Raz, Jim Bryan E. Building Technology 5 Ar. Lauro F.

Ador
201510324

Table of Contents
Non-Conventional Methods of Construction ................................................................................................... 1
Drivers for building with modern methods of construction......................................................................... 1
Methods ........................................................................................................................................................... 2
1. Volumetric construction ....................................................................................................................... 2
2. Panellised construction systems .......................................................................................................... 3
3. Hybrid Construction ............................................................................................................................. 5
4. Sub-assemblies and components ......................................................................................................... 5
5. Tunnel Form ......................................................................................................................................... 7
6. Flat Slab ................................................................................................................................................ 8
7. Thin Joint Masonry ............................................................................................................................. 10
8. Lift Slab ............................................................................................................................................... 11
9. Piled raft foundation .......................................................................................................................... 13
10. Twin wall Construction .................................................................................................................. 14
References: ..................................................................................................................................................... 15
Raz, Jim Bryan E. Building Technology 5 Ar. Lauro F. Ador
201510324

Non-Conventional Methods of Construction

Since the Second World War, and the desperate need for new housing to be delivered
quickly, modern methods of construction (MMC, or 'smart construction') has been promoted as a
way of working more effectively to achieve more without using more. It centres on the use of off-
site construction techniques that can benefit from factory conditions and mass production
techniques.

Modern methods of construction are about better products and processes. They aim to
improve business efficiency, quality, customer satisfaction, environmental performance,
sustainability and the predictability of delivery timescales. Modern methods of construction are,
therefore, more broadly based than a particular focus on product. They engage people to seek
improvement, through better processes, in the delivery and performance of construction.

Drivers for building with modern methods of construction

 Shortage in housing supply
High demand for housing is pushing up prices, making it more difficult for key workers
and those on low incomes to find suitable accommodation. The development of affordable
private sector dwellings is outside the control of Government so the focus has been on
stimulating the development of MMC capacity as a means of increasing the rate of housing
supply.

 Concerns about housing quality

There is a perception that build quality is declining, but that is probably due more to
high profile media coverage of a few examples of poor practice and increasing customer
expectations, than to an overall decline. Conventional construction can, and in most cases
does, provide good quality housing but there is a general feeling that quality will need to
improve if only to meet the higher performance standards needed to comply with the
revised Building Regulations.

 Revisions to Building Regulations

When the Building Regulations were introduced, they were concerned only with the
health and safety of people in and around buildings. More recently the Regulations have
been broadened to cover the performance of buildings, particularly their thermal and
acoustic performance.

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 Environmental performance

Increasing emphasis is being placed on the environmental performance of buildings,

not only in use but also during construction, and the environmental credentials of the
materials being used. There are other environmental benefits particularly for manufactured
dwellings because much of the work is conducted in a factory; therefore the impact on the
local community in terms of noise, dust and traffic movements associated with
conventional construction sites is reduced.

Methods
1. Volumetric construction
Three-dimensional units produced in a factory, fully fitted out before being
transported to site and stacked onto prepared foundations. It is also referred to as modular
construction. These units can be made from most materials including light gauge steel
frame, timber frame, concrete and composites. The units are sometimes used alongside
panels (readymade walls, floors, and roofs) in hybrid construction.

Volumetric construction is most efficient when used for large numbers of identical
units, as may be found in flats. A house is typically made up of four units plus roof (which
can be either pre-fabricated or conventional).

Benefits:

 Short construction time

 Reduced need for skilled workforce on site
 Less waste
 High quality control
 Reliable delivery timescale
 Price certainly
 Sustainable – can be relocated or recycled
 Light weight

The casting of modules uses the benefits of factory conditions to create service-
intensive units where a high degree of repetition and a need for rapid assembly on-site
make its use highly desirable.

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Room-sized modules are prefabricated and

completed with internal finishes, fixtures and fittings,
before being transported and installed on site.

2. Panellised construction systems

Flat panel units built in a factory and transported to site for assembly into a three-
dimensional structure or to fit within an existing structure. Systems can include wall, floor
and roof panels to create the complete structural shell. Factory-made structural floor and
roof panels are known as “cassettes”.

Different types of panel

Open panels - panels delivered to site

where insulation, windows, services and
linings are fitted. All structural components
are visible. Panels can be structural
(transmitting load to the foundations) or
non-structural (used as non-loadbearing
separating walls and partitions)

Open steel frame panels

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Closed panels - panels based on a

structural framing system (such as the type
used for open panel systems), which can
have factory fitted windows, doors,
services, internal wall finishes and external
cladding. The internal structural
components can only be seen around the
Closed timber frame panels
perimeter of the panel.
being placed
Concrete panels - structural wall panels,
which can include cladding (often bricks or
brick slips), insulation materials, windows
and doors.

Composite panels - panels made from a

combination of different materials that act
together to provide structural support. Concrete panels
Structural insulated panels are a specific
form of composite panel.

Structural insulated panels (SIPS) -

Sandwich construction comprising two
layers of sheet material bonded to a foam
insulation core. They do not rely on
internal studs for their structural
Structural Insulated Panels
performance. Used primarily as wall and
roof panels.

Infill panels - non-loadbearing panels

inserted within a structural frame. Any type
of panel can be used although framed
panels are more common. Masonry can
also be used.
Light gauge steel infill panels

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Curtain walling - vertical building enclosure system that supports no loads other
than its own weight and the environmental loads that act upon it.

3. Hybrid Construction
Volumetric units integrated with panellised systems. Hybrid construction is also
referred to as semi-volumetric construction. Highly serviced areas such as kitchens or
bathrooms can be constructed as volumetric units, with the rest of the dwelling constructed
with panels.

4. Sub-assemblies and components

Larger components that can be incorporated into either conventionally built or MMC
dwellings. These items are not full housing ‘systems’ and are usually factory made or,
occasionally, site-assembled.

Sub-assemblies and components

 Pre-fabricated foundations - a series of

pre-fabricated ground beams and other
components assembled to form foundations
quickly and accurately.
 Floor cassettes - pre-fabricated panels
specifically designed for floor construction. Pre-fabricated foundations
Fewer labour hours on-site are needed per
square metre of floor, and reduced work at
height has potential health and safety
benefits.
 Roof cassettes - pre-fabricated panels
designed specifically for pitched roofs. The
panels are very stiff and are designed to
leave the loft free of struts and props,
allowing easy production of ‘room in the
roof’ construction. Using roof cassettes Floor cassettes

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allows the building to become watertight

more quickly than with conventional
trussed rafter or cut roof constructions.
 Pre-assembled roof structure - roofs
assembled at ground level before
constructing the shell of a dwelling. The
roof can be craned into place as soon as the
rest of the superstructure is in place,
creating a weather tight structure more
Roof Cassettes
quickly than assembling the roof in site.
There are also health and safety benefits
resulting from the workforce not
undertaking all the work at height.
 Pre-fabricated dormers - factory made
dormers can speed up the process of
making the roof watertight.
 Pre-fabricated plumbing - pipework and
Pre-assembled roof structure
fittings pre-assembled for use in volumetric
units to facilitate the rapid throughput of
units in the factory.

Pre-fabricated dormers

Pre-fabricated plumbing

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5. Tunnel Form
Tunnel form is a formwork system that allows the contractor to cast walls and slabs in
one operation in a daily cycle. It combines the speed, quality and accuracy of factory/off-
site production with the flexibility and economy of in-situ construction.

The result is a cellular reinforced structure, the surfaces of which are sufficiently high
quality to require only minimal finishing for direct decoration, while the end walls and
facades are easily completed with thermally insulated units that can be clad as required.

The system creates an efficient load-bearing structure for use in a wide variety of
applications. It is particularly effective in projects suited to repetitive cellular construction
such as residential blocks, hotels, student accommodation, barracks and prisons.

Benefits:

 Building - The formwork is specially adapted for each project. The repetitive nature
of the system and the use of prefabricated forms and reinforcing mats/cages
simplifies the whole construction process, producing a smooth and fast operation.
The techniques used are already familiar to the industry, but with tunnel form
construction there is less reliance on skilled labour.
 Quality - Quality is enhanced despite the speed of construction. The precise, even
steel face of the formwork creates a smooth, high quality finish capable of receiving
direct decoration with the minimum of preparation (a skim coat may be required).
This reduces the requirement for following trades, thus providing additional cost
savings and speeding the entire process.
 Design - The large bays constructed using tunnel form provide exceptional
flexibility in the design and layout of the building and allow a high degree of
freedom in the final appearance.
 Safety - Tunnel form has integral working platforms and edge protection systems.
In addition, the repetitive, predictable nature of the tasks involved encourages
familiarity with operations, and, once training is complete, productivity improves
as construction progresses. The minimal requirement for tools and equipment when
moving the tunnel form further reduces the risk of accidents on site.
 Sustainability- The insitu casting of units on site and the local availability of ready-
mixed concrete supplies reduce transportation impacts. Just-in-time deliveries and
near zero wastage produce an overall tidier site with associated cost savings and
safety benefits.

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6. Flat Slab
Flat slab is a reinforced concrete slab supported directly by concrete columns without
the use of beams. Flat slab is defined as one sided or two-sided support system with sheer
load of the slab being concentrated on the supporting columns and a square slab called
‘drop panels’. Drop panels play a significant role here as they augment the overall capacity
and sturdiness of the flooring system beneath the vertical loads thereby boosting cost
effectiveness of the construction. Usually the height of drop panels is about two times the
height of slab.

Flat Slabs are considered suitable for most of the construction and for asymmetrical
column layouts like floors with curved shapes and ramps etc. The advantages of applying
flat slabs are many like depth solution, flat soffit and flexibility in design layout.

Benefits:

 Flexibility in room layout - Flat slabs allows Architect to introduce partition walls
anywhere required, this allows owner to change the size of room layout. Use of flat slab
allows choice of omitting false ceiling and finish soffit of slab with skim coating.
 Saving in building height - Lower storey height will reduce building weight due to lower
partitions and cladding to façade.

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 Shorter construction time - Use of flat slabs requires less time for construction by the use
of big table formwork.
 Use of prefabricated welded mesh - Use of prefabricated welded mesh minimizes the
installation time of flat slabs. These mesh are available in standard size and provides better
quality control in construction of flat slab.
 Buildable score - This allows standardized structural members and prefabricated sections
to be integrated into the design for ease of construction. This process makes the structure
more buildable, reduce the number of site workers and increase the productivity at site,
thus providing more tendency to achieve a higher Buildable score.

Disadvantages:

 Span length is medium

 Not suitable for supporting brittle (masonry) partitions
 Use of drop panels may interfere with larger mechanical ducting
 Critical middle strip deflection
 Higher slab thickness

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7. Thin Joint Masonry

Thin joint masonry is a fast, clean, accurate system for construction using autoclaved
aerated concrete blocks of close dimensional tolerance with 2mm-3mm mortar joints.

Thin layer mortar is a pre-mixed cement-based product that only requires the addition
of water to make an easily-applied mortar. It differs from general use mortar in that it sets
more rapidly, thus giving early stability to the construction. It provides an alternative to
traditional sand/cement mortar and allows the depth of the mortar to be reduced from at
least 10mm to 3mm or less.

Benefits:

 Faster build speed - Thin layer mortar is applied to autoclaved aerated concrete
blocks by the use of a serrated scoop, which allows mortar to be applied quickly and
accurately to the bed joints and perpends. The benefits are fully realised on long
runs of walling.
 Increased productivity - The system ensures high levels of productivity. Autoclaved
aerated block walls built with thin layer mortar will typically be stable after 60
minutes. This will allow whole walls to be built in less time and enables earlier
installation of other components, such as floors and roof timbers.
 Improved thermal performance - The construction of thin joint block work
minimises this effect by reducing the amount of mortar in any given area of wall by
at least 70% compared with general use mortar construction.
 Improved airtightness - Excellent airtightness can be achieved using thin joint
technology, thereby improving the overall performance of the wall in terms of heat
loss.
 Reduced site wastage - A key benefit of autoclaved aerated concrete blocks is that
they can be easily and accurately cut, sawn and worked on site. The precision cutting
of blocks for use with thin layer mortar allows greater utilisation of the blocks,
which can substantially reduce site wastage. Mortar wastage can also be minimised
with the batch mixing of small quantities of thin layer mortar.
 Improved construction quality - The combination of high tolerance blocks and thin
layer mortar allows greater accuracy to be achieved in the internal face of a
completed wall, which can provide a suitable substrate for the application of thin
coat spray plaster. This has the added advantage of fast application and quick drying
time, resulting in further productivity gains.

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8. Lift Slab
Lift slab construction (also called the Youtz-Slick Method) is a method of constructing
concrete buildings by casting the floor or roof slab on top of the previous slab and then
raising (jacking) the slab up with hydraulic jacks. This method of construction allows for
a large portion of the work to be completed at ground level, negating the need to form floor
work in place. The ability to create monolithic concrete slabs makes the lift slab
construction technique useful in quickly creating structures with repetitive form work, like
parking ramps.

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Process:

 Concrete - To begin, a concrete slab is first poured on the ground level. Lifting
collars are set around each of the columns and cast into place as the slab is poured
around them. The lifting collars will later be used to support the slab as it is raised
and secured in place. Subsequent floors and the roof are then poured and formed on
top of the initial ground slab. Bond breakers are used between each floor plate to
allow the slabs to separate as they are raised. Along with reducing the formwork
required to create the slabs, slabs can be easily protected from inclement weather
since all of the slabs remain together during the curing process
 Lifting - Once the slabs have been raised to their desired height the lifting collars
are welded to the columns, along with shear blocks to support the slab from beneath.
To assure the security of a structure during the raising of the slabs, the hydraulic
jacks, attached to the top of the columns, use synchronized consoles to lift the slabs
at an even rate. Conventional methods of mounting the jacks to the columns require
that the jacks are removed before continuing to raise the slabs. More recent
approaches utilize welded plates, separated from the columns, to support the jack.

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9. Piled raft foundation

Foundations provide support for structures, transferring their load to layers of soil or
rock that have sufficient bearing capacity and suitable settlement characteristics.

Very broadly, foundations can be categorised as shallow foundations or deep foundations:

 Shallow foundations are typically used where the loads imposed by a structure are
low relative to the bearing capacity of the surface soils.
 Deep foundations are necessary where the bearing capacity of the surface soils is
not adequate to support the loads imposed by a structure and so those loads need to
be transferred to deeper layers with higher bearing capacity.

In their normal form, raft foundations (sometimes referred to as mat foundations) are
shallow foundations formed by a reinforced concrete slab of uniform thickness (typically
150-300 mm) covering a wide area, often the entire footprint of a building. This 'raft'
spreads the load imposed by a number of columns or walls over the area of foundation, and
can be considered to ‘float’ on the ground as a raft floats on water.

However, where a conventional raft foundation does not provide adequate support, it
can be enhanced by the addition of piles, creating what is known as a piled raft foundation.

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10. Twin wall Construction

Twinwall construction is a walling system that combines the speed of erection and
quality of precast concrete with the structural integrity of in-situ concrete to provide a
hybrid solution. The prefabricated panels comprise two slabs separated and connected by
cast-in lattice girders. The units are placed, temporarily propped, and then joined by
reinforcing and concreting the cavity on site. Twinwall is usually employed in association
with precast flooring systems.

The panels are manufactured to exacting tolerances, have a high quality finish, and
can incorporate cast-in cable ducts, electrical boxes and service ports. Installation rates are
of up to 100m2 per hour. Twinwall has excellent inherent fire resistance and acoustic
performance.

Twin wall construction is a hybrid of precast and in-situ concrete walls and floors.
Each wall unit comprises of two plates of precast concrete with a cavity between, linked
by a lattice of steel reinforcement and placed on site; effectively as permanent concrete
formwork. Once units and water bars are in place the cavity is filled with in-situ concrete
to complete the structural wall.

Twin wall systems offer all the benefits of precast concrete but with the added
benefit of continuous cast in situ concrete across the whole wall and, potentially, floor.

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References:

 http://trentglobal.com/docs/A%20Guide%20to%20Modern%20Methods%20of%20Construction.
pdf
 https://mndsingapore.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/game-changing-technology-to-up-
productivity/
 https://www.slideshare.net/philwdm/modular-volumetric-construction
 https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjj4sv2
vuTcAhXEw7wKHYDaC4QQjxx6BAgBEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the-self-build-
guide.co.uk%2Fsteel-frame-
houses.html&psig=AOvVaw3flC3fGRWvN4T_fMolExyZ&ust=1534059416089714`
 https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/how-to-choose-a-timber-frame-system/
 https://specifier.com.au/timbertruss-floors-customers-with-cassettes/
 https://www.concretecentre.com/Building-Elements/Walls/Tunnel-form.aspx
 https://theconstructor.org/structural-engg/flat-slab-types-design-advantages/13919/
 https://taxonomy.openquake.org/terms/flat-slab-plate-or-waffle-slab--lfls
 https://www.concretecentre.com/Building-Elements/Walls/Thin-joint-blockwork.aspx
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_slab_construction
 https://www.concretecentre.com/Building-Elements/Walls/Twinwall.aspx
 http://www.keeganprecast.com/technical-data?prod=twin-wall

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