US Steel Beam Replacement
During this internship I worked mainly on a project for US Steel in Gary, IN. US Steel had a section in their facility that had significant beam deterioration that made the workplace dangerous for workers to continue with their job. They were preparing for an outage so that maitenence can be done in a short time frame. This meant we had to get in quickly, inspect the problem area, create a solution, and provide our recommendation to the facility before the outage so that they can fix the section while the mill is out of production. I had to get saftey training, lift opertaing licence, and clearance before my field visit. This was my first field visit to the mill so I was very excited but also suprised when we drove in and I saw just how big this industrial site was. Before we enter the part of the facility where we needed to do and inspection one of my mentors was told his hair was out of regulation and that he could not enter the area. He looked and me and told me that I was going to have to take pictures of the beams, girders, columns, any obstructions, and a corresponding pictures of where each image was taken on the site plan. As looked at the plan I remember thinking how on earth am I supposed to figue out where I am on this site plan as he was providing me with information and gear. Trying to comprehend all he was saying about how I should assess the area and getting all geared up I felt like I was being thrown in the middle of the ocean. Then I quickly realized that I was presenting as calm and gathering everything I needed to assess the area like I have doen it before. Before I new it I was sent out the main door lugging 20 pounds of gear to an area where the columns were so high and inbetween all different size beams I could not tell where they stopped going up. I new I had my work cut out for me when I saw that there was so much build up on the steel that there was not a single spot where the beams were visible.
We final reached the area in question and I had to climb a ladder into a very small temporary platform they built up inbetween the area. I could not believe the deterioration I was seeing in these beams. They had holes in the web that my arms and some even my head could fit through. Some of the flanges were compromised and had a knifes edge which was not a problem at the ends of the beams. It was an issue if the flanges were compromised near the middle because that's where the bending moment is highest. There were also girders that were sagging and connection plates that could have given out at any time. While this field visit had proven to be difficult I did the best I could and was glad I got the opportunity to see something I could not have even imagined.
After the site visit my mentor provided me with the Revit model of the existing area we inspected and gave me the task of reviewing the 2D plan and 3D model to make sure the plans matched what we saw in the field. This meant I had to go through all of our images and videos we collected and apply necessary changes. Following this I needed to put inand properly lable the replacement beams, girder, and columns. After the replacement beams were modeled it was important to add a few callouts to provided the contractor with a section view of connection details and with information on areas with a more intricate solution. For example we had a beam that needed temporary shoring during the construction process which required a detailed figure.
I was not able to attend the second site visit to see the area after construction was done but I had to sift through allof the images and videos that my mentor took whilst he was there. My objective was to make sure that what the contractors did matched our plans. It was not a surprise that not everything matched as contractors can run into issues in the field that someone creating the designs may not have seen or are not aware of; however, the contractor did a few things different that needed to be fixed before load can be applied to the area. For example the field welding was very poor (welds were splotchy, inconsistent, and missing in places) and due to sagging girders the contractor put the replacement beams lower than the plans given which will in result required shims to be added in some of those areas. This concluded my work on this project.