Steel_Student blog

22/September/2020  Coatings and Finishes    It takes me back to my initial blogs where I quoted that " God is in the Coating ". Seems like that’s not an amateur statement to make. The productivity, especially, in huge spans and in large structures depend legitly on the type of the coating and finishes the members obtain. The efficiency of Steel members is directly proportional to the type/ quality of coating.     Although steel was introduced in building construction because it was fire resistant, to replace timber, Steel itself is not that Fire R esistant . Another major disadvantage with steel with respect to context is the weather. Humidity causes C orrosion and rusting is evident. Certain issues pertaining to the Cleanliness and Maintenance also add to this list, like the trusses becoming a roosting place for pigeons, problems regarding the height of the structure and the equipment required to clean it. The frequency and efficiency of maintenance has a b...

The case study series has been getting interesting as it has given me a different level of exposure with respect to weather, scale, treatment of the material, joineries, and never the less the creativity in implementing the steel in the design no matter the type of the project it is used in. CASE STUDY 1  Project name: Halftecture O By Shuhei Endo Location: Osaka, Japan Project type: Public Restroom source: google maps As the name of the project says “halftecture”, it is partially enclosed. It is as open for convenience as closed it is for the privacy of the users. The architect has defined the entry on minimal terms; by leaving the entry corridor of the restroom wide open. The structure and skin of the building are constructed of Weathering Steel plates. As the steel rusts with time, it attains a brownish-red tint and blends with the environment. The roof has a seamless finish, and this is contrasted by the porcelain, stone, and metal finishes on the inside. The steel plates of th...

 STEEL – ITS SUSTAINABILITY Steel being the most used in the recent times in the construction industry  has many well known factors to be rightfully called a SUSTAINABLE MATERIAL. The major factors contributing to its sustainability are ·         Can be recycled to a greater extent ·         Energy efficient to its maximum ·         Long life span to be noted ·         Generates by-products that are reusable. ·         Totally environment friendly owing to the reduced CO2 emissions and diminished dust dispersions in a larger quantity ·         A lightweight material ·         On site construction friendly ·         Easy maintenance ·         Extr...

BLOG 12   CASE SUDY 1 Project name: St. Andrews Beach House By Sean Godsell Architects Location: Victoria, Australia Typology: Residence Beach houses are an escape from the hectic urban life. The aim is to make the best use of the view around and cater to the timely need of the client. To address the humidity in the beach coast and the extreme weather conditions of Australia, the project features Oxidised mild steel used for industrial floor grating, Brise Soleil shutters to tackle the sandy hot winds and is raised on columns to minimise contact of the steel material with the earth ; furthermore angles, brackets, window frames, handrailing, structural supports(beam and columns) are also of oxidised mild steel. To conclude, the material used here is undoubtedly to respond to the climatic factors of the location.   CASE SUDY 2 Typology: Public Restrooms Project name: Prefabricated Nature By MYCC Architects Location: Cedeira, Spain Typology: Residence   Prefabricated natu...

04/ September / 2020     Today’s session was about referring to some interesting examples where steel was used as a major material for construction. Although these examples were from abroad, they were of use because of similar context, based on coastal and semi-tropical climate. This gave an introduction for a lot of different materials (other ways of using steel in buildings other than the usual ones) and different ways to tackle the climate with steel.  St. Andrews Beach House, Australia   Intent - A vacation place for a stay away from busy routine. The construction is primarily based on oxidised mild steel. The other materials used in the construction are as follows: - Advantage of Oxidisation - It forms a layer on top of the steel which reduces the rusting tendency of steel Advantage of Mild Steel - It is cheap, it undergoes carburisation which optimises the amount of carbon to withstand the weather. Double-layer corrugated fiberglass - high pack...

  Bhilai Steel Plant, Chhattisgarh   Introduction    Eleven times winner of Prime Minister's Trophy for Best Integrated Steel Plant in the country, 40 kms west of Raipur, the capital city of Chhattisgarh, along the Howrah-Mumbai railway line and the Great-Eastern highway, stands Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), India's sole producer & supplier of world class rails for Indian Railways including 260 metre long rails, and a major producer of large variety of wide and heavy steel plates and structural steel. With an annual production capacity of 3.153 MT of saleable steel, the plant also specializes in other products such as wire rods and merchant products. The entire range of TMT products (Bars & Rods) produced by the Plant is of earthquake-resistant grade and superior quality. The plant also produces heavy structural including channels and beams.   Qualifications/ Achievements    BSP has received Integrated Management System (IMS) Certificate by...

INTERPRETATION OF INFOGRAPHICS This blog is a verbal interpretation of an infographic sourced from  Archdaily. [1]   THE EVOLUTION & IMPACT OF STEEL IN ARCHITECTURE Steel architecture has come a long way in the construction industry due to its durability, tensile strength & weight. Due to the advancement in the manufacturing and production process, steel has significantly become leading member in the structural part of buildings in the post Industrialization era. Some of the various structural steel forms include: I Beam, known for its resistance to shear force and bending moment; HSS (Hollow Structural Steel) , a hollow tube with rectangle cross section, commonly used on welded steel frames, for its ability to manage loading from multiple directions; Channel , C shaped cross section; Angle, L shaped cross section; Plate, steel metal sheets of thickness 6mm or one-fourth of an inch. Here’s how Steel is made Iron ore, coke and Limestone are smelted in a blast furnace, f...

29/August/2020   William Strutt was working in a mill, built with timber. He was a cotton spinner who wanted to protect his mill from fire, because he was working with inflammable substances. So, he encased timber with iron to make it fire resistant. Later this addition of iron to building construction was expanded from casing the structure to making it the structure itself! So, from then, building framework was made out of Iron. This not only made the building fire resistant, but also very strong compared to the previous one which was made of timber.   Later, this solid iron framework was replaced by hollow sections. This not only provided insulation, but also reduced the construction cost by 30%. Later this usage of iron in construction was not just limited to the framework, but also started to expose itself in facades.   All this was around England and New York. In 1869, Chicago fire had crushed off around 17500 buildings and made a lot of residents homeless. So, t...

27/August/2020       Metals are vast like ocean and studying the characters and properties takes ages. It is not that easy to differentiate those which look similar, leaving the chemical composition apart. Iron and steel sometimes look so similar and so is the case of brass and bronze. It might be so easy to define them based on the elements that are added to the parent metals to attain the other metal alloys, but one cannot so easily judge the metal purely based on the appearance or the visual aspect of it.    It becomes easy if we understand the manufacture of these other elements that look so similar. In the case of iron and steel, if polished and laminated, both of them will look very similar, but one can perceive the difference based on the thickness, colour, grains at the section. Usually, the parent metals like iron and bronze are much thick, they expose the sections in a much native way and exhibit a rough/real/heavy nature. But the alloys of these...