1.1 Introduction
A rack is a set of shelves with partitions, either built into a room laboratory, industries, shops, homes, business centre as a fixed or a separate piece of furniture used for storing like chemical reagent, Newspaper, kitchen utensil provision and many order items. These rack used in the laboratory and industries are used for storage. The materials selection for the construction of any rack strongly depends on the properties and purposes the rack will serve. Generally considering all the materials and now material all have their individual merits. But point to comparison between their will definitely show that in general metal have a lot of advantages over non-metals.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Metal rack constructions have the main function of storing goods after production and before market distribution. Different typologies of Metal rack developed in the past decades; their geometrical and structural characteristics varied due to producers’ needs and practical experience, without following codified standards or design methodologies.
For instance, while many types of metal are suitable for high temperature operation non-materials such as wood and glass are suitable for lower and limited range of temperature metal posses a wider range of chemical stability than non-metals. So, it can be said that the obvious advantage of first cost cheapness of non-metallic materials is counseled by other disadvantages of non-metals the most glaring of which is the that of narrow applicability. When considering the cost also, the first cost of materials is even not taken as sufficient indictor on which to base the selection of construction materials.
The following cost factors among other must be considered.
Fabrication cost, installation cost, maintenance costs and cost of replacement. These costs must be considered in the materials selection for construction. Racks drive it name and purpose sometimes from the material of construction and also the shape it takes. In the laboratory, chemicals are arranged in a chronological order, and equipment or apparatus are also arranged in are in the rack for protections of the necessary chemical or equipment. This is usually made of metals. Most racks used for laboratory purposes such as storing of chemicals and equipments are usually made of metals, and in this case, there is much observation of all the operation level involved in the construction of metal rack. This is because of the hard nature in the curing off the excess of the metal during construction. Instead the use of welding is used in the arrangement of different part of the rack. Another major difference better than those rack made of wood and those made of metal is that, wood, wooden rack are always easy to spoil or get damage while metal rack last longer. There are several types of metals that can be used for construction. Metals for construction include Gold Silver, Bronze an Aluminum Iron and steel. There are usually about three type of steel as it constitutes the widest use for metal. These types include low Carbon steel that has about 0.3% carbon, medium carbon steel, that contain about 0.3% 0.7% carbon and high carbon steel that contain 0.7% -17% carbon.
Steel are used in the construction of metal rack, because it is soft to cut, bending and serial operation applied to the metal during construction. The galvanized type of steel has a nature of stainless steel and so doe not support nits. Because of this, it is not painted after using it for construction. In the fabrication of sheets of metals several types of gauge are produced. They include gauge 22, gauge 20,18,16,20, gauge 18, gauge 16, gauge 14, 12, 10, gauge 22 has the highest thickness. Gauge is and gauge 16 are the best types for construction metal rack.
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to construct a Metal Rack.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed problems of the existing racks which entails that the metal rack has insufficient row spacers, incorrect aisle width, overloaded frames, insufficient load spacing and unbalanced pallets.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to construct a Metal Rack. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To design the side view cross section of metal rack column
- To calculate the beams of the metal rack
- To construct the base shear and displacement values corresponding to yielding and collapse of a metal rack
1.5 Significance of Study
This study will be of immense benefit to academic students and other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the design and Construction of a Metal Rack.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection.
The demanding schedule of respondents at work made it very difficult getting the respondents to participate in the survey. As a result, retrieving copies of questionnaire in timely fashion was very challenging. Also, the researcher is a student and therefore has limited time as well as resources in covering extensive literature available in conducting this research. Information provided by the researcher may not hold true for all businesses or organizations but is restricted to the selected organization used as a study in this research especially in the locality where this study is being conducted. Finally, the researcher is restricted only to the evidence provided by the participants in the research and therefore cannot determine the reliability and accuracy of the information provided.
