Name that product

[HgTX]

I have a material test report for some kind of ASTM A 7 product from 1961. The product designations are variations on the theme of B10x25, although one of them is a C12x25 (which I would have thought was a channel except for its friends the B things). They all have a thickness measurement too (ranging from 0.244 to 0.410 inch).

Does anyone know what these are?

Hg

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[Lutfi]

I am not sure if the following will help. I did a quick search in my old AISC manuals and here is what I found:

1.According to my AISC Steel manual, First Edition (December 1927), I found Bethlehem beams designated as 10 B 26.
2.According to my AISC Steel manual, First Edition (January 1930), I found Bethlehem beams designated as 10 B 26.
3.According to my AISC Steel manual, third edition (1939 second printing), a designation of 6B12 is used for Miscellaneous Beam designation. Also 4 X 4 B7.5 is used for miscellaneous column designation.
4.According to my AISC Manual, fifth edition (1960), a designation of 6B12 is used for Miscellaneous Light Beam designation.
5.According to my AISC Manual, Sixth edition (1966), a designation of 14B26 is used for Light Beam designation.


Regards,
Lutfi

 

[casseopeia]

HgTX,

Chances are if your B-things are Bethlehem beams, the C-thing might be a Carnegie I-beam, not a channel.

If you know what year the steel was fabricated or installed, there is a very good reference put out by AISC called AISC Rehabilittion and Retrofit Guide, a reference for historic shapes and specifications, by Roger Brockenbrough, PE.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[Qshake]

I would have to agree....it was up until the late 30s that individual mills ran their own beams and what not. AISC has a booklet for properties of those beams and shortly thereafter must have thought....how ridiculous to have so many of the same damn thing. Following that all beams and other shapes became standards.

Regards,
Qshake

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[HgTX]

More info:
It's a Bethlehem cert that has both the B thingies and the C thingy.

There is another cert (Armco) on the same job that has channels, and the cert says "channels", then gives designations like "6x8.2#".

There are also I-beams all over the job (mostly if not all from US Steel), and their designations look something like "CB 36Ix160#".


Ooh. More on these B thingies:
Some of the designations look like this:
B14Cx78
B14Ax53
B6Lx16

The project date is 1961.

Hg

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[oldrunner]

The C12x25 is probably a Carnegie 12" wide flange beam, the lightest of their 12" deep series. The web t is .24 and the flange t is .382.

This is from my 1st edition 1930 Steel Handbook. But if this is A-7 steel, then there appears to be some confusion. 1930 steel conformed to ASTM A-9, with a minimum yield of 30 ksi, while A-7 steel has a minimum yield of 33 ksi.

Have you been able to examine the actual beams? Part of your question doesn't make sense - "channel except for its friends the B things"?

There is a C12x25 listed in the 1955 Steel Manual and that manual was specifying A-7 steel.

 

[HgTX]

This is 1961 steel. ASTM A 7.
I would have thought the C12x25 was a channel except that there are also "B" shapes on the same cert. I also don't think they're beams, because those are listed separately and identified as such. And there's one thickness given for these shapes. The C12x25 says t=0.410".

Also I have another cert, albeit from another mill, that lists channels without using the "C" designation. (Actually that cert says "channels", lists some things like 6x8.2#, but then goes on to list things that are clearly angles (3x3x5/16") without identifying them as such.) (I guess my point, if I have one, is that "C" doesn't seem to mean "channel".)

Hg

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[casseopeia]

A7 was used for structural steel (all shapes) from 1949 to 1967. A7 and A9 were consolidated into one specification for structural steel for buildings and bridges from 1939 to 1948. Prior to that it was A7 for bridges and A9 for buildings.

The C12x25 is looks like a channel if I assume the 't' (thickness) is actually c, which is web thinckness + 1/16". In the AISC 1963, a C12x25 has a c=0.4375". It's not exactly a stretch, but it doesn't hit it out of the park either.

I can't find any source that has similar designations for the others you mentioned, B14Cx78, B14Ax53 and B6Lx16. Those might be designations specific to Bethlehem Steel and might represent special or built-up shapes. It was very common to have say a channel with an angle attached to the bottom that would be used to support a masonry exterior wall. The lack of a top flange made it possible to run brick up and do a standard running bond with a header course every 7 courses. But that's just a wild a** guess.

There is reportedly a webiste that has all of Bethlehem Steel's archived catalogs, but I could not log on for some reason. It's

http://www.bethsteel.com.

You can also try emailing these people to see if there is another source for Bethlehem Steel designations, info@steelworkersarchives.com.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[MWPC]

In the seventh edition of the AISC Manual dated June 1973, the old B and WF designations were changed to W designations for uniformity. See table 4 page 1-10 of the old blue manual.

 

[MWPC]

RE:"Ooh. More on these B thingies:
Some of the designations look like this:
B14Cx78
B14Ax53
B6Lx16"

These are more beams that were available at the time. Now W sections. I think the C, A, and L were just beams in some series on your drawings or references to mark numbers on shop drawings. Hope this helps.

K

 

[HgTX]

All these designations come from the mill test reports, not from the drawings.

Unfortunately I don't have the cert any more (it was microfilm), but my notes make it look like there were beams listed on that same cert that didn't have the letter designations. And would beams have just one thickness listed? Or any thickness, for that matter? None of the other beam certs showed a thickness, just the designation and the tensile & chemistry results.

I can't get to bethsteel.com either. But that's the old Bethlehem home page. I thought they let that site go under the ISG administration.

I just remembered I have a Mittal contact who I think came up from the Bethlehem branch of the tree, though maybe it was Lukens. I'll see what he has to say.

Hg

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[HgTX]

I'd forgotten I also know an old Bethlehem guy (as I was reminded by the Lukens guy). He says the B sections are beams and the C is a channel, and that the "t" measurements look like web thicknesses though he doesn't know why they'd be on the MTR; they weren't doing that by the time he came around. I guess my notes must have been wrong about the "12x31.8" beams (no B) being on the same MTR.

So MWPC had it right.

Thanks everyone!

Hg

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