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Following natural disasters (such as hurricanes, tornados, or tsunamis), when civilians become displaced, or when military troops are deployed overseas, temporary housing is often a critical need. The USDA Forest Products Laboratory recently developed a lightweight, transportable, reusable, and recyclable biocomposite building material - threedimensional engineered fiberboard (3DEF) - that can be used to uniquely meet this need. Once commercialized, this material can be made in large sheets - as large as the manufacturer?s platen - designed to serve as single-piece prefabricated wall, floor, and roof units. These prefabricated units could be easily transported and quickly assembled into lightweight shelter structures. Pre-engineered 3DEF kits could be easily produced, shipped, and stored at strategic locations, then rapidly deployed whenever needed. Because the base material is an engineered biocomposite product, 3DEF can be designed and manufactured to provide specific levels of structural performance, durability, moisture resistance, and thermal- or acoustic-insulation characteristics. It can be made from virtually any biofiber resource, including wood, recycled paper, and agricultural residues. This report describes the basic product-processing concept for creating engineered, biobased composite panels for lightweight, rapidly deployable, temporary structures. Our next step will be to initiate a cooperative product development project to make this manufacturing technology commercially available and to design and produce advanced building systems using this new material.
Cataloging Information
- building material
- fiberboard
- housing