In our plant we are currently required to approve the welding on all handrail. It is always 2-1/4 inch sch 40, SA 106 B. All the welders are qualified to either an AWS or ASME procedure. This is being viewed as "no value-low value work" and I tend to agree. I think with a little direction in a procedure or specification that a qualified welder should be able to restore or fabricate a standard handrail without an approval everytime. Does anyone else have such a stringent requirement? Are there any codes or industry standards that cover handrail construction? thanks.
heritage06,
This is a very vague question, so let me try to help by asking the two first questions.
What code are you working to? Structural steel D1.1?
What do the specifications refer to for welding? Per/in accordance with what?
Next, what does your quality manual state?
jrw159
The only design requirements I know of are in OSHA Part 1910.23. There is no reference to a standard for fabrication or inspection. We treat handrails as "miscellaneous steel" during construction, have a drawing for typical fabrication details, and require use of a qualified welder and procedure, but they are not usually inspected.
From OSHA Part 1910.23, Guarding floor and wall openings and holes:
1910.23(e)(5)
1910.23(e)(5)(i)
A handrail shall consist of a lengthwise member mounted directly on a wall or partition by means of brackets attached to the lower side of the handrail so as to offer no obstruction to a smooth surface along the top and both sides of the handrail. The handrail shall be of rounded or other section that will furnish an adequate handhold for anyone grasping it to avoid falling. The ends of the handrail should be turned in to the supporting wall or otherwise arranged so as not to constitute a projection hazard.
1910.23(e)(5)(ii)
The height of handrails shall be not more than 34 inches nor less than 30 inches from upper surface of handrail to surface of tread in line with face of riser or to surface of ramp.
1910.23(e)(5)(iii)
The size of handrails shall be: When of hardwood, at least 2 inches in diameter; when of metal pipe, at least 1 1/2 inches in diameter. The length of brackets shall be such as will give a clearance between handrail and wall or any projection thereon of at least 3 inches. The spacing of brackets shall not exceed 8 feet.
1910.23(e)(5)(iv)
The mounting of handrails shall be such that the completed structure is capable of withstanding a load of at least 200 pounds applied in any direction at any point on the rail.
In addition to OSHA, You MAY be required to meet ADA [Americans With Disibilities Act] and/or local building codes. These are more concerned with hight and design details including the ends of the railing so that the blind can find them with a stick, than with the certification of the person who built it.
Hello heritage06, everyone has given you a portion of the answer. Confusing? yes it certainly can be, depending upon how your company qualifies in the scheme of things. There are typically state administrative codes that will define certain requirements for handrails, stairs, landings, and such, in other instances ADA requirements could apply. These requirements are usually also governed by their classifications with regard to industrial, home, public and governmental facilities, etc. You will likely first have to determine which classification your particular company falls under, then you can look to which code this would be governed by. Once you have determined these things you should be able to select which certifications, if any, that would be required when doing any alterations, fabrication, or welding. Your companies own views on liability issues and their insurance companies stance could also play into this. Hope this has given you a bit more to go on. I'm sure that others will have additional information for your consideration. Best regards, aevald
Handrails tend to be seen by everyone as "no value-low value" until one fails. This has happened within my company and a serious injury was the result. One contributing factor (though I don't have the investigation report) is likely to be that handrails get used for all kinds of things they are not primarily designed for - all kinds of stuff tends to get hung from or leaned against handrails; people will hook up a come-along and pull against it; etc. I've even seen people attach a chain fall and use a handrail as a lifting point.
We qualify a handrail procedure and make sure we have welders qualified to weld those diameters/thicknesses/positions. Handrails are not junk steel in my industry.
Mankenberg
Another scary thought is when someone uses a handrail as a place to tie off....the loads imposed on the handrail, should someone fall while being tied off to the handrail, is enormous...it's like swinging your 4WD pickup truck off of it.
If not mistaken I think that is how our guy got injured. And it was the handrail that failed and not the fall protection equipment.
Mankenberg
All the hand rails for the maintenance platforms we're doing are welded and inspected the same as the rest of the project.
Handrail and top rails must be designed and fabricated to withstand, without failure, at least 200# of weight applied within 2" of the top edge in any downward or outward direction, at any point along the top edge.
Well, this is a little unrelated but not really.
I had to design a removable guardrail around a mezzanine 20 feet up in the air. To make it removable, we installed the posts into oversize sleeves so the guardrail could be lifted out if needed. There was, of course, some slop (tolerance) in the sleeves and when someone would sidle up to the guardrail and lean against it, it would tilt outwards about three quarters of an inch before stopping. There was a lot of mess on the floor from the people that experienced this.
We finally had to shim the sleeves for a tighter fit.
Bob Garner
Pretty good response to the question and yet I am probably putting too much into it. To answer some of the questions, we have self imposed the requirement that all handrail welding be reviewed by the welding engineer prior to welding. However, our inspection department does not inspect the handrail welds due to being "non-code, non-structural". We have a wps that we use for structural welding to D1.1 and that is what we use for the handrail welding. Also all the welders that fabricate handrail are qualified. What I need to do is revise the weld manual to specify the exact wps and welder qual. requirement and cut out the laying eyes on every evaluation. Thanks again.
I'm shooting from the hip, but I believe I recollect some building codes (state statues) include them under life / safety / fire safety headings. As such, AWS D1.1 is specified. Again, not all states have the same requirements.
Best regards - Al
The only code I have ever seen used for handrails is D1.1 and from the drawings it was used only as reference. There was no callout for inspection only filet and attachment plate size. Your company should at least have a typical handrail drawing for member sizes to use for reference which has been approved by somebody in management.
BABRT's
Contracts usually require all welding to be performed in accordance with the latest edition of D1.1. That's what we follow.
When the contract refers only to D1.1 for welding, without any additional clarifications, the following paragraph becomes legally binding:
6.9 Visual Inspection
All welds shall be visually inspected and shall be
acceptable if the criteria of Table 6.1 are satisfied.
Key words are "all welds", so this would include miscellaneous steel, such as handrails, light fixture brackets, signage, etc. Be sure you want what you ask for.
Correct Marty. Even if the contract documents didn't specify it, we'd still fabricate in accordance with D1.1, because the welds really need to meet some sort of criteria. We fabricate structural and misc., and sometimes the structural guys fab stairs and rails, and sometimes the stairs and rail guys fabricate structural. It's less confusing if everyone is required to meet D1.1 criteria.
I have written a few WPS' for handrail to AWS D1.5 using 1.3.6 (02). This allows for a code reference to weld handrail without WPS testing, if the engineer approves. The WPS' are labeled as "Ancillary". I have never had one of these WPS' rejected. I have even used these for AWS D1.1 jobs and gotten approval from the engineer.
Coincidentally, I have been looking into the same thing.
What I found so far (nothing definitive):
AISC CSP groups handrails into a non-strucxtural category, exempting them from their requirements othere than the end results must be mutually agreeable to all parties. So basically - nothing there.
Our own engineers don't get into railing design because the "loads are so small compared to other building components". They rely on information published RB Wagner for calculations on various connections - and for the most part, handrail pipe sizes and spacings are pre-determined on the contract drawings.
One of our people,while working at another company, had a handrail built using their standard practices (same practices as most others) and they Hilti'd it to a concrete pad. They then drove a fork truck into it at 10 mph. The handrail was bent but nothing broke and the forktruck was stopped in it's tracks. (They videotaped it but we don't have a copy.)
NAAMM has the most that I have seen on the topic. Their AMP 521 has some design information and construction details that may prove useful. But they too, do not address welding specifically; and they leave the final say to whoever has jurisdiction on the area. I don't hink it would be a large leap for an engineer to determine how much weld a connection should have to be adequate.
We have built a lot of handrail but have no specific qualifications for that. I am toying with making up some performance test that would be applicable to handrail welding only but have not gotten very far yet. Our folks here have asked me if any of our competitors do the same, and the answer so far is - NO.
We used to give a 6G 2" SCH 40 pipe test with backing ring for our handrail test. Tests were visual plus face/root bends. A plate test alone would not qualify for welding groove welds on pipe handrails, it just covers the fillet welds.
Hello guys,
I think the most important thing in welding handrails has been missed, pre-welding inspection or even a random pre-welding inspection.
The welder can be qualified but unless he is following a WPS with minimum root gap you are wasting your time.
I have seen hundreds (probably thousands) of joints where the two bits of handrail are butted up tight and then a vertical down E6013 or sometimes a 6011 is run. And then the weld is ground smooth so that there are no lumps and it is nice and smooth prior to painting.
This is the critical part because if it is butted up (partial pen only weld) and then the cap is ground flat you will probably have about 1/16" of vertical down 6013 holding them together.
A decent bump and there is every possibility the weld will break quite easily.
That is why visual inspection of the completed weld is a waste of time, unless there was a root gap to begin with there will be no strength in the joint, especially if all the reinforcement is ground off.
Regards,
Shane
Shane,
You bring up another issue in regard to handrail. Almost all of the handrail I see is detailed to be welded with fillet welds. I think this is due to the TKY requirements that come up when dealing with other than fillets. Detailing the welds as fillets makes everything easier, but it is not the correct detail.
hogan,
You must be mistaken. Detailers would NEVER show the wrong joint detail on a drawing...............
I've been working on a practical and correct weld symbol for a rail post to top rail connection. I haven't had a chance to draw it up but I will this weekend. Basically, it's a fillet weld at the "armpit" of the joint, and a bevel weld at the joint above. I would like a critique of it when I'm done.
Also, with railings, I typically specify that railings are to be considered as structrual steel items under the definitions of Section 2.1 of The Code of Standard Practice for Steel Buildings and Bridges, and subject to all requirements for structural steel.
(I'm a structrual engineer and would like your comments so I can "get this right".)
Thanks.
Bob Garner
O.K., Hit me with your best shot.
Here's a detail for the handrail to post connection that I plan on using for typical handrails. In this case the railing is the same size as the post. My goal is to present a detail that is easily understood, clear, and correct.
Comments welcomed and appreciated.
Bob G.
hey Bob, that looks good to me. i don't think you'll have any questions on that one.
Bob,
Your sketch looks very good. What I'd like to see is a sketch on the last post of rail connection, where the two 45degrees met. Most of the time this is where the welders have trouble with. What I've seen was they welded the outside of these connections vertical down and then grinded all the welds out. I would like to see which welding symbol will be best for that connection.
Thanks,
Sam
A bit late but the IBC 17.3 #2.5 lists stairs and hand rail systems and 17.3.1 lists the D1.1 so for pipe walls of .125 or more....
This is the best I have to offer.
I'm involved in a fire stair project where I was retained after the fact. The railing started to fall apart when they delivered it to the galvanizer. Butt joints failed, welds cracked, incomplete joint penetration was evident where the welds were ground flush, and I could go on for several more pages.
The contractor moaned and groaned that he was never told it had to meet code and that he's lost his shirt on the job. I showed him where it was covered by the building code, both IBC and NFPA. Ignorance is no defence.
All structural joints have to be severed, galvanize removed from the areas to be rewelded, backing rings used for all butt joints and where the posts had to be welded to a connection plate so they could be bolted to the stringers, etc. The welder had to be qualified on pipe with backing in the 6G because some welding will be in the field and he has to weld in all positions in the shop.
Here's the detail I recommended to the EOR.
Best regards - Al
did they forget the weep holes?
By 803056 
Date 02-07-2009 04:17
Edited 02-07-2009 04:26
Yes, they had weep holes.
The welds were so poorly made they simply broke while they were being handled.
They welded the butt joints just as noted by Shane; no groove preparation and they used GMAW short circuiting transfer.
Best regards - Al
