When starting a new commercial or residential project, you will want the right structural steel fabricator behind you. While there are different types of fabrication materials, structural steel frequently comes out on top when it comes to strength, ductility, and durability. But, it’s not just about the material; for project success–especially when it comes to complicated projects with multiple stakeholders and tight deadlines–the fabricator you choose matters. With inexperienced fabricators, small glitches can snowball into more significant issues. Here are ten things to look for in a structural steel fabricator.
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When you’re looking for a structural steel fabricator, experience matters, and the first thing you’ll want to check is their current and past projects. You want practical, hands-on experience, and to guarantee it, you’ll want to see examples of their work. Can they point you towards similar projects?
You will also want to vet everyone involved in those projects. You’ll want to see:
Vetting structural steel fabricators is a two-part process that includes understanding what they’ve done and who you’ll be working with.
It is essential for complex architectural metal fabrication and industrial metalwork projects that structural elements arrive at just the right time, demanding close collaboration from detailers, erectors, and fabricators. How does the structural steel fabricator break their process down? For complex projects, you’ll want to see a detailed breakdown that covers costs along the way. You can ask:
If the structural steel fabricator brushes over any questions or requests for higher specificity and accuracy, you’ll want to look elsewhere.
How does the steel fabricator plan to communicate each step with you and other stakeholders throughout the project? For challenging projects, small failures of communication can snowball into big issues. Ask the steel fabricator:
You’re looking for easy, transparent communication with a fast turnaround. If the structural steel fabricator doesn’t have an established process for communicating with customers that meets all three needs, you should look elsewhere.
What certifications does the structural steel fabricator you’re considering have?
In structural steel fabrication, it’s not about general experience, it’s about project-specific experience. Does the structural steel fabricator you’re considering specialize, or are they big enough that they’ve successfully completed different types of projects? If not, they may stumble over the project, leading to setbacks and financial pitfalls.
Structural steel projects can be so large and multi-faceted, that they require an attention to detail that only an experienced fabricator can give. It’s important to find a company that can handle the grade, type, and gauge of metal needed for your project, any additional fabrication required, as well as any coordination and communication required.
It should go without saying that any structural steel fabricator you take on for your project has the capabilities to do it, but many may subcontract part of the project out. This doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker as long as you make sure that the company you choose can handle the project from start to finish. If they are sub-contracting work out, do a background check of the sub-contractor as well. Whoever is working on your project should have the equipment, skilled staff, materials, and production capacity to complete your project on time and within budget – whether or not you’ll be working directly with them.
Does the structural steel fabricator have the capacity to meet your needs? One recurring issue of smaller steel fabricators is their inability to meet the high supply-demand of their clients. If you have a massive project, you’ll need a minimum workforce and allocation of facility tools and equipment. A company may employ 30 employees, but only a fraction of them may be qualified to provide the services you need; similarly, a company may have the right equipment, but they may have concurrent demands from other clients. Ensure that the structural steel fabricator you’re considering has enough specialists and equipment to meet your needs for the duration of your project.
Speaking of tools and equipment, does your structural steel fabricator have the right ones for your project? Ask the fabricators to give a tour of their facility and workshop so you can see firsthand their tools and equipment. For tough fabrication jobs that require accuracy and expertise, you will most certainly need advanced tools and equipment. A tour is also another opportunity to make sure you have a rapport with your fabrication partners.
Do you feel like you’re at the center of the steel fabricator’s attention and that they’re committed to your satisfaction? No matter the fabricator’s size, look for guiding principles that include customer service at the heart of their organization. For this, you can assess your treatment during the vetting phase and validate your impressions by checking with references – great steel fabricators won’t hesitate to send a few references your way.
Finally, does your steel fabricator take safety seriously? Ask the fabricator:
It is also possible to look at recent OSHA citations in the metal fabrication industry to better understand how fabricators are focusing their compliance efforts.
Not all structural steel fabricators are created equal, so do your research when choosing a fabrication company. Large or small, contractor or subcontractor, there’s a lot to consider! Use these 10 considerations to help you choose the best fabricator for current and future projects.
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Steel is a metallic alloy made primarily from iron and carbon, with small amounts of other elements such as manganese, nickel and boron. The properties of steel can be modified through various heat treatment processes and the addition of different alloying elements. Steel is known for its strength, durability and versatility, and is used in a wide range of applications, including; construction, transportation, machinery and appliances.
The raw material for steel is iron ore and/or recycled steel scrap. The molten iron, which is produced in a blast furnace (BF) or electric arc furnace (EAF), is purified in a converter. The required alloying elements are added in the secondary metallurgy. Finally, the steel is cast into slabs, which are then rolled and heat treated. Before delivery, the material can be leveled, blasted, galvanized, metal and color coated.
The density of steel is approx. 7.85 g/cm3 or 490 lb/ft3.
When deforming a piece of steel, the resistance against further deformation increases. This is strain or deformation hardening. Yield strength and hardness will increase, while some ductility is lost.
Tensile testing is one of the best-known tests for steel and can be defined by standard EN . Controlled displacement is applied on a standard specimen. The relation between load and elongation is recorded and used to determine a number of material properties, e.g. yield strength and tensile strength.
Yield strength is the maximum stress level that steel can withstand before plastic deformation occurs. Above this stress level, steel will no longer return to its initial dimensions or shape. Ultimate tensile strength is the stress level where the load is at a maximum during tensile testing and using the original cross section area.
The stress-strain curve for steel shows the relationship between applied load and elongation during tensile testing. It is used to determine mechanical properties of the material, including modulus of elasticity, yield strength, and ultimate tensile strength. The load values are transformed into stress values and the elongation is transformed into strain, resulting in a curve that provides important information on how the material behaves under different loading conditions.
The yield ratio is yield strength (Rp0.2, fy, Reh) divided by tensile strength (Rm, fu). This value can give an indication of the ductility of the steel, the strain hardenability and an intuitive safety margin against plastic instability or failure.
MPa (mega pascal) is the metric unit and ksi (kilopound per square inch) is the imperial unit for stress (force per unit area). 1 MPa ≈ 0.145 ksi or 1 ksi ≈ 6.89 MPa.
Young’s modulus, or modulus of elasticity, is the slope of the stress-strain curve in the initial elastic regime. It is defined by the initial linear part of a stress-strain curve. Young’s modulus of steel is approximately 200 GPa or 29 000 ksi at room temperature.
Stiffness is the ability of the material to resist elastic deformation, which is closely related to the modulus of elasticity. Strength is the ability to resist plastic deformation or failure. The stiffness and load carrying capacity of a real structure (e.g. a car body) are also determined by its geometry.
Thermal Conductivity, Thermal Expansion Coefficient and Specific Heat are some examples of the thermal properties of steels. They vary with the chemical composition of the steel and with the temperature.
Poisson's ratio (ν) measures the deformation in the material in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the applied force. Poisson’s ratio for SSAB steels is approximately 0.3.
Yes, all SSAB steels are ferritic and thus magnetic. Some plates might contain residual magnetism.
Steels can be categorized in many different ways, for instance based on their microstructure, mechanical properties, application and/or their carbon or alloying content. SSAB is a supplier of some steel types such as structural, pressure vessel, wear plate and tooling steels.
A residual element in steel is an element not wanted, but cannot be eliminate in the steel-making process. An element can be an intentional alloying element in one grade and residual element in another grade. In general, the residual elements are coming from the input raw materials as iron ore or recycled steel scrap. The content of the unwanted residual elements in SSAB plates is always lower than the critical levels.
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