Is this strong enough

[s410man]

My steelrack is made out of 80x80x5 shs

45 degree brace of 100x50 at the bottom

6 uprights over the 7.5 metre lenght

What sort of weight is it suitable for?

Currently has 1 ton of 25mm shs on one shelf and a ton of 30mm on the shelf below

Id like to put a ton of 40mm on the shelf below and a ton of 20mm on the shelf above

Part of me is saying 4 to 5 ton is a massive weight bit then when you think of it per single support its only about 150 kgs each or around 600khs per upright?

Just dont want it all coming down with a bang!!

Cheers

 

[winchman]

If you employ anyone it should really be marked with its SWL

 

[Bladevane]

I doubt the material will fail, the welds will be the potentially weakest points.

 

[frank horton]

think I'd double up on the middle shelf box section, just a short'ish peice to move the loading down the main upright a little bit...
u won't loose to much roo,.........

 

[bletchmonster]

I would put some short gussets under the shelves.
A piece of the 80 box cut at 45 degrees welded right in the corners would make a big difference.

 

[Morrisman]

I’d say the greatest stressed point is the upright, just above the angled support at the bottom. If it is going to bend/break anywhere, that will be the place, where I arrowed it.

You could add a small upright further forward, (red line) it won’t lose you any storage space, but add a whole load of strength.

 

[Turbo]

I would suggest that you double up the uprights depth front to back by stitch welding another length vertically behind it. I would also add some gussets as blechmonster suggests. I would add some diagonal braces between the uprights & the bar that joins them or weld a bar along the top, the whole thing could collapse sideways!

Btw, I'm very jealous of the stock of steel you have. I would love to be able to justify buying it a ton at a time!

 

[Richard.]

Without both calculations and knowing the weld quality it’s not possible to know for sure what that rack is going to take easily.
I say easily because you don’t want it right on it’s limit either.
The fact you’ve asked the question tells me it’s playing on your mind so if nothing else but to make you feel better do something with it.
Personally I’d put small gussets in the corners and sacrifice that amount of storage space at the top which will add a lot of strength to the weld. It won’t make the box section stronger mind. To do that your going down the road of supporting the fronts with verticals which makes loading and unloading a pain.
You could make more support arms to spread the load between more points as well.

 

[Parm]

Any racking is classed as work equipment and must be subject to design and inspection by a competent person and displayed with safe working load SWL

You may find this guidance useful

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/priced/hsg246.pdf

 

[knighty]

is that a door right at the front, where you're taking the photos from?

so you can slide steel in from the end instead of having to bring it along side and put it on the shelf?


if you added some shelves to the back of the rack, you could slide lengths onto them straight though the door, it would take some weight off the shelves you have already (because some stuff moved to new shelves) and putting weight on the other side will stop it wanting to tip over.

I'd extend the bottom leg/foot out a bit too... stop it wanting to tip over onto you

 

[s410man]

Without both calculations and knowing the weld quality it’s not possible to know for sure what that rack is going to take easily.
I say easily because you don’t want it right on it’s limit either.
The fact you’ve asked the question tells me it’s playing on your mind so if nothing else but to make you feel better do something with it.
Personally I’d put small gussets in the corners and sacrifice that amount of storage space at the top which will add a lot of strength to the weld. It won’t make the box section stronger mind. To do that your going down the road of supporting the fronts with verticals which makes loading and unloading a pain.
You could make more support arms to spread the load between more points as well.

I’d say the greatest stressed point is the upright, just above the angled support at the bottom. If it is going to bend/break anywhere, that will be the place, where I arrowed it.

You could add a small upright further forward, (red line) it won’t lose you any storage space, but add a whole load of strength.

I agree this is the weakest point im not worried about individual shelf weights as it works out at maximum 160kgs at a 190mm load centre which im happy with

Think im going to put a brace in where you suggested and for the next shelf up another piece of 80mm box-bit inconvenient to move away from the wall now so will double the depth of the upright on the front of it between shelves rather than the back if that makes sense

Dont really want to go to unloading from the end as the saw rollers are just out of the picture but its easy to lift lenghts down onto them atm

 

[knighty]

how thick/strong is the wall? you could bolt it to the wall to make sure it never tips forwards onto you....

you could even bolt it on but leave the bolts loose... (depending what type you use) so it never pulls on the wall... but the wall will catch it if it starts to go?

 

[s410man]

Heres a bit wider angle showing why i need to keep it side loading

Wall is just single skin blocks no real strenght in it unfortunately

 

[knighty]

you could add a length of steel along the top of the uprights, or on the front face of them at the top

so all the legs support each other... right now if one leg/weld/piece fails it'll start a chain reaction as the extra weight is put on the one next to it

should be easy to do if you can climb ontop?

 

[outofthefire]

I'd weld a t-piece to the sides rather than gussets and just stitch them on don't weld all the way round, same for the horizontals (though it's a bit late now) only weld two sides, welding all the way round makes it weaker. The rack I made at my last job was made similar but we welded it to two of the buildings i beams with two free standing supports between them, we used one in between to start with but the upright bent eventually.

Any racking is classed as work equipment and must be subject to design and inspection by a competent person and displayed with safe working load SWL

Interesting, we used to have a bloke come in every 6 months to check all the lifting gear and compressors but he never looked at the racking.

 

[Richard.]

welding all the way round makes it weaker.

I’m struggling to work out how welding all the way round box section makes it weaker

 

[outofthefire]

I’m struggling to work out how welding all the way round box section makes it weaker

If it starts to crack it'll tear the whole square out of the upright box.

 

[Richard.]

If it starts to crack it'll tear the whole square out of the upright box.

I don’t agree in the slightest.
If you want a strong joint in box section you weld all around it.
If it cracks you’ve done something wrong.
4 welds are better than 2 especially if they are taking load.

 

[knighty]

I'm with Richard... it;s also much less lightly to start to crack if it's welded on all 4 sides?

 

[outofthefire]

I don’t agree in the slightest.
If you want a strong joint in box section you weld all around it.
If it cracks you’ve done something wrong.
4 welds are better than 2 especially if they are taking load.

We'll have to agree to disagree, but I have seen steel fail loads when too much weld has been used either making something too inflexible or where the weld is stronger than the steel.

In this instance you have got a single piece of box carrying weight (basically a lever) with a welded joint at one end (basically a fulcrum point). If an inch of weld can hold a ton (something else i was taught) and you weld all round the box the weld is very strong and it's stiffened the steel around it. If you load up the lever with weight you're applying force to the fulcrum, the whole thing will eventually either bend and collapse or the part where you've made it stiffer by welding all the way round will start to tear.

I'm not sure i've explained myself properly, but I believe what i've been taught and learnt building wagons, and racking for steel like I said mine bent and we had to add an extra support. The lever and fulcrum part is why I also said it needs a T piece stitched on to spread the load.

More is most certainly not always stronger and better.