Modified shipping containers for transtional shelter construction

Abstract

As the number of displaced people skyrocketed due to natural disaster, conflict and urbanization, the demand of temporary housing solution had increased substantially. As the concept of transitional shelter been proposed to mitigate the issue related to transition stage from temporary shelter to permanent housing, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized shipping container could become a potential candidate due to its modularity and inherent strength. Although ISO did govern that the specification of container had to fulfil requirement for marine and logistic purpose, for residential purpose the container shelter must be modified to include the necessary opening for ventilation requirement. This would greatly affect its structural integrity especially its lateral stiffness that was highly dependent on the condition of corrugated side wall. Hence, this research aims to investigate the ISO container transitional shelter (CTS) from engineering perspective, focusing on its lateral load resistance. Current lateral stiffness design for container wall was revised and modified to include effect of opening by validation of experimental results and design guideline for CTS was developed. Theoretical calculation for lateral stiffness of corrugated panel based on latest publication was modified based on result of lateral load testing using 48 corrugated panels considering effect of panel thickness, opening size, and loading orientation. Two full scale ISO container with different opening configuration were tested under two different loading direction to obtain the lateral stiffness for both axes. Numerical model of ISO container was also developed using finite element software Abaqus and validated with the experimental result. The theoretical calculation developed was then validated with the full scale container test result to amend the formulation for container shelter purpose. From this research, the new correlated formulation proposed could accurately estimate the lateral stiffness of the corrugated panel. Thirteen sets of finite element model were developed, and the correlation factor was proposed to improve the accuracy of current modelling technique. Based on the test stiffness of full scale container, the theoretical stiffness of container shelter was formulated with acceptable prediction when validated with experimental result. Lateral stiffness design procedure for CTS was proposed using the developed theoretical formulation. In nutshell, the research provided update to current stiffness design of corrugated steel shear wall, and the structural design of CTS could become more reliable and flexible in opening layout for engineers by using the new equation proposed.