Steel in the News

A new online crane reference library contains dimensions, load charts, and other information for numerous cranes. San Leandro, Calif.-based Bigge Crane and Rigging offers the resource at www.bigge.com/crane-information. The company also has created a complementary 384-page PDF guide that includes basic information for most of the equipment in its rental fleet. To get the free download, go to www.bigge.com/crane-charts/crane-guide.h
tml. Also on that page, don’t miss the links to “How to Read a Crane Chart” and “How to Use Crane Hand Signals.”

The former Chicago Bridge & Iron plant in Provo, Utah, has recently been put back on the market. There are three buildings on the 14.2 acre site, including a 139,000-sq.-ft main building and a 23,000-sq.-ft paint facility. In addition to having good access to I-15, the site is served by an active rail spur.

A large amount of equipment also remains in place including 12 overhead bridge cranes (ranging from 3 to 60 ton capacity) and 40 various cranes ranging from a 60 ton bridge to multiple gantry and jib cranes.

For more information contact Michael Jeppesen of Innovision Property Group in Salt Lake City, michael@ipgsaltlake.com. A video showcasing the facility is available at http://video.ipgsaltlake.net/Provo_UT.ht
ml

The Steel Joist Institute and the Steel Deck Institute are co-sponsoring a full-day, five-part program on September 2, 2010, designed to help engineers, architects and other design professionals determine when steel joist and steel deck construction is the best solution. The program entitled “Exploring Building Design with Steel Joists, Joists Girders and Steel Deck” is being held at the Double Tree Hotel in Little Rock, Ark. Registration is $325 and includes 0.75 CEUs or 7.5 PDHs.

For more information or to register, go to www.steeljoist.org/littlerock

The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) has published AISI S213-07-S1-09, North American Standard for Cold-Formed Steel Framing—Lateral Design 2007 Edition With Supplement No. 1. The new document incorporates research findings on diagonal strap-braced walls and other updates. It provides an integrated treatment of Allowable Strength Design (ASD), Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD), and Limit States Design (LSD) in addressing the design of lateral force-resisting systems in a wide range of buildings constructed with cold-formed steel framing.

 

For further details on this publication from the AISI website, click here.

 

The standard can be purchased on the Steel Framing Alliance website, www.steelframing.org.

Zalk Josephs' manager of operations David Sailing explains the next step in fabricating a 36-ft-long embedded plate the plasma cutter had just cut to size.

 

We toured the Zalk Josephs fabrication shop in Stoughton, Wis., in late June and one of the most interesting things was seeing just how much goes into fabricating a single member. The members shown above were each 2.5 in. thick, 2 ft wide and 36 ft long, and had been cut from an even larger plate. And that was only the first step of the process! The next step in turning them into embedded plates was to weld on more than 200 studs in three lines running the length of each plate.

 

During the tour, we saw many other members at various stages of completion. Welders attached plates and stiffeners while other technicians drilled holes and prepared connections. Each fabricated steel member eventually will occupy a unique place in a building frame. As erectors piece the frame together, it is easy to take for granted all the hard work that goes on in a fabrication shop.

 

As young engineers, it was enlightening to observe this crucial step of the construction process that often is overlooked in the civil engineering curriculum. Typical classes take us from dealing with forces on members to building frame analysis and sometimes erection issues, but usually ignore what it takes to create the structural members. It was a great lesson being able to observe this process firsthand.

-- Liz Rehwoldt and Zack Stutts, AISC Interns