Shaping the steel sector
The use of curved steel bent into shape by UK specialist steel bending companies
continues to help designers create elaborate landmark structures.
10 NSC
January 19
Curved steelwork allows architects
and designers to express a variety
of forms and makes exposed
steelwork an attractive solution. Curved
steel is often a key feature of awardwinning
projects at the Structural Steel
Design Awards. Recently recognised
structures include Bloomberg London,
London Bridge Station and The Ordsall
Chord Viaduct.
As well as being aesthetically pleasing,
curved steel can be a very economical
process and enhance structural efficiency.
Curved steelwork is used across a variety
of sectors and many sporting stadia have
curved steel as large span structures that
avoid the use of columns and enhance the
viewing experience.
Curved beams and roofs
Curved roof structures provide many
architectural opportunities for expression,
particularly where the walls and roof are
combined in one overall structural solution,
so that the demarcation between these
elements is removed. The physical nature
of these roofs or enclosures is that they are
curved to a radius to achieve maximum
Sector Focus: Steel Bending
One of the project’s
steel ribs during
fabrication
Manchester
Victoria
Station
The £44 million project undertaken
by Network Rail to redevelop and
transform Manchester Victoria
station includes a state-of-the-art roof
which has been constructed around 15
curved steel ribs, all of which are unique in
both size and curvature.
In fact, all of the square hollow steel
sections required three or four different
radii within each length, but this was
all within the capability of the specialist
bender and the engineering team. The
second part of the project required steel
plate measuring up to 550mm wide by
50mm thick to be curved to various radii
in order to make the larger sections of
each rib.
Each plate section has been curved to
a specific set of dimensions to allow it to
be assembled into a curved box-section
by the steelwork contractor. These were
then transported to the station site
where they were welded together to
create the complete rib which was then
carefully positioned and installed. Each of
these unique ribs required considerable
precision and tight tolerances to ensure
the installation process went smoothly.
Most of the curved beams were
installed using the UK’s largest telescopic
crane, a 1,200t behemoth, while rib 9,
the largest of the ribs measuring 96m
in length and weighing nearly 86t, was
installed using a 750t crawler crane, which
is one of Europe’s largest of its type.
/Visually_expressed_structural_forms
/Visually_expressed_structural_forms
/Structural_steel_design_awards
/Structural_steel_design_awards
/Bloomberg_London
/London_Bridge_Station
/The_Ordsall_Chord_Viaduct
/The_Ordsall_Chord_Viaduct
/Fabrication#Bending
/Leisure_buildings#Stadia
/Manchester_Victoria_Redevelopment
/Manchester_Victoria_Redevelopment
/Steel_construction_products#Flat_products_-_plates
/Steel_construction_products#Flat_products_-_plates
/Fabrication#Handling_and_transportation
/Accuracy_of_steel_fabrication#Fabrication_tolerances
/Construction#Mobile_cranes