O uso de placas monolíticas de poliestireno expandido na construção civil

Abstract

In Civil Construction, it is very common to talk about four pillars that professionals in this area are always aware of in their practice: deadline, cost, quality and safety. Always aiming to increase the performance of structures and optimize projects, technology has been a strong ally of researchers who are increasingly committed to finding alternative production systems to those currently used. In the meantime, expanded polystyrene – EPS, has been adopted in construction as an alternative material because it has desirable properties such as lightness, thermal and acoustic performance and ease of handling. The monolithic panel construction system, one of the ways in which EPS is used in civil construction where EPS panels are combined with steel screens, has very satisfactory characteristics of resistance to compression, traction and bending, impermeability, thermal and acoustic insulation, but, as expected of a practically embryonic system in Brazil, many obstacles are still observed regarding specialized labor, availability of inputs in regions further away from industrial centers and, consequently, the high costs associated with this shortage. This article aims to explain the use of expanded polystyrene in civil engineering, more specifically the monolithic panel construction system, as well as to present the analyses made about its structural behavior, benefits and disadvantages when compared to conventional systems. To this end, other reference works already existing in the literature on the subject were used, as well as an analysis of the application of the construction system in a residence built in the city of Natal/RN. The study resulted in a relevant analysis about a system that is still unconventional in civil engineering practice, but which demonstrated to have many qualities regarding the structural performance of the material, ease of application, reduction of construction time and final cost.