Stainless Steel Pad Eye
Stainless Steel Pad Eye
(OP)
I'm trying to source a heavy duty stainless steel pad eye that (316L or something of that ilk) to be welded to a mild steel structure for lifting. The structure will receive a high quality epoxy primer and topcoat and am using stainless steel pad eye for abrasion/abuse reasons.
Can anyone suggest a source for the pad eye and the type of weld material to use?
Dik
Can anyone suggest a source for the pad eye and the type of weld material to use?
Dik






RE: Stainless Steel Pad Eye
Why is stainless steel appreciably better than mild steel w.r.t. abrasion and abuse? Why wouldn't you use mild steel, of a reasonable grade, for the pad eye? Then design conservatively to tolerate reasonable abrasion and abuse, as is usually for these devices, and then apply the same finish to them as the entire structure. What do you gain for the added difficulty in finding or making the pad eye?
RE: Stainless Steel Pad Eye
Alternatively, we are looking at HDG and then a two or three part epoxy system. The lifting areas are subject to more abuse than the balance of the cofferdam parts from lifting, etc. and we were looking at using stainless for corrosion protection.
We are designing for a 20 year lifetime and have limited lifting capacity to crane it in place from an existing bridge structure without overloading the bridge structure. We have to keep the weight of the cofferdam panels to a minimum.
Dik
RE: Stainless Steel Pad Eye
Have you considered an API style padeye:
http://www
... design calculator here:
http://www.maximumreach.com/PadEye.asp
... with stainless cheek plates?
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Stainless Steel Pad Eye
RE: Stainless Steel Pad Eye
Which of the pad eyes MikeH showed where you thinking of? What are the loads, lifting means and angles, etc. I'm sure you could get plate pad eyes fabed from stainless steel, but I still wonder to what real advantage, when the rest of the structure is mild steel. It is also possible that you could just design lifting eyes or holes right into the cofferdam panels. Depending upon the panel designs, you might just weld a reinforcing plates to the panels at the lifting points; welded all around and bored to fit your lifting device.
RE: Stainless Steel Pad Eye
Note also that ordinary stainless, absent work-hardening, is softer and weaker than mild steel, so may not be as abrasion resistant as you expect.
High nickel grades like 254SMO and AL6XN are harder and stronger than mild steel, and harder to work and more expensive than stainless.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA