Mach2 Construction: Industrialized & Prefabricated Building Systems for Rapid Disaster Recovery

English

How can the construction industry deliver permanent housing faster when a disaster suddenly creates enormous demand?

Based on a doctoral research project in Civil Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Mach2 Construction investigates how industrialized, modular, prefabricated, off-site and 3D-printing technologies can be organized to accelerate post-disaster housing recovery.

This 400+ page research work develops and compares four industrialized construction alternatives designed to address the sudden demand for housing after tornadoes and other large-scale disasters.

Inside, you will explore:

• Industrialized and prefabricated construction

• Modular and component-based building systems

• Off-site manufacturing and production lines

• Construction standardization and mass production

• Transportation, logistics and on-site assembly

• Emergency shelters and permanent post-disaster housing

• Construction preparedness before disasters occur

• Housing demand and construction capacity

• Factory and on-site 3D-printing concepts

• Economic and financial analysis of construction alternatives

• Materials, labor, transportation and equipment costs

• Sensitivity analysis and profitability considerations

• Business models for private companies, governments and NGOs

• Opportunities for the future of industrialized construction

The central idea is simple but challenging:

Why should we wait for a disaster to happen before we begin producing the housing that will be needed?

The research explores a different approach: treating construction more like an industrial production system, with standardized designs, manufacturing capacity, components and modules that can be prepared and deployed when demand suddenly increases.

The proposed models are examined through a detailed tornado-recovery scenario in Oklahoma City, combining construction management, economics, logistics.