Steel rolls roll off truck bed - GIF

[trinketman]

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.

I loaded them at the mill. minimum 5K to 45K

[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.

[Toolmaker51]

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.

Been away from home a few days, mainly peeking in, during lulls between visits. Looking at the pic, 60k Frank S mentions seems appropriate. I missed that's a double drop deck trailer, ie lowboy definitely suitable for loads with a big footprint. But lower means less ground clearance; smaller and/ or not so curved beams AND a flat deck.
Somebody missed the load appraisal, that coil looks a bigger diameter than usual, but so much to interfere at a bridge or doorway. . . ?

[mbshop]

Back in the late 60s a roll came off the freeway, rolled down the embankment and into a house. Destroyed the concrete porch and pillars and stopped in the house. This was a half block from my tech school in Los Angeles. I usually see them chained through from side to side by 3 chains but also over the top by 2 chains, how it should be done. Chp will stop them otherwise.

[Frank S]

BI usually see them chained through from side to side by 3 chains but also over the top by 2 chains, how it should be done. Chp will stop them otherwise.

That is the accepted way of securement but also the rolls are usually set in coil chocks these are nothing more than a strip of flat bar folded on each end to form a triangle the coils are set on top of them 2 per coil in lew of these chocks many drivers will chain down their dunnage for and aft of the coils If a driver has neither chocks or dunnage the shipping company may elect to nail triangle shaped blocks to the floor of the trailer. I don't know all of the DOT regs any more but back in the day no shipper wold load coils on a flatbed trailer if the trailer or the truck was not equipped with either a bulkhead on the trailer or a headache rack on the tractor. If they did and the driver got a ticket for not having one the shipper was liable for the ticket. But that was back in the day.
Looking at the gif in full screen I couldn't see any straps or chains on the 2 rolls on the left rig. Also as noted I did not see any brake lights There is one other thing I noted all of the trucks passing on the other side were cabovers meaning this happened either in Europe, The East or in the Middle East . One note of Identifier was the refrigerated ZIM trailer ZIM transportation and shipping started in 1945 in Israel They used to be mostly a passenger liner service but became a cargo shipper in the 1960's Now operate ships all over the world but their refrigerated line is mostly in Europe and the Upper Middle east.

[trinketman]

There is an interchange I55-70 near troy Illinois famous for high center roll overs and lost coils. The state spent a bunch of money re-designing it to be less of a problem. Typically 7 chains on a coil.

[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.

[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?