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SYNOPSIS:
Nowadays, pre-engineered steel buildings (PEB), which are imported from foreign countries,
become popular for the construction of factories and warehouses in Thailand. In most of the
PEB projects in Thailand, the fabricated parts imported from foreign countries, have not been
properly examined by the concerned Thai authorities or the third party. This study collects
information about imported PEB steel structures. The method consists of site visiting and
interviews of personnel in charge of design and construction of the imported PEB. In order to
perform a comparative study on the quality of fabricated structures, international inspection
standards for fabrication are adopted in this study. From the inspection results at five imported
PEB construction sites, some defects in the steel structures are found as follows: 1) welding
defects such as undercut, overlap and porosity, 2) defects in anchor bolt such as remaining
screw length less than position of nut, 3) defects in the fabricated part, due to error of
fabrication process such as distortion of area surrounding the holes and insufficient of coating
thickness. The proposed countermeasures for quality control of fabricated steel structures were
divided into two schemes as follows: (a) fabricator accreditation to classify the fabricator
according to their capabilities. (b) checklist for inspection the quality of fabricated steel
structures. These two schemes are the missions of Thailand Structural Steel Society (TSSS).
Keywords: Pre-Engineered steel Buildings (PEB), Steel Structures, Inspection and Defects
1
President, Thailand Structural Steel Society and Advisor, Metal Tube and Cold-forming
Steel Association, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, Thammasat University,
Pathum Thani, Thailand, E-mail: secretary.tsss@gmail.com
2
Graduate Student, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, Thammasat University,
Pathum Thani, Thailand
3
Structural Engineer, Expressway Authority of Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand
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1. Introduction
The fabricated steelwork has sparked concern over the quality of fabricated steelwork
in Thailand when sourced from foreign countries. Therefore, these companies may not be able
to fully control the quality of fabricated steelwork. This is true especially for the case of
imported steelwork. This situation has placed greater responsibility on Construction site
(typically Professional Engineers), as the technical expert relied upon by Building Control
Authorities and the third party to ensure steelwork for Thailand building projects meets the
requirements of the international standard such as welding standard or fabrication standard.
The Propose of this study is to help Authorities and the third party better understand their role.
In Fig.1, PEB as the latest trend in building construction are increasingly confirmed their
outstanding advantages in industrial and commercial projects such as factory, warehouse, cold
storage, showroom, office, supermarket, school, stadium. because of cost saving, fast erection,
perfect quality control and high durability.
In Fig.2, PEB are built by connecting three members to each other as follows:
1. Primary members (columns, rafters and bracing)
2. Secondary members (Z or C purlins and girts)
3. Roof and wall sheeting
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Fig.2 Components of PEB
The fabricated parts are done at the factory and then brought to the site in a knock down
system. These components are connected by bolted at the site of construction. As shown in
Fig.3. The fabricated steel parts are the components of rafters and columns which will be ready
to be imported to Thailand.
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2. Data Collection
In this study, we have visited four companies to collect data on PEB such as design,
fabrication, erection and also interviewed engineers who are responsible for design and
construction. These four companies are the international companies in which their fabrication
factories are located outside Thailand in this paper, they are named as company A, B, C and D.
After visiting the headquarter (Company A) of the foreign country and the branch of
other three companies (Company B, C, D) in Thailand.
For the design method, most of the companies use the Allowable Strength Design
(ASD) and loading conditions as follows:
1. Dead load consists of the weight of all material of construction incorporated into the
building.
2. Roof Live Loads, for built-up frames minimum uniformly distributed live load on
roof is 0.57kN/m2 according to MBMA [6].
3. Collateral loads are included in roof live loads that arise due to sprinklers, ducts,
lighting fixtures and ceilings.
4. Wind loads are governed by wind speed, roof slope, eave height and open wall
conditions of the building. PEB are designed for a minimum wind speed of a 110
km/hr.
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2.2 Material Specification
From the results of collecting data at 4 companies, it was found that the international
standards such as USA and Japan are used for material selection of the frame structure as shown
in Table 1.
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Table 2. Description of visited sites
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3.3 Inspection Result
In the inspection and evaluation process, we adopted the inspection criteria based on
international standards such as welding standard and fabrication standard. Site inspection was
mostly carried out by using visual inspection (VT), bolt inspection, steel thickness and nominal
dry film thickness (NDFT), since this method does not affect on the surface of steel structures.
Interview the personnel at the site construction was done to obtain information about the
indirect and root causes of the problems and damage of steel structures imported from foreign
countries.
undercut
spatter
incomplete
fusion
imperfect
undercut welding
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3.3.2. Defects of Anchor Bolt
From the inspection results, it was found that there are the defects of anchor bolt at
some sites. It was evaluated that the bolt was unacceptable because the length of bolt beyond
nuts is too short, i.e. less than 3 threads, according to JASS 6 [3] as shown in Fig.7 (a). In
addition, single nut is used as shown in Fig.7 (b), but according to MBMA [6], double nut must
be adopted.
(a) Defect of anchor bolts (b) Defect of anchor bolt (single nut)
Fig.7 Defects of anchor bolt at site no. 2
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3.3.4 Steel Thickness and Coating Thickness
In this study, we measured steel thickness and coating thickness of a steel parts (column,
rafter) as shown in Fig.9. The inspection of steel thickness was done by using ultrasonic pulse-
echo testing (UT) according to ASTM E797 [7], and the inspection of coating thickness was
made by using NDFT according to ISO 19840 [4]. The results of steel thickness measurement
are compared with the thickness specified in the as-built drawing (Table 3), and the coating
thickness measurement results are compared with the required thickness (Table 4). From Table
3, it can be seen that the measured steel thickness is more than the thickness specified in the
drawing, and the results are acceptable. From Table 4, it was found that the coating thickness
at some sites are less than the required thickness. Therefore, the quality control on coating
process must be seriously performed at the fabrication factory.
Web
Flange
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Table 3 Result of Steel Thickness
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Table 4 Result of Coating Thickness
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4. Conclusions
4.1 Conclusions
In this study, the defect or damage on the fabricated steelwork in Thailand. It was found
that, most of fabrication defects are found in welded. They are undercut, overlap and porosity.
Distortions due to fabrication process are also observed. Thickness of coating is insufficient.
Assembly defects are found such as improper bolts installation, caused from poor workmanship
in the construction process. These defects can be fixed directly by redoing the construction
process, such as re-weld, re-coat, and re-install. The defect from poorly coated steel could cause
a severe damage to the structure, corrosion damage on the steel surface. In order to guarantee
the safety and serviceability of steel structures in Thailand, the Thai authorities or the third
party should strictly check the quality of steel structures.
Finally, the implementation of a fabricator accreditation in conjunction with checklist
for inspection the quality of fabricated steel structures. These two countermeasures are essential
to ensure high quality and establish standard for steel construction in Thailand. Internationally
there has been various structural steel quality initiatives to reduce the compliance risk to all
parties associated with fabrication of structural steel. In addition, this paper aim of empowering
Construction Reviewers to more competent and fulfill their role in controlling quality, for
projects featuring structural steel.
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References
[1] Thai Department of Public Works and Town & Country Planning, DPT 1561-51 to DPT
1565-51 Structural Steel welding inspection standard using Non-destructive testing, 2008.
[2] American Welding Society, AWS D1.1/D1.1M Structural Welding Code – Steel., United
State of America, Construction and Building Materials, 2010.
[3] Architectural Institute of Japan Japanese Architectural Standard Specification JASS 6
Structural Steelwork Specification for Building Construction, 1993.
[4] International Standard Organization. ISO 19840 Paints and varnishes -- Corrosion
protection of steel structures by protective paint systems -- Measurement of, and acceptance
criteria for, the thickness of dry films on rough surfaces, 2012.
[5] International Standard Organization. ISO 8501-1 – Rust grades and preparation of uncoated
steel substrates and steel substrates after overall removal of previous coatings, 2007.
[6] MBMA: Metal Building Manufacturers Association, Metal Building Systems Manual,
2016.
[7] ASTM E797 Standard Practice for Measuring Thickness by Manual Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo
Contact Method, 2015.
[8] Structural Steel Fabricators Accreditation Scheme. Singapore Structural Steel Society
(SSSS), Singapore, 13 Mar, 2016.
[9] Fussell, A., Cowie, K., Hicks S., Karpenko, M., Ensuring Compliance of Structural
Steelwork - Regardless of Origin. Steel Advisor QLT1001, Steel Construction New Zealand,
2016.
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