Square Hollow Section (SHS, EN 10219 / Q235B)

Most buyers who type "SHS" into a search box have been quoted three different things by three suppliers and are not sure which one is actually square. Let me make it simple. A square hollow section is a closed box made from strip, formed and welded on our own tube mill, with the corners squared rather than rolled round first. We run sections from 20x20 mm up to 400x400 mm, walls from 1.0 to 16 mm, and the difference between a good section and a cheap one usually shows up in the corner radius and the weld, not in the price list.

I had a customer in Rotterdam last spring who ordered 100x100x4 for a solar tracker frame. His previous supplier shipped sections with visibly rounded corners, and the clamping plates would not sit flat, so his crew shimmed every joint by hand for a week. We adjusted our forming rolls for the tighter corner radius he needed and sent a short sample length by courier before he committed to the full order. That sample cost us almost nothing and saved him a season of rework. Last month he came back for the second batch, same roll set, no sample needed. If your connection design cares about the corner, tell me early, because the roll set is where it gets decided.

Specifications

Weld and wall, the two things I check before you do

Every tube that leaves our line gets an eddy-current and a hydrostatic check, but I will be honest about what actually goes wrong in this product: not chemistry, wall. Some mills quote 3.5 mm and deliver 3.2 minus, which passes on a tape measure and fails in a structure. We roll to nominal minus nothing on standard walls, and the MTC shows the actual measured values per heat, not the target values. One fabricator in Accra weighs every bundle on his dock scale before signing the CMR. His weigh-check has matched our paperwork within half a percent for two years now. I am fine with customers who check. It keeps everyone's claims file empty, and it keeps my night phone quiet.

What SHS is actually used for

The pattern I see from our export orders: about half goes into structures where the tube is visible, posts, carports, fence frames, greenhouse bows. Another chunk goes into machine bases and racking, where the closed shape resists torsion that an open channel would twist under. If your design compares SHS against an RHS or an open profile, the honest engineering answer is that a square box gives you equal stiffness in both axes, which is why architects like it for columns and why my factory customers keep re-ordering the same sizes. I am not going to oversell it for every case; for a long-span purlin a Z or C profile is lighter and cheaper, and I will say so if that is what your drawing needs.

Packing that survives the port

Sections travel in hexagonal bundles strapped with steel banding, roughly 25 to 28 tonnes per 40 ft container depending on wall. Ends get capped or bagged on request, because a dented tube end in a visible structure is a claim waiting to happen. For a mixed order of two sizes we split the bundles and label each with size, wall and piece count in paint that does not wash off in the rain. A contractor in Perth once told me his unloading crew sorts by stencil first and tape measure second, so we stencil clearly enough that the second step never happens.

Request a Quote

Send me the section size, wall, standard and discharge port, plus whether the tube is visible in the final product, that last bit matters more than people think. A sales engineer replies within 12 hours, and if a lighter wall or a different grade does the same job for less, you will hear it from me before you place the order.