Steel Structure Design and Connection Design Services

Steel design splits into two jobs that eat time in different ways: sizing the frame, and then detailing every connection in it. The frame takes judgement. The connections take hours, and there are hundreds of them. RIH Engineering delivers outsourced structural steelwork design as a dedicated backend team, covering both: member design and the full connection design behind it.

What you get

• Steel structure design for portal frames, trusses, warehouses, industrial sheds and multi-storey steel frames
• Member design with utilisation ratios and the governing check identified for each critical element
• Welded and bolted connection design: moment connections, shear connections, splices and base plates
• Bracing connection design and gusset plate design with full calculation backup
• Purlin, side rail and secondary steelwork design
• Pre-engineered building (PEB) frame design and optimisation
• Connection design calculation sheets, one per connection type, formatted for review
• Design basis report and member schedules ready for fabrication handover

What we handle for you

Connection design is where steel projects quietly lose their margin. The frame analysis might take 20 hours. The connections take 60, because every one needs checking for shear, bearing, block shear, weld capacity and plate buckling, and the fabricator will query the ones that look expensive.

We take the whole scope, frame and connections, so nothing falls between two parties. You send the layout, loading and steel grade. We return the member design, every connection designed and calculated, and schedules a fabricator can price from without coming back with questions. If you only want the connections, we will do only the connections.

The cost of doing this in-house

Steel connection design is the most delegable high-volume work in a structural practice, and the least delegated. Consultancies routinely put 50 to 60 percent of a steel project's engineering hours into connections, at senior rates, on calculations that follow a fixed procedure.

There is a second cost that does not appear on a timesheet. Under-resourced connection design gets rushed, rushed connections get conservative, and conservative connections get expensive in steel tonnage and fabrication hours. Your client pays for that in the build, notices it when they benchmark against another consultant, and remembers it at the next tender. Cheap engineering hours are not cheap if the structure costs more to build.

Why RIH Engineering is safe to try

Send us one frame. We deliver the member design and the connection design with full calculations, against an agreed date. You check it. If the approach is not what you wanted, we rework it at no cost. If it still is not right, there is no second project.

Our dedicated resource model gives you named steel engineers who learn your connection preferences, your standard details and your fabricator's capabilities. That last part matters: connections designed without reference to who is fabricating them get redesigned on site. We have 11+ years of EPC experience behind the team and 6,500+ designs delivered.

Our process

1. You send the structural layout, loading brief, steel grades, bolt grades and the governing code basis
2. We confirm the design basis in writing, including connection philosophy (simple, semi-rigid or moment) and your standard detail preferences
3. Analysis model built in STAAD.Pro and the frame analysed for the agreed load combinations
4. Member design completed with utilisation ratios and governing checks identified, then issued for your early comment before connections start
5. Connection design carried out for each connection type: shear, bearing, block shear, weld capacity and plate checks
6. Base plate and holding-down bolt design completed, coordinated with the foundation design
7. Connection calculation sheets and member schedules compiled, one sheet per connection type for straightforward review
8. Package issued for your review, with the analysis model included so you can verify forces independently

Tools and standards

Our steel team works in STAAD.Pro for frame analysis and member design, with connection design carried out to code and documented in calculation sheets rather than hidden inside software output. Detailing is produced in Tekla Structures and AutoCAD.

Steel design codes supported include AISC 360, BS EN (Eurocode 3), BS 5950 and IS 800. For UAE projects the Dubai Building Code adopts US codes for structure, and Abu Dhabi work follows ADIBC. We confirm the governing basis at design basis stage and keep the code reference visible on every calculation sheet.

Client-preferred tools: Our team can be trained to use the tool preferred by the client. If your workflow depends on a specific platform, template or drafting standard, we adapt to it rather than force you into ours.

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