Cold-Formed Steel Design Standards Have Been Updated

The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) announced this month that it has updated six cold-formed steel design standards. AISI is an accredited consensus organization by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for developing American National Standards (ANS).

The updated standards, which are available for free download, include:

AISI S202, Code of Standard Practice for Cold-Formed Steel Structural Framing
AISI S220, North American Standard for Cold-Formed Steel Nonstructural Framing
AISI S240, North American Standard for Cold-Formed Steel Structural Framing
AISI S310, North American Standard for the Design of Profiled Steel Diaphragm Panels
AISI S400, North American Standard for Seismic Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Systems
AISI S100-16 (2020) w/S2-20, North American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members, 2016 Edition (reaffirmed 2020) with Supplement 2

According to the managing director of AISI’s Construction Technical Program, these updated standards have been approved by ANSI and adopted into the 2021 International Building Code because they include the most up-to-date industry research and state-of-the-art practices. He also notes that they reflect significant changes that ensure steel’s reliability and competitiveness with other materials in the construction market.

In our previously published article, Cold-Formed Steel Shakes Up Building Construction, we explained how cold-formed steel, also called light gauge steel is made from steel plate, sheet or strip material. Cold-formed steel can be made by roll forming, the method used for mass production, by stamping, commonly used in the automotive industry, or by press braking.

Cold rolling is a metal forming process in which a sheet of metal is pressed through a pair of rolls to reduce thickness, increase strength and improve surface finish. The cold rolling process happens at ambient temperature, below the steel’s recrystallization temperature. This process changes the mechanical properties of the steel to produce uniform, lightweight steel with a high strength-to-weight ratio. Cold-formed steel is also easy to fabricate, transport, and install; it is moisture-, fire-, wear- and corrosion-resistant; and it is energy efficient.

Steel producers need to ensure their product meets building material specifications. Accurate thickness measurement of process-line steel ensures the finished products are rolled to the correct dimensions to achieve specific mechanical properties when formed. To achieve high quality steel strip, thickness gauges are used to detect and correct deviations in thickness in real-time. X-ray gauges are the optimal thickness gauge technology to provide the speed and accuracy required to operate a cold rolling mill. X-ray based sensor systems provide extremely accurate high speed/low noise measurements, permitting producers to realize material savings and quality improvements.

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