Roll-formed racking
Every beam levelmoves in an afternoon
Cold-formed columns punched top to bottom, connectors that drop into the slots, a pin that keeps them there. It is the most adaptable racking there is — and the one place where adaptable and certified pull against each other. OTS designs it, supplies it, installs it and certifies it.
The assembly
The beam is hooked on, not bolted on
A roll-formed rack is a set of parts that come apart. Its useful half and its careful half both come out of the same four pieces.
- The slotted column
- Cold-formed from thin-wall open steel section and punched over its full height. Shape, width, gauge, the properties of the steel and the forming process decide what it carries; the pitch of the slots decides how finely a beam level can be placed.
- The beam connector
- Fixed at each end of the beam and hooked into the columns of two different frames. Because it is the link between beam and column, the connector does more than hang a load — it is a large part of how the run stays standing.
- The safety pin
- A pin or mechanical fastener supplied by the manufacturer or the engineer, whose only job is to stop the connector separating from the frame. Missing or damaged, it is replaced immediately with one approved by the rack's original manufacturer. Not a washer from the shop drawer.
- The frame, and where it is stiff
- Two columns tied by horizontals and diagonals. How high the first horizontal sits, how the rest are spaced going up, what the braces are and how they are fixed are what make a frame rigid — which is why two frames of the same height are not the same frame.
Where it belongs
The default, and a good one
Walk into a distribution building in this province and this is usually what is standing in it. Here is the shape of the operation it suits.
- Single-deep and double-deep pallet storage
- A product mix that changes shape faster than the building does
- Seasonal work — a run goes in for a quarter and comes out again
- A building whose next tenant, or next line, is not decided yet
- Matching or extending racking already standing in the building
- Bays sized to your unit load, not to a module a catalogue sells
- Layouts where the truck stays in the aisle and never enters the structure
- Any ordinary room — dry, heated, swept, not open to the public
None of that is a claim about strength. What a bay carries is set by the section, the steel and the bracing, and a designer can reach a given load with either family. The question underneath is what happens when something goes wrong.
The fork
Two ways to build the same bay
Same standard, same engineer, same load plaque. What changes is how the beam meets the column — and almost everything else follows from that one joint.
| Roll-formed | Structural | |
|---|---|---|
| The joint | The connector hooks into slots punched in the column, and a safety pin keeps it seated. | The beam bolts to the column, and the tightening and inspection requirements belong in the document that establishes the rack's capacity. |
| Changing a beam level | Hand tools, and the level lands wherever the next slot is. | Unbolted and re-bolted where the design put the holes. A job rather than an afternoon. |
| When a truck finds it | A thin-wall section deforms locally around the impact, and damage collects at floor level where the trucks are. | The section is not thin-wall, and a bolted joint does not depend on a hook staying seated. Not immune: all rack damage reduces real capacity, in either family. |
| Repairing it | The component is repaired or replaced and the result certified as installed — never the kit on its own. | The member unbolts. A damaged component may be replaced by an equivalent structural member, provided the engineer certifies the resulting structure. |
| Cold, wet, corrosive | Fine in an ordinary dry, heated building. | The usual answer for freezers, wash-down and heavy handling. In a corrosive environment the standard requires galvanizing, whichever family you buy. |
| Relative cost per bay | Less steel in the bay. It is also what most buildings already have, so matching or extending a run is a question about profile rather than about who still makes it. | More. Whether it comes back depends on how often something hits it. |
Neither column is the better rack, and a supplier who says otherwise is selling what is in the yard. The right answer is the one your loads, your trucks and your building argue for — and where the argument comes out the other way, Structural Racking is the page that makes it.
Before you move one
The rating moves with the beam
This is the bill that comes with the easy joint, and one of the commonest ways a compliant rack quietly stops being one. Nobody welds anything, nobody signs anything, and the plaque on the end frame now describes a rack that no longer exists.
Someone needs a taller level
A new product does not fit under the second beam, and the obvious fix takes two people and a mallet. The least ceremonial change anyone will make to a structure all year.
The standard says stop
Reconfiguring a rack or moving beams is not permitted without an engineer's approval or certified documents, because those changes can create an overload condition. That clause covers a level moved up one slot.
Then the file is reissued
Any component modification or reconfiguration requires re-certification of the structure by an engineer, and the load plaque — bay capacity and maximum unit load — is reissued with it. Moving a run to another building is certified as a new installation.
The easiest rack to change is the easiest rack to invalidate.
That is not an argument against roll-formed. It is an argument for deciding who recalculates the configuration and who signs it before the mallet comes out — and for keeping the certified one where your maintenance lead and your auditor can both find it.
Tell us the configuration you actually want. OTS recalculates it, seals it and issues the load plaques for it — sealed by an OIQ-member engineer at Optim-Structure, our sister engineering firm. How a capacity report works
FAQ
Questions we get
The parts will let you, and that is exactly the problem. Moving beams or adding a level is not permitted without an engineer's approval or certified documents, because it can create an overload condition, and any reconfiguration requires re-certification. In practice it is quick: tell us the configuration you want, we calculate and seal it, and you get new load plaques for the rack you are going to run.
It is the question to ask before anything is loaded. Slot patterns and connectors from two manufacturers can look interchangeable and not be, and that is the case the standard warns about. Every component has to be examined by a competent person, anything of doubtful compatibility set aside, and capacities determined so the permissible configurations are established before the rack goes into service. Mixing new and used components from different manufacturers can also affect their warranties.
Yes, and it is not a backlog item. The pin exists to stop the beam connector separating from the frame — which is what a fork can do on its way out from under a pallet. A missing or damaged pin is replaced immediately with one approved by the rack's original manufacturer. If pins are being replaced by bolts, that assembly should be approved by the manufacturer or recorded in the document that establishes the rack's capacity.
Usually no. It costs more per bay and it is not immune either — all rack damage reduces a structure's real capacity, whichever family it belongs to. The case for it is specific: heavy or concentrated unit loads, lanes the truck drives into, cold or wet or corrosive rooms, and racking the public walks past. If none of those describe your building, you are paying for steel your operation will never call on.
Related
Next step
Start with what you store
Book a call with an advisor. Your unit loads, your trucks and your clear height decide the frame and the beam — and the conversation takes less time than a catalogue.