Structural Steel Platform Design Guide

[natgasengineer]

Can anyone recommend a design guide for steel work platforms? Essentially a mezzanine type design for outside use. 4' to 20' height with open steel grate walking surface, stairs, hand rails, etc. Usually 10' square or 10' by 20' would be common. Usually meant to access some type of vessel or piece of equipment like in a chemical processing facility. I have searched the AISC web page for specific information but almost everything is for buildings. I have the applicable OSHA regs / stds. but it seems that someone must have published a design guide.

THANKS!

 

[TLHS]

You're not going to find much of a design guide beyond some very basic specs or a company's standard detail sheets. The design guide you'd need is basically a steel design handbook. They aren't complicated, but you can frame platforms pretty much any way you want depending on what you're trying to accomplish, so it's not something you can nail down into a small design guide. It's straightforward enough that a structural engineer doesn't need a guide, but freeform enough that you can't make a step by step guide. So there's really nobody that's going to put one together.

PIP has a standard design for vertical vessel platforms, but that's only applicable for that one very specific type of construction.

 

[KootK]

It's only 16 pages and isn't likely to rock your world but it's something: Link. It has recommendations regarding lateral notional loads which I like.

I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.

 

[natgasengineer]

THANKS GUYS! I purchased the "Industrial platform floors: mezzanine and raised storage" and am seeing what I can find from PIP. We use ACAD and SolidWorks and have several standards from major gas transmission companies to use as a guide. I just figured that there must be some standard document which has been published. Guess we will develop our own. We also do a lot of "skids" for gas meters, regulators, and flow control devices - stuff with multiple parallel piping runs of 2" to 24" diameter pipe. Generally these are just overbuilt as the focus is on the equipment and the cost of the skid is a rounding error on the total. we need to apply some engineering to those at some point... maybe I will just see if I can find someone to sub all of this "structural stuff" to so we can focus on what we do best!!!
Thanks again and if anyone else has any thoughts please feel free to comment.
Joel

 

[canwesteng]

Off the top of my head, some recommendations for small platforms-

Columns are often small enough you only need two anchor bolts
Lateral loads are small enough you can justify using stair stringers as a lateral load path, or you can tie into existing steel. Save some connections
Columns less than 8 inches deep or with sub 4 inch flanges are a headache for bolted connections.

A thought on subbing out - if you don't need a stamp, you could potentially sub out just engineering and ask for a general design that would be good for a range a values (something with W8x21 columns, C8 beams and fully braced could be good for a range of applications). Then modify as necessary for your plant. Not the most economical in terms of material, but cheaper engineering than constantly subbing it out and safer than having yourself do it imo.

 

[natgasengineer]

Thank You! We can work through the first one as it is pretty simple really. A little odd because it is 8' x 8' square and only 4' tall but one corner has a circular cut out for a 30" diameter vertical tank which is centered on one corner of the 8' x 8' square. The next one is 20' tall and surrounds two 4' vertical tanks which are 10' apart. We will sub out that one. If nothing else the engineer is having fun figuring out something new. We are natural gas pipeline and facility people but our limit of experience on structural is for skids under pre-fabricated meter / regulator runs.

Once again, I really do appreciate the input.

Thanks,

Joel