Weight of an H-Beam

Not sure what you mean by 5/5 thickness. It could be a S18x__ or W18x__ beam. The thickness would help determine this. Try this website: www.efunda.com/math/areas/RolledSteelBeamsW.cfm

Multiply the cross sectional area in square inches by 3.4 and you will have the weight in pounds per lineal foot.

Not sure why that is "off topic". I was deadly serious!

Hi, ba/ael!

Yep, mostly. For construction grade steel. Good rough rule of thumb. GA

Mark

I stumbled in here, and was astonished to see that this had not yet been voted a "good answer." This is well beyond good, it great!

1. Humorous 2. Technically correct 3. Out-of-the-box 4. Gives the OP the "teach a man to fish" answer rather than, than simply handing him a fish. And even better than all that, if the beer and coffee are consumed at the same time, the OP remains fairly sober through it all. Alternatively, if they are consumed one after the other, then the experience teaches something about the meaning and ebb and flow of life!

Another easy way is to look at the tags for the beams. It should say something like W18x64, where the second number represents the unit weight of the beam.

Sounds like you may have a W18 X 55. The weight of this at 24 feet long would be 1320 pounds. The 55 designation means weight in pounds per foot.

Howdy Guest!

Thanks for shedding light on the funny debate. GA.

Mark

Of course, this can't be answered without knowing the material. The 5/5 you mention could be like the 5/4 (five quarters) dimension in unplaned wood. (Though this would be a pretty scrawny wood beam.) Is this beam wood? Alternatively, a beam of that size in steel could have a web 5/8" thick. In any case, dimensions of the web and flanges and the material would help you calculate this. The volume is simply the cross sectional area of the beam times the length, keeping track of the units. Then it is a simply matter of finding out how much some thousands of cubic inches of the material weighs -- which is what material density tells you.

Also, if you know the width and height of a beam, the thickness of the plates, and the taper at the edges you can just look it up on any of the millions of tables available for steel beams and find out what the unit weight is per length of beam. Multiply by the beam length and you get the total weight of the beam. I have always found it easier to open one of my CE resources and just look it up than to try to determine the cross-sectional area and multiply by the unit weight of steel.

I have always found it easier to open one of my CE resources and just look it up than to try to determine the cross-sectional area and multiply by the unit weight of steel.

Definitely. Of course, then we are assuming the beam is steel, in which case, if it is really 8" wide, it is non-standard. With the odd width and 5/5 thickness, it's a little hard to know.

If the beam is steel, then he could have found the weight in a fraction of the time required to post here by using a site like this. These hit and run posts are pretty common -- not enough info, no response for requests for clarification...

I suspect he measured it roughly with a steel tape. Admittedly I am assuming the I-Beam is steel, since there isn't much reason to use a I-beam design in wood or concrete as square beams are cheaper and easier to obtain for any typical design, and it is a little large for typical aluminum construction.

I think you're probably right.

Needed:

A cross section with dimensions (inch/mm)

Rest Kid stuff.

MM

Actually only other thing he needs to provide for a steel I-beam (or H-beam) is the thickness of the gusset and plates. Though the unit weight of I-Beams is something available in every civil engineering book that covers beam construction, and is in the name of the beam. He could readily look up his cross-section, get the unit weight and multiply by length.