Project:

PROPS REMOVAL AND STRIPPING OUT

FORMWORK DESIGN

Created by: Paul Kalaitzidis MEng CEng

22th September 2014

PROPS REMOVAL AND STRIPPING OUT FORMWORK

DESIGN

Introduction
This report has been created to calculate the appropriate props removal and stripping out
formwork for the slabs at the project in

The project is ongoing and the main

part of them consists of four slabs. In this phase of the project (22 September 2014) we
have casted the Lower Ground floor the Ground floor and the First floor. The whole idea of
this subject is in the first stage and our aim is to develop a general methodology for
calculating removal of formwork (owned

for this purpose will be followed by

other reports in order to create one in house software.


I) Sources-Data
Our company's equipment for the slabs formwork is usually the system Dokaflex 1-2-4 from
the Company DOKA (http://www.doka.com). Doka Company has developed practice
standards and guidelines for the use of Formworks which are written in the following
manuals:
a) Calculation Guide, Doka formwork engineering, 03/2012, en-GB 999736002
b) Dokaflex 1-2-4, User Information Instructions for assembly and use (Method
statement), 05/2014 en-GB 999776002
And from the literature we took information from the followings:
1) BS 5975:2008+A1:201, Code of practice for temporary works procedures and the
permissible stress design of falsework
2) BS EN 12812:2008, Falsework Performance requirements and general design
3) Formwork, A guide to good practice, 3rd Edition 2012, The Concrete Society
4) NA to BS EN 1991-1-6:2005 UK National Annex to Eurocode 1: Actions on
structures
5) BS EN 12811-2:2004 Temporary works equipment
6) SLAB FORMWORK DESIGN Technical Note Civil Engineering Dimension, Vol. 8,
No. 1, 4754, March 2006, ISSN 1410-9530
7) How to design concrete structures using Eurocode 2, Published by The Concrete
Centre, First published May 2006, revised December 2006, ISBN 1-904818-33-1
8) BS EN 13670:2009 Execution of concrete structures
9) Deflections in concrete slabs and beams Concrete Society Technical Report No. 58,
ISBN 1 904482 05 8, Published by The Concrete Society, 2005
10) BS EN 1992-1-1:2004 Eurocode 2: Design of concrete structures Part 1-1: General
rules and rules for buildings


In this point we present one typical section plan and overview plan of the slabs of the
project:

Fig. 1


The quality class of the concrete which used in the project is C 35/45 and the dates when we
caste the basement slab was 28/7/2014 and the ground slab was on 29/8/2014 and the first's
floor slab was on 19/9/2014.

II) Solutions
To ensure that we do not have any failure during the removal of the props from the ground
floor we should do the Ultimate Limit state (ULS) check. One short cut method for that
check (ULS-Check) has developed by DOKA Co and applied to our situation.

The concrete strength needed before the formwork can be stripped out and this is relative to
when the concrete getting the maturity.
The maturity or hardening of the concrete is in relation with the many parameters but the
most important are the Environment Temperature and the Environment Humidity and the
Type of cement which used for the structure. Finally accordance to the BS EN 1992-11:2004 Eurocode 2 we have the follows:
f ck t f cm t 8 (Mpa) for 3 t 28 days

f ck t f ck for t 28 days

The compressive strength of concrete at an age t depends on the type of cement, temperature
and curing conditions. For a mean temperature of 20 oC and curing in accordance with
EN 12390 the compressive strength of concrete at various ages f cm t may be estimated from
the following expressions:
f cm t cc t f cm

With
28 1/2
cc t exp s 1
t

Where

f cm t is the mean concrete compressive strength at an age of t days

f cm is the mean compressive strength at 28 days according to Table 3.1 of the Eurocode for

quality class C35/45 is 43 Mpa.

cc t is a coefficient which depends on the age of the concrete t
t is the age of the concrete in days
s is a coefficient which depends on the type of cement: for our cement (CEM 52,5 N) is 0.20


And the development of tensile strength with time is strongly influenced by curing and
drying conditions as well as by the dimensions of the structural members but as first
approximation it may be assumed that the tensile strength f ctm t is equal to:
f ctm t cc t f ctm , where 1 for t 28 and 2 / 3 for t 28

all of them we should and we will use it when we move on to serviceability Limit State
analysis SLS of the problem where we must ensure that the cracking does not overpass the
price of 0.3 mm, which is the limit for our structure.
At this stage ULS check we can apply the method which described in the Doka
Manual.
This method comes from static solutions of the continuous same length beams and produce
one maturity factor which compares with the maturity which referred in DIN 1045-3:2008
and expressed as follow:

Fig.2
First of all we accept the strength development in the new concrete as presented in the above
diagram and secondly define the load factor which expressed from the following equation:

OWD LLconstruction state

OWD OW finishing LL final state

Where:
OWD : Is the gross weight of the slab in KN / m 2

LLconstruction state : Is the live load in the construction state and usually priced 1.50 KN / m 2
OW finishing : Is load for floor finish, etc.
LL final state : Is the final state live load accordance to EC-1


More generally the above equation expressed by the follow table:

Consequently for the ground floor slab (casted date 29/8/2014) and d=0.30 m and
LL final state 2 KN / m 2 we have Load factor equal to 0.78 which means that we can remove
the props after 16 calendar days (15/9/2014) from the casted date (29/8/2014) always with
the restriction of the results of SLS check for the bending cracking and from overload
punching cracking.

In this point we must we refer to one basic rule for the removing load from the formwork
from wide-spanned floor-slabs with support centres of over 7.5 m
The golden rule is:
Stress release should always be carried out working from one towards the other, or
from the middle of the floor slab (mid-spam) towards the slab-edges. For wide spans
>7.50 m, this procedure MUST be followed (Fig 3) and Stress-release must NEVER
be carried out from both sides towards the middle.

Fig 3.
7

Summary
From the above analysis we have ensured that, all restrictions which are imposed from the
Eurocodes and of course ensured one optimal and safer design for these structure.

PaulKalaitzidis
MScCivilEngineer