrete could be placed directly from the boom. We reduced the pipeline down to 75 mm hose to allow accurate placing of the concrete into the formwork. In Peckham, we have supplied a range of pumps to build an apartment block using this system.

• Pumps: 2 x M44

• Customer: Kingham AFS

• Site: East Winch

• Concrete Supplier: The Concrete Company

• Date: October 2006