Talk:I-beam

Added a question on recycled content statistic

Hello. I'm new to Wikipedia, so please correct me if I'm wrong in approach or substance. I'm a design engineer, and I was reading this article on I beams. I noticed a line to the effect of "I beams generally contain more than 99% recycled content". This struck me as an unreal looking statistic, and I read the reference. The most relevant line in the three page reference document was:

"Scrap consumption in the United States is maximized between the two types of modern steel mills, each of which generates products with varying levels of recycled content. One type of mill produces much of the steel for light flat-rolled steel products with about 30% recycled content. The other type of mill makes steel for a wide range of products, including flat-rolled, but is the only method used domestically for the production of structural shapes and has about 95% recycled content. (These processes are covered in detail on the following pages.)"

Where did that 99% come from? It could have been a misreading of a line in the reference that said (I paraphrase) "almost 100 percent of structural steel sections and plate are recycled", where recycled is a verb, not an adjective... meaning that if you scrap a ship, almost 100% of the structural steel is reclaimed. That's different, of course, from claiming that 99% of a NEW beam is made of recycled material. How would you even measure "more than 99%"? It just sounds bogus. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Again, thanks for your patience if I'm speaking out of turn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.16.133.184 (talk) 2006-11-20T13:50:22 (UTC)

[Replying circa 3 years later] No doubt you're right. The article nowadays says "generally contain more than 95% recycled content.[citation needed]". I'm gonna go change it to "often some recycled content". If anyone wants to say anything more specific than that, then they should bring sources, and feel free to be more specific. Thanks, — ¾-10 01:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Article read

This article reads very technically. Someone should look to make it more suited for the common reader and then go into details further down the article. Perhaps mentioning that this is the most common used framing in skyscrappers, and how it came to be, and then move on to its statistics etc. 142.35.144.2 05:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Also needs explanation of the forces

Without an explanation - preferably in a diagram - of the forces that an I-beam girder resists, this article does not adequately explain the 'I' shape. "Euler-Bernoulli beam equation [...] very efficient form" won't be followed by most people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.186.240.40 (talk) 00:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I-beams vs Wide flange shapes

As an old structural designer it seems to me that the terminology used here is peculiar: an I-beam is a special type of beam that is almost never used anymore. It is a historical anomaly, an outgrowth of when beams were constructed of cast iron back in the early nineteen hundreds. At least in the United States. The wide flange beam on the other hand is essentially universal in structural design. Granted, The term I-beam is used in lay parlance and it should certainly be mentioned, but IMHO, since this is an encyclopedia a relic should not be touted in the dominant way it is here. wgoetsch (talk) 15:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been taught too (in Canada, studying Civil Engineering) that it isn't called an I-beam anymore, rather the correct term is a W-Section Xsinthis (talk) 01:51, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The article also doesn't make a clear distinction between the terms I-beam and H-beam. From the recesses of my memory, it seems that H-beams are a special class of I-beam wherein the flange width is close to the height of the beam. The flange width in an "I-beam" is typically much less than the height of the beam, resembling the capital letter "I" with serifs. — Quicksilver^{T @} 16:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Horizontal

In referring to parts of I-beams, the terms "horizontal" and "vertical" are meaningless without indicating how the beams are oriented. Unfree (talk) 09:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This concerns me too; it is perhaps possible to assume that someone who uses the term "I-beam" will think of a beam oriented like a capital serifed "I", which would mean the web is "vertical" and the flanges are "horizontal", but to someone who uses the term "H-beam", mightn't this be the opposite? Istaro (talk) 12:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

115.186.240.40 (talk) 00:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC) Agreed 

my father and I have argued a few times about this; I call them I-beams, he calls them H-beams. Everybody else we talk to calls them RSJs. RSJ doesn't say anything about the cross-section, but it's common terminology that a RSJ means an I-beam girder.

Question - Designation and terminology

Hi,
I like to inquire, what does it mean the +28 number in this marking: W16x31+28?
Thanks!
Someone should write into the Article! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.98.117.131 (talk) 10:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

answer: 28 = weight per foot — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.92.101.251 (talk) 17:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

answer: W16x31 is a US standard wide flanged I-beam, measuring about 16" tall and weighing 31 lbs/ft. This is all that is needed to specify the I-beam. The +28 is related to something else - possibly specific to a particular building plan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.182.243.136 (talk) 14:22, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

What's the "moment of inertia in torsion"?

Is that the same thing as the polar moment of inertia J of the cross-section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.128.194.159 (talk) 15:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a translation of the French wiki. The polar moment of inertia is what it seems to be, but we'll have to make sure by doing a calculation or looking up the actual table. Can you help?.Bbanerje (talk) 21:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

(i) the numbers are too low to be polar moments of area

(ii) and even if they were the correct values, why give them in this article, which states specifically that I-beams are weak in torsion? The values of second moment of area - resistance to bending - are much more relevant. 86.171.186.193 (talk) 06:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

removal

"Wide-flange shapes are produced by the electric arc furnace method. "

? I thought they were produced by hot rolling - independent of the source of steel? Sf5xeplus (talk) 05:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes they are hot rolled. Wizard191 (talk) 16:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking about this and was wondering if they meant that I-beams are generally produced from arc furnace steel? I seem to remember reading that flat products are generally produced from blast furnace steel because the thin product needs a better control of quality.. whereas long products are generally lower quality steels?? haven't got the reference for this off hand, and don't really know if it's still true, or universally true..Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I know that in the U.S. decades ago it was normal to use steel made via the Bessemer, then later open hearth, then later basic oxygen methods. The steel was hot rolled to make beams, as was confirmed above. Bethlehem Steel's Bethlehem plant was famous for its Gray mill and the wide-flange shapes that that mill was good at rolling. The Bethlehem plant made its iron via blast furnace, and its steel (late 1960s to 1995) via basic oxygen. Know they had Bessemer in early 1900s. Not sure whether they had open hearths in between those two. Re which steel-making process for which products, I'm pretty sure that nowadays electric furnaces are the norm in the U.S. for most products, and their quality level is dialed to whatever the product's market price will support, i.e., they run lower quality on cheaper products but they are capable of top-notch quality on any product whose market price will pay for it. — ¾-10 21:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Designation section to be replaced by new section on standards

Steel sections are defined in national and international standards, which specify information regarding section geometry and tolerances. With this in mind, it would be better to simply remove I-beam#Designation and terminology once a proper section on international standards have been introduced. So, anyone willing to chip in with standards references? -- Mecanismo | Talk 17:29, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

ibeam template

I don't understand what overuse means. Does it upset the wiki software in some way? I don't agree that once or twice makes the point. I'm not trying to make a "point". I'm trying to create consistent readability. The use of the letter "I" in I-beam is not the same as the "W" in W-beam. W stands for wide so it's font has no bearing on anything. But in I-beam the "I" only has meaning in that it describes the shape of the beam. Without a serif font it's meaningless. I'm also puzzled how an experienced wiki editor decides to make a rollback, when there is clearly no vandalism, without discussing first. Seam.us (talk) 10:04, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

I didn't make a "rollback", but I reverted manually with a specific edit summary, which is allowed for non-vandalism edits. I first removed the templates in April 2014, and no one but you, the person who originally added the template, has complained. I did speak to an admin about it back then for a second opinion, but it must have been off-wiki, as I can't find that discussion. I'm not sure if the template causes a load on the page or not, but I'm trying to find out. As for overuse, the word is pronounced I-beam (as in the letter I, not a font), and as long as the reader understands that, the specific font isn't needed at every mention. It makes editing easier not to use it also. There may be some other practical reasons too. - BilCat (talk) 20:33, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect illustration

The illustration at the beginning of this article is of an H-beam, not an I-beam.

38.69.12.5 (talk) 05:33, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Did you read the intro paragraph of the article? - Ahunt (talk) 15:07, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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"HE beam" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect HE beam. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:24, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

RSJ

I don't really know a whole lot about wikipeidia, so I'm gonna stick this here and perhaps some might read it. I searched for rsj and was taken to this page. None of the other sugested pages across the top were what I was looking for. I was looking for a metal band called RSJ. I thought that by searching I might come to one of those pages with links to pages that all have the same name. I've found the page on another tab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSJ_(band) was what I was looking for. Thankyou to anyone who may be able to sort this out and prevent any confusion to anyone else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.51.249 (talk) 21:32, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, your search should have taken you to RSJ, which is a disambiguation page that offers all possible uses of that term. I don't see that there is anything to fix, other than your choice of search engine. I tried a few: Startpage.com and Dogpile go straight to RSJ, while DuckDuckGo and Google Search offer it as about number two or three on the list. - Ahunt (talk) 02:23, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

South Africa

I-beam#Designation and terminology What about South Africa? Peter Horn User talk 15:13, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I'll bite: what about South Africa? - Ahunt (talk) 18:36, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ahunt: This was meant to be an invitation for South African wikipedians to contribute content about the topic as it pertains to S. A. Peter Horn User talk 23:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Well if there are refs anyone can add it. - Ahunt (talk) 23:24, 16 December 2021 (UTC)