About Us
Welcome to the Modern Methods of Construction Research Group (MMCRG) webpage! The MMCRG was established in 2021 by Dr Daniel McCrum to bring together researchers, academics and industry partners to tackle challenges faced by Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).
The Challenge – Offsite MMC have been lauded for their ability to meet building/housing targets while achieving high quality, lower onsite construction time, simplification of end-of-life recycling, but also reducing embodied carbon and waste. Despite the benefits of MMC, uptake has been low, largely due to lack of; guidelines, shared experimental and numerical data, training, and capital investment. The MMC-RG aims to address these issues and help the construction industry transition from construction towards manufacture.
Research
Dr Daniel McCrum will be leading the team in one of the five pillar challenge areas (productivity, affordability& cost) in the new Enterprise Ireland funded Construction Technology Centre (www.constructinnovate.ie). The centre was officially launched in July 2022 and is being hosted and led by NUIG (Prof Jamie Goggins & Dr Magdalena Hajdukiewicz). The consortium consists of 22 multidisciplinary research groups across 5 partner institutions, with over 300 researchers currently research active on topics related to construction & built environment.
The centre will bring together leading academics, industry experts, governmental agencies and practitioners to make Ireland a global leader in modern methods of construction, sustainable construction and built environment technology. Over the next five years, Dr Daniel McCrum will be working with all interested stakeholders and the core consortium team (UCD, NUIG, TCD, UCC & IGBC) will foster innovative approaches to modern methods of construction, next generation building material, sustainability and collaboration.
Modern methods of construction (MMC) are highly precise, improve safety and reduce waste due to streamlined manufacturing and construction processes. However, lack of guidelines on the interaction between structural components and connection behaviour hinders their use worldwide. Panelised, load-bearing, cold-formed steel construction is a MMC that offers several advantages compared to standard construction techniques, including reduced construction-related carbon emissions. However, little is known about the robustness of such structures as testing and modelling data are scarce. Funded by the Marie Sklodowski-Curie Actions programme, the ConCatenaTion project plans to develop novel connection prototypes, design guidance and idealisations that should enable robust design of panelised cold-formed steel structures against disproportionate collapse, whilst utilising advantageous catenary action as a collapse resistance mechanism.
Researcher: Dr Samar Raffoul
Funding Agency: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action – Individual Fellowship
Grant agreement ID: 101029972
The research project is investigating some of the key issues that limit the current performance of modular construction from the structural efficiency perspectives and assess the suitability of using traditional building codes in modular construction. The research aims to address the following issues: (1) stresses induced in adjoining structural members due to differential shortening of columns when more and more modular units are stacked on top of each other; and (2) assess the applicability of existing progressive collapse mitigation design rules that have not been developed for use in modular construction. This research project is in collaboration with Michael J Hough Structural Engineers (www.mjhse.com).
Researcher: Heng Si-Hwa
Funding Agency: Irish Research Council Employment Based PhD
Grant agreement ID: EBPPG/2021/24
Cold formed steel (CFS) load-bearing frame (or panelised) construction, is an increasingly popular MMC that offers remarkable advantages to its hot-rolled steel counterparts including higher strength-to-weight ratio, high durability, lighter weight, and thus, ease of handling, shorter build times, and reduced construction-related carbon emissions (e.g. foundation requirements). There is little understanding of CFS structural resistance to disproportionate collapse under loss of support, highlighted by a lack of testing and modelling. This research project will provide much needed physical testing and numerical modelling of CFS panelised construction under disproportionate collapse loading conditions.
Researcher: Sohini Mishra
Funding Agency: University College Dublin School of Civil Engineering PhD Studentship
Project Title: Behavioural attitudes to MMC
Description: This project is largely about understanding the psychology of change involved in more widespread adoption and acceptance of MMC in housing delivery, and ascertaining the necessary steps needed to build confidence in more innovative approaches as the industry further transforms and adopts compliant modern build approaches over older methods of building for housing.
Researcher: Dr Shuo Wang
Funding Agency: Enterprise Ireland
Project title: To develop a new system for Standards, Testing, Certification and Accreditation for the delivery of housing
Description:
This project will analyse the current system, identify methods for streamlining it and proposing modifications or system changes to support next generation housing. The output will offer options in how the State develops a new standards, Testing and Accreditation system for housing.
Researcher: Dr Shuo Wang
Funding Agency: Construct Innovate
Our Team
Dr Sun completed his BEng in Civil Engineering at Tongji University (2016), his MSc in Structural Engineering at Imperial College London (2017), and his PhD at Nanyang Technological University (2020), where he was also involved in a large Singaporean research project on composite structures funded by the Ministry of Education, Singapore. Upon completion of his PhD, Dr Sun was appointed as a Lecturer by Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. In 2022, he joined University College Dublin as an Assistant Professor in Structural Engineering. Dr Sun's research focuses on high-performance steel structures and modern construction methods.
Xuekang Guo completed his bachelor’s degree of Civil Engineering from Henan University of Urban Construction in 2016. Xuekang continue his research career in Beijing University of Technology (BJUT) since 2017 during this time he got his Master degree and then move to his Ph.D. candidature. Xuekang’s research topic is the structural resistance of reinforced concrete shear walls against blast and progressive collapse. Funded by China Scholarship Council, he will join Dr Daniel McCrum’s research group for the next year (January 2023 to January 2024) as a
visiting scholar, to proceed his topic under the guidance of Dr. Daniel McCrum (UCD) and Prof. Yi Li (BJUT).
Shuo Wang completed his BE in Civil Engineering at the Chan'an University (2017) and MEngSc in Structural Engineering at the University College Dublin (UCD) in 2018. He continued his PhD study at UCD and completed it in 2023. His research focuses on bridge health monitoring and bridge weigh-in-motion. After finishing his Ph.D., he currently is working on two projects funded through Construct Innovate and Enterprise Ireland on the modern method of construction (MMC): 1. current public and industry perception of MMC in Ireland, and 2. developing a new system for Standards, Testing, Certification, and Accreditation for MMC in Ireland.
Nicho is a Naughton Fellow from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA. He is a current senior pursuing his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. During the Summer of 2021, Nicho worked as an intern at The Boeing Company, where he aquired expertise in structural engineering tools and processes and applied them to the C-17 Flight Deck Digital Modeling Project. The following Summer, Nicho worked with Boeing’s Tactical Aircraft Aerodynamics Team where he optimized tools’ scripts to enable repeatability of routine tasks and experimental tests, improving job efficiency and engineers’ productivity. Nicho has joined the MMCRG team as a visiting Naughton Fellow to research cold-formed steel’s structural resistance to disproportionate collapse in a panelised construction context.
Caroline is a third year student majoring in Civil Engineering with a minor in Engineering Corporate Practice and History at the University of Notre Dame. She is the Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences Director for the Society of Women Engineers chapter at Notre Dame, and she is also the Aesthetics Lead for Steel Bridge in the American Society of Civil Engineers. Caroline undertook research with Dr. Ashley Thrall on structural tiles and their role in modular structures. She has worked as the civil engineering intern at the Village of Burr Ridge where she communicated with contractors and helped run the summer road program. Caroline is currently on the Naughton REU program where she is conducting research in Dr. Daniel McCrum’s lab on cold-formed steel (CFS) panelised offsite construction subject to progressive collapse loading.
Publications
