TPI January 2009

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42 Tube Products International January 2009
Building
Construct ion and
Asked to name the most valuable product in the building trades, a construction engineer
would probably insist on naming two: hollow structural sections (HSS), and mechanical
or “as-welded” tubing.
The selections are unarguable. HSS is the high-strength welded steel tubing that provides
the weight-bearing element in construction. Similarly useful is mechanical tubing, which
offers a cost-effective commodity for a wide range of building applications — little or no
additional processing needed. This workhorse of the construction industry is produced
in squares, rectangles, and rounds in a wide range of sizes and within close tolerances.
Between them, these two go far toward ensuring strength and stability, without which
every other feature of a structure would be rendered irrelevant.
Even as it was becoming apparent that exposed structural tubing would increasingly
require painting or powder coating, surface-critical tubing was already available. When
prefabricated pedestrian bridges with spans to 80 feet called for high strength with
absolute corrosion resistance, low-alloy Corten weathering tubing was there.
As-welded and HSS are the gold standard in construction engineering, and they can be
expected to hold the position into the foreseeable future. But, in the highly competitive
tube and pipe industry of 2009, all makers of tubing products for building are aware of
the unremitting necessity to anticipate the requirements of their sector. Meeting those
requirements is their pride as well as their profession.
Photo – Saint-Gobain Pipelines – see page 44