Current situation of plastic templates in China

With the rapid development of China's construction industry, the role of building templates in engineering construction has become increasingly prominent. Especially since the application of new templates and scaffolding technology was selected by the Ministry of Construction as one of the 10 key new technologies promoted and applied in the construction industry, China has made significant progress in the research, development, and promotion of new plastic templates, and a series of standards and regulations have been successively introduced. In 2006, China issued the "Green Building Evaluation Standards", and in 2013, the national standard for "Wood Plastic Composite Board for Building Formwork", the industry standard for "Plastic Formwork", and the "Green Building Action Plan" were officially implemented. The green building action in various regions has been in full swing, and multiple provinces and cities have introduced supporting policies for green building subsidies, vigorously promoting the green process. In 2014, the "Green Building Evaluation Standards" were revised, and the industry standard "Technical Regulations for Building Plastic Composite Formwork Engineering" of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development was reviewed.

4.1 Market Template Classification Faced with huge market demand and guidance from industrial policies, many enterprises flock to China. The variety of plastic template products in China is constantly showing diversification, such as: fixed combination reinforced plastic templates, strong plastic PP templates, wood (bamboo, hemp, glass fiber, etc.) fiber reinforced plastic templates, hollow ribbed plastic templates, sandwich foam plastic templates, engineering plastic large templates, steel frame plastic templates, wood plastic composite templates, and so on

Product types: Plastic steel formwork, plastic steel square wood, plastic steel internal and external corners, plastic steel cylindrical formwork, plastic steel bridge formwork and other irregular formwork. According to the material, it can be divided into: polyvinyl chloride PVC, polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polycarbonate (PC), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), etc. According to the appearance, it can be divided into: solid board, hollow board, buckle reinforcement board, module assembly board, plastic square wood, plastic internal and external corners.

1) Wooden formwork is the mainstream, which requires a large amount of wood consumption and has a low residual value when scrapped. Deforestation is necessary, which goes against the national policy of protecting forests and requires the use of release agents.

2) In recent years, aluminum templates have emerged with high cost, mainly for leasing and also requiring the use of release agents.

3) The current use of aluminum frame plastic templates is lower in cost than aluminum templates, does not require release agents, is easy to recycle, and operates under the same model as aluminum templates, mainly through leasing.

4) Plastic templates are mainly made of PVC and PP modified solid and hollow materials, which are easy to recycle and can be used up to 50 times. The templates can be recycled and reused.

4.2 Current Quality Status of Plastic Formwork

The rough development has led to plastic template enterprises being mainly small and medium-sized, failing to form effective large-scale production, and relatively insufficient product technology research and development capabilities, resulting in uneven product quality. The cost of production and product use has not been effectively improved, and the performance characteristics of plastic templates have not been fully reflected in engineering applications, leading to a low market share of plastic templates in the domestic market.

1) In the past two years, there have been many imitations without technical support, the core formula is not up to standard, and there are also many problems with the marketing model. The after-sales service cannot keep up, and so on, all of which need to be improved and enhanced.

2) At present, all plastic template equipment in the industry can only achieve an annual sales revenue of 8 billion yuan with full capacity production, which is far from the 570 billion yuan wooden template market.

3) Only by adhering to quality first, continuously improving formulas, and continuously improving product quality can we meet the needs of different customers, go further, and be recognized and accepted by the market.

4) According to market research, the annual consumption value of building templates in China is 570 billion yuan, with plastic templates accounting for just 5% of the market share.

5) Small builders invest too much at once, which is difficult to accept.

6) Central enterprises and state-owned construction companies have clear purchasing intentions and are willing to accept the use of plastic templates instead of wooden and aluminum templates. However, the installment payment method cannot meet the payment needs of manufacturers with too small financial scale.

7) The rental model is easily accepted by any builder, with a price range of 0.2-0.25 yuan per square meter per day, an average of 1.67 square meters per template, and a monthly rent of 10-12 yuan. But manufacturers are usually small in scale and face difficulties in capital turnover, so they can only invest in the leasing market on a small scale. Compared to the sales model, the leasing model is currently the only choice for dealers and manufacturers. The leasing model can only be used as a breakthrough to open up the market and occupy it.

8) Export orders are gradually increasing, with a higher level of acceptance from abroad.

4.4. The development of plastic templates abroad is in countries with relatively developed plastic industries such as Germany, North America, Japan, and South Korea. Plastic building templates began to be mass-produced and applied decades ago, gradually replacing wood templates that waste forest resources and steel templates that consume high production energy. Foreign plastic template companies are mainly concentrated in Europe, North America, and South Korea and Japan in Asia. There are not many enterprises, but the production scale is relatively large, the production technology is more advanced than in China, and the variety of plastic template products is more diverse. Foreign plastic formwork products mainly include steel (aluminum) frame plastic formwork, engineering plastic large formwork, GMT building formwork, hollow plastic formwork, foam insulation plastic formwork, plastic formwork, decorative formwork (lining formwork), combined plastic formwork, etc., which can be widely used in building construction of walls, floors, columns, etc. There are also irregular plastic templates processed into various shapes and surface patterns, with rich product finishes and diverse shapes. The formed concrete has a unique shape and surface texture. To enhance the strength and stiffness of plastic templates, increase the turnover frequency of plastic templates, and improve the quality of template products. There are usually several ways to prepare plastic templates: 1) adding reinforcing fibers during the process; 2) The surface of the plastic template is covered with a reinforcement layer or made into a sandwich plastic template; 3) Adding rib plates to plastic templates or making hollow ribbed plastic templates. In addition, foreign plastic templates have formed various template systems, such as the Slovenian EPIC Group company developing the EPIC plastic template system, the Vietnamese FUVI plastic template company developing the full plastic template system, and the Italian GEOTUB plastic template company developing the plastic flat template and circular template, which can be used in various concrete structures such as walls, slabs, beams, and columns. However, plastic templates in our country have not yet formed a system, and most enterprises only produce plastic flat plates, mainly used for horizontal templates in construction and bridge engineering.

4.5 Problems faced by the development of plastic templates

Based on the above index analysis, it basically reflects that the development of the plastic template industry is on the rise, but plastic template enterprises will still encounter some problems in the development process.

One is the lack of unified standards for development, resulting in uneven product quality. With the rapid development of the plastic template industry, more and more enterprises are entering the market. The vicious competition among peers has led to some "inferior products" entering the market, affecting the healthy development of the industry.

The second is that the industrial chain structure urgently needs to be optimized, and the contradictions between the upstream and downstream industrial chains are prominent. The quality of raw materials is difficult to control, and the trend of price increase is obvious, leading to an increase in product costs for manufacturers and a slow rise in market prices.