The much-awaited Australian Standard AS/NZS 5131 was released in December 2016 and sets out the minimum requirements for the construction of structural steelwork involving fabrication, corrosion protection, erection and modification. Before the release of this Standard, Australia did not have a dedicated Standard for fabrication and erection of steelwork. In Europe, a comparable Standard existed, which is a harmonized European Standard EN 1090, also linked to the CE marking of structural steelwork.
In AS/NZS 5131, the level of rigour applied to the inspection documentation and traceability is determined by the selected Construction Category for the specific steelwork. This Standard also provides guidelines for selecting the Construction Category based on the importance factor (as per AS1170), service category (fatigue and seismic considerations) and fabrication category (complexity of the fabrication).
Similarly, EN 1090-2 defines Execution Classes based on consequence class, service category (fatigue and seismic considerations) and production category (complexity of the fabrication).
