Construction and Building Materials 139 (2017) 45–51

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Structural feasibility of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) based lightweight

concrete sandwich wall panels
P.L.N. Fernando, M.T.R. Jayasinghe, C. Jayasinghe ⇑
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

h i g h l i g h t s

A lightweight foam concrete has been made with EPS where 50% of EPS is mechanically recycled type.

The EPS based walls can be used as load bearing walls of single storey construction.

These walls can also be used as partition walls of multi storey buildings.

It also has a flexural strength comparable with other masonry materials.

The lightweight foam concrete wall panel can facilitate rapid construction of walls.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In a global context where the need for quality housing is increasing with improved standard of living and
Received 7 July 2016 growing population, the over exploitation of natural resources as building materials is becoming a serious
Received in revised form 30 November 2016 problem. In this context, the conversion of non-bio degradable waste materials to quality building prod-
Accepted 8 February 2017
ucts would be extremely useful. In this research, the use of mechanically recycled Expanded Polystyrene
Available online 20 February 2017
as 50% of the total EPS used in a composite foam concrete panel has been assessed experimentally. The
results of the experimental program have been interpreted with respect to various useful structural
Keywords:
behaviors in compression and flexure. It is shown that the use of this foam concrete along with cement
Expanded Polystyrene
Sandwich wall panel
fiber boards produces a lightweight wall panel that can be used very effectively for load-bearing walls of
Strength properties single storey houses and non-loadbearing walls of multi-storey buildings. These lightweight panels can
Lightweight concrete allow rapid construction while reducing the overall weight of the building.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The development of alternative building materials that use
waste materials or recycled materials is becoming beneficial due
to over exploitation of natural resources as building materials.
Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) is one such material generally used
for packaging or insulation. EPS is non-biodegradable and hence
if released into the nature after its use, it may not decay through
natural means [1]. Hence, reuse of EPS is beneficial in terms of
environmental protection. The reuse could be in its natural form
consisting of beads or in a modified form obtained with heat
treatment [2,3] or it could be various other forms of polystyrene
waste [4].
EPS bead is a material that contains 98% air and only the rest is
polystyrene. Therefore, it has a very low density in the range of
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chintha@uom.lk (C. Jayasinghe).
20–30 kg/m3 and also does not have a compressive strength of use-
ful magnitude. The individual EPS beads have a spherical shape and
the size could vary from about 1 mm to 8 mm. It has a closed cell
structure and hence would not absorb water. One possible use of
EPS beads is as an ultra-lightweight aggregate to produce light
weight concrete. Several research studies have looked at many dif-
ferent aspects. In the study by Babu et al. [5], lightweight aggregate
concretes have been made with densities varying from about
550 kg/m3 to 2200 kg/m3. All the lightweight concretes have been
designed with a fly ash replacement of 50% by weight of the total
cementitious material. The strengths at 28 days of casting varied
from 1.1 N/mm2 to 18.4 N/mm2 for the density range given above.
Due to the presence of fly ash, the strength gain could continue
beyond 28 days and the 90 day strengths obtained varied from
1.5 N/mm2 to 23.4 N/mm2. In this study, two types of EPS beads
have been used. Type A (4.75–8 mm) with mostly 6.3 mm size
beads and Type B (1–4.75 mm) with mostly 4.75 mm size was used
in concretes.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.02.027
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
46 P.L.N. Fernando et al. / Construction and Building Materials 139 (2017) 45–51
In the study by Babu and Babu [6], structural lightweight con-
cretes of 1552–1873 kg/m3 density range have been studied with
a compressive strength varying from 10.2 to 21.4 MPa. To qualify
as a structural material, a compressive strength in excess of
17 MPa has been recommended [7]. This is generally met when
the density is in excess of 1700 kg/m3. In these mixes, the param-
eters related to tensile strength and durability have also been
determined. The mixes also contained silica fume ranging from 3
to 9%. The presence of higher amounts of silica fume was found
to be beneficial when the rate of strength gain was considered.
The effect of EPS bead size has been studied in detail by Miled
et al. [8] using 1 mm, 2.5 mm and 6.3 mm diameters. The density
range is from 1200 to 2000 kg/m3. The results confirmed the pres-
ence of the particle size effect on the EPS concrete compressive
strength. It is also observed that the particle size effect is pro-
nounced for low porosity concretes containing lesser amounts of
EPS beads where the failure mode is quasi-brittle. It becomes neg-
ligible for high porosity concretes containing high amounts of EPS
where the failure mode is more ductile. Mathematical models to
predict the strength were also developed by Miled et al. [8,9].
In a study by Kan and Demirboga [10], EPS beads of size
3.0–8.0 mm has been used to obtain fresh concrete densities in
the range of 471–1371 kg/m3. There was a significant difference
between the fresh concrete density and the hardened concrete
density. For example, a concrete of 1183 kg/m3 fresh density has
given 1024 kg/m3 as the hardened concrete density. The same for
1059 kg/m3 has given 832 kg/m3. The 28 day compressive
strengths varied from 0.11 to 8.53 N/mm2 in the density range of
471–1371 kg/m3. The strength values of 2.74 and 5.39 N/mm2
were obtained for hardened densities of 832 and 1024 kg/m3 [10].
A lightweight hollow brick having a lower thermal conductivity
was produced by Xu et al. [11] using EPS beads of rounded shape
and mostly of 3.0 mm diameter. This lightweight concrete was pro-
duced by having a volume of EPS varying between 15% and 25%
with the densities varied from 1720 kg/m3 to 2060 kg/m3. The
compressive strengths at 28 days for the above density range var-
ied from 7.85 MPa to 20.77 MPa.
The use of crumbled granules of EPS was presented by Laukaitis
et al. [12]. The crumbled granules are produced by mechanically
disintegrating unusable or poor quality polystyrene slabs and from
recycled polystyrene foam plastic. These have been mixed with
foam obtained using cement, water and a foaming agent to achieve
very low density thermo-insulating composite containing cement
foam with a density in the range of 250 kg/m3.
The above researches indicate various uses of EPS that can be
utilized to produce lightweight concrete with possible applications
as a structural material or a non-structural material. In the
research presented in this paper, the use of mechanically recycled
EPS beads is explored to produce a durable lightweight panel of
adequate strength that can be used as a walling material for build-
ings and houses. The panel consists of two cement fiber boards of
5 mm thickness. These boards can be used to produce wall panels
of 100 mm thickness by using EPS based foam concrete as an infill
material. Since the wall panel has a size of 2.4 m  0.6 m, the abil-
ity to lift and handle the panels during construction is a major cri-
terion. This is addressed by obtaining a sufficiently low density in
the range of 650–750 kg /m3 for the foam concrete. With such low
densities, the strength characteristics of the composite panel con-
sisting of cement fiber boards and foam concrete infill has been
determined experimentally.
The main objective of this research is to investigate the struc-
tural properties and constructability of a lightweight concrete wall
panel which uses mechanically recycled EPS as one of the raw
materials along with cement fiber boards on either side.
In order to develop the lightweight wall panel, the following
methodology was used:
1. A foam concrete mix that uses EPS was developed experimen-
tally to obtain a mix with a lower density while having suffi-
cient strength.
2. The wall panels were constructed and tested to determine the
compressive strength and the flexural strength.
3. The structural adaptability was checked using the above results.
2. Foam concrete with EPS
The foam concrete consists of cement, sand, fly ash and EPS.
This foam concrete has been used to construct composite wall pan-
els by including two cement fiber boards on either side. The struc-
tural feasibility of these panels has been assessed in the study
covered in this paper. Some of the useful properties of EPS and
fly ash are presented to assess their suitability as raw materials
in the proposed wall panels.
2.1. Properties of EPS and its effects on foam concrete
Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) can be obtained in various size
beads. The beads used in the current study consist of two types.
One is the newly formed beads of spherical shape that has a nom-
inal diameter of 3.0 mm. These are referred as non-recycled EPS in
this paper. The other type has been obtained by crushing EPS
boards used as a packaging material utilizing a mechanical crusher
operated by a small motor. These crushed EPS particles tend to be
more of granular shape and has a nominal size of about 5.0 mm.
For the production of the proposed foam concrete panels, 50% of
EPS was of this recycled type.
Due to the difference in shape, there is a possibility for the foam
concrete obtained with recycled EPS to have a slightly different
density than the one using non-recycled EPS beads alone. This
may have some effect on the compressive strength since the previ-
ous studies have shown that the compressive strength vary with
the density [5,6,9].
2.2. Effect of fly ash
Fly ash is another by-product that can be used to partially
replace cement due to its pozzolanic action. In the foam concrete
that is used in the present study, the cement content is in the range
of 350 kg/m3 or more. Therefore, it is possible to use fly ash to
make a significant gain in strength [13]. The percentage of fly ash
could be up to about 50% as for the previous studies [5]. In this
study, the amount of fly ash was maintained at about 25% to ensure
that the rate of strength gain is adequate to remove the newly cast
panels from the shutters 24 h after casting. To ensure continuous
hydration, Type F fly ash has been used. Type F fly ash refers to
siliceous fly ash with low amounts of CaO [13]. The presence of
fly ash can improve workability [5]. The partial replacement of
cement by fly ash will improve the content of by-products and
the recycled materials in the wall panels.
Use of fly ash can assist in reducing the embodied energy of
foam concrete. Embodied energy is the sum of all energy required
to produce any building material, as if that energy is incorporated
or embodied in the product itself. Since cement consumes a signif-
icant amount of embodied energy which is in the range of 4.5 MJ/
kg [14], replacing it with fly ash with the embodied energy of
0.1 MJ/kg [14] can lower the total energy required for the produc-
tion of wall panels.
3. The experimental program
The experimental program consisted of the following:
 P.L.N. Fernando et al. / Construction and Building Materials 139 (2017) 45–51
1. Comparison of a mix containing non-recycled EPS in terms of
density and that of a mix containing 50% of the EPS mechani-
cally recycled while maintaining the same mix proportions.
2. The testing of EPS based lightweight concrete sandwich wall
panels for compressive strength and buckling characteristics.
3. The testing of the proposed wall panels for flexural strength.
3.1. Selection of a mix
In order to control the weight of the panel, it was necessary to
have a foam concrete having a density in the range of 600–700 kg/
m3. For this, a number of trial mixes were compared. Table 1 pre-
sents one such mix with ratios worked out with respect to the
weight. With a low density of 25–30 kg/m3, EPS in this mix can
dominate the volume occupied.
The mix indicated in Table 1 gives a total weight of 918 kg giv-
ing a wet density of 918 kg/m3. With the hydration of cementitious
material, part of the water will be consumed and the rest will evap-
orate. Hence, the dry density would be in the range of the target
density of 650–750 kg/m3 that is obtained about 2–3 weeks after
casting the panel when it is ready for installation. Though the
quantity of EPS used was only 2.4% by weight, it can easily occupy
a significant portion of the total volume due to a very low density
of EPS beads.
A comparative study was carried out using test cubes to deter-
mine the effect of mechanically recycled EPS beads. When the
cubes were made, machine mixing was used to represent the true
situation during the actual production of wall panels. As the first
step, a part of sand and cement was mixed with water to form a
consistent mortar mix. To this, EPS beads were added along with
the rest of the sand, cement and water and mixed thoroughly to
produce a homogeneous mix. This mix has been used to cast
150 mm  150 mm  150 mm cubes. The mix was hand com-
pacted into the cubes as usually done in other research studies
[5,6,10]. Once removed from the mould, the cubes were kept
immersed in water for 7 days. In the same mix, two types have
been used. Sample 1 had all EPS as non-recycled type. Sample 2
had 50% of EPS as mechanically recycled. A series of cubes was cast
and tested for each mix and the average values of density were
determined which are presented in Table 2.
It can be seen that the use of mechanically recycled EPS has
resulted in a lower density. Non recycled EPS has a spherical shape
and recycled EPS has granular shape and also a larger size of about
5 mm. When used in the same mix, it can result in different com-
paction and hence could give different values for density. One of
the key parameters that could be affected by this reduction in den-
sity is the compressive strength. Since the intention was to use
recycled EPS, the strength properties have been determined when
the above mix is used with 50% recycled EPS.
In order to determine the strength properties of the wall panels,
two different types of panels were cast. The actual panels proposed
for the construction is cast between two cement fiber (asbestos
free) sheets (identified as Type 1 and shown in Fig. 1a). In addition,
panels have been cast without the cement fiber boards as well
(Identified as Type 2 and shown in Fig. 1b) for comparison pur-
poses with respect to some important behavior characteristics.
Table 1
A sample mix proportions for lightweight EPS based concrete.
Materials Content (kg/m3)
Cement 380
Sand 136
Water 282
EPS 22
Fly ash 98
47
Table 2
Density of samples of EPS based lightweight concrete mix.
Sample number Average density (kg/m3)
Sample 1 738
Sample 2 629
The panels can be cast for thickness of 75, 100 or 150 mm. The
height of the wall panel is 2.4 m and the width is 0.6 m. For the
study presented, a thickness of 100 mm has been used, since it is
the appropriate thickness for most of the applications.
3.2. Compressive strength of short panels
One of the questions that can be raised is the actual role played
by the cement fiber boards in carrying compressive loads in the
panels. In order to determine this effect, both Type 1 and Type 2
panels have been cut to a height of 690 mm. For a thickness of
100 mm, this gives a slenderness ratio of less than 7 and hence
the slenderness effects are unlikely to be dominating. The loads
were applied in steps of 0.5 tones using a Universal Compression
Testing machine. The deformations were recorded by using dial
gauges. The instrument set up is shown in Fig. 2. Three panels were
tested under each type. For all the panels, the failure mode was
observed as crushing of the panels either at the top or bottom.
The results are presented in Table 3. The panel with cement fiber
boards did not disintegrate and this is an encouraging observation
where the composite action was available until failure.
It can be seen from Table 3 that the presence of cement fiber
boards of 5 mm thickness on either side allows a greater load car-
rying capacity. This could be due to some confinement effects by
the cement fiber boards or the boards carrying some part of the
load or both the above reasons. Hence, the presence of cement fiber
boards can be considered beneficial, though it would add an extra
cost to the panels.
Another important characteristic that needs attention is the
degree of shortening that a composite panel consisting of foam
concrete and cement fiber sheets would suffer under the axial
loads. The elastic deformation of the panel was determined by
obtaining the actual movement of the platens using dial gauges
mounted on a self-standing steel channel. Hence, the movement
obtained is the actual shortening of the panel. Thus, these actual
shortening can be used to determine the elastic modulus from
the load deformation curve. One such curve is given in Fig. 3a.
The initial part shows a nonlinear deformation prior to indicating
a reasonably linear deformation. This is due to the various defor-
mations that take place in cross heads until the loads are properly
applied to the panel and hence, the important part will be the lin-
ear portion shown in Fig. 3b.
Fig. 3b can be used to determine the elastic modulus of the Type
1 panel by assuming that the cross section remains the same at
600 mm  100 mm. Fig. 3b indicates that when the load is
increased from 100 kN to 200 kN, the panel has shortened by
1 mm, giving an Elastic modulus of 1.15 kN/mm2. As expected,
the elastic modulus is not high and hence, its effect on the defor-
mation under working stresses should be assessed.
The load deformation curve for Type 2 panel is given in Fig. 4a
and b. The cross section is the same as for the Type 1 panel. When
the load is increased from 50 kN to 115 kN, it has shortened by
By weight about 1 mm. This gives an elastic modulus of 0.75 kN/mm2. This
41.4%
indicates that the presence of cement fiber boards of Type 1 can
14.8% provide an additional stiffness to the panel resulting in a higher
30.7% elastic modulus.
2.4% When two materials act together in a composite wall, it is
10.7%
important to know whether it could disintegrate when the loads
48 P.L.N. Fernando et al. / Construction and Building Materials 139 (2017) 45–51
Fig. 1. (a) A Type 1 wall panel. (b) A Type 2 wall panel.
Fig. 2. A Short Wall panel being tested for compressive strength.
are increased. The panels failed due to crushing at the top and
hence, it could be stated with confidence that the bond between
the cement fiber sheets and the foam concrete is strong enough
to have the full composite action until failure.
3.3. Behaviour of the full height panels
As the height of a panel increases, the slenderness ratio will also
increase, thus having a higher possibility of failure by buckling. The
height of the panels tested was 2400 mm. The instrument setup is
shown in Fig. 5.
Table 4 presents the results of the compression test for Types 1
and 2 panels, of full height. The failure load was less than that of
the shorter panel, indicating some contribution from buckling
towards the failure, in addition to crushing, since the panel is hav-
ing a slenderness ratio of 24.
When used as a partition wall, the stress in the panels at the
bottom level will be very small since the self-weight of the panel
is only about 100 kg for 2.4 m height and a length of 600 mm. This
will give a very low stress due to self-weight and it is in the range
of 0.017 N/mm2. Hence, the panel with a strength in excess of
2.75 N/mm2 (Table 4), when used as a partition material could
have a significantly large factor of safety. Hence, both Types 1
and 2 will be able to provide adequate strength as partition walls.
However, the robustness of the Type 1 panel that has cement fiber
boards will be higher. Another application of the wall panel is the
internal and external walls of single storey houses. In these, the
additional load on the panels will be the weight of the roof. A typ-
ical design load of a roof will generally be 1.0–1.5 kN/m2. Hence,
the roof would mean an additional load of 6–8 kN per meter length
of the wall thus giving rise to an extra stress of 0.08 N/mm2. Such
additional stress can be easily resisted by the composite wall pan-
els. Hence, the composite wall panels (Type 1) can be recom-
mended for load bearing walls single storey houses as well.
3.4. Flexural strength of panels
In order to determine the lateral load resistance, the panels
were tested for flexure. As illustrated in Fig. 6, the wall panels were
placed horizontally and tested for its flexural strength according to
ASTM C78- simple beam with third-point loading [15].
The initial failure location was observed carefully and found
that the failure location of all the panels was within the middle
third. Hence the equation Eq. (1), found in ASTM C78 [15] simple
beam with third-point loading was used to determine the stress
at failure.
2
R ¼ Pl=bd ð1Þ
 P.L.N. Fernando et al. / Construction and Building Materials 139 (2017) 45–51 49

Table 3
Test results of the compression test on short panels.

Panel Panel identification number Failure load (kN) Failure stress (N/mm2) Average strength (N/mm2)
Panels with board (Type 1) 1 237.4 3.89 4.06
2 247.2 4.05
3 258.9 4.25
Panels without board (Type 2) 1 142.4 2.33 2.13
2 112.8 1.84
3 135.4 2.22

Fig. 3a. Load Deformation curve for short Type 1 panels.

Fig. 4b. Linear portion of the Load Deformation curve for short Type 2 panels.

Fig. 3b. Linear portion of the Load Deformation curve for short Type 1 panels.

Fig. 4a. Load Deformation curve for short Type 2 panels.

where
R = Bending stress in MPa
P = Maximum applied load indicated by the testing machine in
N
l = Span length in mm
b = Average width of the specimen in mm
d = Average thickness of the specimen in mm Fig. 5. Wall panel being tested for compressive strength.
50 P.L.N. Fernando et al. / Construction and Building Materials 139 (2017) 45–51

Table 4
Test results of the compression test on full height panels.

Panel Type Panel Failure load (kN) Failure stress (N/mm2) Average strength (N/mm2)
Type 1 1 186.3 3.05 2.89
2 166.7 2.73
Type 2 1 98.0 1.61 1.69
2 107.8 1.77

4. Constructability and applications

The constructability of these lightweight panels would need

Fig. 6. Wall panel being tested for flexural strength with third point loading.
addressing of few issues. Its connectivity can be assured to a
greater extent by having a tongue and groove joint in the panels
(Fig. 7) that will allow a strong bond when a suitable cement based
grout is used during erection. It is possible to finish the walls with-
out any plaster due to the presence of cement fiber boards on
either side. The walls will also need a thin fiber based tape at the
joints to provide a neat finish. The controlling of the weight of a
100 mm thick panel to be in the range of 100 kg allows two work-
ers to handle the panels.
In addition, it would be necessary to have various custom made
galvanized steel components to have sufficient connectivity to the
floor and the soffit of the beams. The applications include loadbear-
ing walls in single storey construction and non- loadbearing walls
in other buildings. Fig. 8 shows an application of the EPS based
lightweight concrete walls in a single storey house.
Moreover, the EPS based lightweight panels can be used in the
other applications which include apartment buildings, hotels, com-
mercial buildings and many other diverse buildings needing parti-
tions. These foam concrete boards are not affected by moisture and
tend to gain more strength when moisture is present. This is also
an encouraging factor that will allow less restricted use.
In tall buildings, the repetitive use of lightweight partitions
could reduce the self-weight at each floor level, thus giving a sig-
nificant advantage in the foundation.

Table 5
Test results of the flexural test on panels.

Panel Failure Location Failure load (kN) Failure stress(N/mm2)

Type 1 Within middle third 4.3 1.64
Type 2 Within middle third 0.8 0.31

All the panels displayed brittle failure. The failure stress for pan-
els without cement fiber board was very low compared to the pan-
els with the board. The results of the test are indicated in Table 5.
As can be seen in Table 5, the flexural strength of Type 2 panels
was significantly less than that of Type 1 panels. Hence, Type 1
panel with cement fiber boards on either side are recommended
for load bearing walls of single storey buildings and for the non-
loadbearing walls of multi storey buildings. The flexural strength
Fig. 8. Application of the EPS based lightweight concrete wall panels in a single
of Type 1 panel (1.64 N/mm2) is comparable with that of burnt clay
storey house.
brick walls [16] and other alternative walling materials [17,18].

Fig. 7. The tongue and groove arrangement.

 P.L.N. Fernando et al. / Construction and Building Materials 139 (2017) 45–51
5. Conclusions
Foam concrete made with EPS having 50% of recycled content
can be used to make a robust, but lightweight wall panel when cast
between two cement fiber sheets. With an experimental program,
the need to have the cement fiber sheets on either side of partition
panels was highlighted, though foam concrete on its own would
have sufficient compressive strength. One of the key parameters
that is important for a wall panel is its elastic modulus in the work-
ing stress region. It is shown that this value could be in the range of
1 kN/mm2 even when the cement fiber boards provide an addi-
tional stiffness. Hence, these panels can be recommended primar-
ily for non-loadbearing partitions of multi-storey buildings, in
addition to the load bearing walls of single storey construction.
One encouraging observation is the ability of the cement fiber
boards to retain the composite action until the ultimate state,
where the failure is generally due to crushing at the bottom. Even
for partition walls, certain degree of robustness is needed. It is
shown that when the foam concrete is cast between the cement
fiber sheets, the flexural capacity of a panel is reasonably high.
With the cement fiber boards and with tongue and groove joint
for connections, these panels could allow a rapid construction
rate along with a good finish for the walls that can eliminate the
need for a plaster. With the ability to contain up to 50% recycled
EPS, the wider usage of this panel could have many benefits
environmentally.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to express their sincere thanks to the National
Building Research Organization (NBRO) Sri Lanka for the funding
provided for the research. Also the support extended by Ekala
Pre-cast Concrete Industries, is appreciated very much. Technical
assistance provided for the laboratory experiments by the
laboratory staff of Department of Civil Engineering, University of
Moratuwa, Sri Lanka is acknowledged gratefully.
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