Ferrocement as a replacement for block walls and reinforced concrete elements for social housing

Abstract

The present research has consisted of implementing the use of ferrocement as a construction material for low-income housing, substituting block walls and reinforced concrete elements for a ferrocement structure. The budget has been compared between a conventional house and a house with ferrocement walls, to which the study of the analysis of the structural performance of ferrocement has been added. The cost per unit of conventional low-cost housing has been one hundred and ninety-two thousand and twenty-nine lempiras and nineteen cents (L.192,029.19), compared to the budget of a house with ferrocement panels, which has been one hundred sixty-nine thousand seventy-five and forty-two cents (L.169,075.42) from which it has been concluded that ferrocement constitutes a viable option to reduce costs per unit of affordable housing. For the structural analysis, the STAAD.Pro program has been used, through which a model similar to that provided by Habitat for Humanity Honduras has been developed, for which the regulatory burdens described in CHOC-08 have been applied, which has yielded as a result, a bending moment of 0.61kN-m / m and a shear resistance of 21.78 kN/m2 that have met the minimum values expected to support the load of the roof structures.