Composite modular buildings

This project funded by the ARC under its Future Fellowship (FT200100024) grant aims at developing composite structural systems for modular tall buildings to overcome the limits of steel systems (e.g., low fire resistance and strength) and concrete systems (e.g., too heaviness and time-consuming wet joining method) that are currently used in practice [1]. Two main structural systems will be developed including (i) a composite modular unit with concrete filled steel tubular (CFST) columns and a lightweight concrete (LWC) floor, and (ii) a joining technique for inter-module connections. The composite modular unit can leverage the merits of both steel module (i.e., ease of installation) and composite module (i.e., high fire resistance), whilst a new joining technique which combines the merits of connector and bolting methods is not only easy to install, but also has sufficient strength for high-rise applications as demonstrated in a numerical study in Ref. [2]. In order to reduce the construction time of modular tall buildings, we also explore the use of composite shear walls to replace the current reinforce concrete (RC) shear walls as a core of modular tall buildings [3]. We also look at the robustness of modular buildings against progressive collapse [4,5].

Inter-module connections

Progressive collapse of modular buildings

References

[1] Thai HT, Ngo T, Uy B. A review on modular construction for high-rise buildings. Structures 2020;28:1265-1290.

[2] Thai HT. Numerical study of a novel self-lock connection for modular tall buildings. Proceeding of the Indian Structural Steel Conference (ISSC 2020), IIT Hyderabad, India 2020.

[3] Thai HT. Innovation composite structural systems for modular tall buildings. Proceeding of the 9the International Conference on Composite Construction in Steel and Concrete , Stromberg, Germany 2021.

[4] Thai HT, Ho QV, Li W, Ngo T. Progressive collapse and robustness of modular high-rise buildings. Structure and Infrastructure Engineering 2023;19(3):302-314.

[5] Swami G, Thai HT, Liu X. Structural robustness of composite modular buildings: The roles of CFST columns and inter-module connections. Structures 2023;48:1491-1504.