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Energy: Walls and Windows
Published in Brian D. Fath, Sven E. Jørgensen, Megan Cole, Managing Air Quality and Energy Systems, 2020
Construction methods can be roughly grouped according to the portion of the assembly performed on site and the portion performed at a factory. With today’s engineered wood products and premade trusses, few buildings are strictly built on site; but we still refer to a stick-built building as the one where the greatest part of the assembly takes part on the construction site. At the other end of the spectrum are manufactured buildings that can be moved from one site to another with relatively little effort. In the middle are factory-built modular buildings and panelized construction. A factory-built modular building typically includes one or more modules that are placed on a permanent foundation. In some modular buildings, the windows are installed after the modules have been installed. A panelized building is closer to the site-built model, but will have major wall, floor, or foundation sections prebuilt and delivered to the site.
Introduction
Published in Yatish T. Shah, Modular Systems for Energy and Fuel Recovery and Conversion, 2019
Modular buildings, temporary and permanent, may be manufactured as structural units that make up the structure of the building once assembled on-site. Nonstructural modular such as factory tied bathroom or service pods can be placed within a larger modular superstructure or in traditional construction on-site. Modules may be constructed from many different materials including wood framing, cold-formed steel framing, hot rolled steel, concrete, or a combination of material assemblages. Not all manufacturers will manufacture in many materials; rather, manufacturers tend to focus on a particular type of construction to maximize factory efficiencies. The choice of material by stakeholders is usually contingent upon project demands, site forces, and project cost. Further, projects may have a hybrid of material solutions such as traditional site-built structure, bathroom modules, or structural modules and a portion of the building that is traditionally site built due to programmatic demands such as large openings, spans, or other that are difficult to preassemble in the factory.
The planning and execution of work
Published in John S. Oakland, Marton Marosszeky, Total Construction Management, 2017
John S. Oakland, Marton Marosszeky
In the US, some builders specialized in the construction of stacked modular buildings. Hotel buildings were built of reinforced concrete units manufactured in a factory on site, while condominiums were built of timber and transported from factories nearby. More recently, we have seen stacked units made of modified steel containers, manufactured in China, shipped to mature markets in the US, Australia and elsewhere.
Performance implications of knowledge inputs in inter-organisational new product development projects: the moderating roles of technology interdependence
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2022
Christoph G. Schmidt, Tingting Yan, Stephan M. Wagner, Lorenzo Lucianetti
In contrast, when technology interdependence is low, the development task is modular and thus simpler, which reduces the overall need for novel knowledge from external types of organisations. For example, modular buildings generally consist of universal parts that are designed and manufactured in different factories and then shipped to a building site to be assembled into a variety of arrangements. In this case, technological interdependence of modular buildings is very low, which makes it less crucial for factories to integrate external knowledge to ensure design integrity. Understanding and integrating external knowledge in innovation projects with limited resources and high technological uncertainty is especially costly (Grant 1996). Given the limited benefits associated with external knowledge when technology interdependence is low, we could see fewer benefits, in terms of improving design quality, from a knowledge portfolio that is primarily composed of external knowledge. Therefore, we hypothesise that: Hypothesis 2a. External input ratio is more positively associated with product design quality when technology interdependence is high.
Possibilities for user-centric and participatory design in modular health care facilities
Published in Intelligent Buildings International, 2020
Marjaana Lahtinen, Pia Sirola, Antti Peltokorpi, Leena Aalto, Riikka Kyrö, Heidi Salonen, Virpi Ruohomäki, Kari Reijula
The producer organization pre-fabricates and leases relocatable modular buildings (social and health care facilities, day-care facilities and schools) for municipalities and other public actors in Finland and Sweden. Most of the modular buildings produced annually replace older buildings from the 1960–70s with indoor air quality issues. The calculated lifecycle of the modular buildings is 20 years, even though they are generally expected to last 25–30 years. The building modules are fully equipped and include all structural elements, doors, windows and finishes. The throughput time for producing a module in the factory is around 9–12 days, and assembly typically takes three weeks. Only the foundation work has to be performed on site.
Load-Carrying Mechanism of Post-Tensioned Inter-Module Connections Implemented into Modular Steel Buildings
Published in Journal of Earthquake Engineering, 2023
Dong-Hyeon Shin, Hyung-Joon Kim
Modular buildings involve an assembled structure in which the entire structure intends to maximize off-site prefabrication contents and minimize on-site buildings activity (Chen, Liu, and Yu 2017; Dai et al. 2019). Modular buildings comprise prefabricated room-sized volumetric units (referred as modules) which are installed on-site. Off-site prefabrication leads to quality improvement, reduction in overall construction schedule by more efficient factory process, and sustainability benefits minimizing resource wastages (Kamali and Hewage 2016; Lawson, Ogden, and Bergin 2012; Lopez and Froese 2016). This construction technique is increasingly promoted due to the application of various structural systems and building materials (Lacey et al. 2018; Lacey et al., 2019a). Various types of building modules have been developed using steel, light steel frames, containers, precast concrete, and timber framed modules (Boafor, Kim, and Kim 2016; Gorgolewski, Grubb, and Lawson 2001; Lawson, Ogden, and Goodier 2014). Many recent research have been carried out to theoretically and experimentally contribute on developing appropriate analysis procedures, detailing requirements, and practical design guidance for modular buildings (Anna et al., 2009a; Fathieh and Mercan 2016; Giriunas, Sezen, and Dupaix 2012; Zha and Zuo 2016). Of various building modular systems, this study focuses on the steel module which is frequently applicable on the construction field. The on-site inter-module connections significantly influence constructability and construction duration. Inter-module connections of a typical modular steel building are configured with hollow square section columns and channel beams, which are bolted together (Annan et al., 2009b; Hong et al., 2011; Lacey et al. 2018). Lee et al. (2015) and Park et al. (2008) investigated composite effects of the typical inter-module connection on the structural behavior of beam-column joints. The typical inter-module connection resulted in weak-column and strong-beam mechanism, and obtained capacities classified into the semi-rigid connection (Hong 2014). Choi, Lee, and Kim (2016) carried out nonlinear static analyses of modular steel structures to evaluate their load-carrying mechanisms according to the connection details for the assembly of the unit modules. The modular steel structures presented different lateral stiffness and strength depending on the connectivity between modules provided by the typical inter-module connection. To consider these observations, each module in the modular steel building should be properly assembled to provide continuous load-transfer paths throughout inter-module connections so that the connectivity between adjacent modules is recognized as the most important parameter affecting its structural performance.