Chapter One – Introduction to Steel Structures (Part 1)

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the session, the student is expected to:
1. Identify the different type of steel structure.
2. Know the characteristics of structural steel.
Initiation:
This chapter will be an introduction to the Principles of Steel Design. We will discuss what is a
steel structure, how to manufacture structural steel, properties of structural steel, the characteristics of
structural steel, and the chemical composition of structural steel.
Discussion:
I. Introduction
a. What are steel structures?
- Basically, steel structures are structures in which the members are made of
steel and are joined by welding, riveting, or bolting.
Because of the high strength of steel, these structures are reliable and requir
e less material than other types of structures. Steel structures are distinguish
ed by the diversity of their shapes and by their architectural expressiveness.
- Steel structures were first used in construction work in the 1880’s. By that
time, such industrial methods for the production of cast iron (steel) as the
open-hearth, Bessemer, and Thomas processes had been developed and were
being applied. By the end of the century, large buildings and structures made
mostly of steel were being built in Russia and abroad, among them the
pavilions with suspended roofs built for the Nizhny Novgorod fair, the
Brooklyn Bridge, and the Eiffel Tower.

II. The Manufacture of Structural Steel

a. How to manufacture structural steel?
- Structural steel is manufactured by one of two methods: the electric arc
furnace (EAF) method and the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) method. Most of
the structural steel produced today is from recycled scrap steel using the
electric arc furnace process.
- The old recycled steel scraps are melted in an electric arc furnace after
sorting and removing undesirable elements such as radioactive materials.
Different types of scrap steel – depending on their chemical composition and
density – are used. The scraps are fed into the EAF where the temperatures
reach up to 3000°F. The scraps of steel are melted into molten steel and
drained off at the bottom of the furnace, while the slag by-product and other
impurities rise to the surface from where they can be skimmed off and
removed.
- The carbon content is continuously monitored during this heating process,
until the desired carbon content of the molten steel is achieved. Various
chemical elements, such as manganese, vanadium, copper, nickel, and others,
 can be added to produce the desired chemical composition or ASTM
Specification of the molten steel.
- After this process, the molten steel is cast into long “beam blanks.” They are
cooled and cut to lengths and then stored until they are ready for rolling.
During the rolling process, the beam blanks are placed in furnaces and
reheated and melted at temperatures of up to 2400°F. The molten steel is
then passed through a set of rollers (multiple times for some of the rollers)
to form the desired standard steel shapes (e.g., wide flange or channel
shapes).
- Here a link to a YouTube video that show the manufacturing process of
structural steel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2o8Dc5XYUc

III. Properties of Structural Steel

- The forerunners to structural steel were cast iron and wrought iron; these
were used widely in building and bridge structures until the mid-nineteenth
century. Their low tensile strength and low ductility due to their higher
carbon content led to some bridge failures.
- Structural steel is an alloy of iron and carbon and is manufactured in various
standard shapes and sizes by steel rolling mills; it has a unit weight of 77
kN/m3, a modulus of elasticity of 200,000 MPa, and a Poisson’s ratio of
approximately 0.30. The carbon content of commonly used structural steel
varies from about 0.15% to about 0.30% by weight, with the iron content as
high as 95%.
- The higher the carbon content, the higher the yield stress, and the lower the
ductility and weldability. Higher carbon steels are also more brittle.
- Some of the advantages of structural steel as a building material are as
follows:
 Structural steel has a high strength-to-weight ratio.
 The properties of structural steel are uniform and homogeneous, and
highly predictable.
 It has high ductility, thus providing adequate warning of any
impending collapse.
 It can easily be recycled. In fact, a very high percentage of the
structural steel used in many modern structures is made from
recycled steel.
 Steel structures are easier and quicker to fabricate and erect,
compared to concrete structures.
 The erection of steel structures is not as affected by weather
compared to other building materials, enabling steel erection to take
place even in the coldest of climates.
 It is relatively easier to retrofit existing steel structures because of the
relative ease of connecting the new framing members to existing
structural steel members.
- Some of the disadvantages of structural steel as a building material include
the following:
  Steel is susceptible to corrosion and it must be protected by
galvanizing or by coating with zinc-rich paint, especially structures
exposed to weather or moisture, although corrosion-resistant steels
are also available. Consequently, maintenance costs could be high
compared to other structural materials.
 Steel is adversely affected by high temperatures and therefore often
needs to be protected from fire by fireproofing.
 Depending on the types of structural details used and the thickness of
the steel member, structural steel may be susceptible to brittle
fracture due to the presence of stress concentrations, and to fatigue
failure from cyclic or repeated loadings causing stress reversals in the
members and connections.

IV. Structural Steel Shapes and ASTM Specification

 Steel Shapes
-
 Wide-Flanged: W-Shapes and M-Shapes - Wide-flanged sections (see Figure
1-6) are I-shapes that are commonly used as beams or columns in steel
structures. They are also sometimes used as the top and bottom chord
members of trusses, and as diagonal braces in braced frames.
 S-Shapes - S-shapes (see Figure 1-7), also known as American Standard
beams, are similar to I-shapes except that the inside flange surfaces are
sloped. The inside face of the flanges usually has a slope of 2:12, with the
flange thickness varying from a smaller value at the flange tips to a larger
flange thickness closest to the web of the beam.

 HP-Shapes - HP-shapes (see Figure 1-8) are similar to W-shapes and are
commonly used as H-piles in bearing pile foundations. These H-piles, which
can be as long as 100 ft. or more, support the superstructure loads, and they
are typically socketed and grouted into the bedrock to resist the uplift loads
on the structure. HP-shapes have thicker flanges and webs compared to W-
sections, and the nominal depth of these sections is usually approximately
equal to the flange width, with the flange and web thicknesses approximately
equal. The thick webs help to resist the high impact loads that these sections
are subjected to during pile driving operations.
 Channel or C- and MC-Shapes - Channels are C-shaped members with the
inside faces of the channel flanges tapered from a minimum thickness at the
flange tip to a maximum thickness at the channel web (see Figure 1-9). They
are commonly used as beams to support light loads, such as in catwalks and
as stair stringers, and they are also used to frame the edges of roof openings.

 Angle Shapes - Angles (see Figure 1-10) are L-shaped members with legs of
equal or unequal lengths, and they are used as lintels to support brick
cladding and block wall cladding above door and window openings, and as
web members in trusses. They are also used as X-braces, chevron braces, or
knee-braces in braced frames where they could occur as single angles or as
double angles placed back-to-back. Double angles are frequently used for the
end connections for beams and girders.
 Structural Tees—WT-, MT-, and ST-Shapes - Structural tees (see Figure 1-11)
are made by cutting a wide flange section (i.e., an I- or W-shape), M-shape, or
S-shape in half.

 Plates and Bars - Plates and bars (see Figure 1-12) are flat stock members
that are used as stiffeners, gusset plates, and X-braced members. They are
also used to strengthen existing steel beams and as supporting members in
built-up steel lintels. Plates are also used in plane cruciform columns.

 Hollow Structural Sections (HSS) - All the shapes discussed above are made
from hot-rolled steel sections, whereas hollow structural section (HSS)
members are welded cold-formed carbon steel made by cold bending a flat
piece of carbon steel into rectangular, square or round tubular shapes and
then welding the ends together; they are commonly used as columns, lintel
beams, struts, girts, hangers, lateral bracings, and braced-frame members in
building structures; they are also used in bridge structures (see Figure 1-13).
HSS members – because of their closed shape – are not as susceptible to
lateral-torsional buckling and torsion as open sections such as wide flange
sections (I-shapes) or channels.
 Built-up Section - Built-up sections (see Figure 1-14) include welded plate
girders and other sections built up from plates and standard rolled sections
(e.g., W-section with plate welded to the bottom flange; plane and flanged
cruciform sections). Plate girders are used to support heavy loads where the
listed standard rolled steel sections are inadequate to support the loads.
Built-up sections can also be used as lintels and as reinforcement for existing
beams and columns. Other built-up shapes include double angles (e.g., 2L 5 ×
5 × ½) and double channels (e.g., 2C 12 × 25) placed back-to-back in contact
with each other or separated by spacers, and W- and M-shapes with cap
channels that are used to increase the bending capacity of W- and S-shapes
about their weaker (y–y) axis.
References:
 Aghayere, Abi & Vigil, Jason (2020). Structural Steel Design 3rd edition. Mercury
Learning and Information LLC.