Wood Frame Building Modules for Faster On-Site Assembly
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Solution Overview
Problem
Construction of wood framed buildings is labor-intensive and generates material waste, with prefabricated modular panels for extensive platforms like floors, ceilings, and roofs not achieving widespread commercial success.
Innovation Solution
The use of expeditiously fabricated modules with standardized layouts for automated assembly, where modules' longitudinal axes are parallel to the building's length axis and perpendicular to the building's axis, allowing for efficient assembly and improved structural integrity, soundproofing, and thermal insulation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If prefabricated modular panels are used for extensive platforms, then assembly speed and labor efficiency are improved, but manufacturing complexity and structural integrity requirements worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The building structure is divided into modular panels that can be prefabricated independently and then assembled on-site. Each panel is a self-contained unit with standardized connections, allowing parallel manufacturing and reducing overall construction time while maintaining structural integrity through standardized joint designs.
Solution Approach 2:
Modular panels are manufactured and prepared in advance during factory settings before on-site assembly. This preliminary fabrication allows for quality control, precision cutting, and pre-assembly of components, reducing on-site labor requirements and accelerating the overall construction schedule.
2Ease of manufacture
If conventional wood framing methods are used, then manufacturing simplicity and material availability are maintained, but labor intensity and construction time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The modular panels are designed to be pre-fabricated using conventional wood framing techniques in a controlled factory environment. This allows simple, well-established manufacturing processes to be applied at scale, while the pre-assembly nature of the panels dramatically accelerates on-site construction speed and reduces labor intensity.
3Stability of the object's composition
If modules are assembled with longitudinal axes parallel to building length axis, then structural integrity and assembly standardization are improved, but adaptability to irregular building shapes decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The building envelope is segmented into multiple standardized modular panels that can be assembled in various configurations. While each panel maintains its own standardized orientation for structural integrity, the collection of panels can be arranged to accommodate different building shapes and geometries through combinatorial assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
The modular panels are designed with universal connection mechanisms and standardized dimensions that allow them to serve multiple positioning functions. The same panel type can be used in walls, floors, and ceilings, and can be oriented in different configurations to adapt to various building shapes while maintaining structural standards.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of constructing a frame of a wood frame building structure is shown and described. The method entails fabricating modules establishing nominally flat structural platforms for expediting assembly of floors, walls, ceilings, and a roof. These modules provide structural frames enabling appropriate finishing materials to be affixed thereto. The finishing materials provide continuous, flat surfaces, with exceptions for penetrations. The method includes assembling the modules such that a longitudinal axis of each model is parallel to those of other modules throughout the frame and perpendicular to a building length axis. Also, each module includes ceiling joists, floor joists, and roof rafters, as appropriate, such joists and roof rafters installed parallel to the building length axis and therefore, perpendicular to the joists and roof rafters. This method minimizes assembly costs of modules and of the framing, while retaining conventional framing performance.