Climate-resilient Modular Design for Indigenous Housing

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In Northern Canada, Indigenous communities are experiencing many housing-related challenges, which include the shortage of available houses, the high cost of transporting construction materials, the difficulty to find workers, the use of inadequate construction materials and systems that can not resist the severe climate, and the short construction season. These problems are further compounded by climate change, which induces stronger wind and colder temperatures since Northern Canada is getting affected by climate change at three times the global rate. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a code-compliant structural solution, which ensures being lightweight and small in size to be suitable for transportation to remote areas, provides an adequate wind-induced lateral load resistance and insulation against extremely cold temperatures, can be rapidly deployed to suit the short construction season, and uses affordable construction materials and systems. The proposed research will develop a climate-resilient solution using the "Modular Construction" technique, which is capable of producing a large number of components with higher quality, faster construction, and lower cost, along with producing less waste and carbon emissions in construction and transportation compared to conventional methods. The modular design will be tailored and optimized to fit the construction limitations in Northern Canada. The objectives of this research are to (1) perform proper climate hazard characterization for Northern Canada, (2) examine different structural systems and materials performance to resist severe climate, and (3) optimize the modular design to improve the climate resistance and its affordability. These objectives will be achieved by utilizing wind tunnel testing and high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics models to accurately quantify the wind impact on modular structures. Structural and thermal performances will be assessed for different structural systems and materials using experimental testing, cold chamber and finite element analysis. Finally, the modular design will be optimized to obtain the best performing alternatives that can simultaneously enhance the wind and thermal performances while reducing the cost. The novelty of the proposed program lies in its ability to accurately simulate the aerodynamic and structural performances of modular houses through experimentally validated numerical models and integrating these models with state-of-the-art optimization and AI-based regression techniques. The outcome of this research will not only improve the climate resiliency of the built environment in Northern Canada, but will also enable and encourage future research related to wind energy, modular structures, Indigenous housing, and multi-hazard risk. In addition, knowledge generated through this research will encourage investments in Northern Canada and will work to reduce many housing-related socioeconomic impacts on Indigenous people.