Housing needs are increased by up to one million units per year. Indonesia is also one of the
countries that are often affected by an earthquake so that the people and the Indonesian
government need to work on making simple, fast, and safe houses. One way is to use lightweight
panel walls. The reinforcement is essentially needed to increase the strength of the panel wall.
This study aims to determine the effect of adding plaster and wire mesh to the compressive
strength of expanded polystyrene (EPS) sandwich panel walls. This study uses precast specimen
expanded polystyrene panel walls size 180 cm × 61 cm. Consists of panel walls without
reinforcement, panel walls with plaster and wire mesh space of 1 cm and 2 cm. The results of the
average vertical compressive strength of the EPS panel wall obtained at 0.62 MPa, the panel with
the addition of plaster and wire mesh with 1 cm space of 0.77 MPa and the highest compressive
strength obtained from the panel with the addition of plaster and wire mesh with 2 cm space of
0.84 MPa. The results showed that plaster and wire mesh would increase the compressive
strength of expanded polystyrene sandwich panel walls.
