Cement, sand and stone are readily available in most countries. Concrete is strong, durable, fire resistant, rot and termite free. Concrete has low noise transmission, low maintenance, long life and is environmentally friendly.
Cast-in-place concrete, unlike precast concrete, does not have construction joints that can cause problems of structural weakness and water penetration. Cast-in-place concrete also eliminates the high capital, handling and transportation costs associated with precast concrete.
Why Loadbearing Wall Design?
Ove Arup, internationally recognized structural engineers, in a comparative study on typical five storey buildings in Cairo, Egypt, concluded:
“The loadbearing wall solution has structural and economic advantages over the column and beam solution, due both to the relative costs of the different elements and to the more efficient way the structure works.”
Their analysis showed a 15.7% saving in structural costs by using loadbearing walls rather than the conventional column and beam design with brick infill.
Why a Hand-Held Formwork System?
Hand-held forms are ideally suited to loadbearing wall designs of any configuration because they can form the complex connections other systems can’t. And because they are small, they can be transported through small openings from floor to floor, and from building to building.
Massive steel formwork systems require cranes to handle the forms. However, moving cranes among numerous low-rise buildings is not practical.
The hydraulic pressure of fresh concrete placed in loadbearing walls is very high. While timber and plywood forms can form columns and beams easily, they need expensive whalers, bracing and ties when used to form loadbearing walls.
Why the Mascon Construction System?
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Mascon forms ALL of the concrete in a building – including walls, floor slabs, balconies, staircases, lift shafts, window hoods, curved and decorative features, as well as columns and beams.
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Mascon enables all concrete to be cast monolithically, thereby, eliminating joints.
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Mascon completes the entire structure of multi-storey buildings at the rate of four days per floor and single/double storey housing at the rate of one house per day.
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All Mascon formwork is erected and dismantled without cranes, using unskilled labourers equipped only with hammers.
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Mascon includes systematic construction scheduling and coordination of all trades.
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Mascon’s all-aluminum formwork components produce accurate, high quality surfaces that save costs on the finishings and the fitting of doors and windows.
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The Mascon formwork equipment is environmentally friendly and fully recyclable.
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The Mascon formwork equipment is not damaged by concrete vibrators and mechanical operations. The equipment can be reused hundreds of times.
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Mascon has a proven track record of constructing hundreds of buildings designed as loadbearing wall structures.
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Mascon’s free design and consultation services, as well as complete site training, accompany every set of its formwork.
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