Panel size and transport

What limits panel size

Transport

Road transport limits set the first boundary: width, height, length. Beyond that, oversize transport is possible but needs permits and costs considerably more.

Lifting

Panel weight and crane capacity, plus crane access on site. A light gauge steel panel has the advantage of low weight — but because of its size, wind load during lifting is serious.

Moving on site

On a tight plot, next to an existing building, the bottleneck is often not transport but manoeuvring on site.

Stiffness during transport

A panel is stiff in its installed position, but during transport it sees different actions. A large panel needs temporary bracing.

What panel layout affects

The position of the joints

A panel boundary is also a joint in the build-up and in the vapour control. Put it where there is a junction anyway — a corner, the edge of an opening, the connection of an internal wall.

The bracing

If a panel boundary cuts a bracing wall in two, continuity of the bracing has to be provided by a connection. That is solvable, but it has to be designed.

The erection sequence

The order of panels determines how erection proceeds and where the crane has to stand.

The practical workflow

1. Survey the site: access, crane position, storage.
2. Clarify the transport limits.
3. Design the panel layout, allowing for joints and bracing.
4. Design the lifting points and temporary bracing.
5. Fix the erection sequence, and match the production sequence to it.

That last detail is often lost: if panels do not arrive in erection order, re-handling happens on site.

When smaller panels are better

When the site is tight, the transport long, or erection is by hand. Smaller panels mean more joints, but a joint is a manageable problem — an inaccessible site is not.

The point

Panel size is decided by logistics, not by production. So clarify transport and craneage at the start of design, not after production finishes.