Building with ISO Containers

[Jimboliscious]

Anybody have any good structural information on these ISO containers (aka shipping containers) and structural modifications to them to make buildings with them?

I'm doing a storage building with these boxes and need to do a structural analysis of these things. We are going about 5 high and will be modifying them to install rollup doors and provide corridors, etc. Foundation will consist of drilled concrete piers at the corners and intermediate supports if need be.

I've seen many examples of these boxes being used in construction on the internet, but not much structural information. The best one I've found is in the attached url.

Hopefully this thread will generate a lot of useful information on structural design of buildings using ISO Containers.

Thanks for any information you can provide.

 

[racookpe1978]

Five high?

I'd (might) go 3 or 4 high if people are going to be inside/under/around them, but five?

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Some people are even adding some mods and turning them into "blast" trailers - like near a refinery. Sorry - don't have details and I think there are a number of different designs.

 

[Jimboliscious]

Thanks racookpe and MiketheEngineer! I appreciate your feedback and hope more people join in on this topic, since it appears to be a hot new trend in sustainable construction.

At this point I'm preliminarily looking into using the racking test force ratings that these boxes are rated for resistence to lateral loads. See the attached link for more information.

My dilemma is what happens to these "shearwall" capacities when the sides are partially opened up for doors. The other odd thing is that the racking test force for the short direction of a box is about twice the load for the long direction. I would guess this is because the boat rocks more sideways than back to front and would have larger forces in the sideways direction. I would like to think it could be the test force prorated down by the length of wall leftover, but I'm not sure it is that simple.