Shipping Containers As Emergency Shelters

[chicopee]

Looking at videos of the destruction of Moore, OK, it appears that a shipping container such as the type made by Conex withstood the fury of the tornado while adjacent buildings were destroyed. If this is the case, wouldn't it be a solution to use shipping containers with somewhat modified doorways as emergency shelters for schools instead of constructing expensive underground shelters?

 

[GeoPaveTraffic]

As long as they stayed put during the storm, I would expect that they would perform well. My guess is that the ones you are seeing were heavily loaded.

If the container just had people, then i expect it would have to be anchored to the ground very well indeed or it would just blow around. There are several manufactures of both above and below ground shelters. Why people who live in Tornado alley don't have either a basement or a shelter is beyond me.

Mike Lambert

 

[msquared48]

$$$

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[bimr]

Don't believe that pictures are an accurate representation of the damage.

You probably have also seen pictures of houses where the wall is ripped away and undamaged articles are sitting in the rest of the structure.

A shipping container would have to be anchored otherwise, it would end like the mobile homes that land in Oz. Shipping containers also lack architectural appeal.

 

[chicopee]

So you anchor the shipping containers just as mobile homes in Florida have to be.

 

[concretemasonry]

Florida is mainly concerned with the lower strength winds for hurricanes where holding things down is the prime concerned because they can cause damage if the are moving around.

A tornado is a different "animal" because the critical problem is from tornado debris (major cause of death) so prevention of penetration (major cause of deaths) for life safety is critical and is beyond structural engineering and a realm of years of testing of many possible potential problems has revealed the best methods of life preservation. It is not the collapsing of a structure, a car falling from out of the sky or an errant mobile home. It is projectiles at high speed caused by the winds of 135 to 250+ mph. Even Katrina did not have 135 mph winds after hitting land. That is reason for the threshold velocity of the actual projectiles to be set at that and not apparent wind speed that may be higher.

The FEMA testing has recommended a few wall/roof systems acceptable for projectile penetration and the 2 most common are 8" reinforced concrete and 8" reinforced grouted masonry (at 8" o.c. reinforcement). After many years of testing, I believe after years of testing system of steel plate sandwiched between 3/4" plywood with closely spaced studs was accepted.

Life safety is not always a structural engineering question unless you want to hang your number on your wet stamped drawings and approvals.

Dick

Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.

 

[dik]

Some companies have 'retrofit' these containers and used them for explosion resistant buildings on their facilities.

Dik

 

[beej67]

I agree that they'd need to be anchored. The ones that didn't get blown around may have been full. Or alternately, the ones you saw might not have started out where you saw them.

Shipping containers are actually pretty fabulous things to re-use in development, on the whole, if you don't mind the look. An architect friend of mine has developed plans for building out the interiors of singles, of welding them together in stacks, and doing other sorts of things to create mobile condo complexes out of them as cheap labor housing. They're very structurally sound.

Personally I'd like to see someone use them in an "underground house" application. Seems to me like that'd be a very sustainable approach, particularly in foreign countries with less economic stability.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[concretemasonry]

There are many different types of shipping containers made for different uses.

The heavy duty closed international and open top units are totally different and last and are recycled for years. On the other end, there are the same size or module are the lightweight containers that are made to house lightweight goods internationally by water and many are made available because it is easier to use them as temporary storage for goods and then dispose of them. In between, there are different degrees of containers that are generally owned by trucking companies, but are usually circulated quickly.

A fellow civil engineering student (not structural) with me bought a dozen or two containers to use for stack-able storage or housing units and needed registered structural to verify the plans. When I looked at the containers and drawings, I could not find any way to use the containers for except was to haul scrap and eventually into scrap themselves because they were intended to just be light duty covered and secure boxes.

They are all not alike and you must look at the "guts" of the container to determine what it can be used for and if there is a way to hold them down or resist the lateral loads.

Dick



Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.

 

[gbam]

Preppers use these types of shipping containers for there bugout or storm shelters. They make minor modifications to them and bury them with 2-4 feet of cover. I've seen one in-place and it made a great inexpensive storm shelter.