ST-23AB : A modular system for prefabricated pre-finished volumetric construction (PPVC) - joint behaviour

Prefabricated Pre-finished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) technology, generally known as modular construction, is a new construction technology funded by Singapore government to enhance construction productivity. The new construction technology introduced has gain fast recognition for its inherent advantage to reduce overall construction time, site disruption, vehicular traffic and improves overall safety and security. Modular construction can be summarised into four stages: design stage, manufacturing stage, transportation stage and erection stage. With softwares like the Building information Modelling (BIM), engineers are able to generate realistic 3D visualisations of the modular building for developers for final decision making before the manufacturing stage, as design of the modules cannot be changed once manufacturing starts. In the design for modular construction, the joint connection plays a crucial role of transferring load and maintaining structural integrity. Unlike traditional construction system, modular connection system make use of access holes at the beam-column joint to bolt and connect laterally and vertically adjacent modules. In this paper, a new type of modular connection system named LT steel connection system comprising I-beam, rectangular hollow section column and cruciform base is proposed. There are 12 connection types with a total of 24 finite element models established to stimulate the bending behaviour in the major and minor axis using Abaqus. Considering symmetry of several models, half or quarter of the joint connection were taken for analysis, reducing total time taken for the numerical analysis. The results revealed that failure takes place at interconnection of beam and cruciform base under bending. Failure tends to occur in minor axis for L shape connections and major axis for T shape connections. Numerical analysis shows that the ultimate bending strength for the L shape connections is larger in major axis than in minor axis, whereas T shape connections have larger ultimate bending strength in minor axis than in major axis. The endplate thickness of the cruciform base has considerable impact on ultimate bending strength of the joint connection. For a same connection type, a 16mm thick endplate results in a larger ultimate bending capacity than a 9mm thick endplate. The strengthen result of having the 16mm thick endplate is more prominent to the connections that is subjected to bending in the axis that is more likely to fail for the connection type.Bachelor of Engineering (Civil