Can you date this steel?

[endecotp]

Dear Experts,

I have exposed the side of a steel lintel and I’m curious as to how old it is. (This is a 17th-century building, but substantially modified multiple times.)

It is 2450mm long x 178mm deep, and the flanges are 24mm thick. I can’t tell the width. To my inexperienced eye, the steel looks surprisingly thick. Did older steels have thicker flanges than more modern ones?

Or maybe it’s not even the edge of a beam that I’m looking at!

 

[Deluks]

Well if it's in millimetres it must be fairly modern. If it was an older one it would be in inches.

 

[JohnD]

If the flanges are an inch thick, I'd think it was iron. I have see such things in canals and railways. Maybe it is cast, not rolled.

 

[Koolpc]

23rd of Nov 1962

 

[^woody^]

Something is telling me late December back in 63.

But does anyone else remember 21st of September?

 

[Deluks]

Something is telling me late December back in 63.

But does anyone else remember 21st of September?

It could be the summer of '69?

 

[endecotp]

I’m still hoping that there’s an expert on the evolution of structural steel dimensions out there reading this….

I’ve now exposed most of an end:

So I now know it is 2450mm long x 178mm deep x 155mm wide and the flanges are 24mm thick.

I can also see that the flanges are flat, not tapered (“w-section”, not “s-section”, apparently).

No modern universal beams have flanges anything like this thick until the depth and width are much larger. So, are non-standard beams with thick flanges often seen? Were they common in the past?

Would you guess this is circa 1980, or 1950, or 1900, or older?

 

[Scally-Ho]

The Shropshire Iron Bridge was C 1781 and after that it was realised that iron was tougher that timber beams, so that one is after 1782 but well before the introduction of steel for construction.

 

[endecotp]

Oooh, I’ve just found this:

https://www.steelconstruction.info/images/a/ab/Historical_Steelwork_Handbook.pdf

Quote: “One of the most regular questions [we are asked by the public] is to identify a steel section by its accessible dimensions”.

Sounds like just what I need!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

I don't know that they'll be any easy way of dating it from the size, the standard steel sizes we're familiar with today were standardized in around 1920-1930 (I think) but I would hazard there were steel factory's still throwing out non standard sizes after that as the industry gradually changed their tooling, in anycase the steel was probably been some left over from a previous job or more likely reclaimed from a previous building/structure from anytime beforehand. So I reckon it was manufactured sometime before sizes were standardized but could have been fitted in the house at anytime in the last 150 years or something but obviously not too recently given the condition of it (though could have already been rusty before they fitted it).

 

[endecotp]

According the the Historical Steelwork Handbook linked above, cast iron is easily identified because it is virtually always asymmetrical; it is so much weaker in tension than compression that the top flange is always smaller than the bottom:

Mine is not quite symmetrical; the top may be 130mm wide v. the bottom 150mm wide; both flanges are the same thickness.

None of the tables have flanges as thick as this for a steel beam of this sort of size.

Maybe it is wrought iron?

 

[JohnD]

I don't think wrought iron was ever made in such sizes.

SS Great Britain was built in 1843 using wrought iron, and it was a technical marvel.

 

[endecotp]

I don't think wrought iron was ever made in such sizes.

Do have a look at the book linked in my post #9. Quote from section 2.3: “It is stated in 1879 that rolled I beams of depths from 3” to 14” in an endless variety were obtainable from different makers in both this country and abroad, particularly Belgium.”

 

[endecotp]

One year when significant work was done on this part of the building - which was a school at the time - was 1863, and I think that is consistent with this beam. Here’s a quote some of you will appreciate:

Major building work began at the site in 1863. Some tumbledown workshops at the west of the site, opening into Toddrick's Wynd, had been demolished. In their place was a large new block containing four workshops and two large dormitories. To save money, the plans for the construction were drawn up by the superintendent, Mr Ferguson, and boys from the school undertook all the joinery involved as well as contributing to the building work wherever possible. The expenditure involved for new building was only £380, compared to a builder's estimate of £600 for the job.

United Industrial School, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland

www.childrenshomes.org.uk

 

[JohnD]

... in 1979....