2008 Farnell Design Award

Bruce Marcham, Chairman and Fred Carranti, College Relations Chair of the Syracuse ASME Section are shown with Ryan Teager, Kyle Moore, Ryan Knapp and Nicholas Stowe, four of the five winning team members of the 2008 George Farnell Design Award. John Davis, a fifth member of the team is not shown.

The award was made at the Student Awards and Recognition Ceremony hosted by Syracuse University's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering on April 30, 2008. The Farnell Award is made annually by the Syracuse ASME Section in honor of George Farnell, former Chair and perennial Treasurer of the section

The winning project was for "Mobile Emergency Container Systems ". The objective of the project was to create a system that could be shipped quickly and assembled as temporary buildings in the event of a disaster, in the most cost effective way possible.  The team met with professors from the School of Management who proposed they investigate using ISO Containers, which are cost effective and structurally sound.  The idea was to have these containers ready to ship using our existing infrastructure, and to do so have minimal exterior modifications.  After several revisions, a design was settled on that is both simple and structurally sound.  The basis for this design is a 40 foot System container which would act as a hallway and common living space.  From this container would be eight 20 foot containers connected by a sealed passage.  At the rear of the system is another 20 foot container which houses the Mechanical, Plumbing and Electrical equipment.  The idea of the system is that it will act as a single unit when assembled as shown below, so the MPE systems will run under a 10 inch sub floor and connect the containers into one functioning building.   The containers will be rested on special jacks that use the existing features of an ISO Container to mount via a twist lock.  To transport the units we specified a product called a Swing Lift, which is a special side loading truck bed that can load itself from a train and place the containers within an inch of where the driver wants it.  In the end, we have a design that allows for someone to set up an inexpensive building as easily as place, level and connect.