Question About Steel Type
Question About Steel Type
(OP)
Greetings:
I am not sure if this is the correct forum for this question; so my appologies, if it is not. I am working on a reverse engineered drawing of a weld fixture that contains a piece of hollow square steel, that measures 2 1/2" square, and has a 7/16" wall. Every structural steel chart I have seen, so far, shows no wall thickness greater than 1/4", for 2 1/2" square tubing. Can anyone please tell me what to indentify this material as?
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Gary Skinner
I am not sure if this is the correct forum for this question; so my appologies, if it is not. I am working on a reverse engineered drawing of a weld fixture that contains a piece of hollow square steel, that measures 2 1/2" square, and has a 7/16" wall. Every structural steel chart I have seen, so far, shows no wall thickness greater than 1/4", for 2 1/2" square tubing. Can anyone please tell me what to indentify this material as?
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Gary Skinner






RE: Question About Steel Type
You will have to go back to fundamentals to calculate the wall stresses and "S" values the are created by the weldment. If the shape isn't in the standard tables, you can still calculate properties. Be sure you determine what material and strength you have as well.
RE: Question About Steel Type
When dealing with round sections, you have standard pipe sizes, but also have some mechanical tubing sizes that are different- perhaps there is similar material available in square. For example, members of a truck frame wouldn't necessarily be standard structural members.
RE: Question About Steel Type
-Gary
RE: Question About Steel Type
HSS 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 5/16 is available according to the current AISC Steel Manual. It is possible that a typo could have happened here.
If, on the other hand, you are taking your own measurements, make certain that you are using accurate calipers (measure something known to verify the tool is working properly). Next, take several wall thickness measurements to ensure that you didn't just pick a thick wall. Manufacturing tolerances can not account for a jump from 5/16 to 7/16.
I checked a few metric sizing charts and saw nothing in that thickness range, barely even half that thick.
It could be a custom piece, or it could be a bad measurement. Hope that helps you go farther in the right direction. Let me know if I made some bad assumptions and I'll keep thinking about this with you.
What are you shooting to reverse engineer? Make another one of your own design? Figure out the strength properties of the parts? You could simply make some conservative estimates (such as 5/16 and 36ksi steel for starters as a suggestion).
RE: Question About Steel Type
Steel that thick with "squared corners? Never seen, but won't say somebody didn't do it.
Don't duplicate an earlier bad design!
Just because "he always did it that way" or "she used to do it that way" would mean we would still use hand forges, steam locomotives, and horses and muscles rather than diesel-powered combines.
RE: Question About Steel Type
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Gary Skinner