Tube clamp handrail system

What it is

A tube clamp handrail is built from galvanised steel tube and a family of slip-on fittings – tees, elbows, crosses, base flanges, wall flanges and swivels – each locked to the tube by one or more hexagon socket grub screws. Nothing is welded and nothing is threaded on site: the installer cuts or receives the tube to length, slides the fittings on, aligns the run and tightens the screws with an Allen key. The same parts can be dismantled and reused.

That flexibility is the main reason to choose the system. Runs can be altered when plant is moved, sections can be taken down for maintenance and put back the same day, and a damaged length is replaced by loosening two screws. Because the tube is galvanised before assembly and no heat is applied on site, the zinc coating stays intact along the whole run.

The system suits light-duty access and protection: roof access walkways, plant room handrails, barriers around equipment, temporary and permanent rails on construction sites, and simple frames for shelving, signage and guards. For heavier industrial edges World Steel recommends the fabricated WS modular guardrail or a welded industrial handrail.

Types and options

Tube is supplied in 33.7 mm, 42.4 mm and 48.3 mm outside diameter to EN 10255, AS 1074 or ASTM A53 – the fitting bore must match the tube size and wall used. Toe boards, mesh infill and self-closing gates can be added with the fittings from our toe board and gate ranges.

Design and compliance

A tube clamp joint relies on grub screw friction and bearing, so its capacity depends on the specific fitting, tube wall, screw torque and upright spacing. The load the barrier must resist comes from AS/NZS 1170.1 Table 3.3 in Australia, ASCE 7 (50 lb/ft on the top rail and a 200 lb point load) and OSHA 1910.29 in the US, and EN 1991-1-1 in Europe. World Steel verifies each fitting and tube combination by the manufacturer's test data or by calculation, and sets the maximum upright spacing from that check – never from a generic table.

Heights follow the code: 900–1100 mm under AS 1657, 42 in ± 3 in under OSHA, and at least 1100 mm under EN ISO 14122-3. In public buildings, where the NCC or IBC applies and small-sphere opening rules govern, a picket commercial balustrade is usually more suitable than an open two-rail system.

Fabrication and supply at World Steel

The cast fittings – malleable iron or steel, hot-dip galvanised – are produced by specialist foundries and sourced by World Steel to the project's size and load requirements; we do not cast them. What World Steel does is the work that makes a kit install quickly: tube is cut to the layout, deburred, hot-dip galvanised by qualified galvanisers, marked by run, and packed with the correct fittings, grub screws, anchors and end caps. Kits are checked against the layout before packing and can travel in the same container as the roof platforms and catwalks they protect.

Installation and selecting

• Fix base or side flanges with the anchors specified for the substrate, then fit uprights and rails.
• Align the run, then tighten all grub screws to the fitting supplier's recommended torque.
• Re-check screw tightness at handover and during periodic inspection.
• Specify the layout, governing code, tube size, mounting type, finish and any gates or toe boards.