Structural steel detailing: A process of generating effective shop drawings and erection drawings Today around the world cities and suburbs are growing at high speed and all of us appreciate that but none of us know what it takes to build such extraordinary buildings. We all like to stay in sophisticated buildings which attract the attention of everyone at a first glance. But how many of us are actually bothered about how these buildings are actually constructed. Well, there is no denying the fact that it’s not our business to know that but the fact remains that there is no harm in knowing also.

So let me tell you that development of beautiful buildings that we see around is not possible without the design and construction of an effective structural framework for them. As structure has to support the architecture of a building it’s very important that a significant amount of importance is given to the design and construction of structure by design and construction professionals. And structural detailing remains a quintessential part of structural design process wherein detailers play the most effective role. Today demands for detailers are growing at a

high rate as they are the one who are tremendously responsible for generating structural shop drawings and erection drawings. I should not forget to mention Tekla here, which an important software for structural detailing. Tekla’s indispensable tools help structural detailers to develop accurate structural shop drawings and erection drawings in details. Detailers using Tekla have to first understand the specifications given to them by the clients before creating drawings. Contributions from different building stakeholders are required in terms of providing information when it comes to developing structural drawings. Every building stakeholder provide some or the other kinds of inputs to the detailers which helps them in understanding the structural design requirements of the building properly. So once all sorts of technicalities are known to detailers they go ahead with developing shop drawings which include complete details about structural parts in terms of their size, dimensions and material specifications etc, which are referred extensively for manufacturing structural components. Similarly erection drawings are also developed after properly understanding structural design. Here information is provided regarding effective method of placing structural members in the structural framework so that they stay intact. Erection drawings are used in the end when structure is ready to be erected in the actual location of the building.