Prefabricated Panels for House Walls

Prefabricated panels can be used for house walls, but they have defects, and the feasibility of building walls on prefabricated panels should be carefully evaluated.

Feasibility of Using Prefabricated Panels for House Walls

Prefabricated panels can be used for house walls. For example, panel houses are a type of building that uses prefabricated concrete panels as walls. The method of prefabricating components in factories can significantly save time and labor costs, and has certain advantages in the process of building industrialization.

Defects of Using Prefabricated Panels for House Walls

• Leakage problems: Gaps are prone to appear at the joints between prefabricated panels. If waterproofing treatment is not proper, rainwater and other moisture can easily seep into the interior through these gaps, affecting the comfort of the living environment and even potentially damaging interior decorations and items.
• Poor seismic performance: Compared with monolithically cast walls, prefabricated panel walls have poorer integrity and continuity. Under external forces such as earthquakes, the connection parts between the prefabricated panels are easily damaged, leading to wall collapse and posing a threat to the structural safety of the house.
• Inadequate sound insulation and thermal insulation: The material and structural characteristics of prefabricated panels determine that their sound insulation and thermal insulation performance is limited. In environments with high noise levels, the interior is easily disturbed by external noise. In winter, indoor heat is easily lost through the prefabricated panels, resulting in lower indoor temperatures. In summer, outdoor heat easily enters the interior, increasing the energy consumption of air-conditioning and other refrigeration equipment.

Precautions for Building Walls on Prefabricated Panels

Hollow prefabricated panels have longitudinal channels inside and mainly rely on the two ends for bearing force, while the hollow area in the middle can hardly bear weight. Forcibly building walls on them may cause the floor slab to break or even collapse. If walls are to be built on prefabricated panels, strict conditions must be met: the floor slab thickness should be greater than or equal to 12 centimeters, the concrete strength should reach above C25, the steel bar configuration should use 12-millimeter diameter secondary steel bars with a spacing of no more than 120 millimeters; the wall materials must be lightweight bricks or hollow bricks to reduce the load on the floor slab; and it must be approved by the original design unit for load calculation or by the house safety appraisal department to ensure the structural safety of the floor slab after wall building.