How to Use Different Types of Strapping Material

According to its scope, D3953 covers flat steel strapping and seals intended for use in closing, reinforcing, bundling articles for shipment, unitizing, palletizing and bracing for carloading, truckloading, lifting and lashing. "Most people have dealt with the material covered by D3953 without knowing it," says Anthony Mariano, Independent Metal Strap Co. Inc., and a D10 member.

"As one of the first modern materials used for unitizing and bundling, oiled steel strapping is well-known to packaging users, but since the last full review of D3953, there have been many changes in technology, especially in closure methods," says Peter Catlos, chairman of D10.25. These technological changes will be addressed in ongoing revisions.

Catlos notes that waxed steel strapping is widely used in the lumber, metals and paper industries. The standard is used to specify strapping products for purchase, in package design and in design of load securement techniques for over-the-road, rail and maritime transport of goods. Section 13 of D3953 includes several test methods for steel strapping.

Every person who has ever worked with galvanized steel strapping knows that this can be a potentially dangerous product. When talking to potential customers I hear many stories from people who have been injured by steel banding. Either caused by loose hanging pieces of cut metal strapping or when applying and the steel snapped unexpectedly. To date, repair of damaged columns has become increasingly more significant. The failure of columns structure contributes to the serious consequences in structural stability. Most of the existing repairing techniques are based on lateral passive confining pressure. However, this passive-type of confinement is ineffective in restoring the performance of damaged concrete columns. In this regards, active confinement was selected in this study to repair damaged concrete columns which can actively confine concrete in this study. Tempered Spring Steel Strip tensioning technique (SSTT) allows pre-tensioning low-cost recycled steel straps around the damaged column was chosen herein to represent active confinement. A total of 12 columns were prepared and loaded axially to certain degree of their respective ultimate strength. Hence, a pre-damage level of the columns was developed. Then, the damaged columns repaired by using mortar and confined with SSTT. Finally, the repaired columns were then tested under monotonic uniaxial load. The structural performances of the confined repaired columns were compared with those of the repaired columns without confinement. It is expected that as the concrete compressive strength increases, the effectiveness in restoring the load carrying capacity of the damaged column becomes more significant.