Structural steel design & Steel Detailing
Our qualified and knowledgeable in-house team of designers can find the right solution to your steelwork requirements. Working hard to develop innovative solutions for your structural steelwork projects in London – tailoring our steelwork to your individual needs – our in-house team can ensure that no matter how simple or complex your project is we will deliver the right solution for you.
By taking an innovative approach to design, coupled with high quality standards, we can manage and swiftly deliver projects no matter what size or level of complexity.
For the structural steel fabrication & design specialists in Melbourne call us or complete the contact form on the website for a fast and friendly response and bespoke design.
Steel design
Steel is ideally suited for design. Material properties are known and member properties are accurate, meaning that analysis is precise. Design rules are clear and mature, without undue conservatism, having been developed over many decades. There is a wealth of support resources, including software, to facilitate efficient design.
Concept design
Main articles: Concept design, Steel material properties, Multi-storey office buildings, The case for steel, Service integration
The choice and design of the primary structure is a fundament part of the concept design of buildings, and ideally should be integrated with the development of the architectural design. Meeting client, planning and Building Regulation requirements are paramount, but there will be a range of structural forms that meet these requirements, each with its own advantages. The merits of different structural forms should be reviewed against the requirements for the structure. Key considerations include:
Principal structural elements of a multi-storey building
Cost and speed of construction
Building height and plot ratio
Future flexibility and adaptability
Site constraints including ground conditions
The need for special structural arrangements in public spaces or circulation areas
Floor grids and dimensional coordination with the planning grid
Structural construction depth (ceiling to floor level)
Servicing strategy and its coordination and integration with the structure (horizontally and vertically)
Floor loadings
Fire resistance
Sustainability requirements.
The principal structural elements of a typical multi-storey building comprise floors, beams and columns. A wide variety of alternative forms and arrangements can be used in multi-storey steel framed structures to deliver the benefits of:
Economy
Shallow floor construction
Integration of services
Flexible, column-free floor space
Reduced foundations
Rapid on-site construction.
Steel and Steelwork Standards framework
Designers utilise design Standards such as AS 4100 (for structural steel design), AS/NZS 4600 (for design of cold-formed steel structures), AS/NZS 5100.6 (for design of steel bridges) and AS/NZS 2327 (for composite steel and concrete design). These Standards rely in turn, and have been calibrated against, guaranteed values for chemical composition, mechanical properties, tolerances on dimensions, method of manufacture and quality control provisions for all material used in the steel structure. Material Standards such as AS/NZS 1163, AS/NZS 1397, AS/NZS 3678, AS/NZS 3679.1 and AS/NZS 3679.2 define these properties based on known Australian steels, testing statistics and work practices.
Given the tightly coupled nature of the performance framework established by the design and various material Standards, stakeholders need to exercise significant care when attempting to utilise materials or products that do not have documented conformity to the performance requirements of the relevant Australian Standards. For this reason, our Standards provides very specific guidance on compliance.