Factors and Measures Affecting the Cost of Building Steel Structure

The cost of building steel structure is comprehensively affected by a variety of factors, and it is crucial to understand and reasonably control these factors to reduce costs and improve economic efficiency.

1. Influencing factors

• Steel price fluctuation: steel is the main material of steel structure, and its price is affected by market supply and demand, international raw material price, macroeconomic situation, and so on, and fluctuates greatly. For example, the ups and downs of iron ore price in recent years directly drive the price of steel up and down, significantly affecting the cost of steel structure.
• rationality of the design programme: the complexity of the structural form, component cross-section selection and other design factors have a key impact on the cost. For example, buildings with large span and peculiar modelling may need to adopt special structural forms and high-strength steel, which will increase the amount of materials and processing difficulty and push up the cost; unreasonable cross-section design of components may lead to waste of steel.
• Construction techniques and installation difficulties: although advanced construction techniques may improve quality and efficiency, they are often accompanied by higher costs. For example, the use of high-precision welding technology or large-scale lifting equipment, equipment rental costs and high labour costs. At the same time, poor construction site conditions, high altitude work, installation of high precision requirements will increase the difficulty and cost of installation.
• Anti-corrosion and fire prevention requirements: steel structure needs anti-corrosion and fire prevention treatment. Different anticorrosion and fire protection coatings or treatments have big price differences, such as long-lasting anticorrosion coatings are more expensive than ordinary coatings, the cost of thick-coated fire protection coatings is higher than thin-coated ones, and the higher the requirement of fire protection grade is, the higher the cost is.
• Construction scale and duration: large-scale construction has scale effect on material procurement, which may reduce unit cost, but may also increase management cost due to complicated management. The length of the construction period affects the cost of capital, such as the extension of the construction period will make the capital occupied for a long time and increase the financial costs such as interest expenses.

2. Control measures

• Optimisation of design scheme: at the early stage of design, designers should collaborate with cost estimators to comprehensively consider building functions, aesthetics and costs. Standardised, modular design, reasonable choice of structural form and component cross-section, reduce the amount of steel and processing costs. For example, under the premise of meeting the building requirements, give priority to the use of conventional structural forms and common steel specifications.
• reasonable selection and procurement: pay close attention to the steel market price trends, low prices in advance procurement or sign a long-term supply contract to lock the price. At the same time, according to the actual needs of the project to choose cost-effective steel, to avoid excessive pursuit of high-performance materials resulting in waste.
• Improve the construction process and management: construction companies should actively adopt advanced and economically rational construction technology, improve construction efficiency and quality, reduce costs. Strengthen the construction site management, rationally arrange the construction sequence and resource deployment, reduce the nesting and rework phenomenon, and reduce the idle cost of labour and equipment. For example, construction simulation and management optimisation through BIM technology.
• Precisely determine the anti-corrosion and fire prevention programme: determine the appropriate anti-corrosion and fire prevention measures according to the environment and function of the building. For example, in the general environment, anti-corrosion and fire protection coatings with medium price and performance meeting the requirements can be used to avoid excessive protection.
• Reasonable scheduling and use of scale effect: make reasonable schedule plans, adopt efficient construction organisation methods, shorten the construction period and reduce the cost of capital occupation. For large-scale construction projects, integrate resources, centralise procurement, unify management, and give full play to the advantages of economy of scale to reduce costs.