316 Stainless Beams
Ever seen a big, 316L Stainless Wide Flange Beam?
You have now!
That is a W16 X 57 316L Stainless Steel Beam that is 15 feet long.
We had 6 of them custom-made for a customer.
Since the demand for a specific, large size beam like this in Stainless Steel is not high enough for a mill to make them the way a normal Wide Flange Beam is made, these are laser fused.
Stainless Steel 316L plate is cut to the size needed and the pieces are welded together to form a Wide Flange Beam.
They are ever so slightly different than carbon steel W16 X 57 would be.
For instance, the specs for a W16 X 57 call for this:
Flange thickness: .715 inches
Web thickness: .430 inches
As a practical matter, 316L Stainless Plate is not made in those exact sizes, so a slightly different size is substituted, .750” (3/4) for the flange and .4375 (7/16) for the web.
The resulting beam actually weighs almost 62 pounds per foot though its exterior dimensions are the same as a Carbon Steel W16 X 57. This is due to the slightly larger material and the fact that Stainless Steel is a bit denser than Carbon Steel.
Finally, as you can imagine, these are not packaged the same way as Carbon Steel Beams:
Not surprising given that the cost of these 316L Stainless Beams is more than 10 times the cost of their Carbon Steel equivalents.
Learn more about beams on our website.
Categories: Cool Stuff