Influence of the reuse of OSB and marine plywood formworks on concrete surface aesthetics

peer reviewedConcrete surface quality becomes more and more important because aesthetics requirements tend to spread over a wide variety of construction works. Even if it is difficult to clearly define what is beautiful or not, existing techniques maybe used to quantify aesthetic properties of concrete. As they mainly depend on formwork, the research project focuses on the reuse of two types of panels – plywood and OSB – and two types of release agents – vegetal and mineral oils. Evolution of surface properties is measured through lightness and absorption. For plywood formworks, beyond 80 reuses, a modification of surface quality is noticed; this is only 50 for OSB panels. For both types of formworks, the release oil doesn’t seem to have a major influence on formwork absorption. It is also observed that alkalis cause early degradation of the panels: release agents are not always efficient to avoid this phenomenon. Finally, if reuse doesn’t have any influence on the absorption of the plywood formworks, it is not the case for OSB formworks