Shipping Containers 2

[North2South]

Has anyone here had any experience with being the EOR on shipping container projects? Specifically in the US under the IBC?

I recently had a client reach out about wanting to do a commercial project. It sounds about the easiest form of a shipping container project - one 8’ x 40’ container with a single windows and door added.

 

[phamENG]

Have you searched past threads? There have been quite a few discussions about the topic with lots of resources posted or listed.

 

[KootK]

This was my thread on shipping containers: Link.

I learned a lot about this stuff from this, freely available presentation by Socrates Ionnides: Link

In watching the presentation, I found it a little bit intimidating how quickly simple usage cases seem to devolve into rather complex FEM exercises. In the interest of simplicity, hopefully your situation is the kind of thing where you are able to introduce discrete reinforcement that replaces lost capacity one for one or better.

 

[LittleInch]

Think you got the wrong first link there KootK?

But use of shipping containers has been discussed lots. Do a search (Top right)

Try this for size - lots of links and previous posts

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=480914

But a 40 foot container with only one door and one window?? Really?

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[KootK]

Think you got the wrong first link there KootK?

Nope, that's the one.

 

[LittleInch]

Seems to be talking about a timber framed shed to me....

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[KootK]

Seems to be talking about a timber framed shed to me....

Look / read closer and you'll see that it's a timber framed shed built using shipping containers as part of the structure. I don't know what else to tell you. This is my only thread on shipping containers.

 

[skeletron]

I've done one project. Exterior pub bar/seating for when the AHJ's relaxed their outdoor patio policies during the pandemic.

It seems pretty common that someone wants to blow out at least a full long side and as much of the two shorter sides as possible. We did some plate and angle reinforcement around the openings, and I made sure that there was a post/beam for the long side with the opening. Apparently this was overkill compared to what others have let go in the past. The welding was pretty terrible, tbh.

My analysis did not go into the FEM stuff that some of the online presentations (AISC?) have presented. I took a simplified approach. I also called it a "temporary structure" and put a re-inspection timeline on the drawings because I could see it being a mess about halfway through the project. Sometime around when they squawked about bolting it down to the ground (once again...something that others have let go in the past).

Call me conservative, but I think there is a lot more to these projects than I am willing to invest time on. Especially when you get into stacking them, architectural openings, etc. Lots of the building science guys rave about the sustainability of them. I believe that. But I can't see how you can blow out full sides and expect the shell to perform to the minimum design requirements. I think they rarely have steel grades attached to them, which makes the analysis a little dodgy.

In short, I don't chase/accept these projects anymore.

 

[TLHS]

Have you got the latest IBC? It sounds like it has finally incorporated the proposed provisions on presumed capacities and design basis stuff:

You can also refer to the document that ICC prepared before that. I think this is latest version of ICC G5 - Guidelines for the Safe Use of ISO Containers

https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/ICCG52019

For some reason the main page doesn't load, but I can go to all the sections of the document using the navigation headings in the left frame.

ICC has a standard for evaluating the shipping container for suitability for structural reuse (i.e. before you start messing with it). It's ICC AC462. You can buy compliant ones, in theory, but your local people may or may not be familiar with it so it may not be helpful.

There's also a proposed fabricator approval spec that has things like tolerances that may be useful for cribbing for general notes if you're getting that detailed.

https://www.iasonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/AC786-Letter-and-Proposed-Criteria-2020-1

The ICC stuff has shear provisions, which was the tricky part in the past. For vertical loads, try to frame anything other than nominal loads into the corners where the containers are intended to carry load and then you can compare against rated capacities without doing anything complicated. If it's not practical, don't be afraid of welding in angles or channels as stiffening elements for vertical loads, or if you're wood framing inside for the final finish, using the stud wall.

Roofs are annoying. The load tests that they're rated to don't necessarily give you a great guidance for the type of loading a structural engineer would be interested in. Depends on what you're doing though. If you're doing anything that's a proper building, the ICC makes you build a proper roof assembly, so you might as well wood frame a platform on top of the container and at least take the load off of the corrugated plate to the side walls if not all the way to the corners. If you're doing a temporary enclosure for industry and ignoring the roof assembly, then if you're in a nominal snow area you can make it structurally work with assumed loads, but you may end up with water ponding in the medium to long term and corrosion. High snow (for me, wet parts of northern Canada more than half way up the provinces or so) I've had problems making the roof numbers work with just the plating with the information I generally have available. I've internally framed with wood joists to make this work in the past, though, where clients really didn't want a roof assembly on top.

 

[dik]

Can you not just add wood framing roof rafters (2x4 or 2x6) to give you a slope and add roofing?

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik