DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF NOVEL FERROCEMENT WALL PANELS

K. N. Lakshmikandhan, P. Sivakumar, R. Ravichandran, K. Sivasubramanian, S.Saibabu

Abstract: The population growth and urbanization have resulted in demand for shelters and construction materials. There is equal challenge to develop new techniques and technologies to cope up with the demand. Further the natural and manmade disasters are the huge threat in current scenario which needs development of structural components or system to manage the post disaster requirements such as speedy and mass construction of buildings. The advancement in research made wider alternatives with many options to overcome these demands. In view of this, the present investigation aims at developing affordable technologies, particularly for the rural and poor urban population. The novel light weight ferrocement wall panel with required stiffness and strength is investigated. This technology reduces the usage of conventional building materials and overall structural weight and cost. The wall panel is proposed with ferrocement skin with appropriate ribs to achieve the structural adequacy and constructability. The analytical parametric study is carried out using the nonlinear finite element analysis. The material nonlinearity is modeled using damaged plasticity model. The ferrocement panels of various sizes with window opening and with door opening are examined. The analytical study showed that the ferrocement panel with proposed ribs performs well. Further a 25 mm thick ferrocement wall panel with 1m width and 2m height is experimentally investigated and the results were compared. The conventional method of precasting of ferrocement panel is long, tedious and labour intensive construction methods in practice. To make it simple and cost effective, the single vertical casting is proposed using self-compacting concrete. Several mix trails were carried out and the suitable mix is obtained. The supporting systems and mould were developed to cast the wall panel within a few minutes. The panel is found to be more uniform and better quality. The panel is tested for in-plane compression loading. The strain and deflections were measured and plotted for comparison. Both the analytical and experimental results are found comparable. The present study found that the novel ferrocement wall panel is more appropriate for the light weight and affordable building construction.

Keywords: Ferrocement, Light Weight, Wall Panels, Non-linear, FEM, in-plane loading, Experimental testing

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0425073