Hand Hole for Canopy Column

[wannabeSE]

Are there standard sizes for hand hole fittings for pipe columns or similar? The hand holes are for electrical. My internet search results have not been successful. I have found a couple manufactures that sell generic replacement covers for light poles. I was hoping to find manufactures of cover with matching reinforcing assembly (festoon?) that can be welded onto an 8" pipe. I would prefer to specify a product, and would like to avoid reinventing the wheel and designing from scratch the reinforcing, gasket, and cover.

 

[Ron]

Use a weldolet and a blind flange. Gets tricky if small diameter pipe.

 

[wannabeSE]

Ron,
Thanks for the suggestion. I doubt the architect would even consider the branch connection with a blind flange.

 

[Ron]

Yeah..they're picky like that.

It's difficult to put holes in small columns. I've done tons of them in aluminum for drainage; however, we were able to reinforce the opening on the inside so the architectural impact was nil. For your purposes, I assume you need access to electrical or similar, so you can't logically reinforce the inside and you need to make it look good. As you've found, I doubt anyone makes a specialty weld box for this application, so you're probably stuck with special fabrication. Not that difficult to do and probably won't be as expensive as you might think. I assume you want to maintain structural continuity.

If you want a very clean look, you could consider a sliding pipe sleeve with a stop under the hole. You could get a close fit that would help maintain structural continuity. You could use set screws also. Many ways to do it.

 

[dhengr]

WannabeSE:
I’ve seen these types of things and never paid that much attention to them in your exact application. Do any of the stock covers that you found relate to stock HSS or Pipe sizes? I would use a 2-3" long piece of a Std. HSS section and make an appropriate cutout in the column section. I would grind a 1/8" - 1/4" bevel on the outside of the column cutout, and weld the HSS in place with some reinforcing fillet on the outside. I haven’t done any fancy math here, but you are trying to replace the lost material without introducing notches or fatigue sensitive stress raisers in the process. What do Cities, power companies, DOT’s do for this detail in light standards?

 

[wannabeSE]

Thanks for the replies. Unless the architect or EE can make the hand hole go away, I'll do a quick and dirty calculation to get a better idea of the reinforcing required. With any luck, it won't take much. The columns are governed by deflection so the bending stress demand to capacity is +/- 5o% at the base in the worst direction. Then, I can call the fabricator to discuss options for fabricating hand holes.