[phillip]

I'm having a helluva time finding out if the 4" square tubing I got last week will work for my shop (columns and trusses. Trusses without webbing or additional bracing that is) All I'm finding is injuneer speak that's WAY over my head. Will it hold up purlins and tin or not? I'm thinking those crappy carports hold up with some flimsey 2" tin can metal, Why wouldn't 4" square work? Only thing that I'm hesitant/worried about is the 40' span. Anyone care to chime in?

 

[milomilo]

What wall thickness are you using for the 4"? What is your truss design? Trusses with 4" Square tubing with no internal bracing will not be suitable for trusses in a 40 span.How far apart are placing the trusses? What is your location so we can see if there to be a snow load issue? How tall will your walls be? What spacing will the columns be? Hand drawings would be OK to see what your plan is.

 

[pedaldude]

Structural steel welding is a thing that even recently isn't exactly worked out very thoroughly. You'll find whole books devoted to finding new ways to weld the frame work of large buildings. There's still much more understood about the behavior of rivets and bridge bolts and while tons of one hundred year old buildings and bridges are still as structurally sound as they were when first built, their welded replacements are failing and on the verge of despite being half the age.

For the same reason you don't see cast bicycle wheels, you'll see very few rigid welded structures over a certain size. Thermal expansion, fatigue cycles and corrosion are all factors that need to be recognized. Steel has poor strength in compression when compared to other cheaper building materials. Most buildings operate purely in compression, being held up mostly by gravity. So unless we're looking at an engineered structure using trusses, hyperboloids, geodesics or some other weird ****, then there's little advantage and many disadvantages.

However, there's much to be said for small steel structures and I know there has to be many weight saving and time saving possibilities imaginable. There's also the reality of recyclability, where a steel frame can be easily designed to be taken apart and reused, or just cut up and made into something else (just go to any farm to see this in action) as well as ultimately taken to the recycler and sold for scrap. These last advantages are rarely considered when discussing steel as a building material, even today when great difficulty is sometimes taken to reuse many things from buildings that have outlasted their use.

You'll find engineers want even less to do with homebuilt steel buildings than homemade trailers. There is a strange thing where because of familiarity, you will find many plans for amateur construction of wooden structures, some for block and pretty much none for metal. I think a lot has to do with when steel fails it is nearly aways blamed on design rather than execution. Where a crap *** weld can fail on the highway and potentially cause fatalities, there is a good part of the last century built on litigation of structural failures blamed on steel. So unless it's built like a WWII German flak tower, expect a fair amount of math to be involved.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse

 

[docwelder]

the lincoln foundation has a book called farm arc welding. in the edition i have it shows plans for fabricating steel framed buildings with tubular/angle truss roof sections.

 

[phillip]

What wall thickness are you using for the 4"? What is your truss design? Trusses with 4" Square tubing with no internal bracing will not be suitable for trusses in a 40 span.How far apart are placing the trusses? What is your location so we can see if there to be a snow load issue? How tall will your walls be? What spacing will the columns be? Hand drawings would be OK to see what your plan is.

The metal is 3/16" wall thickness. The trusses and the columns will be one piece (think of your home button icon). Shreveport, La. so no snow load. Max spacing will be 12' to accommodate two roll ups. Walls will be 12 to 14' high. I've come up with a preliminary truss design, I'll tweak it tomorrow and post a sketch of what I have in mind.

 

[phillip]

Thanks for the info. This will not be an engineered structure. It's just one step above soap stone drawings on the floor.

 

[phillip]

Cool. Got a link by chance?

 

[phillip]

Ok, This is what I came up with.




I'm thinking about taking out the cross brace and replacing with 1/2" cable.

 

[richey]

We used part of an old highway bridge for columns and rafters. Then purchased some z-purlins. Put them on 5 ft centers to hold the metal. Worked pretty good gave us a shop / storage bld 60 x 100 with 18 ft walls

 

[little Jeep]

We used part of an old highway bridge for columns and rafters. Then purchased some z-purlins. Put them on 5 ft centers to hold the metal. Worked pretty good gave us a shop / storage bld 60 x 100 with 18 ft walls

Pics of finished building...


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[richey]

I will try to get photos on my I phone tomorrow or first of week if I go to shop/barn. We used 18 inch Wide Flange Beam from the bridge for the vertical column and the 60 ft long rafter. The front column is 22 feet high and the back column is 18 feet high. We spaced them on 25 ft centers. We have 5 sets of bays built like this. Then we placed on 5 ft centers z purlings for the roof. We added a center wall with a door at the midway point. i.e. our building is 60 ft x 100 feet with a divider making it a combination of 50 x 60 and 50 x60 . One 50 ft bay has two used 16 x15 roll up doors with wains coat metal from a scrap yard. Plus a concrete floor. The other section is also 50 x60 with two used roll up doors in the front and one on the end. This section has a 10 deep gravel floor that dozers and track hoes , etc can drive on with out damage to concrete. We use the end with concrete floor for shop ( which has several of my sons vehicles ) and the other side for storage tractors, trucks. junk and more junk. We insulated the building with 3 inch insulation. We used new metal for the roof and old barn metal we had from a torn down commercial building. ( A mistake) We should have bought new metal for the front , ends and sides. Also on one of the 60 ft ends where the graves floor was located we installed a 16 x14 used roll up door so we could drive in to the building from the end. We have a total of 6 doors . 4 on the front along the 100 run. one door on the 60 foot end and one door in the middle divider in the center of the building so if we had to we drive something in 100 ft long. My son , father in law , dad and I build the building in 2003. It doesn't look like a lot because of all the junk in side and out side.but it has served it purpose. We will this spring completely clean out the building and haul off a lot of the junk outside.

 

[richey]

I might add we used all new tin for the roof and the used materials was on the sides.

 

[Scott Young]

Fellows I strongly disagree...I am by no means a pro–or know it all. I am one of the direct owners of Oilfield Trash DNA being in my blood since 1956. I am building my own barn made out of 4.5" or 5.5" J 55 casing for vertical columns every 10 feet. I am going to make sure they are exactly 16 feet tall with 6-8 feet buried in plastic columns Filled with cement. I will tie the top horizontally with more of the 4.5" casing, crossing with an x pattern, then lay my floor on top of the
Casing after cross connecting wall to wall and run one last run of casing through the casing at center of x saddling it in so the floor will lay level after going on up with the roof over my rather large loft. I will then start the roof which will be the same J-55 casing saddled into the horizontal sides with a Derrick pin driven through the hole that was cut into the saddle ears and the horizontal casing. After both sides have been welded and pinned and welded at top where both sides meet then we lay the 4 3/4" stripping twice measured from top of roof to screw the 26 GA. Barn steel to that will custom cut to be 16 feet long to cover the roof. NY barn is going to be 100' long and 80 feet wide with 16 foot walls at bottom and in the loft. I know you all are saying this is overkill....but the casing is free, the labor will be real low.....and the only real cost will be the 26 GA. Steel to cover the 32 foot tall barn. Men I am going to fill the loft with hay....the bottom will be fully plumbed for Storage of equipment, small office, small wash bay, small welding and Fab shop with 20,000 lb. Overhead Crane, 2 -15.5' x 25' hydraulic doors, one on each end. This barn should handle pretty strong winds, structure wise....The tin may take off, but I expect the frame to be there for a long time....
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I have seen a bunch of old barns and lofts built with drill stem. old farm hands and oilfield roustabouts seem to go hand in hand. I have welded many miles of stem and from time to time have had stems go off from the fire and blow outs from what was left behind caked inside. I am sure I have some radiation in me from some of the old scrap stem that slipped pass the geigers.

I would love to see what you build.

 

[richey]

Ok fellows I went over to the farm today to get some photos of the metal building with the i phone will try to figure out how to post photos please excuse the junk.

 

[richey]

Scott young. Could you share with us how you are going to do your hydraulic doors. I'm still working on trying to get my photos loaded. Can't get them off the phone. Will post as soon as I get to work

 

[richey]

Here are some photos showing the beginning of our building. We welded clips to the 18 in wide flange beams to bolt the z purlins too. Was in a hurry to get the building up and we didn't prime or paint the 18 inch WF Beams. By the way it weighs 50 lb per foot. I know I know why did we waste such heavy materials on a project. Well to be honest it was basically free. You use what you got.

 

[richey]

More photos of the shop /barn/ notice the size of everything. We used our crane truck to set everything. It was tough. No winch and very hard to maneuver.

 

[richey]

If you look close you will notice an older gentleman with out a hat sitting with his walking stick in the earlier photos. That was my dad he help supervise the building. Retired welder/pipefitter. Died two years ago at 93. Landed at Normandy Beach during the D-Day invasion. Was in the Battle of the Bulge. Found this out right before he died. Most of his buddies didn't make it through the war. The other old gentleman with the panama hat was my fatherinlaw He was also in the war. Also deceased. These old guys from the Greatest Generation didn't ask for any attention. They just did what they had to do . I know this has nothing to do with the forum. But we must remember them.

 

[richey]

These photos are from my old camera chip. I still cant get the I phone to let me send the photos that I made today with the sides on and all the junk stored in and outside the building. Will show them as soon as I can get them to work.

 

[richey]

Installing walls and roof. We used 3 inch insulation. New tin on top . Old tin on sides.