Steel Beam Span Lengths

[buening]

Not to threadjack, but does a beam have to span the longer distance, or can you run multiple beams across the shorter distance?

I.E. I'm doing a 32x24 garage... Do I have to do a 32' beam, or can i do 2-3 24' beams?

Depends on your project. In this threads particular case, the beam is to suspend the 2nd floor that is not continuous across the garage. Running beams across his garage would interfere with his center hi-bay. It also depends on how you plan on running the floor joists. Obviously you can't run the wood floor joists along the short width as well as running the beams in the same direction. They need to be perpendicular.

In your case, you don't have a large differential between the width and length. The total steel weight of the 32' beam would likely be less than the multiple 24' beams. You could look into running a single 24' beam down the middle and running your floor joists along the 32'. This would likely increase the depth of your joists and add costs there, and may be a wash in the end in terms of both cost as well as structure depth.

 

[Rob Lehman]

Good Evening Folks!

I too would like a way to calculate the size of a steel beam that I need for my particular project.

I want to construct a roof over a concrete patio area.

The pad is 42' wide and projects 16' out from the building.

The roof will be secured where it meets the building with a ledger board, joist hangers and vertical support columns from the underside of the joists to the concrete pad.

My desire is to have a 46' steel beam run across the full width of the patio and extend past each side of the patio (therefore a 42' patio + 2' extensions on each side = 46').

I would have the beam sitting on steel columns which would be fastened at grade level to sonotube concrete foundations, poured below the frost line.

The joists are 2" x 8" spaced every 16". The flat roof deck would be 3/4" plywood covered with tapered ISO board (1/4" per foot slope) followed by a rubber membrane. There will be no live load on top of the roof, only a northern climate snow load.

For the sake of openess, would like there to be a clear span with no central columns, other than the ones at each end of the 46' beam. I hope this is possible.

I've tried to provide as much information as I though applicable, but I'm sure I have missed a bunch.

Can anyone help me with this calculation?

Thanks
Rob