Planning to buy a steel building? The steel building industry has been enjoying wide acceptance from consumers because of the many advantages that steel buildings provide. Let us talk about the most important facts about steel and steel panels that you should understand before you proceed with the purchase.

Steel is an alloy, made by mixing iron and carbon in a specific ratio. Carbon content ranges from 0.2% up to 2.14% of the total weight. There are other alloying materials used in manufacturing steel such as chromium, manganese, tungsten, vanadium, etc. Alloying materials improve the properties of steel such as its hardness and tensile strength, among others.

The quality and strength of steel panels for your steel building is measured by their thickness, shape, and tensile yield strength.

Thickness

Steel’s thickness is typically measured in gauge units (ga). The rule is, as the gauge number increases, the thickness decreases. Thus, a 26 gauge steel is approximately 30% thicker than a 29 gauge steel.

Thickness of roofing and wall panels for steel buildings are usually 26 gauge and 29 gauge.

Shape

The performance of a steel panel depends a lot on its thickness and its shape. Steel panels with more and higher corrugated ribs and sharper bends are stronger. Some values for rib heights are ¾”, 5/8”, ½”, and 9/16”.

Tensile Yield Strength

Tensile yield strength is a measure of the largest value of longitudinal stress that steel will support without permanent deformation. It is measured in units of force per unit area, as in pounds-force per square inch or PSI.

Panels with at least 80,000 PSI yield strength are recommended for steel buildings. Steel with less than 80,000 PSI yield strength, is more prone to denting, especially as the steel building repeatedly endures wind and snow loads over time.