Prefabricated Building Rises to National Strategy in China, Where will the Precast Concrete Molds Industry Go to?

At present, a subversive revolution is underway in the field of construction—building industrialization and housing industrialization. And the ascendant "fabricated building" is an effective way to realize the industrialization of the construction industry and the industrialization of housing.

Nowadays, the promotion of prefabricated buildings has risen to the national strategic level, and has become an important means for the country to stabilize growth, promote reform, and adjust the structure, as well as an important starting point to promote the transformation and upgrade of the construction industry to industrialization, standardization, refinement, and new energy conservation.

We know that prefabricated buildings have the characteristics of good quality, high prefabrication rate, strong seismic performance, time and labor saving, energy saving and environmental protection, but they all need to be supported by the entire prefabricated building industry chain. Among them, the PC component industry is in the middle of the industrial chain, and it is the place where the differences between the old and new construction methods can be vividly reflected.

At present, the traditional mode of cast-in-place wooden molds at the construction site cannot meet the requirements for fabrication, transportation, lifting, and installation of PC components in prefabricated houses. In recent years, prefabricated concrete buildings have developed vigorously. The Ministry of Housing and Construction and local construction authorities have also introduced related supporting measures for prefabricated concrete buildings. Various types of building components are being converted from on-site pouring to factory production, and from traditional wood molds to PC component molds.

As one of the three major structural systems of prefabricated buildings, PC components are factory-made concrete components manufactured by component processing units. The concrete structure is formed by assembling, connecting and combining part of cast-in-situ at the construction site. Promoting the industrialization of PC components is an important way to replace the on-site pouring of wooden molds on the construction site and realize the industrialization of housing.

The most obvious advantages and characteristics of the industrialization of PC components are that building accuracy has been greatly improved, construction time has been greatly reduced, and construction efficiency has been significantly improved. Concrete is a plastic material, and the casting must be completed with the help of a PC mold. Therefore, the PC mold industry is located at the forefront of the prefabricated building industry chain and is the most basic element for the production of PC components. It can be said that the accuracy and quality of PC components directly depend on the accuracy and quality of PC molds.

PC molds include bottom molds, side molds, end molds, window molds and other important components. It positions window frames, decorative wall tiles and various connectors in the mold and casts concrete. This is undoubtedly a qualitative leap for innovative reform of architectural forms.

However, the reality we have to face is that due to the prefabricated columns, beams, internal and external walls, and laminated panels of PCs, the volume and weight are often very large. Therefore, the PC mold products must also have the same volume as PC components. However, once the PC mold product becomes larger, it will also bring problems such as deformation and higher technical requirements. In addition, PC molds are basically steel molds, and products need to be in contact with concrete slurry in large areas during use. Therefore, the problem of water corrosion is also worthy of attention.

On the other hand, many technical standards in the construction field are not the same. The standards for PC components and PC molds are also diverse and uneven. Therefore, the status quo of the industry that has not yet been modularized, it has also added a lot of inconveniences and difficulties to the production of PC components and PC molds. At the same time, it will reduce the versatility of PC molds and bring a lot of waste.

But we should also be optimistic to see that the development prospects of the PC mold industry are very broad. It is precisely because the industrial development is not yet complete that the future development space is even wider. Moreover, at present, many policies issued by the state and the local government are forming an overwhelming positive energy to promote the innovation and change of the PC mold industry. Many PC mold manufacturers are also boldly innovating and boldly reforming in a high state, and have made a lot of useful attempts and explorations for the progress of the industry.

Looking to the future, standardization, versatility, light weight, automation and intelligence will be the overall trend of the development of PC molds. In particular, the realization of automation and intelligence of PC mold production is of great significance to liberating manpower and giving full play to the high precision brought by machine control. Of course, PC molds need a gradual process from batch production to automatic intelligent production, which will also become an important development goal.