Load bearing capacity of a 40' seacan

[Zoobie777]

I have designed several roof truss systems for garages/storage buildings constructed with seacans as the 'walls'. They are increasingly popular, especially with homesteaders. Most of the time the trusses bear on the walls with a sill plates running up the 40' (or 20') sides. We have a customer asking for a 4' spacing option for a roof with a 40' clear span between the containers. This is resulting in bearing reactions on the inside bearings of 5200 lbf unfactored/7300 lbf factored. While the building design is outside of my scope, I am wondering if there is a maximum point load for this type of construction. Will a single or double SPF plate distribute the load sufficiently? I found out what the weight of a seacan roof can hold (~57000 lbs) but not sure how that translates into max plf for the wall. Also, is there an appreciable difference in capacity between a normal seacan (8'-6" tall) and a high cube (9'-6" tall)?

Thanks for any info/advice you may have.

Cheers!

 

[canwesteng]

It's extremely unlikely that the roof of a sea can is good for 57,000 pounds, so that's my first piece of advice. You stack seacans on top of each and they need to bear on the walls of the sea can below, that might be where you get the 57k from. I'd guess the whole project is outside of your scope, try and find an off the shelf solution like this https://www.futurebuildings.com/steel-building-types/container-covers.html
Where someone will take all the liability.

 

[PreCBK]

Many years ago I looked into sea-can structures for a bit, from memory I think the roof could support ~30psf.
In their normal use case most of the load is transferred through the columns in the corners. I would be concerned if your bearing line doesn't align with the wall of the sea-can

 

[Zoobie777]

It's extremely unlikely that the roof of a sea can is good for 57,000 pounds, so that's my first piece of advice. You stack seacans on top of each and they need to bear on the walls of the sea can below, that might be where you get the 57k from. I'd guess the whole project is outside of your scope, try and find an off the shelf solution like this https://www.futurebuildings.com/steel-building-types/container-covers.html
Where someone will take all the liability.

As I mentioned, the building design is not in my scope...just the trusses. I am just curious and trying to build some knowledge with the help form others.

 

[Zoobie777]

Many years ago I looked into sea-can structures for a bit, from memory I think the roof could support ~30psf.
In their normal use case most of the load is transferred through the columns in the corners. I would be concerned if your bearing line doesn't align with the wall of the sea-can

Thanks. The load will be bear on one wall (the inside wall) and I assume a 2x6 plate will be on top of the seacan wall to secure the trusses. The outside wall will see an uplift from the trusses. The loads on the inner wall are 463 plf DL and 814 plf SL. This is not high at all for a wood framed structure with 24" oc truss spacing and I expect the seacan can support this no problem. My question/concern, which is not my scope but has me curious, is what happens if the spacing is now 48" oc and each truss has a unfactored reaction at the wall of 1882 lbs DL and 3290 lbs SL. If this were a regular wood framed structure you probably would have at least a stud if not a column under this (or a beam). Just wondering if a seacan can take this kind of point load. I have been in many a seacan but TBH I have never looked at the structure.

 

[PreCBK]

I found some useful references:
General info: https://www.structuremag.org/article/shipping-container-design/
Top Rail dimensions: https://containersurveyor.com/what-you-should-know-about-top-side-rail/

 

[Lomarandil]

Shipping Containers - Structural engineering general discussion

Has anyone ever worked on a project involving shipping containers? I have a potential project that will involve stacking a series of these to create a building. There will be openings that are cut into the walls. I'm curious about how these are framed and if anyone has any other pitfalls to...

www.eng-tips.com

 

[Zoobie777]

I found some useful references:
General info: https://www.structuremag.org/article/shipping-container-design/
Top Rail dimensions: https://containersurveyor.com/what-you-should-know-about-top-side-rail/

Awesome! Thank you.