Accept or reject Chinese PT strand

[asixth]

Hi

I have requested mill certificates for the PT strands used on a project. The mill certificates came back from Tianjin stamped saying that they have been tested to and conform with Australian Standards. Should I be concerned with the quality of product used? I have heard stories from fellow people in my industry saying that this material is somewhat below standard and that mill certificates produced are false.

Is there cause for concern?

Regards

 

[kylesito]

I have no idea about Australian standards but my experience with Chinese steel has been terrible. We had a project where 60% of the steel was under 36ksi yielding (these were W shapes specified to 50ksi).

Are you in Australia? If you are in the US, I would require comformance to American standards. Do the mill certificates state any test results or data you can verify? If not, I would request this.



PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[rowingengineer]

Asixth request testing in a nata cert lab. I would request this of any imported product that requires working to get a specified strength. We have had problems in the past.

http://www.nceng.com.au/

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

 

[msquared48]

Just tell them that accepting the steel would stress you out too much.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[hokie66]

Asixth, I think there is always cause for concern with Chinese produced products. They are notorious counterfeiters. There was a story on TV recently about counterfeit gold bullion bars, bars with only a gold plating, made to look like genuine bars from the Perth mint. You have ample reasons to insist on having the strands tested in Australia.

 

[oldrunner]

We have had some difficulty with Chinese steel. For the strands, have a US testing lab verify some wire that has already been delivered here in the States. Q235-A is the usual steel produced in China. It's yield is 34.1 ksi. It usually will work for most of our designs.

 

[dik]

Don't rely on mill test certs unless they are from a reputable agency...

We had some piping, complete with certs that should have tested OK for 1000 psi testing that failed at less than 100... good old Chinese pipe! Cert tests were identical... except for the test number!

Dik