Steel Strapping

Learn About Steel Strapping

• What is Steel Strapping?

  Steel strapping is a type of strapping material that is used to secure heavy or bulky items for shipping, storage, or handling. Steel strapping is made of high-strength steel that can withstand high tension breaking or stretching. Steel strapping is ideal for applications that require high strength and durability, long term storage, load that does not change in size, preventing load shifting, loads with sharp edges and round packages.

• How is Steel Strapping Applied?

  Solution for steel strapping range from manual hand tools to high end automated strapping solution.
  A tensioner and a sealer are used to applied steel strapping by manually by hand. Where the tensioner is used to tighten the strapping band, then a sealer is placed at the overlapped of the straps and performing a sealing and cutting actions. This is the most economical method and requiring the most work. Often time this method will requires a clip or seal to hold the straps together.
  A better solution will be using manual combination seal-less tool. It is generally operated by hand or powered by pneumatic air system, but unlike the previous method where two different tools are required. It only requires one. The initial cost may be slightly higher but is quickly offset by discounting the cost of clip or seal. This method is much quicker as well. The downside of this method is that it is mostly limited to medium duty or lower.
  Pneumatic tools should be considered for heavy duty application, due to their ruggedness and high tensioning power. It also speeds up the process of handling wide heavy-duty straps. A double notched or single notched sealing method is commonly used at this category. The pneumatic tools can be a combination tool, or a sealer and a tensioner.

• Where Can Steel Strapping Be Used?

  Today, steel strapping is mostly replaced by PET strapping due to cheaper cost, easier and safer handling, and lower weight. Steel strapping can be commonly seen in application where the load is made up of steel, metal, and glass industry.
  Load with sharp edges at the corner, you can consider using steel strapping to avoid the needs for a corner protector or guard. As steel strapping is generally strong enough to easily withstand being cut by sharp edges.
  Oversized heavy duty construction or steel load, this includes construction beams, steel coils, large cables, large glass object.
  Rounded bundle loads, such as steel rods or steel piping can be difficult to bundle using other strapping system, where a minimum diameter is required. Steel strapping tensioner that utilises a “pushing” action can have virtually no minimum diameter, except limited to only the stiffness of the steel strapping.
  Steel strapping should be avoided when the load may shrink in size or settle over time. This is because steel strapping has limited elastic range and is not adaptable to changes is sizes. This can cause the strap to come loose, unbundling the loads. A popular example would timber or woods, it shrinks and expands based on the humidity. Yes, this includes wooden pallets.