Evaluating Properties of Lightweight Sandwich Wall Panels

There is a huge growing requirement of building materials in India due to the existing housing shortage of 46.3 million units, mainly for the low income groups in urban India. Estimated urban housing shortage in 2015 was 56.43 million, while the housing shortage of rural India in 2015 was 62 million units. Thus total estimated housing shortage for Urban & rural India in 2015 was 128.43 million units. To fulfill this basic need of urban habitat; India requires innovative, energy efficient building materials for strong and durable housing in fast track method of construction at affordable cost. All these concerns have lead to develop an energy efficient and economical material. Lightweight pre-fabricated Sandwich wall Panel which provides rapid or faster construction and contributes to environmental protection, can provide a solution to many of the above issues and concerns. The paper describes the overview of sandwich wall panel, method of construction and its properties. Additionally, this sandwich construction deals with the problem of delimitation of face sheets leading to their premature failure. This can be avoided by providing binding cover over the core. The study conducted involved the development of high performance cement based mortar mix to cast Ferrocement cover. The results revealed the potential application of Ferrocement cover over lightweight insulation core to produce lightweight structural elements which leads towards the industrialization of building system.