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Method and apparatus for using foam panels as forms for making concrete walls

Method and apparatus for using foam panels as forms for making concrete walls description/claims

The present invention relates generally to ties for concrete wall forming systems of a type using foam panels; and more particularly to a special tie utilized to secure adjacent panel sections together.

While wall forming systems have been in use for many years, the last two decades has seen considerable development in this industry in the use of expanded polystyrene panels as forms for poured concrete walls. After the concrete has hardened, the panels may be left in place on the walls to serve as permanent insulation, or they may be stripped off to reveal the exposed concrete.

Upon introduction of this new wall forming system, it was found that it was unnecessary to use small “building blocks” to create the form panels to build a form system for receiving poured concrete. Rather, larger and larger panels are now being utilized to create the concrete forms. Developments in this field include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,765,109 and 4,916,879 to Boeshart, which show how to make right angle corners and “T” intersections, which patents are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Adjacent sections of foam panels have pre-formed mating tongue and groove connections that hold them together on the main portions of the foam panel sections. But sometimes these tongue and groove portions need to be trimmed off to make a foam panel form that is shorter than the length of a standard foam panel length. When this occurs it is necessary to find another way to hold adjacent foam panels together during the time that the concrete is being poured and cured. Solving this problem in the industry has been difficult and labor intensive, with many proposed solutions being not sufficiently reliable. Accordingly there remains a need for solving this difficult problem.

The present invention relates to a foam panel concrete form using concrete reinforcement rods which extend on each side of a joint in the foam panel concrete form and into complementary shaped openings in ties which hold two adjacent panels in a spaced and parallel relationship. The concrete reinforcement rod can slide into the openings in adjacent ties with little resistance in a first rotary position of the concrete reinforcement rod. When the concrete reinforcement rod is rotated to a second rotational position within the openings, the reinforcement rod is in a tight frictional fit in the openings for helping to hold adjacent ties and the adjacent foam panels in a fixed relationship with respect to each other during a time when concrete is poured between the foam panels, thereby also serving to re-enforce the concrete after the concrete has cured.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention providing a concrete form constructed of foam panels;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the preferred embodiment of FIG. 1 of the present invention showing ties formed in the foam panels to hold adjacent foam panels in a spaced parallel relationship and concrete reinforcement rods placed on and in the ties to hold the form sections together and to reinforce the concrete after it has cured, with some reinforcement rods being shown in dashed lines to indicate where they can be placed;

FIG. 3 is a top view of the structure shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a side view of that portion of a tie in FIG. 3 that is exposed between the two foam panels;

FIG. 5 is a side elevational view of the foam panel structure shown in FIG. 4, but showing the foam panels in dashed lines and the ties in solid lines;

FIG. 6 is a side elevational view of one of the corner tie structures shown in the lower right portion of FIG. 7;

FIG. 7 is a top plan view of one of the corner structures of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a side elevational view of one of the sections of a tie used in the lower left and upper right portion of FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 is a perspective view showing how a fastener is used to connect the structure of FIG. 8 to the structure of FIGS. 10 and 11;

FIG. 10 is a side elevational view of one of the sections of a tie used in the lower left and upper right portion of FIG. 7;

FIG. 11 is a side elevational view of one of the sections of a tie used in the lower left and upper right portion of FIG. 7, this section just being longer than the one shown in FIG. 10, but otherwise identical;

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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