Hello. This is Brad Fletcher. I’m a Structural Engineer with Atlas Tube, and today I want to talk about jumbo HSS. So what exactly do we mean by jumbo HSS? Well, Atlas Tube is the largest producer of hollow structural sections in North America, and therefore, we also make the largest sizes available in North America.

We make up to the 16-inch square and the 5/8-inch wall thickness, so jumbo HSS are sizes that are larger than that, and these have not been available in North America previous to this. And they’re made by Nippon Sumikin Metal Products in Japan, and through a partnership with them, and Mitsui, Atlas is now able to offer these large sizes in North America. And these large sizes can go up to 22-inch square and up to 7/8-inch wall thickness, so it’s pretty big stuff. And how we’re going to be offering these is through stocking the material here in North America, so that it’s readily available.

Therefore, if you put these sizes on your drawings, you can do that with confidence knowing that the material is going to be readily available from a distributor. Now, if you need more than what we are capable of stocking here, you can order large quantities from the mill directly, but your lead times will be a little bit higher. But if you coordinate with us early on in the project, we can coordinate the lead times so that it associates with your project schedule.

Now, we can specify these jumbo HSS as ASTM A500 or as CSA G40, CSA G40 being the Canadian steel specification. If you want any information on the jumbo HSS, there’s a few places you can visit. You can visit our website, www.AtlasTube.com, to find information on the jumbo HSS, including design properties. You can also visit AISC’s website, where you can download some column design tables in the AISC format, so you can look at the column capacities of these sections. And if you’re interested, you can look up the article from Modern Steel Construction, from November of 2011, that was written about the jumbo HSS when we first entered into this agreement.

So what are some of the applications that you would want to use jumbo HSS? Well, typically, tall, on-brace columns and brace frames are pretty popular applications and these can be used in, say, large distribution centers, where you have braced frames and want to keep the floor area quite open. Another application would be in rigid frames, where you need robust structures. A parking garages is another great example, where you can lower the number of columns you need, which take up your parking spaces.

Long spans is another typical application of HSS, where the jumbo HSS serves it quite well. We’re talking about long-span roofs or long-span bridges. If you’re talking about structures that need to resist blast design or seismic design, or any other robust structure, jumbo HSS gives you another tool in the tool box, and you can also fill them with concrete and make it really robust.

That’s the quick overview on jumbo HSS and how it’s now readily available in North America. Once again, I’m Brad Fletcher and I’m a Structural Engineer with Atlas Tube and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you for watching.