MHTool User's Guide - Software for Manufactured Housing Structural Design

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has worked with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and an industry committee to measure the response of manufactured housing to both artificial and natural wind loads and to develop a computational desktop tool to optimize the structural performance of manufactured housing to HUD Code loads. MHTool is the result of an 8-year intensive testing and verification effort using single and double section homes. MHTool is the first fully integrated structural analysis software package specifically designed for manufactured housing. To use MHTool, industry design engineers will enter information (geometries, materials, connection types, etc.) describing the structure of a manufactured home, creating a base model. Windows, doors, and interior walls can be added to the initial design. Engineers will input the loads required by the HUD Code (wind, snow loads, interior live loads, etc.) and run an embedded finite element solver to find walls or connections where stresses are either excessive or very low. The designer could, for example, substitute a less expensive and easier to install connectionmore » in areas with very low stress, then re-run the analysis for verification. If forces and stresses are still within HUD Code requirements, construction costs would be saved without sacrificing quality. Manufacturers can easily change geometries or component properties to optimize designs of various floor plans then submit MHTool input and output in place of calculations for DAPIA review. No change in the regulatory process is anticipated. MHTool, while not yet complete, is now ready for demonstration. The pre-BETA version (Build-16) was displayed at the 2005 National Congress & Expo for Manufactured & Modular Housing. Additional base models and an extensive material library need to be developed. Output displays and listings will need to be expanded and model checking capability added. When completed, MHTool will ultimately lead to new manufactured housing designs that meet or exceed the HUD Code for quality, durability, and safety while reducing labor and materials. This will reduce cost and increase home ownership for the traditional manufactured housing market of first time or low-income buyers. MHTool uses the freeware solver Felt modified specifically for manufactured housing by researchers at Washington State University and INL. Input data, material properties, and results verification are based on full scale testing conducted by INL and others. See Section 7 for a collection of references.« less