Cold Rolled Steel Buildings

Cold rolled steel buildings have been on the market for over 20 years, but until recently they have been restricted by the number of available manufacturing facilities. However, there has been an explosion of roll forming machine capacity.

Previously cold rolled forming lines could only manufacture profiles that tooling existed for, and automated punching of holes accurately was none existent. For this reason, to add another profile to the roll formers product range would cost thousands of pounds. In addition, changing between profiles would take many hours so, coupled with the scrap this created, it made it uneconomical to roll smaller quantities.

To overcome this, rolled forming manufactures then started cutting the lengths required from the steel coil before the profile was formed rather than after the profile had been made. This shift meant the rolls that formed profiles could now be utilised on servo driven shafts that move in and out automatically in seconds and in increments of millimetres. The old method of cutting the part after forming, meant the material still in the roll former prevented quick change of section size, whereas the cutting of the length before entering the roller former means once the length of material had passed through, the roll forming machine can move to create a new profile quickly.

The cold rolled roll forming industry can provide many different section sizes without the need for expensive tooling and due to the changes in approach, small quantities are now more viable as scrap reduces and speed of section change vastly improves thus having better cold rolled steel buildings.

Within cold rolled steel buildings development, the material enhancement has provided improved load carrying capacity of cold formed sections. Previously material yield strengths were 200 N/mm, then 280 N/mm, shortly after 390 N/mm and now 450 N/mm. Each jump in yield strengths has improved the strength to weight ratio by 8-11%. Thus making cold rolled steel building frames a viable choice. 550 N/mm is on it’s way!!!

Labour intensive processes of off line manufacture of holes, is now a thing of the past. Modern roll formers have servo controlled pre punch facilities. This enables us to pre punch holes where required to the diameter needed, and within a millimetre of the specified dimension.

All of the above means we can push the boundaries of our product further whilst creating more efficient automated processes in design, detailing and assembly.