Merits of Steel

What the Client wants?

How steel helps to achieve this:

Value for Money

• Increased productivity in steel manufacture and design, fabrication and erection have made steel a low cost way of building.
• New low cost approaches to fire and corrosion protection are available.
• Costs have fallen in real terms

CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT IN TECHNOLOGY

• By investment in IT and CAD/CAM technology for engineering and production

A SHORT CONSTRUCTION PERIOD

• Earlier possession of the building for use or rent.
• Lower financing costs
• Better site utilisation
• Earlier access for following trades

SAVINGS THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE PROJECT

• Early involvement of the steelwork contractor in the design process
• Large unsupported spans
• Smaller site footprint
• A durable form of construction which meets the building life requirements
• Slender columns resulting in maximising floor area.
• An excellent strength to weight ratio so lower foundation costs
• Offsite fabrication and lower site costs during construction
• Prefabricated therefore greater independence from the weather
• Low cost and efficient approaches to fire protection
• Easy integration of services
• Great flexibility in accommodating changes to the building

Flexibility

• IT and software.
• Steel's excellent strength to weight ratio creates an attractive and economic use of space when beams and columns have small profile areas.
• New rolled and prefabricated section shapes.
• Economic methods for shaping and curving.
• Standardised solutions for floor systems and connections.
• Opportunities to integrate large openings, for doors and windows
• Fire engineering.

DURING CONSTRUCTION

• Complementary structural components can easily be accommodated curtain walling readily and efficiently connected to the structure, and other modularised elements such as toilet pods, dry-casing, M&E items easily fitted.
• Easy adaptation - during the construction period the client may wish to alter installations and this can readily and rapidly be achieved.
• Steelwork connections, particularly bolted ones, can easily be released or re-made in whatever form necessary.

IN USE

• The client may need to extend, to change the use of the building, to absorb changes in loading requirements, and to incorporate new installations.
• Should an increase in loading requirements occur, then the structural elements can easily be individually strengthened, or additional members introduced or altered to suit.
• Steel's relative lightness in weight allows adaptation in the future to be easily accomplished.
• New connections can easily be introduced by bolting or welding enabling alterations for services or changes of use.

Speed

• The construction preparatory phase enables the structure to be planned and connections to be selected for speed of erection.
• Just-in-Time manufacturing techniques.
• The steel frame is designed and manufactured from computer models directly linked to the CNC machines thus ensuring high dimensional accuracy and speed of erection.
• Quick drying coatings technologies.

SHORT CONSTRUCTION PERIOD

• Economical foundations - steel's excellent strength to weight qualities result in small foundations which then take minimum time to construct.
• Off-site manufactured elements - ready for immediate erection upon arrival on site, with no subsequent delays. This means following trades can carry out their work in parallel.
• New erection techniques, eg use of mobile working platforms.

Safety

• Extensive research and development by the steel construction industry into accident prevention.
• Wide ranging Health and Safety guidance documents and procedures

DURING CONSTRUCTION

• Off-site manufacture means less site activity.
• Regulatory monitoring of machinery.
• Risk assessments.
• Use of mobile elevating working platforms.

Quality and Reliability

• World Class companies using tried and tested solutions.
• Steel is a homogenous material and is subject to documented quality control procedures during manufacture and rolling. The Client can be assured of obtaining reliable and constant quality.
• A wide range of section shapes and sizes in a range of qualities offers the most efficient and economic solution for the design requirements.
• Successful use of IT.

DURING CONSTRUCTION

• A qualified and trained workforce - in the fabrication shops staff are permanently employed, often for the whole of their working lives, and on site erection companies maintain a permanently employed labour force.
• Independent Certification of in-house quality systems gives ongoing assurance of procedures and products.
• Improved coatings technologies.
• High quality surface finishes available for pre-site approval.
• Bolted and welded connections are generally exposed and therefore are simple to check for quality and safety.

RELATING TO COSTS

• Costs are predictable, which helps with a meaningful calculation of the investment and risk involved in the project.

AFTER OCCUPATION

• The steel frame is visible for ongoing inspection.
• The plastic behaviour of steel provides additional security in extreme loading situations, such as explosion, impact, terrorist attack and earthquake.

Professional Approach

• The steel construction industry can give assistance to the client and his professional team with technical and budgetary advice at the planning stage of the project.
• Industry standard details in design and connections offer economy in construction.
• Full design can be carried out where required by the steelwork contractor.
• Greater co-operation within the project team through partnering and the consequent improved payment profile result in benefits for all.

ADVICE AND SUPPORT

• The industry's advisory organisations can help the client and his team on all aspects of the design, costing, procurement, fabrication and erection process.
• The Register of Qualified Steelwork Contractors enables clients to select independently audited companies appropriate to the project.
• The National Structural Steelwork Specification can be relied upon to provide industry accepted standards.
• Continual R&D in areas such as fire design, seismic resistance, health and safety, etc provide the client with safe structures and a dynamic industry.

INTEGRATED ELECTRONIC TRANSFER OF INFORMATION

• The industry uses software for all aspects of its processes and engineering modelling tools enable the client and his professional team to interface directly with the steelwork contractor.

Sustainability

• Delivery of steelwork is relatively straightforward - requiring little space, time or inconvenience. The hours of delivery can be selected in order to reduce public nuisance.
• Because steelwork comprises prefabricated elements, there is as a result less site disruption with adjoining properties.
• Construction equipment normally used to erect steelwork is cranes and mobile platforms. These by their nature require little permanent or temporary space to operate.
• Noise when manufacturing, delivering or erecting steelwork is not a major problem.
• The speed of steelwork erection means inconvenience caused is reduced to a minimum period.

AFTER COMPLETION

• Steel can be easily maintained so that colour and appearance can always be made to suit a constant or changing environment.
  Coatings developed through new technology last longer.

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY

• Steel is basically a clean, user-friendly material - no dust, no spillage, little waste etc - and consequently no equipment employed to counteract such problems.
• Steel can be reused, relocated or recycled once its use has been overtaken by events. Use is therefore responsible in environmental terms.

Prestige

• Clean lines
• Slenderness
• Large spanning
• Architectural possibilities

• It appeals to the client and his designer in terms of attractiveness as well as economy.

• Colour, through paint, can easily and economically transform a building to satisfy the designer's options.

A STRUCTURE THAT REFLECTS THE CLIENT'S AMBITIONS

• Steel has exhibited consistently great architectural beauty - suspension bridges, tall towers and high buildings, for example, the world over are magnets for tourism. Many steel structures worldwide are viewed as amongst the greatest achievements of mankind.