steel fabricator - steel connection design 1

[Ben29]

I am a structural engineer with 15 years experience in building design. A steel fabricator (who was the fabricator for most of my multi-story steel buildings) recently reached out to me to ask if I would be interested in providing steel connection calcs & connection designs for him. He will continue to do his shop drawings in-house. He just wants to sub-out the connection design (signed & sealed, obviously).

Should I go after this work or is this more trouble than it is worth? I imagine that I will need to purchase SDS2 software (or something similar). Can I pick this up easily or is there a steep learning curve? What is the going rate for connection design work?

I am trying to go after any and all work in this economy...

 

[WARose]

It's hard to weigh because we don't know your situation. For starters: Are you currently working on your own or for somebody else (i.e. will this be a side job)? How much steel connection design have you done?

 

[r13]

I personally don't like the role change, especially when things do not play out as anticipate. It may involve in "conflict of interest" situation. What your current employer will say if he/she finds out.

 

[SteelPE]

I have been asked to do this before. I despise the role. You are typically cleaning up the messes of others. You routinely run into the situation of designing a W8x10 to have a 40k end reaction.... or columns with web doublers (good luck with the fabricator on those).

If you do decide to take on the work (outside of what others say above) be prepared to be on the losing end until you can get into the swing of things. Using computer programs together with your own hand written spreadsheets and hand calculations for the odd situations. It's going to take a while to come up with a routine.

Last I checked on pricing was somewhere around $20/ton (that's how my steel fabricator clients price the projects). That can be good.... it can be terrible depending on the complexity of the project.

If you do decide to pursue those types of projects... and like them... there is a need that you can serve and make some money.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

If steel connections is one of your passions / area of expertise then this is probably good work. Especially if work is scarce right now. You'll certainly get a different perspective on projects.

Just curious though. Does this involve basic / redundant connections like simple shear connections. Or, are you being asked to design the connections for the main lateral force resisting systems (braces and moment connections) as well?

Being a west coast engineer, I can't imagine an engineering firm handing off the critical lateral connections in a building. But, I know practices vary in non-seismic regions.

 

[CANPRO]

From a design standpoint, it wouldn't be difficult for a typical steel building. If you've been designing buildings for 15 years I'm sure you've designed a connection or two along the way. AISC design guides are a great resource and cover most connections you'll encounter. Your first few projects probably won't be big moneymakers as you'll spend a lot of time (highly recommended)developing spreadsheets for standard connections.

The steeper learning curve will likely be developing an eye for erectability issues as you design your connections - a perfectly engineered connection isn't any good if the steel can't physically be assembled.

To do this properly you'll also need to understand their process. You will need to understand their shop preferences and standards if any. For each project, you'll need to understand their phasing and erection sequence. And it's also important to understand the level of detail they require of your sketches to send to detailing - some detailers can take a scribble on a napkin and run with it and others want/need detailed sketches. I doubt you'll need SDS2 or any other detailing software, creating connection sketches based on the structural drawings would be more typical.

SteelPE raises a great point of bad designs turning into your headache, I deal with it daily...just part of the gig, unfortunately.

 

[Settingsun]

If the problem of heavy connections due to light members is so common, why don't the fabricators understand it? Clients doing their only ever building, sure, but people who do it for a living?

 

[SteelPE]

If the problem of heavy connections due to light members is so common, why don't the fabricators understand it? Clients doing their only ever building, sure, but people who do it for a living?

This is an issue that has nothing to do with a fabricator but rather the engineer who designed the building. They will routinely request beam end shear capacities that are 1.5x the uniform load tables found in the AISC. Or require moment connections that develop the full capacity of the beam connection to the column (kind of tough when you have a W24x62 framing into a W8x31).

 

[ldeem]

I have tried pursuing this niche as well and can confirm what others have already said. That is to make money you need a standardized process with spreadsheets / software to do the calcs (I still use an old copy of Descon).

I am in Ohio and found price competition to be fierce. If you have a good relationship with the fabricator ask them what they are willing to pay and see if you can make it work. Otherwise you will spend a lot of time trying to bid on the work and may find out you aren't even close.

I was not successful in this market and price feedback I got I was always high. To bid I would count up the connections and apply the following hours.

Type : Hr/type
1 Beam Moment : 2
2 Beam Moment : 2
3 Beam Moment : 3
4 Beam Moment : 3
Single Brace : 2
2 Brace : 2
3 Brace : 3
4 Brace : 3
Hand Moment 1 : 4
Hand Moment 2 : 4
Shear (simple) :1
Shear (complex)

This was back in 2012 and the above hours never won me any work.

Fabricators are very price sensitive so adding another bolt to a connection beyond the bare minimum may result in some push back.

If you are looking for side work try stair calcs or engineered lift plans (assuming its in your wheelhouse). I have found these to be more interesting and better paying.

 

[WARose]

Got to give Mr. SteelPE a star and add this (about cleaning up other people's messes): I worked with a shop a few years back and it was a situation like he was talking about. If you had a brace with a 30 kip load.....they'd have a 4 bolt connection. Brace with 100 kip load? Same detail.

So yeah, it can be like that. Just be sure you know what you are getting into.

 

[SethGuthrie]

If you do get into it, Ram Connection would be good to have. You could lease is rather than buy it outright if you are just testing the waters.

 

[SteelPE]

If you have a good relationship with the fabricator ask them what they are willing to pay and see if you can make it work.

Yes, this is key too. I used to work for a steel fabricator before they went out of business 8 years ago. Like rats from a ship everyone ended up in different places and voila, clients.

I have a relationship with one steel fabricator client who gave me the $20/ton numbers a few years ago. The relationship is so good that they just tell me the numbers for the project and ask if I want to do the job (no bidding). They would give me all of their work if I wanted.... unfortunately I hate the role so I have always refused. Luckily they do have a company that will do the work for them so there is no pressure.

However, I do misc iron calculations for this company as well (stair designs). They just tell me what their budget numbers are and I usually do the project for the budget numbers. Stair designs are something I was forced to do when I started working for my original employer years ago. I have everything down pretty well with the design process and presentation, so it's a breeze to push out the calculations. Recently these jobs have been turning out extremely well.

 

[dik]

At the other extreme, I had a recent project where the fabricator proposed HSS bracing connections using 4 - 3/4" bolts at each connection... I came up with the attached... he went with the 4 bolts... There were 5, two storey sets of bracing with loads ranging from 15 kN (3.37K) to 70 kN (15.7K).

Can't seem to win for losing...

Dik

 

[Ben29]

I met with the fabricator yesterday. He told me that one of my typical 4-story buildings with moment frames would get me $7,500. And my work must be completed in 2 weeks. So $7,500 over 2 weeks is not too shabby. He said that based on his backlog, I stand to earn approximately 75K with him over the next 12 months. Not bad, as long as I can figure out how to use Descon. I am currently working with the trial version of Descon. It seems pretty easy.

My job will entail stamping their "typical shear connection designs" and providing signed/sealed calcs for all of the moment connections or braced frame connections. All of the jobs are East Coast.

 

[Ben29]

Just for practice, I am designing the moment connections in Descon for a building that I did a few years ago. I am checking my calculations against the engineer's calcs. I found a blunder and posted a question in this thread:
Link