Cable Tray Routing Structural Evaluation

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mull982

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I've been involved as the engineer on several projects now in which we were installing new cable tray to existing steel columns structures in industrial plant environments.

As we plan and specify for installing this new cable tray and cables supported from existing steel structures a consideration comes to my mind for the structural integrity of the structures being able to support the added weight of the tray and cables. Id venture to guess that the majority of the time this is not an issue but as the design engineer to me this is something that needs to be considered.

I was curious to hear from others what the approach to this usually is. Is this something that falls as part of the engineers responsibility or is this something the contractor is responsible for verifying/considering? If this falls under the engineers purview I'm curious what sort of analysis or check is usually performed (perhaps with structural engineers?) to confirm adequate support outside of doing a full blown structural analysis?
 
sameguy said:
Depends on the job.
Design/build contractor
Bidding prints normally engineered
Click to expand...

In most case for me these are design/build projects where we are prime and subcontracting contractor work. In this case would this be something you think we should put as the contractors responsibility? Most of the contractors we partner with don't have such capabilities whereas we do so typically include this evaluation as part of our design team. I'm curious about how often such an evaluation is performed as opposed to contractors just running conduit without any thought to structural considerations.
 
If there is some question as to the suitability of the structure it seems to me that the GC has an obligation to pay a structural engineer to take a look.
 
No practical way to test such a thing. In most cases it’s a simple beam loading problem. You make a math model of the structure and run conservative calculations on the model. Generally looking at deflection limits which are “tighter” specs than tensile limits. You could go all the way to running geotechnical tests to look at soil stability but that is rare.

As with most conditions it’s situation dependent. Most of the time there is no question.
 
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