Manufacturing Process & Design Engineering

Manufacturing Process

Fort Steel truss components are manufactured by continuous cold roll-forming. Roll forming is a process whereby the coiled
steel is passed thru machines equipped with sets of rolls mounted on consecutive stands. Each set of rolls will be performing
an incremental part of the desired bending, until our truss components are formed.

Our machines are regularly serviced and maintained in good working conditions to ensure our roll formed products achieve
the desired profiles. Fort Steel is certified to ISO 9001: 2015 Quality Management System, which under its guidelines,
requires manufacturers to keep its machines serviced in accordance to a maintenance schedule.

Every incoming raw material are also checked for their thickness, colour, tensile strength, flatness and surface appearance.
Any unconforming raw material will be deemed unfit for manufacturing, rejected and returned to supplier. In the event any
unconforming product is manufactured whether be it due to inferior material or manufacturing error, the unconforming
product will also be rejected by our quality control division before delivery.


Design Engineering

Our engineering department is capable of designing the optimum cost efficient light weight steel roof trusses, while taking
into account safety and durability. Truss designs by Fort Steel takes into consideration a certain allowance for safety factor,
unlike others who stretches the the design and loading capacity of a roof truss to its limits to minimise costing.

One of the key factors in roof design is the angle (pitch) of the roof. Many conventional house forms have a roof pitch of
around 35° to 45° Not everyone wants a conventional pitched roof. Flat roofing used to be the province of home extensions,
but many Modernist designs incorporate flat roofs. There is nothing particularly taxing about building flat roofs except to note
that in reality they are never flat but rather built with a minimal fall so that water does not pool.


Common Types of Roofs

 

• Manufacturing errors
  - Truss components with insufficient tensile strength and steel thickness will be extremely dangerous if utilised
• Design Failure
  - Failure to provide sufficient trusses or adequate bracing during design will compromise the structural integrity of the roof truss structure.
• Improperly installed bracing and general poor installation methods
• Overloading the trusses before permanent bracing or sheathing has been installed, like stacks of plywood placed on trusses, for example.
• Improper or inadequate connections to the supporting structure.
• Improper or unauthorized field changes made to trusses.
• Installing damaged, broken or improperly repaired trusses.