Development of a modular assembling, suspended, and sliding scaffold

It is urgent to renovate existing residential buildings to meet the needs of urban residents in China. During the renovation period, scaffolds need to be set up around the exterior walls of buildings. However, existing scaffolding systems are not suitable for renovating existing residential buildings because of their security risks and poor economic performance. Thus, it is necessary to develop a proprietary scaffold to address the problems faced by existing scaffolding systems. In this study, a modular assembling, suspended, and sliding scaffold (MASS scaffold) is developed for the aforementioned reason. First, an innovative idea is proposed to form the concept design for the MASS scaffold. Then, its composition and working mechanism are introduced in detail. Then, in order to verify its construction soundness, the implementation of the MASS scaffold is discussed comprehensively. Finally, a case study is conducted to validate its feasibility and practicality. Also, in order to evaluate its characteristics of light weight, fast construction, and high performance-price ratio, the studies of time, weight, and construction cost of the MASS scaffold are also performed through comparison with an existing scaffolding system. The research results demonstrate that the MASS scaffold is much more competitive than existing traditional scaffolding systems in many aspects. Theoretically, like Lego plastic interlocking blocks, the standard modules can be employed to build a MASS scaffold that can adapt to most shapes of existing residential buildings.