Investigation on polystyrene panels as light eight wall materials

Solid block walls designed structure influences addition of heavy dead loads on to the structure and high loading effect, consequently increase in amount of reinforcement and concrete. To minimize these dead loads a study on “Investigation on Polystyrene Panels as Light weight Wall Materials” was done. The objectives were to test the light weight polystyrene material panel walls for determining its suitability as a light weight wall replacing heavy solid block walls and to design a structure using both solid wall and light weight polystyrene wall and compare the results. Tests included Compressive Strength, Flexure Strength, Thermal resistivity and Rainfall test. Results showed that the light weight polystyrene material wall is suitable to be used, having compressive strength of 4N/mm2, flexural strength of 2.1N/mm2, thermal resistivity (centigrade/meter) of 1.12 °C/m and also have the ability to resist water penetration from outer face of the wall to inner face of wall. Furthermore from the design it was found out that using light weight polystyrene wall instead of solid wall there is a reduction of steel reinforcement in beams, columns and foundations by 23.3%, 43.8% and 23.3% respectively and reduction of concrete in foundations is 20.9%.Also polystyrene light weight panel wall was designed as a load bearing wall and found to be able to withstand the loads as normal walls. The study recommend that polystyrene material can be used as light weight material in structure so as to minimize dead loads and obtain light weight structures as well to conserve our natural resources by reducing the amount of steel and cement in the design.