1890's Steel

[Tdog67]

Fellers,

I am working on a project with a large beautiful barn built in the 1890s. A floor system is supported with concrete sitting on small steel beams spaced at 4'-0 which are supported on steel girders about 15' long. Would these beams be a hot rolled shape or a welded built up plate girder? What should be the yield stress of this material at this age?

thanks

Tdog

 

[msquared48]

Can you see any manufacturer markings on the steel/iron age beams that might tell where it came from and the type of beam?

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[frv]

I would suspect welding was not very popular (or even well known) in the 1890's.

In fact weldability tends to be a problem with steels form the early 20th century backward.

 

[Tdog67]

This barn is a beautiful piece and most likely way overdesigned. We just need to verify this floor can handle 100 psf live load, looking for accurate yield strength

thanks

 

[diarmud]

Check out "Structural Renovation of Buildings" by Alexander Newman. He gives dates, strengths and how to determine what you have. You may have to load test. It's published by McGraw-Hill. 886 pages, published in 2001. Used it's about $54 from Amazon.

Good luck!

 

[SlideRuleEra]

The 1892 "Wrought Iron & Steel In Construction" publication by Pencoyd Iron Works will have the answers to your questions. You can download the book (free, zipped .pdf) from this page of my website:

http://www.slideruleera.net/contributions.html

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

http://www.VacuumTubeEra.net

 

[civilperson]

Cut a coupon and send it to a lab for yield test.

 

[Apakrat]

Can Your needs be calculated after physically measuring the deflection using a wire test?


At 74th year working on IR-One PhD from UHK - - -