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...

HALFTECTURE 0 LOCATION : OSAKA, JAPAN. BUILDING TYPE: PUBLIC RESTROOMS. CONCEPT: HALFTECTURE entrances are not define d compartments are grounded but don't touch the roof changing stations set open under roof plane "ONE IS NEVER COMPLETELY INSIDE HALFTECTURE 0" MATERIALS USED: COR-TEN STEEL FOR ROOF PORCELAIN STONE ETC. CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE: Monolithic structural system The steel roof plates(16 mm) are welded into a single plane. The steel roof spans 125 times its thickness. wall thickness: 25 mm thickness, (20 m apart) ROOF: Warped curve shape. The primary structure, roof, and walls of this building are constructed of weathering steel plates, the rusted surface of which blends into the surrounding environment. 

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...

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...

 26/August/2020 Today's session was more properties of Steel and similar metals for learning more details and workability with different ways and methods: -    Galvanic Action  Higher end is anode and at the lower end is th cathode. When current is passed through a combination of metals, the one at the higher end will corrode first.  Co-efficient of thermal expansion  Charge/length of materials/degree of change in temperature Specific Gravity Density of substance/ Density of water  Tensile/Yield strength  Tensile strength is the maximum ability of the metal to withold stress, will show necking and will fail at a point called fracture.  Tield strngth is the maximum ability of the metal to exhibit elasticity after which it cannot undergo deformation and will become plastic. Reflectivity  p(y)=Gr(y)/Gi(y)  Where P is the reflectivity, Y is the wavelegth, Gr is reflecting radiation, Gi is the incident radiation Oil Canning  An elas...

24/August/2020 Impact of Weather conditions on the building material - Steel  Temperature - Steel expands in summer, when the temperature is down, it might contract. This repeated expansion and contraction might affect the durability and the tensile strength of the steel.  Humidity and Precipitation - The major factor that has an impact on steel - Corrosion, erosion, rusting - When there is moisture content in the air, the steel tends to react with the water.  Wind - Contains salt content - steel is reactive to salt  Disadvantages of Steel - Impact of weather conditions on Steel  High atmospheric humidity increases the moisture content in air. A steel surface is allowed to begin to rust when the relative humidity in the air climbs above 50%, and steel surely rusts when the relative humidity reaches 80%. This can result in flash rust that collapses the coating. If it is painted, it might result in blistering and delamination of the surface coa...