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UK to US Steelwork Conversion

Hi Group,

I have a couple of questions for our American colleagues.

I have been approached by a customer with a query regarding the manufacture of a large welded steel access platform. At present the drawings exist in AutoCAD dwg format and use metric steel sizes and dimensions and European sheet sizes (A3 through A0).

Amongst his requirements is a need to 'convert' the drawings to US standards for possible manufacture in the US/Canada.

I appreciate the US use imperial dimensioning, but, on this type of drawing would fractional dimensions be shown in decimal or as actual fractions?

What are the general steelwork standards (Materials & fixings) in use in the US?

With regard to drawing sheet sizes, would I be correct in assuming European sheet sizes A4, A3, A2, A1 & A0 roughly correspond to US sheet sizes A, B, C, D & E?

The customer has also expressed a wish to use Tekla XSteel to produce new drawings. Is this software widely used in the US design world or could someone suggest a more widely used software package for the US market?

TIA

Jim Stevenson Abacad Design

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Reply to
Jim Stevenson
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In general, steel construction in the US is standardized by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). Take a look at

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They published a couple of books, Manual of Steel Construction, &, Detailing for Steel Construction, but I have heard that these are now a single volume. The Manual of Steel Construction covers physical properties of US standard rolled shapes, nominal dimensions & joint design, etc. The Detailing for Steel Construction covers the "drafting" dimensions of US standard rolled shapes, stuff like hole gages, etc.

Reply to
Mark Smith

Well, a few things are being discussed and hear are my couple coper pennys

if your dimensions are directly associated to your details at a one to one Scale i belive it is possible to change the dimension properties through Autocad's Dimension Settings.

The paper Sizes are relative to the plot style's. You can choose extense to maximize the paper Area being used you may need to set a PC2 of Pc3 file with the appropiate pen settings. not a problem!

and last but not least I have seen the X steel Demos and it appears to be an extensive program with all the fixing to produce any kind of structural or misc. steel details. although I must say SD/S2 or something like that is being used more than X-steel for structural detailing. I am working on putting some time into these two programs, but it will take some investment, too much money for my shallow pockets.

hopefully at the end of this month my boss will make a choice on which program to use after attending a seminar.

There you go My UK friend Viva El Salvador

Reply to
Wuillian Medrano

Although strucad and xsteel are excellent steel detailing programmes, both require a significant investment. A single customer request for the contract in one of the software programmes, would not be a justified investment in either. Having used both , I understand the immense benefits for the customer in getting his drawings on one of them. Detailing steelwork on autocad in preference to strucad/xsteel is like using an abbacus as opposed to a laptop. If a strucad detailer were given all of the contract info at the startup, he could finish the contract extremely quickly. Alternatively draw the initial plan layout, and supply a strucad detailer with the autocad plan, he can dxf it into strucad and get detailing fast.

Tim

Reply to
tim Murphy

Thanks for the reference Mark

Jim

Reply to
Jim Stevenson

Thanks guys for all the input, it's much appreciated. I like the idea of sub-contracting the detailing out to a StruCAD/XSteel man, it would give me more time to bring the AutoCAD drawings up to standard as the originals leave a bit to be desired :)

Regards,

Jim Abacad Design

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Reply to
Jim Stevenson

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