I dug out my design notes and it appears that the plate will be loaded to about 60% of it's yield strength, at the design loading.
I went to the fab shop for a demonstration of the plasma cut bolt holes in a 25mm thick steel plate. The holes are 34mm (to accommodate a 1.25" diameter...
I would agree with dik. Don't spend the time crunching the numbers for the burnt sections. Sister the three that suffered section loss due to fire. This should eliminate the possibility of problems with serviceability and ultimate loading. It shouldn't be that difficult for the contractor...
Thanks MintJulep. I did review that post and found a lot of similarities and some important differences between the two situations. I think rejecting the use of a manually flame cut hole (as opposed to machine controlled plasma cut hole) is a more cut-and-dried decision, in my mind.
I am wondering if it is acceptable to substitute a plasma cut hole for a drilled hole in a cyclically loaded structure (bridge).
I originally posted this in the structural forum but I suspect that some of the members monitoring the Machining topic might have some great feeback. Here is the...
If the fabricator was to plasma cut undersized holes and burn up bits by drilling/reaming them to size (due to heat hardening), would he not be better off to just drill the holes to begin with?
connectegr, that RCSC spec is quite similar to our Canadian spec. I would be the EOR and I am not...
Those are some pretty gnarly freestyle plasma cut holes. The fabricator will be using something like machine featured in the link below. I don't know exactly what type of equipment he has, but it will be somewhat sophisticated.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgdzGASVgJ0
I have a fabricator who is preparing some 850mm x 25mm x 650mm steel plates with a variety of holes/slots. I specified that the 34mm dia. bolt holes within the plate be drilled. The fabricator is wondering if it would be acceptable to plasma cut the holes, as he will already have the steel...