Building Prefabricated Houses with Iron Frames

Building prefabricated houses with iron (steel) frames is a modern approach that combines steel structural systems with prefabricated construction techniques, offering advantages such as efficiency, earthquake resistance, and environmental friendliness. It is suitable for scenarios such as affordable housing, overseas exports, and temporary buildings.

1. Structural System: Standardization and Flexibility

The steel frame consists of layered steel columns, through-steel beams, and flexible supports, connected by bolt joints to avoid on-site welding, enhancing construction safety and precision. Some designs adopt hidden frames or concrete-filled steel tubular bundle structures to address the issue of protruding beams and columns in traditional steel structures, making interior spaces more regular and increasing utilization by 10%-15%. For example, Anhui Construction Engineering Group's "Layered Prefabricated Steel Structural System" achieves full bolt connections for steel beams, columns, and supports through standardized component design, with on-site installation requiring only bolt tightening.

2. Prefabricated Production: Industrial Manufacturing Enhances Quality

Components such as steel frames, wall panels, and floor slabs are produced in a standardized manner in factories. Modular houses further divide the house into independent modules, integrating utilities, decoration, and soft furnishings. For instance, the Hefei Changfeng Shuihu Town resettlement project adopted layered prefabricated technology, with three workers completing the main installation of a two-story, 206-square-meter house in seven days, reducing the construction period by over 60% compared to traditional methods; China State Construction Integrated Building's modular houses exported to Australia had over 90% of the decoration completed in the factory, requiring only utility connections on-site for occupancy, halving the construction period.

3. Performance Advantages: Safety, Environmental Protection, and Sustainability

• Strong Earthquake Resistance: The steel frame system has an earthquake resistance intensity exceeding 8 degrees, significantly higher than traditional brick-and-mortar structures, making it suitable for earthquake-prone areas.
• Green and Low-Carbon: Materials such as photovoltaic tile-integrated roofs and flame-retardant rock wool sandwich panels are used, integrating insulation, fire protection, and sound insulation functions. Additionally, steel has a recyclability rate of over 90%, reducing construction waste.
• Flexible Relocation: Modular houses support repeated disassembly and relocation, making them suitable for temporary buildings (such as construction site sheds and environmental protection equipment rooms) as well as rural garages and warehouses.

4. Application Scenarios and Policy Support

Domestically, it is mainly used in affordable housing and commercial housing projects (such as Baotou Wanjun Metropolis and Hangzhou Qianjiang Century City Talent Housing), while overseas, it focuses on modular building exports (markets in Australia and New Zealand). At the policy level, the country promotes the application of steel structural housing, aiming for steel structures to account for 10% of newly started residential buildings by 2030, while requiring compliance with homestead approval and planning permits to avoid illegal construction.

Typical Cases: Anhui Construction Engineering Group, in joint research with Tongji University, developed a layered prefabricated steel structural system that achieves efficient and earthquake-resistant residential construction through "standardized production + fully prefabricated construction"; China State Construction Integrated Building's modular houses exported to Australia integrate utilities and decoration, enabling rapid on-site assembly and becoming a benchmark project in overseas markets.