The New Zealand heavy metals-engineering industry had an outstanding year of growth. The 12 monthly rolling total for heavy steel usage to the end of September stood at 151,000 tonnes p.a., while a year earlier it was 130,000 tonnes p.a., an increase of close to 16%. However, the fact remains that the industry is still…
This year has been one of celebration at Steel & Tube. It has marked 60 years since the business began, and delivered on some of the most significant internal changes in our history. We organised a range of activities to commemorate the anniversary, providing opportunities for us to engage with long-standing customers, thank them personally…
Dec262014 The New Zealand Geothermal Workshop held in Auckland from 24 to 26 November. HERA Industry Development Senior Research Engineer Dr Boaz Habib recently attended the NZ Geothermal Workshop held in Auckland on 24th – 26th November. The conference was well-attended by the geothermal community and had international attendance from geothermally active countries such as…
Good progress has been made in developing the new steel-concrete composite standard AS/NZS2327. Due to the maturity of the standard, the Standards Australia BD-032 Committee is inviting software companies to participate in the final stages of the development by undertaking calibration studies using the new provisions; companies that already provide design software to other international…
It’s with great excitement that Opus International Consultant and NZ representative on Joint Technical Committee MT-014/02 can report that the long-awaited revision to the 2002 ‘Guide to the Protection of Structural Steel Against Atmospheric Corrosion by the Use of Protective Coatings’ was published last Friday 19 December. The revision is now in three Parts: AS/NZS…
Surface roughness is a measure of the texture of a surface. It is quantified by the vertical deviations of a real surface from its ideal form. If these deviations are great, the surface is rough, if they are small, the surface is smooth. The roughness of a surface has most commonly been measured by an…
The Tiwa Point aluminium smelter operates if they can buy energy they need cheaply enough. That’s what it comes down to in a world of global competition and it’s the same here in New Zealand as elsewhere. Industry operates where it gets the best deal and the price of energy is often part of the…
This month we describe some of the economic aspects of Additive Manufacturing (AM) in metals and make the case for competitive solutions compared with more traditional methods. It is often mentioned that AM or 3D printing technologies are only suitable for prototyping parts that will eventually be manufactured by more traditional means. This is not…
HERA successfully provided SGD$180k savings to their client’s Singaporean 40-storey building Numerical simulations (i.e. advanced finite element analyses) have been performed for an overseas Client by HERA’s Structural Systems division in order to estimate the fire performance of a composite slab with a re-entrant profiled steel sheet used in a prestigious 40-storey building in Singapore.…
New consumer protection regulations for building work costing $30,000 and over are expected to take effect from 1 January 2015. Acting Chief Executive of Standards New Zealand Michelle Wessing said the New Zealand standard 3902 Housing, alterations and small buildings contract will help meet the new regulations and makes the building process smoother and easier…
At the New Zealand Geothermal Workshop held in November 2014, a number of well written papers were presented on various topics related to geothermal research. Among these, some of the best papers were selected based on the value of contributions made to their field of study. Among the prizes awarded was a HERA award for…
This month the 2011 edition of our most widely-used welding standard AS/NZS 1554.1 was superseded by the published 2014 edition. The expectation is that the new edition of the standard will now be implemented by all users. Standards are periodically reviewed to ensure they are up-to-date with developments in technology, to take account of changes…