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I need to move a machine, approx weight of 900Kg I will put 3 tubes under the machine and roll the machine on the tubes Holidays season, all industrial suppliers are closed around me and only have access to 2 kinds of tubes: 20mm diameter and wall thickness 1.5mm or 25mm diameter and wall thickness 1.5mm

Is the thickness enough to support the weight? Material is construction steel (we call it S235 here but I don't know the international name) i would be interested in the formula to make the calcultion also

Thank you

vib
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  • If you can find scaffolding tube which is about 2 or 2.5 inches in dia then that may work but these tubes sound like they will get jammed too easily unless the surface is perfectly clean & smooth... – Solar Mike Aug 06 '19 at 16:33

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It depends on the dimensions and geometry of your load and the evenness of the track. At first look it looks quite inadequate.

But as a basic rule the smaller the diameter the stronger is the tube.

If you're really out of alternative options, you may want to fill the smaller size tube with rich cement grout and use a 3/4 inch thick plywood between your load and rollers, such that you distribute the load to a wider contact surface.

Make sure that when there is 2 rollers left under the load they share the load equally.

kamran
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  • A downside of smaller tubes is that they don’t rotate or roll well on rough surfaces. – Solar Mike Aug 07 '19 at 06:08
  • @Solar Mike, the moment stress on the tube approximately increases by the square power of the diameter. Very similar to a simply supported beam, m= wl^2/8. Imagine same load on a 10 cm diameter 1.5 mm thick will immediately collapse. Yes, agreed, it will be more difficult to roll though. – kamran Aug 07 '19 at 06:18
  • Which is why I suggested scaffolding tube in my comment - and we kept 4 lengths for exactly that purpose - well used they were too. – Solar Mike Aug 07 '19 at 06:25
  • Right, i gave him that option, when he must chose from his available materials. – kamran Aug 07 '19 at 06:30