Steel Construction Vol 40 No 3 - Mining, Industrial, Import/ Export | Page 8

SAISC profile
Despite the fact that it’s more expensive to produce sections that
way, we’re able to deliver the project without time delays. That
adds more value to the project than a small cost overrun on that
particular section.

that’s all that’s available. That means that there is no wastage, and
it means we can be very specific about what we are fabricating. We
can optimise the mass of the beam by adjusting the thicknesses of
the flanges or the web.

Currently a significant portion of the machine’s capacity is
dedicated to internal work, but we certainly are open for business
as far as this machine is concerned. We’re willing to produce
plate girders for anyone – whether it be a merchant or another
fabricator.

When one buys a mill standard, you have only a few choices of that
size as far as mass is concerned. So we can really tailor the mass
of the beam that we are producing to the application and in so
doing we can also control the cost. We will also experiment with
tapered beams, beams that have a changing profile, which presents
opportunities as far as pre-engineered buildings are concerned.
We’re very interested in that kind of approach.

The machine has four separate welding heads, so we can do a
double deposit weld, both sides of the web in a single pass, in
approximately 3 minutes per running meter on the beam. If you
consider the welding is happening on both sides of the web, that’s
2 meters of welding in 3 minutes – which is far faster than can
possibly be welded by hand. I know that Spencer uses a rule of
thumb of approximately 4 meters per hour for a hand weld. That
would probably be a 6mm fillet hand weld. Typically we would put
down a 10 – 12mm fillet weld with no prep. If the client requires,
we can do full penetration welds on up to a 50mm web, and
60mm flange. So the speeds and efficiencies are far better, and the
quality of the weld is much better too. It’s a submerged arc welding
process. Constant speed, constant feed – and the quality of the
weld is far better and faster than any hand welder could achieve on
a weld of that type.
There are several opportunities that arise when fabricating
sections. The first opportunity is that you can fabricate the section
in any length you like. If we need a 5m long beam of a certain size,
then we produce it. We don’t have to over design, simply because

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Steel Construction Vol. 40 No. 3 2016

Steel Services is committed to South African business and we
would really like to see these beams and sections supplied from
inside South Africa.
To see the new Steel Services Beam welding line in action visit the
SAISC’s Youtube page: http://ow.ly/ZLIY300mG1p

TOP LEFT TO RIGHT: Run on/off plate detail.
BOTTOM LEFT: Control centre.
BOTTOM CENTRE: Vacuum recovering unused flux.
BOTTOM RIGHT: The great quality welds.