ARMCO PURLIN CATALOGUE

[romgat]

Does any one have any information, catalogues, etc on old ARMCO cold formed C roof purlins (from the 1960's). I have made an exhaustive search with local purlin manufacturers and steel institutions both here in Australia as well as US and Europe, but no success. I have a couple of projects where existing purlins need to be identified. I have some nomenclature on available drawings but it is difficult to decypher being in the old imperial systems, guage thicknesses etc. I am especially interested in determining the yield stress of these purlins so that I can calculate their capacity. Armco purlins were used in Australia in the 1950's and 60's and maybe the 70's. The company no longer exists and technical info on their products is non-existent. I would really appreciate it if someone can help me, especially our American friends...Cheers........Angelo

 

[Ron247]

Have you tried contacting AK Steel? I think Armco (American Rolling Mill Company) was connected later to Kawasaki and became AK Steel.

 

[romgat]

Thank you Ron247 for your reply. Yes I have tried with AK steel amongst others and other companies that may have had an association with ARMCO but unfortunately no success. It seems that no one knows of the ARMCO purlin manufacturing arm. There is an ARMCO company in Australia but they only deal with road barriers and they also have no knowledge of the branch of ARMCO than manufactured purlins. Strange.....

My main aim is to get some info on the yield stress of the material that was used in manufacturing these purlins.

I know that there were a multitude of steels used in the 50's and 60's in cold forming. They ranged from moderate to very low yield stress. Presently in Australia a yield stress of 450MPa is generally used. The cold formed standard AS4600 states that a yield strength of 170 MPa should be used for unidentified steels. This is far too low for my purposes and that is why having more specific info would be very useful. One way to solve my problem is to remove some materials from the structure and take to a laboratory for testing but the client would not be happy with this suggestion.

Thanks for your help.........

 

[Settingsun]

There's an Armco Product Data catalogue at the national library dated 1960-something. Might be worth a try. Might also be just drainage culverts and traffic barriers...

 

[Ron247]

Have you tried contacting the Metal Building Manufacturers Association (MBMA) or looking at MBMA.COM?

Sounds like you may have no choice but testing.