How strong is steel

[buickanddeere]

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How strong steel is like asking what beer tastes like, it all depends.
Various Steel alloys, heat treats, annealing and forging vary from steel little better than cast pot metal to the stuff that aircraft landing gear is made from. From steel that is almost a brittle as glass to steel used to make coil springs.

 

[Cat_Driver]

One thing engineers would want to see first before they "calculate" any steel is the way and who made the steel. Not ALL steel is the same. Some steel manufacturer take short cuts in making of steel to save dine or two.
Just for info take a look at thus stuff. 200 times stronger than steel . 200 times stronger than steel yet lighter than paper and more flexible than a contortionist,
How This Stronger-Than-Steel Material Could Change the World

 

[franklin2]

There are ways to get around all the engineering. For frontend loaders and other equipment, you hunt around, taking notes from factory designs. They did all the figuring for you, no use re-inventing the wheel. After awhile you will have a general idea what works on what size tractor/FEL such as thickness of the bucket, size of the arms, etc.

If you want to put a beam in your garage to lift something, you can get ideas for that from gantry crane designs and their ratings and spans.

If you want to put steel in a structure, I stay away from that. I know it's done all the time, but if I had a major project I would need a building permit and it would have to be inspected. They would not pass any steel in the structure unless it came in a kit from the factory that way, or it had a engineer's stamp. Steel is very expensive, so I do not see the purpose of using steel in a structure unless you happen to have it laying around for free. Any steel I put in the building for lifting purposes would go in AFTER the final inspection.

 

[LD1]

"pound for pound" (I guess that means dimensioned accordingly and subject to certain types of loads/forces) that #1 (clear/dense)-structural grade SYP is stronger than steel...! ?

No way.

Look for a free program called "beam boy". It has been a while since I've had a computor at home, but I remember that you could select shapes from a list, choose your length and where the loads and supports are placed, and it would give you the deflection, and peek stress amount and location.

If you have a smart phone, the App"epic FEM" is simmilar.

Ditto the Beam Boy program.

All the specs of common steel needed to calculate deflections and stresses are out there. Someone already linked it. Modulus of elasticity, distance to farthest fiber, moment of intertia, etc. etc. Beam Boy does the calcs for you. But for simple designs (point load, or evenly distributed loads) it really isnt difficult to calculate long hand.

Formulas are actually the same for wood. You are just using different material. Thus it has different modulus of elasticity (wood varys but is ~1.0-1.2 million) and steel that is 30 million. (what that number represents is how many pounds of force it takes to stretch 1 square inch of material to double its length.

That modulus is used to calculate the Moment of inertia. Which in laymans terms is stiffness or resistance to bending. With alot higher modulus of elasticity, steel calculates to a much higher moment of inertia.

Your earlier inquiry about common things like "what is stronger, a 3" channel or a 2" sq tube. That is something that you can simply look at the Moment of inertia (i4) and whichever is higher is stiffer. No need to actually plug numbers into a formula.

 

[SPYDERLK]

One thing engineers would want to see first before they "calculate" any steel is the way and who made the steel. Not ALL steel is the same. Some steel manufacturer take short cuts in making of steel to save dine or two.
Just for info take a look at thus stuff. 200 times stronger than steel . 200 times stronger than steel yet lighter than paper and more flexible than a contortionist,
How This Stronger-Than-Steel Material Could Change the World

Ill call BS here. They are probably talking very fine fiber strength and comparing to bulk lo strength steel. Fine drawn music wire has a tensile in the 600,000 psi range. ... And the fine drawn steel wire/fiber is still HUGE wrt graphene fiber. Theres a lot more to the story than that deceptive headline.

 

[ishiboo]

One thing engineers would want to see first before they "calculate" any steel is the way and who made the steel. Not ALL steel is the same. Some steel manufacturer take short cuts in making of steel to save dine or two.
Just for info take a look at thus stuff. 200 times stronger than steel . 200 times stronger than steel yet lighter than paper and more flexible than a contortionist,
How This Stronger-Than-Steel Material Could Change the World

Not at all.

Steel is made to specifications, these are used to perform any calculations. Tensile strength, yield strength, hardness, weldability and machinability, etc.

It doesn't matter who makes it or "how it's made"... any calculations and specs will go quite simply off those numbers.

 

[/pine]

I don't think it's quite that easy.

You can fly a plane on auto pilot but it still takes a real pilot to land. In other words you must know the theory, etc to understand the results and check for accuracy.

Actually it is that easy...As I said: learning theories is part of being an engineer but doing physical calculations with a slide rule or even a scientific calculator or need to interpolate printed tables etc...It has gone by the way side...w/ computer technology...!
...And planes can land on their own with advanced ILS systems...as long as there is someone to enter the variables like passenger/cargo and fuel weight etc...all ground and weather conditions along with navigation guidance that interfaces with the avionics/autopilot and part of the ILS system...

No way.

Actually I think it could very well be true...you have to relate the words "pound for pound"...and of course the application is in play...but...say you took a piece of #1 SGD SYP lattice or a 2x4 or a dowel say...and a piece of regular (new) steel that was the same length but weighed the same as the SYP...seems to me that in certain load conditions the wood could support more load (in some conditions, way more) without failing or permanently deflecting than the steel "dimensionally proportioned to make weight"...which reminds me of an interesting factoid...

...Designing any type of load resistance...one of the factors is the "modulus of elasticity" of the material to be used...(FWIW) The "MoE" of a material is a property that defines how much said material can deflect (under load) yet return to its original shape...It might come as a surprise to some that regular plate glass is close if not at the top of the list for being "truly elastic"...

 

[s219]

Lots of good info here. For more, I suggest the OP pick up a book on "Mechanics of Materials" for some fun reading/learning in his retirement. They cover beam and column formula derivations (basic calculus/algebra) and then tie that into material properties. The book will be loaded with all sorts of tables, charts, and formulas. With that book, I can pretty much design anything in any material, but it's particularly useful for structural steel since it will have tables for all the standard size I beams, W beams, etc... That is probably the single most used book I still keep around from college. May be the only one I still use regularly, and it's most often used for stuff outside of my job, such as home projects, hobbies, etc.

 

[pappy60]

In reply to what I think is your original question... Franklin2 has the answer... Looking at existing similar equipment will give you a very good idea of what size / shape of metal to use... if in doubt, go a little to the heavier side for extra strength.... 90% (or more) of home built equipment is done this way and they work fine... remember KISS...(keep it simple...s...)

There are ways to get around all the engineering. For front end loaders and other equipment, you hunt around, taking notes from factory designs. They did all the figuring for you, no use re-inventing the wheel. After awhile you will have a general idea what works on what size tractor/FEL such as thickness of the bucket, size of the arms, etc.

If you want to put a beam in your garage to lift something, you can get ideas for that from gantry crane designs and their ratings and spans.

If you want to put steel in a structure, I stay away from that. I know it's done all the time, but if I had a major project I would need a building permit and it would have to be inspected. They would not pass any steel in the structure unless it came in a kit from the factory that way, or it had a engineer's stamp. Steel is very expensive, so I do not see the purpose of using steel in a structure unless you happen to have it laying around for free. Any steel I put in the building for lifting purposes would go in AFTER the final inspection.

 

[Sodo]

I think what you need is to design in wood then change it to steel.

Ignore all the other steels. A36 is what you'll get at the steel supplier. Its mild steel. Mild steel does not heat treat or do anything funny.

Sounds lke you need someone to give you steel tube, channel, I-beam equivalents of 2x4s, 2x6s, 2x8, 4x6, 4x8, etc and that can be done.