Heavy columns, trusses, crane girders and moment frames: the part of the work that is checked member by member, welded to a procedure, and trial-assembled where the tolerance is tight.
In a shed, the frame mostly holds the roof up. In a structural job, the frame is the building: it carries the crane, the floor, the equipment and whatever the process will hang on it later.
Rolled sections or built-up plate girders, with base plates, stiffeners and holding-down bolts drawn at full size. The connection at the top is decided before the shaft is cut.
Roof and floor trusses, welded or bolted, with camber built in and the node geometry closed. On a long span, the truss depth is the cheapest steel you will ever buy.
Girders sized for the wheel loads and the duty class, with end stops, rail clips and the walkway brackets in the same drawing. Runway alignment is a tolerance, not a hope.
The joints that make a frame stiff enough to stand in wind and to survive a crane stopping. Every one is drawn, welded to a sequenced procedure and inspected before it is buried under paint.
Purlins, girts, sag rods, edge trims and the steel that the envelope, the doors and the mezzanine will bolt to. These are the pieces that decide whether the building looks finished.
A heavy frame is not judged by how it looks in the yard. It is judged on a site eight thousand kilometres away, by a crew that has the drawing and nothing else.
If a joint cannot be drawn, it cannot be priced, welded or inspected. Every plate, bolt and weld is on the model before fabrication starts.
Full-penetration welds are located and sequenced, and the ones that carry the frame are tested. We keep ultrasonic and magnetic inspection in house, so a result is a number, not an opinion.
Complex nodes are trial-assembled on the floor. Straightness, camber and hole alignment are checked while the member can still be corrected cheaply.
What “straight” and “in position” mean is agreed in writing before the first cut, so nobody argues about it with a tape measure on site.
Over-size members need a lifting plan, a cradle and a route to the port. This is settled at the drawing stage, when changing it is still free.
Mill certificates, weld records, coating records and the packing list ship with the steel. The file that proves the building is the file that arrives with it.
Heavy frames are won and lost in the joints. Send the general arrangement and we will mark the connections that decide the price.
Send the drawings
HONGJI SHUNDA