Butterfly Battery® Mould in use at Beton-Fertigteil-Union in the Black Forest region of southern Germany
The precast concrete manufacturer Beton-Fertigteil-Union (BFU), based in Schramberg-Waldmössingen in Baden-Württemberg, has established itself on the market as a manufacturer of precast concrete parts with a strong combination of innovative construction ideas and high quality. BFU produces precast concrete parts – ceilings, walls, stairs, special parts – and structural precast concrete parts – columns, beams, balconies, sandwich panels and architectural precast concrete parts.
The new production hall was fully equipped with plant technology from BT innovation in 2019. The system consists of the Butterfly Battery® Mould and two work stations: a device for automatically opening and closing the formwork panels of the Butterfly Formwork® and a station where the formwork work is subsequently carried out and where fixtures and reinforcement are placed.
The new acquisition had two objectives: greater automation of the production process and higher precision in the implementation of the individual production steps. According to the managing director of Beton-Fertigteil-Union Volker Koch, both goals could be successfully realised with the Butterfly Formwork®.
The use of the patented Butterfly Battery® Mould in the precast plant solves two central problems: the dependence of the occupancy frequency of the battery formwork on the lift-out strength of the precast elements and the high expenditure for formwork construction, reinforcement work, electrical installations on the vertical formwork surfaces in a normal battery Mould. The Butterfly Formwork® combines the advantages of horizontal preparation with vertical production. Due to parallel work sequences at the horizontal indexing tables outside the battery, the set-up time is significantly reduced, and the battery mould can be completely reloaded within a very short time. This makes battery formwork more flexible, faster and more economical.
Mr. Koch emphasises the high quality of the precast concrete parts produced as a particular advantage, since production is possible with a surface that is smooth on 5 sides. The steel, seam- and joint-free formwork panels of Butterfly Formwork® enable the production of perfectly smooth precast surfaces, including the edges and surfaces of recesses. Vertically manufactured wall components with 5-sided ready-to-paint visible quality not only save the costs of an on-site plaster application, but also shorten the construction time and minimise construction moisture.
Learn more about this project here.
See in this video: Butterfly Battery® Mould sets new standards in the production of five-sided smooth precast elements at Beton-Fertigteil-Union (BFU).