Full-Scale Monitoring of Form Pressure While Casting Bottom-up with Self-Compacting Concrete

The question remains open on how the form pressure develops when casting from the bottom up especially with high flowable self-compacting concrete. This article presents a result of full-scale long-term monitoring of the form pressure using state-of-the-art pressure sensors that can send the data every minute. A 7 m wall with a 4 m width and cast from the bottom using a concrete pump with a valve opening in the formwork while the casting rate was maintained between 0.5 to 0.7 m/h. Pressure gauges were mounted on the form surface as part of a real-time system for monitoring the pressure, and the transformed data was broadcast and gathered in the cloud. The sensors were situated in different locations. The results showed that the actual pressure exerted by the concrete is far less than the hydrostatic pressure even when the concrete is pumped from the bottom. The results also showed that, the form pressure reduction depends on the properties of concrete particularly setting time.