There’s no confusion as to why steel is being used in the manufacturing industries, construction, aircraft and other sectors. Therefore it’s important to understand steel fabrication and the various processes involved in its manufacturing. The process of steel fabrication becomes important as the metal steel takes various shapes like channels, angles, bars, beams, sheets, coils and much more. Hence it's exciting to learn and understand the vast and amazing spectrum of steel fabrication.
Let's comprehend the definition, types, and industrial applications of steel manufacturing.
Steel Fabrication is the process of transforming raw steel into various types of products or items through the application of several techniques.Steel fabrication is widely used in jobs related to construction and assembly. To obtain the final product, steel is often cut, bent, connected and molded.
Special skills, training and hands-on experience are required for the team involved in this fabrication process. There is little option to make errors or metal wastage during the fabrication. The most common methods of steel fabrication are:
Since steel fabrication is a complicated process, it’s always advisable that trained steel fabricators do it. Various products that can be made out of steel by steel fabrication are universal columns and beams, ladders, skids, pipe racks etc.
Planning and designing is very essential before we start with the process of steel fabrication. It helps to reduce any kind of errors by the time the process gets over as well as raw material wastages. Thanks to technology, the advent of softwares like AutoCAD is widely recommended to use for drafting to make the steel fabrication process seamless. Accurate and swift. You can seek the help of skilled draftsmen who can try out various design options to choose from based on the customer requirements before you work with steel and iron.
Planning also includes listing the raw materials required for steel fabrication. Based on this list the Purchase and Procurement team are supposed to buy the required steel. Finalizing the CAD drawings based on the specifications, features, planning a schedule and job timelines, listing down the safety precautions to be taken, combining the steel purchased, doing quantity and quality checks are also part of planning.
Once planning and design is completed, marking is the next process that comes in the steel fabrication. With the help of several tools, very small measurements can be marked on steel to enable accurate cutting of material and steel fabrication.
It’s highly important to do protective coatings on the steel workpiece to protect it from corrosion before starting the process to make sure the end product is corrosion free.
Once marking is done, the next process is cutting. Cutting helps in removing any scrap or chip present in excess in the workpiece.These excess is sent to recycling centers for steel scrap recycling. The process of cutting includes shear cutting, wedge action and abrasion. In some cases like sheets of steel, there won’t be any scrap of chip present and sheets can be cut perfectly. These remaining steel sheets can be further used for steel fabrication.
Bending the steel is achieved by applying pressure between two ends where bend or curve has to be done. This is usually done using a press or roller bender andbars, plates and sheets can be curved or bent with it. The most widely used bending processes are air bending, roll bending and coining. Each of these processes differ in the amount of pressure applied to achieve the result.
Once you are done with cutting and bending of steel, the next step is to assemble the various pieces to form the end product. This is achieved by either welding, or screwing or bolting depending on the requirements.
Welding, bolting, screwing are the different types of joining processes used in steel fabrication.
As we know welding is the process of joining or fusing the metal together. In this process heat is applied initially to melt and then join the metals after which the pieces are cooled for fusing it together.
The process of bolting is often used as a replacement to welding when working with structural steel. Bolting involves drilling holes in the steel metal. Incases of materials with lesser thickness, punching is used. Once the holes are made, the joining is done by inserting fasteners. Since bolts can be removed as and when required, it’s considered as a temporary process. Another major factor to be considered is that the bolts can contract or expand over a period of time. Hence it’s very important to make sure they are fastened properly.
Upon finishing the steel fabrication process as such, the next thing to be done is quality check. This step focuses on applying corrosion resistant coatings. This will add to steel protection as well as aesthetics.Cleaning the surface also adds to durability and appearance. Surface treatments like painting, anodising and galvanizing are done to finish the product.
Quality checks are done to make sure the steel fabrication is done in accordance with the planning done initially. Various modes of quality checks include visual inspections, mechanical checks and NBT testing.
The process of steel fabrication ends with transportation and installation of the final steel product. Conveyors or cranes can be made use of to move the final steel product. Chains or lifting brackets can be utilized for temporary lifting. Whatever options are chosen, safety guidelines should not be compromised.
The various industries that utilize steel fabrication are:
The Middle East market has seen a tremendous rise in the steel fabrication companies. What has accelerated the industrial and structural steel fabrications jobs is the increase in the amount of construction works. What sets Al Shurooq Industries apart is their immense experience in the field of precision engineering and tailor made solutions at its best quality.
Al Shurooq Industries LLC,
PO Box – 29249,
Saih Shuaib 3,
Dubai Industrial City,
Dubai, UAE.
