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Considerations in Structural Steel Design & Construction - Part 1 |
Article Submitted by: James Lee
Friday, 26 June 2009
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Troubles in the steel industry reveal many of the same characteristics as allied industries: Instrumentation, electrical, plumbing, HVAC and concrete. But, steel has some rare characteristics which leads to special considerations in its design and fabrication. The major factors affecting design of steel structures are weight, steel connections, quality of steel, schedule & cost estimates. Here we will try to address first two issues - weight & connections. Weight Steel is heavy and contractors associate weight with cost and that is true. But the actual cost of the steel structure is in the design of connections. For example, depending on the job, steel could be purchased for about $420/ton, fabricated for about $430/ton and erected for $500/ton. This brings the total cost to around $1,350/ton. The corresponding cost of connections could be anywhere from $2,500 to $6,000/ton! So, getting an efficient steel connections design can help you save significant amount of money during fabrication & erection. Connections The connection designer generally requires full information on loads in order to design efficient and cost-effective steel connections. Instead of supplying "real" loads, the engineer requires connection designers to design connections based on the member's absolute strength. This forces the connection designer to provide design for the largest load possible in the member. Since these large loads possess inherently large safety factor, the required connections will become very heavy, severely over-designed and complex to fabricate. This will further increase the fabrication, detailing and erection costs. But who is going to pay for this additional work? Is it the EOR or fabricator who provides connection designs? Does the EOR have authority to reduce member weight at the cost of complex connections? Industry participants frequently struggle with these troubling questions. To get free estimates for your structural steel design connections email us at info@outsourcingsteeldetailing.com Visit us at http://www.outsourcingsteeldetailing.com for further information. Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com |
About The Author:
James Lee is certified steel detailer at OSD - a leading steel detailing firm based in India providing quality steel detailing, drafting and structural steel design services to its offshore clients based in US, UK, Canada and Australia. For further details email us at info@outsourcingsteeldetailing.com
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