Commercial Plant Beam Strike Repair

A forklift operator struck a structural steel beam inside an operating commercial printing plant in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Plant management called HSE in to assess the damage.

HSE’s heat straightening team evaluated the struck member on site, established how far it had moved and whether the load path was compromised, and produced a heat straightening plan, the straighten-or-replace decision made before any steel was cut.

The beam was then heat straightened in place. Controlled heating patterns and restraint brought the member back to line without removing it, without new fabrication and without the shutdown a member replacement would have forced on the floor beneath it.

That is the ordinary case for heat straightening inside an operating facility. Replacing a struck beam means shoring, demolition, new steel, shop drawings and fabrication lead time, and a production area handed over for the duration. Straightening it in place, under a repair procedure the owner’s engineer can approve, gives the owner the structure back in a fraction of the time.

The same controlled heating method is used on bridge girders. Our bridge girder heat straightening guide covers the temperature limits, the damage categories and when the repair is not appropriate.