Manufactured dwellings are idealized for efficiently supplying homes delivered from a factory to any site. Mobile homes built on standard-sized steel trailers were designed, robustly built to be pulled over roads and adapted to common towing devices. Modular volumetric buildings use similar manufacturing principles, without the mobile substructure, and require flatbeds to carry the volumes to their site, where they are lifted to be set into their final position. Cranes equipped with spreader beams, used to strap the modules, make easy work of modular assembly. Both approaches, a steel mobile trailer or an independent volume, are defined and constrained by transport loads and dimensional parameters.
Getting these factory-produced buildings to remote locations sometimes requires more complex logistics; Cargo ships can be used for intercontinental transport. Stacked on ships, they can be rolled off or craned onto barges to be brought to ports and then trucked to their final destinations. Rail is also possible, however it is considered less convenient as the modules would have to be lugged to and from rail lines as manufacturing facilities are not necessarily located in proximity to railway networks.
Another form of modular transportation has been imagined to get houses to any location. While impractical, complex and expensive, the dream of flying a house is connoted in many prefab experiments. But is it really feasible ? High-capacity helicopters, such as the Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane, Boeing CH-47 Chinook, and the Russian Mil Mi-26, are known for their exceptional lifting capacities. These helicopters are specifically designed for lifting and carrying loads exceeding 20,000 pounds (9,072 kilograms). A standard modular volume 12feet x 40feet can easily weigh up to 20 000 pounds. While lifting and delivering one unit is certainly possible, assembling a building in this way is unfeasible.
Whether truck, rail, ship or helicopter, modular volumetric construction is regulated by its factory manufacturing on an assembly line which also determins maximum width as in all cases the module will have to be trucked from its production area to a staging area before its final transport.
Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane (above); Boeing CH-47 Chinook (below)
No comments:
Post a Comment