It is true that there is no unified standard for judging heavy steel structure and light steel structure, and many experienced designers or project managers are often not able to fully explain, but we can consider and judge with some data:

High-rise steel structure

1. Lifting weight of workshop crane: 25 tons or more, which can be considered as heavy steel structure.

Steel weight of the 2, per square meter: greater than or equal to 50 kg / ㎡, can be regarded as chongqing steel structure.

3. Steel plate thickness of main components: 10MM or greater, light steel structure is rarely used.

In addition, there are some reference values: such as the cost per square meter, the maximum component weight, the maximum span, the structural form, the high eaves, these can provide empirical data when judging whether the plant is heavy steel or light steel, of course, many buildings are light, heavy steel have. But there are some we can be more certain that it is heavy steel: such as: petrochemical plant facilities, power plant plant, large span stadium, exhibition center, high-rise or super-high-rise steel structure.

Actually national standard and technical document do not have heavy steel to say, to distinguish light building steel structure, call general steel structure perhaps "general steel" more appropriate. Because the range of ordinary steel structure is very wide, can include all kinds of steel structure, no matter the size of the load, even including a lot of content of light steel structure, light housing steel structure technical regulations only for its "light" characteristics and some of the more specific content, and the scope is only limited to the single-layer portal frame.

Light steel is also a relatively vague term, generally can have two kinds of understanding. One is the current "steel structure design code" (GBJ 17-88) in chapter 11 "round steel, small Angle light steel structure", refers to the use of round steel and less than L45*4 and L56*36*4 Angle steel made of light steel structure

This shows, the cent of light steel and heavy steel is not the weight of structure itself, and the weight of the enclosures that bear, and still be consistent on structural design concept.