Civil Engineering Association

estimating handbook D.C. Fortuna, 1st ed. 1987
very old book, but i still use it on construction projects

it also have labor productivity tables (man-hour per quantity)

files: scanned jpg format files
pages 111-115

Dear members 01 (hans01 and bus001)

Do you remeber, in our forum is forbiden to post (and to post links) for non english material. This forum is for all members and the forum is in english. At least you can specify the language. Better if you translate for all of us. As we wrote many times in the past use the PM to comunicate or to send links for foreign material.

if you have used revit for steel detailing, you can get the steel tonnage easily by sung material takeoff and quantities...its that simple in REVIT STRUCTURE

revit is powerful but need to do lots of detail drafting work, or is it a faster way of estimating steel tonnage?

dear lirizen
revit is powerful...yes it is...
but "nedd to do lots of detail drafting work"...i dont agree...so this was what your were already doing in AUTO CAD...but i would rather say...less drafting work needed in REVIT...for steel works its very easy even than concrete work...because in concrete you have to model rebars and get volume of concrete ...difficult task to model all bars...so anyway..but in steel there is no rebar so its a single step in REVIT SCHEDULE to get the volume and weight of steel members...unlike concrete members...
you just place a W section in model and there in schedule it automatically calculates the values required...or you can go to schedule and change the depth etc of member and in turn it changes in model....so see no "lot of drafting" needed...rather less drafting work required...

Do you remeber the initial question ?

Quote:For example contractor will do estimation of total steel tonnage of a factory base on architect layout, say 15ton/m² etc. inclusive column, rafter, etc. Or is there any estimation software or formula out there?

The question was how to estimate before and not how to finish detailed design and to totalize quantities.

Hello,

Some rules of thumb.

Single storey building lightweight roof covering up to 40m span (Rafters/Columns/Bracings/Purlins/Rails) = 27-30kg/m2.

Office buildings up to 5 storeys, Floor areas = 50kg/m2 , Roofs Areas = 35kg/m2.

Hospitals, heavy loadings and vibration considerations = 80kg/m2

The above are typical values and will give a rough estimate.

Just for sharing:

Badminton court
18m+18m+18m span (col-col) |^|^|^|
7.8 bay to bay (purlin-purlin) |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|
9 m column height
8 degree pitch roof

Design Criteria:
Metal roofing = 0.15 kN/m²
M&E loading = 0.15 kN/m²
Live Load = 0.25 kN/m²
Wind speed = 32m/s

RHS truss system :
Column+Truss+Purlin+Wall girth+Bracing = 19.10kg/m²

Portal Frame system:
Column+Truss+Purlin+Wall girth+Bracing = 24.00kg/m²

dear REDHORSE

you have posted the pages of a technical book that I deem useful, I'll be delighted if you could given the title of this book.
greeting

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the software design and studies "staadpro, robotbat" automatically determine the exact quantity of elements in steel structure.
to determine exactly how much, the best tool is XTEEL, STRUCAD ...

Extracted from SCI PUBLICATION 178-Design for Construction

Typical tonnages for various types of building

Type of building Typical range of weight per Typical range of weight per
unit volume kg/m3 unit area kg/m2

Sheds (or halls)

Saw-tooth roof structures 4.6 to 7.2 30 to 47

Single bay buildings
with lattice girders 4.3 to 6.3 26 to 38

Single bay buildings
with roof trusses 4.2 to 6.0 25 to 36

Single bay portal-framed
buildings (w/o overhead crane) 4.8 to 7.2 31 to 47

Single bay portal-framed
buildings (with overhead crane) 6 to 10 60 to 100

Multi bay portal-framed
buildings (w/o overhead crane) 4.3 to 6.8 28 to 44

Multi bay portal-framed
buildings (with overhead crane) 5.5 to 10 55 to 100

Special hall structures
(e.g. space frames) 5.5 to 10 44 to 80

Aeroplane hangars
(w/o overhead crane) 4.7 to 8.5 47 to 85

Aeroplane hangars
(with overhead crane) 6 to 11.5 60 to 115

Grandstands 5.1 to 10.5 51 to 105

Low rise (2 to 6 storeys) 9.0 to 12.8 36 to 51
Medium rise (7 to 12 storeys) 11.5 to 17.5 46 to 70
Car parks 8.9 to 16.3 31 to 57
Plant buildings
(w/o steel flooring) 7.8 to 10.9 70 to 98
(with steel flooring) 9.3 to 12.4 84 to 112
Heavy plant buildings
(e.g. BOS plants) 11.1 to 21.7 100 to 195

NOTES: Weights above include cold-formed and hot-rolled steelwork.
Weight comparisons per unit volume are more reliable indicators than weight per unit
area, hence the weights per unit area are simply derived from those per unit volume
using the typical heights.
Design studies can underestimate the weight of steel in the completed building by as
much as 30%.

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sorry.i formed the above reply in table format .but it collapsed.

the first value (range) is "Typical range of weight perunit volume kg/m3"
the second value (range) is "Typical range of weight per unit area kg/m2"