Raw Materials

Gypcrete wall panel is manufactured from plaster - one of the world's oldest known construction materials. Humankind has used this material for thousands of years. The pyramids of Cheops, for example, were certainly built with plaster mortar at least 4,000 years ago.

Plaster is manufactured from Gypsum which as an inert, naturally occurring material available in vast quantities all over the world. Gypsum is used extensively in horticulture and primary production.

Gypsum is also a by-product of other industrial processes. For example, the burning of coal to produce steam for electricity generation (much of the world's energy requirements are produced this way) produces chemical or Sulphur-Gypsum that can, and should be, extracted from the boiler flue-gas.

GBIL produces all the plaster used in the Gypcrete wall panel manufacturing process. Using the Rapidflow Calcination Plant, chemical gypsum is calcined to produce high quality plaster for general use and for use in the production of Gypcrete wall panel.

Manufacturing and Materials Handling

Gypcrete wall panel is manufactured from Rapidflow Gypsum Plaster in an automatic casting process. The production processes for both Rapidflow Plaster and Gypcrete wall panel are low in energy use, they are fast, they are very clean and they emit little or no carbon dioxide. The production, transportation and installation of one square metre of clay brickwork emits over 70kg of Carbon Dioxide. Comparatively one square metre of Gypcrete wall panel emits less than 7 kg of Carbon Dioxide.

When compared to alternative products such as precast-concrete, a single Gypcrete wall panel casting-table can produce in 24 hours atleast 20 times the quantity of precast concrete. It does this consuming a fraction of the energy and a fraction of the water.

Over the last ten years building construction has been leaning towards off-site or pre-manufacture of building elements. However the benefits can often be eroded by high materials handling costs such from trucking and cranage.

Filling a Gypcrete wall panel on site

Gypcrete wall panel can be filled with concrete on site. The transportation of liquid concrete is more efficient than transporting concrete cast into flat panels. Furthermore, weighing only 45 kg/m2, up to six times more Gypcrete wall panel can be transported to a building site on a single semi-trailer.

When compared to precast concrete site cranage capacity and hook-time requirements are considerably less when Gypcrete wall panel is employed on a building project.

Environmental Sustainability

The high world demand for housing parallels the high demand for electricity, much of which is produced by burning coal.

Because of its low cost and low energy demands and because it can be made from waste products Gypcrete wall panel, we believe, presents as the most environmentally responsible building product in the world.

• In addition to having an embodied energy level [the total energy consumed from the extraction of the raw materials through to the final installation of the product on a building project] believed to be the lowest of any walling product in the world, Gypcrete wall panel can be manufactured from waste chemical-gypsum.
• Gypcrete wall panel is 100% recyclable. By re-processing Gypcrete wall panel back through a Rapidflow Calcination Plant the resulting plaster can be recast into yet another Gypcrete wall panel. 
• Now being produced in China as a replacement for bricks and soon to be produced in India to construct several million homes in slum areas, Gypcrete wall panel has become a world product.

The compelling attributes of Gypcrete wall panel are: -

• It is produced generally in a single size as a production-line product and then cut to size [unlike precast concrete panels, each of which is usually cast as a one-off detailed panel with windows and doors etc.];
• A single [up to a 36 square metres] Gypcrete wall panel is manufactured in one hour as compared to an equivalent precast-concrete wall panel's 24 hours minimum;
• A 12 metre by 3 metre by 120 millimetre concrete panel would weigh 10.5 tonne compared to 1.5 tonne for the equivalent Gypcrete wall panel;
• As a load-bearing walling element Gypcrete wall panel has an installed cost of about half that of precast concrete;
• Depending on the wall layout, a Gypcrete wall panel when concrete filled on site can support between twelve and twenty storeys thus eliminating the need for columns and floor beams;
• The finish of Gypcrete wall panel is superior to an equivalent off-form, precast-concrete or insitu wall panel;
• Gypcrete wall panel can be made from naturally occurring gypsum or from waste flue-gas gypsum;
• Gypcrete wall has a lower embodied energy than all other walling products [embodied energy is the total energy consumed by the product from the point of extraction of the raw material to the manufacture of the panel, to its transportation to a site and to its final installation on a building project];
• Gypcrete wall panels are 100% recyclable wherein they can be re-processed through a calciner and recast into new Gypcrete wall panels;
• A single B-double truck can transport over 900 square metres of Gypcrete wall panel compared to 125 square metres for 120 millimetre thick precast-concrete and 190 square metres of 140 millimetre thick concrete hollow blockwork;
• In cottage construction utilising suspended timber floors, unfilled Gypcrete wall panel is load-bearing up to three storeys;
• In cottage construction utilising suspended concrete floors, unfilled Gypcrete wall panel is load-bearing up to two storeys;
• When used as load-bearing shear walls Gypcrete wall panel exhibits ductile qualities that make it safer than masonry in earthquake prone structures;

A building system that employs load-bearing Gypcrete wall panel as the walling elements streamlines the construction process by removing the majority of on-site work. By the factory production of large single-spanning lightweight wall elements that are easily and speedily erected the Gypcrete wall panel system provides a revolutionary and cost competitive alternative to conventional building methods.