When you are one of the steel structureSouth Africa manufacturers, your main aim will be quality control. It is detrimental as failure to comply to set standards may result in structure failure which could cause many problems. Below we will have a closer look at what structural safety is and importance thereof in the steel industry.

Resistance to earthquakes
The use of steel has started to become more popular in the last few years so it is quite a new form of building material and for a good reason. One of these reasons is that a steel structure is way more resistant to major weather conditions like earthquakes and strong winds. They are light in design but very strong when compared to original building products like wood. Although nothing can totally withstand a forceful storm, a steel structure has been proven to offer more protection and less long term damage when compared to concrete and masonry buildings of the same caliber.

Although the above was found to be true, some shocking facts were found during a severe earthquake during 1994 inAmerica. More than 200 steel buildings suffered quite large damage right at their connections. Although the structures itself did not collapse, the type and area of damage gave the architects some food for thought.

One problem that was found was that this damage was found without any accompanying damage to other architectural finishes and cladding. It was therefore found that the original method of manufacturing the steel structures were outdated and needed to be taken up a notch.

In order to do that, some questions had to be asked such as:
Exactly what was it that caused the damage to the structures during the earthquake?
How were damaged buildings identified?
How safe were the buildings after the incident and were they still repairable?
How could the future structures be improved so as to not suffer the same damage?
What would the costs be to totally re-design any future structures?

Many new and improved ways were thought of and ranging from stronger beam-to-beam connections and better panel zone manufacturing.