swinging beef live load 2

[Prestressed Guy]

I am in the early phase of design for a small commercial butcher facility which will have meat rails in a cooler for the swinging beef. Anyone know what the design load for the meat rail system is?

 

[JAE]

Linear load along each rail line:

Weight of each cow divided by the spacing between cows times a hanging safety factor = 2.0.​

Just a suggestion - I don't have my copy of [blue]ASCE 7-Steak[/blue] handy.

But on a serious note - I would thing that the rail system has a hook capacity and if there was some type of hook spacing that would be a start.

I used a 2.0 safety factor above but there might be some type of OSHA safety requirement you could check.

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[msquared48]

Turn off the swing music and you can reduce the load.

Get entrance into a meat locker and take some measurements. I would ask what the maximum weight of a carcass is and double it as JAE recommended, after turning off the music.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[spats]

Reminds me of when I was doing a walk-through with my boss in an industrial facility I had recently designed. We came upon a large room beneath a mezzanine where they were hanging rack after rack of uniforms that the employees were required to wear in the plant. I turned to my boss and said, "It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase uniform live load, doesn't it!"

 

[BAretired]

This may give some indication:

http://igrow.org/livestock/beef/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-from-a-fed-steer/

BA

 

[boo1]

Check

http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/T0098E/T0098E03.htm

TABLE 3. Density of storage of hanging carcasses

or

http://www.lefiellco.com/

 

[dhengr]

Haydenwse:
It is funny (maybe kinda sad) how the internet, Google, Wikipedia etc, and forums like E-Tips have become the go to places for everything unknown. It is kinda funny that you/we would even expect that ASEC 7 would have live load criteria for beef carcasses. And, it is even crazier that we would not automatically go to someone who might actually know the info we need. What about the people who make this butcher/cooler equipment, they design and manufacture the equipment? They must have some design loads, allowable rail span lengths, rail/wheel loads, etc. What about a few butchers who have this type of equipment, they buy the beef by the pound, they ought to know. How close can they pack carcasses on a rail? The idea that if some code doesn’t say it, then it can’t be done, is driving us to be automatons, not thinking, knowledgeable engineers using some engineering judgement and experience, a reasonable factor of safety and calling it good. Where has our imagination gone, and our ability to develop a reasonable problem solution. We shouldn’t need the ‘code gods’ to tell us how to do everything. Just use a W36 and be done with it.

 

[canwesteng]

On the flipside, you don't really design for the everyday use of the butcher hanging a few average carcasses. You design for one time in 25 years that the butcher hangs massive cows, that probably won some award at the county fair for being so big, end to end. I'd just design to rated hook or rail capacity

 

[JAE]

Cows don't get that big do they?

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[MacGruber22]

Well, based on the photo by JAE, it looks like about 10 kips at most.

Or - maybe that is a 500# bull with 50# man.

"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."

 

[mike20793]

A quick search yielded the following:

"When it comes to beef weights, there are 3 different ones of which customers should be aware. The first is “live” weight. This is what the animal weighed on the hoof, or when it was alive. The live weight for our Premium summer Angus steers usually averages around 1200 lbs. Jersey steers are usually less, as are heifers. The next weight is “hanging” weight. This is the weight that the butcher gives us after the animal has been taken back to the butcher shop to hang. The weight difference from live to hanging is from loss of blood, head, hide, hooves, viscera, lungs and heart. The hanging weight is usually about 40% of the live weight. So, a 1200 lb animal would have a hanging weight of 720 lbs (estimated). (A half share would then be 360 lbs, and a 1/4 would be 180 lbs)."


This should be a good start. I'd probably add a factor of 3 or 4 to that and see where the design is at. If it's unreasonable, maybe try justifying a reduced weight. If it's a reasonable design and you feel good about then keep it. I think this falls into "engineering judgement" rather than an actual codified load.

 

[TopKnot]

No ranching, huh? Somebody will process an old bull, which would be 2200 lb on the hoof. They will winch it up before they dress it. After the dressing, skinning, delimbing, heading, etc, splitting, etc, the halfs could weigh maybe 800. Most slaughter steers will be half of that. Personally, I'd use a factor of four. They will hang halves in the cooler as tight as they can. That is your heavy loading area.

_________________________
TKE

 

[CANPRO]

you may also want to consider some lateral load along the length of the rail in case this beef train comes to a sudden stop.