Live from behind welding masks and safety gear, it’s the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project Team!
First, the team is mega grateful for the donation of material, work space, time and patience from Jim Turnipseed, head of Turnipseed International. He’s invited the graduate students to fabricate the steel for the stair, walkway, door frame, and most importantly structural columns and bracing for the TMBV Test Buildings at his metal shop in Columbiana, AL. Turnipseed International employees Flo and Luis are teaching the team how to weld, cut, and drill steel. They, as well as Javier, have been keeping the students safe and teaching them a ton! Thank you to Jim, Flo, Luis, Javier and everyone at the Turnipseed International for their guidance and generosity!
Practice makes… not so bad!
To start out their first week at the shop, the team practiced welding. They salvaged metal scraps and ground the surfaces and edges to help the welds bind.
Jeff Welding 
Livia Welding 
Rowe Welding 
And even Cory welding!
Flo taught them how to work the MIG (Metal Inert Gas) welding machine safely. MIG is a welding process in which an electric arc forms between a consumable MIG wire electrode and the workpiece metal, which heats the workpiece metal, causing them to fuse.
After the team got the general motion of welding down, they began practicing more specific welds. This included welding perpendicular steel pieces, steel tube to plate and fusing square metal tube cut at 45-degree angles. These welds are similar to those on the walkway, stairs, columns, and handrails. Seen above is their pile of practice. At this point, there is no clear welding champion…
Grateful for Grate!
Next, the students knocked out the metal grating for the stairs and walkway which connects the Test Buildings to the ground and each other.
The students marked out the 3’ x 3’ 6” sections on the 20’ long 1” deep metal grating. Then they used the infant-sized angle grinder to break down the price where marked. The team got all the metal grating cut in one day!
Column Connections
Holes Ahoy! 
Column Bracing Ground Connection
In order to fabricate the steel columns and bracings which support the Test Buildings, the team had to prep all the pieces and parts. This meant drilling just under 100 holes for bolt connections in the steel plate and angle which make up the ground connections, bracing, and column base and top plates. The team was also deemed ready to weld the bracing ground connections seen above.
Beveled columns 
Practice Column Weld 
Next, the team beveled the column ends with a grinder to help them fuse to the top and bottom plates. They also marked the columns where the bracing connections were to be welded on.
In order to weld the bracing connections on plumb and level, the team rigged up a jig. They put their newly acquired welding skill to the test to make a stencil which held the columns and plate in place as they weld. They welded all the column connectors and will be moving on to top and base plates next!
Above is the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation teams’ home away from home. Tucked into the corner of the shop they have plenty of room and help from the crew to crank out the rest of their steel work. Thanks again Turnipseed International, and as always stay tuned!