1961 Volvo PV544 in Holland

[Derek UK]

That's fair enough. What sort of flooring have you chosen?

[Army]

Originally Posted by Derek UK

That's fair enough. What sort of flooring have you chosen?

Not 100% sure just yet. Budget considerations and restrictions...

...it will be some sort of wood with some sort of insulation (eventually) within the steel framework.

Ideally I'd like to get a very good deal on things called "Steenschotten". As an Englishman I'd not heard of these things before (but I'm sure they're / were used in England too but haven't got a clue what they'd be called). Steenschotten are planks of wood that are bound by steel edging - come in handy rectangular sizes - originally used for drying bricks after they have been fired in the traditional brick making factories.

They have a trendy grungy look to them that the yuppies love (which can make them expensive) but from my perspective they're often 5cm or thicker - come in these handy frames - which means I can hoik them up and out if I need to get to the underside of the construction for the worse case scenario where I need to jack things level.

[Army]

Pictures below show how I'm leveling the welded RSJ grid structure but demonstrates the jack it up and kick ballast under railway sleepers post earth quake irritations (!)



Here I'm using ratchet straps to raise the sleepers into position under the RSJs.

M12 wood bolts used to fix sleeper to RSJ





A technical triumph => booting the ballast into place under the sleeper (steel toe caps recommended)



The next stage is to weld the upper structure onto the RSJ grid base. I hope this doesn't cause the newly leveled parts to settle too far but after I've loaded the structure with about 5 tons of OSB sheet material I'm guessing some levleing adjustments might be necessary (!)

[Army]

Workshop almost has a wall(ish)





The upper structure is just tacked in place at the moment - once the four walls are tacked together I'll have to go round a second time and seam weld everything solid

[norustplease]

Only just seen your workshop project and as a thought, would comment that most steel building frames are bolted together using junction plates and have some diagonal bracing inserted both in vertical and horizontal planes to prevent the structure lozenging. Quicker than welding and also makes it easier to dismantle if alterations or relocation needed. Your cladding may give some diaphragm effect, but diagonal bracing is more certain.
Also what stops the building lifting off if you are caught in a gale with the doors open? Are you infilling the floor frame with concrete or some kind of precast unit ? If not, you could probably do with a few foundation pads around the perimeter in mass concrete to hold the building down. Don't underestimate the power of the wind! The problem with most lightweight structures is not just holding them up, but holding them down in storm conditions.

Generally (in UK) smaller buildings on dodgy ground are built on a reinforced concrete raft.

Apologies if you have thought of all this already.

[Army]

Originally Posted by norustplease

Only just seen your workshop project and as a thought, would comment that most steel building frames are bolted together using junction plates and have some diagonal bracing inserted both in vertical and horizontal planes to prevent the structure lozenging. Quicker than welding and also makes it easier to dismantle if alterations or relocation needed. Your cladding may give some diaphragm effect, but diagonal bracing is more certain.
Also what stops the building lifting off if you are caught in a gale with the doors open? Are you infilling the floor frame with concrete or some kind of precast unit ? If not, you could probably do with a few foundation pads around the perimeter in mass concrete to hold the building down. Don't underestimate the power of the wind! The problem with most lightweight structures is not just holding them up, but holding them down in storm conditions.

Generally (in UK) smaller buildings on dodgy ground are built on a reinforced concrete raft.

Apologies if you have thought of all this already.

Thanks for your comments. One of the main reasons for posting on a forum is for feedback.

I have thought a bit about wind loading. The problem with any project like this is that you can get lost in the details (which is a particular problem for me). Sometimes when building things like this for the first time it is only when you start converting your plans from ideas and scribbles on the back of fag packets into a real structure that you realise that things need to be made a bit differently.

I have already reached the conclusion that I need more steel cross bracing even though there will be a wooden exoskeleton around parts of the steel onto which double skinned OSB will be fixed...

...the other thing that is apparent is that I need some more gussets at the welded joints as I'm now not happy with just a butt welded joint.

#####

Back to the wind =>

Self weight - despite the flimsy steel box sections - is not trivial. So far sleepers, steel and wood for the walls will weigh about 12 tons. (Floor not yet decided)

On a roof with an area of 100 square meters a lifting pressure would have to be in excess of 100kg per square meter. I expect all of the crap I will put in this workshop will be about 5 tons of assorted goodness knows what before I put in two vehicles.

I don't think it is going to go any where in a hurry. (A prolonged earthquake would probably do much more damage)

I doubt it is hurricane proof but on the whole we're quite lucky here with that. In a strong wind situation I'd expect a tree or two to fall over and damage the workshop before there is a technical problem with the wind loading.

#####

With the welded structure I have been worried about thermal expansion. Two sides of the shed will never see the sun (when it is really hot), whereas the other sides will. To counteract thermal expansion differences between wood and steel I plan to encase the steel in as much insulated wood as I can afford and hope for the best.

There is as always an element of hoping for the best in the absence of months of 3D solid works computer modelling (!) - {Alternatively months and months of digging through civil engineering text books and managing to not get irritated by their crappy guestimation assumptions that are more often than not NOT at all rigorous like "real engineering" <= Now there's controversy for you!}

[arcturus]

Just thinking that it looks as though it may be some way above ground level.Hope that you don't have occasion to push a dead car in! I nice shallow entrance ramp?

[norustplease]

Bolting also allows the structure to be trued up after assembly, before everything is fully tightened down. I would suggest triangular gusset plates at each intersection, which can then also be drilled to take diagonal bracing in a couple of bays on each elevation. Since you are not going for a portal frame type of structure, you may also need to construct some kind of braced internal buttress frame at the halfway point of the wall to prevent it bulging or overturning when you get a roof structure in place.
Don't underestimate the power of the wind. Even in inland Europe, gusts can reach 90miles/hr and it is these that are the killers. Roofs are subject to suction as well as the force of the wind trapped inside through an open frontage. This is especially true of pitched roofs and a downwind section of a pitch is particularly seriously affected by this.
Have a look at this website selling steel building kits. It gives some ideas of how things are constructed.
https://www.steelbuildingsystems.co....BoC5KMQAvD_BwE

[Army]

Originally Posted by arcturus

Just thinking that it looks as though it may be some way above ground level.Hope that you don't have occasion to push a dead car in! I nice shallow entrance ramp?

The height is indeed a long way above the ground. I wanted this to combat any localised flooding problems. This structure isn't intended to be used like a normal garage where vehicles come and go with frequency.

I need this space for my long term projects that sit for years and years.

I'll be designing some ramps to get vehicles in and out.

Originally Posted by norustplease

Bolting also allows the structure to be trued up after assembly, before everything is fully tightened down. I would suggest triangular gusset plates at each intersection, which can then also be drilled to take diagonal bracing in a couple of bays on each elevation. Since you are not going for a portal frame type of structure, you may also need to construct some kind of braced internal buttress frame at the halfway point of the wall to prevent it bulging or overturning when you get a roof structure in place.
Don't underestimate the power of the wind. Even in inland Europe, gusts can reach 90miles/hr and it is these that are the killers. Roofs are subject to suction as well as the force of the wind trapped inside through an open frontage. This is especially true of pitched roofs and a downwind section of a pitch is particularly seriously affected by this.
Have a look at this website selling steel building kits. It gives some ideas of how things are constructed.
https://www.steelbuildingsystems.co....BoC5KMQAvD_BwE

I suspect bolted structures are primarily used for ease of on-site installation. I think there might also be an element of psychological association in many building practices. On the whole "welding isn't done" when making structures - you're allowed to bolt - allowed to screw - allowed to mix sand and stone and pour and smear but there's a definite mental block for "alternative" building methods. (Eye lids wouldn't be raised if I was welding a steel structure for a boat!)

I'm not going to go down the bolting route.

Drilling holes through thick sheets of metal is not something I want to consider. I admit wide flanged joints would be giving the possibility of greater stiffness but I think I can replicate that effect in other ways that will eventually be stronger than bolted joints.

(Note:- one of the benefits of building stuff from scratch yourself is that psychological freedom of repairing something that has gone wrong: Whereas there's a feeling of regret if you need to cut and repair something back to originality (the curse of every car restorer!))

Internal cross bracing and gusseting is going to have to be sufficient as well as the effect of the "composite" effect I have planned with the planned wooden parts of the structure.

#####

{I am listening to you!}

Wind loading =>

See this link - https://www.awc.org/pdf/education/st...ads-160922.pdf

Page 13

Table C1.1

Gusts of 120 mph produce 22.18 psf (108 kgf/m^2)

I'm pretty sure I have the static weight to stop the thing from blowing away - I just need to make sure the roof is firmly attached to the rest of it...

[norustplease]

Originally Posted by Army

T

I suspect bolted structures are primarily used for ease of on-site installation. I think there might also be an element of psychological association in many building practices. On the whole "welding isn't done" when making structures - you're allowed to bolt - allowed to screw - allowed to mix sand and stone and pour and smear but there's a definite mental block for "alternative" building methods. (Eye lids wouldn't be raised if I was welding a steel structure for a boat!)

I'm pretty sure I have the static weight to stop the thing from blowing away - I just need to make sure the roof is firmly attached to the rest of it...

After forty odd years in the industry, I can confirm that the only psychological association that the Uk building industry has with its building practices is that of making money by being on site for the shortest possible time!
You are right of course in your assertion about ease, you can quickly erect a bolted structure with a crane or a fork lift and true it all up afterwards. It doesn't matter if it rains or what the temperature is. If you set out to weld it you are at the mercy of the weather and without x-ray or other test methodology, you can't actually tell whether any joint made is actually robust or not. You also have to get it dead on first time, and hold it in place accurately whilst you weld. A nut and bolt is relatively foolproof in quality of joint terms and can be adjusted. Everyone knows what they are getting. Site welding is therefore in most cases taboo because of the cost and time considerations.
There are plenty of alternative building methods in use these days mostly involving factory prefabrication into units that can be quickly erected on site, however, history has shown that a lot of techniques that were going to revolutionise the building industry have proved to be a dangerous liability twenty or thirty years on. Thus the industry tends to stick with what it knows.