A computational model for design of after-disaster shelters with scissor-like elements

After disasters, man-made or natural, there generally arises a urgent need for temporary shelters for the survivors for an uncertain amount of time until they are located to their new accommodations Non-governmental organizations and governments often adress this need by providing emergency shelters to the survivors. Emergency shelters are aimed at accommodating survivors for a short period, often up to a week, until they are placed in shelters designed for long term use. They are generally produced in standard sizes to accomadate a certain number of people, generally up to four persons under moderate thermal comfort conditions. However, as experienced in past disasters, survivors might need to stay in emergency shelters for extended periods due to unavailability of shelters designed for longer periods, which among others, means that families with members more than that can stay in the standard sized shelters, might need to stay apart, in different shelters for a long period of time. The motivation of this thesis is to produce a computational model that can generate differently sized after disaster shelter compositions out of identical scissor- like elements, so that members of the same family regardless of the total number can stay together with better spatial and thermal comfort conditions in extended emergency situations, among others. It is necessary that the shelters to be produced after the disaster to be installed rapidly, easily, be able to be assembled and disassembled and then have the potential to be reused. In addition to these, for providing survivors comfortable living conditions, shelters need to be adaptable for different topographic conditions and be able to cover different volumes in case of extended emergency phase. Studies in the literature and past disasters have shown that in the after disaster phase, shelters are generally preferred to be deployable. Deployable structures are generally lightweight, have potential to assemble within minutes and can be shrunk and stored without the need of disassembly. One type of deployable structures are structures with scissor-like elements which are composed of two bars connected to each other from a pivot point. In structures with scissor-like elements, the elements can be identical units; and as seen in some previous examples or proposals, can involve several pivot points. As foreseen in this thesis, by integrating additional pivot points to one type of these elements, it might be possible to generate vault-like configurations with different spans and heights and in different curvatures given that they can be combined in a way to ensure deployability. This thesis descibes a computational model that is developed to support genertation of such configurations with the motivation to afford generation of after disaster emergency shelters that can be composed of identicial units, deployable and reconfigurable, can be configured in varying sizes, installed in terrains with different slopes, and incorporated to covers with different thermal rates, and as such can afford better living conditions to the survivors in case they need to stay in these emergency shelters for extended periods.