Manufactured Home Testing in Simulated and Naturally Occurring High Winds for WCTE Conference

A typical double-wide manufactured home was tested in simulated and naturally occurring high winds to understand structural behavior and improve performance during severe windstorms. Seven (7) lateral load tests were conducted on a double-wide manufactured home at a remote field test site in Wyoming. An extensive instrumentation package monitored the overall behavior of the home and collected data vital to validating computational software for the manufactured housing industry. The tests were designed to approach the design load of the home without causing structural damage, thus allowing the behavior of the home to be accessed when the home was later exposed to high winds (to 80-mph). The data generally show near-linear initial system response with significant non-linear behavior as the applied loads increase. Load transfer across the marriage line is primarily compression. Racking, while present, is very small. Interface slip and shear displacement along the marriage line are nearly insignificant. Horizontal global displacements reached 0.6 inch. These tests were designed primarily to collect data necessary to calibrate a desktop analysis and design software tool, MHTool, under development at the Idaho National Laboratory specifically for manufactured housing. Currently available analysis tools are, for the most part, based on methods developed for "stick built" structures and are inappropriate for manufactured homes. The special materials utilized in manufactured homes, such as rigid adhesives used in the connection of the sheathing materials to the studs, significantly alter the behavior of manufactured homes under lateral loads. Previous full scale tests of laterally loaded manufactured homes confirm the contention that conventional analysis methods are not applicable. System behavior dominates the structural action of manufactured homes and its prediction requires a three dimensional analysis of the complete unit, including tie-downs. This project was sponsored by the US Department of Energy, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Manufactured Housing Institute. The results of this research can lead to savings in annual losses of life and property by providing validated information to enable the advancement of code requirements and by developing engineering software that can predict and optimize wind resistance