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Question for the Oldtimers?? 1

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BSE05

BSE05

Structural
Sep 16, 2005
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Do any of you oldtimers know the drafting convention for wrought iron beams? I'm from the WF era myself and never came across wrought iron in a building(circa 1887) until now.

My guess is like 12WI40.5, but what is (or was) correct??

Maybe a newbie can answer??
 
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Sliderule,

Looking up my beam sizes in the old beam book, I'm most likely dealing with Pencoyd 1887 #7. Drawing up the framing plan It does not look right when I called the beam W12X43.5 and thought there must be a drafting convention from that period I could use.

In any case these beams may be history, very heavily rusted flanges, about 50% gone. I don't know if my scheme of fixing them by welding is going to work with wrought iron.

I look forward to reading the Pencoyd manual. thanks.
 
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I don't go back quite that far, but the beam was an I beam, not a WF. If it was Pencoyd #7, it could have weighed 37.5 to 45.8 pounds per foot, depending on the web thickness.

In my youth, we would have called it 10 I 37.5 but some preferred 10 x 4.625 I 37.5 which gave the flange width as well as the depth.

If it was fabricated by a company other than Pencoyd, it could have been heavier or lighter (see AISC Iron and Steel Beams 1873 to 1952 in SlidRuleEra's library).

BA
 
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Thanks BAretired for the info. Now the drawing will look like I know what I'm doing.

My next quest is to determine if A36 steel can be welded to wrought iron with any strength.
 
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Wrought iron is made by flattening of a piece of iron and folding it over and repeating the process to remove the slag. It wasn't very efficient. In Newman's book "Structural Renovation of Buildings," he states welding to wrought iron is prblematic and he references "Field Welding to Existing Steel Structures" AISC Engineering Journal 1st Quarter 1988.
 
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Other really good references are:

Readily available:

"Structural Analysis of Historic Buildings"
by J. Stanley Rabun, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000

A little harder to find:

"Kidder-Parker Architects' and Builders' Handbook"
by Harry Parker,Editor-in-Chief, John Wiley & Sons, various editions starting in 1888.

"Handbook of Bulding Construction"
by George A. Hool, Editor-in-Chief, McGraw-Hill, 1920 & 1929
 
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SE:

Hey, thanks for those links! I didn't know those were on line, but that's the Internet for ya. Although, as a qualified "Old Timer", I still get misty fingering through one of those real, old time books! They just don't write'm like that any more. The new ones are full of equations and codes - it just takes the fun out of it. [sadeyes]
 
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Okay, I'm a huge engineering book buff and would love to download these PDF books listed above. Unfortunately, when I click the link, all I see is a table of contents. Is there something else that I need to do in order to download??
 
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Back towards the design intent of his original question:

As I understand it, the original post opened two problems: The first was how to designate the orginal wrought iron beam - because those beams were really "rotted iron" and can't hold his (new) loads - so the second problem was/will be: "How can I add new steel to old iron and get a real beam that can carry weight?"

Addressing the second problem: A couple of people noted the problems welding to wrought iron - because of the iron and carbon "crystals" inside the folded and hammered old iron. But isn't it also a problem with his irregularly damaged (rusted and holed) iron. A new steel deflects uniformly under the load. An old beam with an irregular cross section is going to droop more in some place, less in others where the web is still good. How will that affect the reinforcing new steel?

Won't he have to calculate the joined beam (bolted or rivted to the new steel) as if the original were 1/4 or 1/2 strength down the entire distance? Doesn't seem like even a finite element analysis with the orignal steel modeled differently across each busted spot would be accurate enough.
 
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Just to update the original post. The final recommendation to the Client is to remove the old beams and replace. The original design loads appear to be about half of todays, but in 1887 there were only wagons!

My research into welding the wrought iron found that although you could weld it the weld would not be of structural value due to a high degree of porosity.

I have a couple of old books now on line, many years ago I saved them from the trash believe it or not. They have been a real help in determining how some of the buildings of that era were constructed. Items like flat arch clay tile slabs etc.

Thanks to your posts a great help as always.
 
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