Industrial Steel Buildings | Steel workshop | Steel Shed | Steel Frame | Steel Warehouse

Steel Structure buildings are the largest sector of the global industrial construction market, representing upwards of 70% of total activity. These buildings are typically used for workshops, factories, industrial and distribution warehouses and retail and leisure. Sizes vary from small workshops of just a few hundred square meters up to massive distribution warehouses covering over one hundred thousand square meters.

Contribute to huge improvements in quality, cost and delivery performance of our design, fabrication as well as engineering ability, these improvements have been achieved through increasingly efficient use of the portal frame, improved project planning, and active supply chain management.

Modern industrial steel structure buildings taking advantage of the latest advances in automated fabrication and construction techniques can provide economic solutions to the demands of safety, rapid construction, aesthetics, shallow construction depth, minimal maintenance and flexibility in future use. Steel also scores well on all the sustainability measures and offers a broad range of benefits addressing the economic, environmental, and social priorities of the 'triple bottom line' of sustainability.

The following overall design requirements should be considered at the concept design stage of single or multiple storey industrial buildings:

• Space use, for example, specific requirements for handling of materials or components in a production facility
• Flexibility of space in current and future use
• Speed of construction
• Environmental performance, including services requirements and thermal performance
• Aesthetics and visual impact
• Acoustic isolation, particularly in production facilities
• Access and security
• Sustainability considerations
• Design life and maintenance requirements, including end of life issues.

-- Portal Frames

There are two main framing options for single storey industrial buildings: styles to meet your needs. The vast majority of single storey, steel framed buildings are portal frame which developed rapidly to become the predominant form of single storey construction since 1960s.

Portal frames typically use hot-rolled beams and columns for the roof rafters and supporting columns, although cold formed sections may be adequate for some small span structures. Portal frames come in a variety of different shapes and sizes, with flat and pitched roofs.

-- Lattice trusses/tubular members

The main alternative to portal frames is lattice construction. Lattice trusses are generally more expensive than portal frames for routine applications and spans. However, for certain applications they will offer the best framing solution, such as: for very large spans (greater than 50m), for production facilities needing heavy plant suspended from the roof area, or where deflection criteria are particularly critical. Trusses are a triangulated assembly of members usually either rolled or structural hollow sections. The internal members can be angles, beams or hollow sections, depending on the design loads, configuration and fabrication costs. Two basic configurations are used in single storey buildings – pitched roof trusses and 'flat' trusses of near uniform depth. Trusses are usually planar and will generally require bracing of some form to provide stability. As an alternative, three-dimensional trusses can be created.

Trusses typically have a greater depth than single beams or plate girders. The deflection of a truss is modest, and can be controlled, making them especially suitable when significant loads must be supported from the roof structure, or when a flat (or nearly flat) roof is to be provided. The larger depth of the trusses increases the dimensions of the façade but also provides space for services to be placed in the roof structure instead of below.