The development of ferro-cement sandwich panel for IBS

Abstract

The development of ferrocement sandwich prefabricated structural element now day has grown in the construction industry were due to the specific characteristic needed, lightweight to ratio strength, saving material cost and more thin than conventional wall. Ferrocement construction made up with a thin sheet of high performance material as the concrete cover at outside or wall face and low strength material as core. Core usually uses material that specific characteristic needed other than strength. This study focus on development of ferrocement sandwich panel for Industrialized Building Systems(IBS), where foam concrete as a core with wire mesh reinforced and thin ferrocement encasement. The study was separated in two phases. The first phase involves the development of slag cement based mortar mix workability and high performance coatings to be encasement of concrete foam. Mortar performance is examined in terms of compressive strength, the effect of curing regime, the unit weight and the effect of partial replacement of foam concrete. The second phase involved the development and investigation of the characteristicfoam concrete of ferrocement sandwich panel. For this purpose, several samples have been produces based on the ratio of its reinforced and different foam-slag ratio. Encasement core has been choose and maintain 25mm in this phase.The parameters studied werecompressive strength, the weight of the unit and the role of the effects of the mesh used for ferrocement . In this study,it was found concrete sandwich method in the manufacture of lightweight structures have the potential severance and thus can be applied in the implementation of an industrialized building system. The addition of the mesh will increase the compressive strength, but the results are not directly proportional. Therefore, the use of mesh should be kept to a minimum and endeavor to the compressive strength. The use of foamed concrete walls can reduce the weight of the overall layered sandwich, which is also directly proportional to the ratio of the weight of the foam panel. However, the use of high foam reduces the compressive strength of concrete. Use ferrocement able to increase core strength with the low strength.