HYBRID LIGHTWEIGHT STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS FOR LOW-COST HOUSING (HYLIGHTS)

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Title
HYBRID LIGHTWEIGHT STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS FOR LOW-COST HOUSING (HYLIGHTS)

CoPED ID
2a513eb0-27d6-420a-b459-70afc93fbe0f

Status
Active

Funder

Value
£442,259

Start Date
Aug. 31, 2022

End Date
Feb. 28, 2025

Description

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The legally binding UK government target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 cannot be achieved without minimizing the carbon footprint of the construction sector. Over one-quarter of the world`s annual steel production is used in the construction of buildings but a study based on steel-framed designs for schools, offices and residential buildings, sourced from leading UK design consultancies, reveals the average material utilisation ratio for typical steel buildings is below 50% of their capacity. This suggests steel content in buildings could be significantly reduced by designing for minimum material, which would annually avert 214 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. To reduce steel consumption in construction, the development of novel, materially efficient and sustainable lightweight structures is essential. There's a global need for housing as populations grow which creates tension with our need to cause less emissions by building less or more efficiently.

Light steel frame (LSF) structures made of cold-formed steel (CFS) stud-walls and joisted floors are gaining growing popularity in modern construction practice worldwide, both in new developments and as a cost-effective and low-carbon solution for vertical extensions to existing buildings. The ease of offsite manufacturing utilising LSF structures offers many benefits compared to traditional methods, including: (a) improved quality and productivity, reduced material use, less wastage and savings of 30-50% in total construction time and associated costs; (b) flexibility for more tailored design solutions complying with the Design for Manufacture and Assembly approach; and (c) scalability for the technologies around automated construction. LSF systems can, therefore, directly contribute towards meeting the UK Government's ambitious house building commitments and reducing the initial cost of construction and whole life cost of assets, and CO2 emissions by 33% and 50%, respectively. However, the current use of LSF structural systems is limited due to critical drawbacks such as low local buckling resistance of thin-walled CFS elements, low lateral stiffness and robustness of typical LSF systems and limitations of current design and optimisation approaches to exploit their full capacity. These challenges should be addressed before LSF systems can be widely used both in the UK and overseas.

Leroy Gardner PI_PER

Subjects by relevance
  1. Emissions
  2. Steel constructions
  3. Construction
  4. Carbon dioxide
  5. Sustainable development
  6. Steel construction
  7. Building materials
  8. Carbon footprint
  9. Decrease (active)
  10. Planning and design
  11. Construction engineering
  12. House construction
  13. Costs
  14. Energy efficiency
  15. Optimisation

Extracted key phrases
  1. HYBRID LIGHTWEIGHT STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS
  2. Cost housing
  3. Typical steel building
  4. World`s annual steel production
  5. Low lateral stiffness
  6. UK design consultancy
  7. Life cost
  8. Initial cost
  9. Carbon dioxide emission
  10. Light steel frame
  11. Typical LSF system
  12. Low local
  13. Carbon emission
  14. LSF structural system
  15. Total construction time

Related Pages

UKRI project entry

UK Project Locations