Hi and welcome to Metal Supermarkets, the convenience stores for metal.
I'm Jason Jackson, Operations and Development Manager.
In this video blog series, we've been looking at the ABCs of structural steel
which includes angles, beams and channels.
The first two videos have covered angles and beams and in this final part we will talk about channels
Structural steel channel also known as "C-channel"
is a hot rolled product that has a C-shaped cross section.
Channels consist of two legs connected by a web.
Important terms to know when it comes to channels are:
channel depth which is the distance from the top of one leg to bottom of the other;
leg height which is the outside measurement of the leg;
leg thickness which is the thickness of the leg;
and finally the web thickness.
Like angle and beam, channels also have a fillet on the inside where the leg meets the web.
The radius of the fillet is not always provided.
Steel channel can be divided into the following categories:
Structural Channels: used in various
construction and manufacturing applications;
Ship & Car Channels:
a set of sizes developed for the use in the construction of marine vessels and automobiles
Stair Stringer Channels:
a set of sizes developed for the use in the
construction of stair castings;
and finally Bar Channel:
a set of smaller channel sizes which have a depth range of 3/4" to 2 1/2"
In North America steel channels are specified using
the channel depth in inches and the weight of the channel in pounds per foot
much like structural beams.
If the weight is not provided
you can find it by measuring the channel depth,
leg height,
and the leg and web thickness,
and then referring to the Metal Supermarkets Metal Reference Guide to find the weight and the channel size.
So this particular piece of channel
which has a depth of 3" would be identified as 3x4.1 pounds per foot, standard channel.
In the UK steel channel or "C-section" as it can be called
is measured very similarly to universal beams, using the depth leg
using the depth,
leg width,
and kilograms per meter.
So, this would be a 75x40x5.5 kilograms per meter channel.
Hopefully this video will help you the next time you have a project requiring structural channels.
If you need channel for your next project
Metal Supermarkets is the world's largest supplier of small quantity metals
carrying over 8,000 types, shapes and grades of metal
cut to size and ready fast!
