huangyhg

welding in a tight space
i find myself working on repair plans for a series of structural problems at a recently completed building containing a certain big box retailer. neither the original designer nor the original contractor is available to me (in case something goes to court), but鈥攁t least to my eye鈥攖he plans look complete, correct, and easy to build from. nevertheless, there are now engineers and contractors working their way through the building finding and (hopefully) fixing errors.
my current problem involves the roof framing. like almost every other big box, there are steel girder bar joists spanning wall to column to column, etc. with k-series steel joists the other way, and corrugated steel on the joists. the plans call for every k-joist to be welded to the girder that it bears on, as well as for the ends of the joists to be connected to each other through a weld to an 18鈥?splice angle. there are several locations where these connections weren鈥檛 made. it鈥檚 on the order of dozen out of a few hundred. in many of these locations, the erection bolts that were supposed to temporarily connect the joists to the girder during construction are still there.
so the question is, how likely is it that i can send a welder up there to complete the detail as per the original plan? it was an easy build originally before the decking was down, but now there is only the 2鈥?joist top chord depth of space to work in. you really can鈥檛 even see the connection unless you put your head sideways against the ceiling. the question ultimately is, 鈥渋n how tight of a space can you effectively weld?鈥? i guess a follow up question might be 鈥渃onsidering the infrequency of this problem, do i really need to fix it?鈥?
consider a modified connection at the bottom of the top chord to the edge of the flange. lesser length of weld available but perhaps sufficient with a thicker weld and easier to access.
right. i was pressed to supply a detail this morning, and that's pretty much what i did: plate that welds to everything. i think i was thinking too hard about it.

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