Steel rolls roll off truck bed - GIF

[Toolmaker51]

Those rolls are not light either. The public is lucky the roll got jammed between the two trucks. Could you imagine what would happen if the roll decided to roll down a busy side walk.

As wizard69 states, definitely NOT light. You might see a truck carry 3 large spools of wire rope, never coiled sheet or wire. Wire rope can only be rolled to a particular minimum diameter, hence the hollow core of wood or metal spool, and I suspect a fraction the length of coil stock. The whole point of coil is shipping greatest quantity possible and that is bound by GVW of semi's and flatbeds.
All that aside, even truckloads of crackers need to be secured.

I appreciate Jon's comment "...driver failed to pat it with one hand and say: "Yup, that'll hold."
"You gotta do that!"

Somewhere in HMT.net a comment noted a video depicted a hand pat on a project indicating completion and satisfaction. They added it's a common Teutonic gesture, rather like affection for an inanimate but 'live' object.

[mklotz]

You might see a truck carry 3 large spools of wire rope, never coiled sheet or wire.

I swear one can find ANYTHING on the web. Curious about the weight of a roll of steel, I Googled and found...

Steel Coil Weight Chart

which says, if I'm reading correctly, that a coil 12" wide and 48" in diameter (close to what I see on the road around here) weighs around 5000 pounds (2.5 tons).

No wonder you never see the trucks carrying more than two. Most of the time I see them with only one, but I have seen them with two, although it's been too long ago to remember dimensions.


On edit...

I used my WEIGHT program to calculate the weight of a steel washer with the following dimensions...

ID = 20 in
OD = 48 in
thickness = 12 in

and it came back with ~18000 in^3 for a weight of 5089 lbs which is in very close agreement with the result obtained from the table. IOW, there isn't much difference between the rolled steel and solid steel which seems intuitively correct.

[Toolmaker51]

Yes Marv, totally correct search and calculations. Very little 'air' in a coil, nearly solid. Loose coil happens occasionally, and cause problems in the un-coiler and straightener rolls because inconsistent tension.
For whatever reason I look at what trucks carry, a 12" wide spool is rare. I see ~ 48" ish commonly, we have garage door manufacturers in the area, so those might run 20k+. I'm sure they slit 18" or 24", getting 2 or 3 panels from that width. The gauge of door at home is maybe 24 [.0239] flimsy by itself, requires corrugations and surface embossing to attain state of semi-rigidity.

[Jon]

Wire spool rolls down highway. 1:36 video:

[Frank S]

Wire spool rolls down highway. 1:36 video:

The guy is lucky no one was killed by the spool rolling down the wrong side of the highway.

[Jon]

Regarding the weight of a steel coil:

[Toolmaker51]

Hmm, what else is a concentrated load [round on the bottom even] over the beams instead of the axle sets. When I notice coils being trucked, they're never so far forward, unless one is over the pin and other back on the axles.
Looks like problem for a wrecker to clear too.

[Frank S]

rated for 60,000 lbs in 10 feet does not mean it can haul even 40,000 in just a few inches. Toolmaker 51 is correct the large coils are normally loaded over the axles or the pin. A coil of this size needed to be over the center of the forward axle of the group this would have still transferred some needed weight to the tractor but not put extreme stress on the weakest section of a trailer, the area right in front of the most forward suspension mount.

[hemmjo]

The guy is lucky no one was killed by the spool rolling down the wrong side of the highway.

I want to know what the guy with the truck and trailer was doing? Looked like he pulled away and lost a tire off the trailer, then he is stopped again on the side of the road after the spool stopped? Surely that spool of wire was on that little trailer?

[trinketman]

That size coil would weigh 45-50 K . I know ,I've loaded them. The driver says where he wants it placed.