Structural Certificate for OEM Equipment

What equipment suppliers actually ask for

A structural certificate confirming slab, beam and column capacity against the specific equipment being installed — its static load in the final position, and the transit load along the route it travels to get there. Magnet weight, gantry loads and ceiling-suspended equipment each have to be accounted for separately.

Supplier pre-installation documentation typically makes the customer responsible for this. GE HealthCare CT documentation, for example, places floor loading along the delivery route with the customer structural engineer of record, and lists a structural engineer among the roles the customer is expected to appoint. The requirement is real, and it lands on the owner.

Testing where drawings do not exist

Older buildings rarely have original structural drawings available, and where they do exist they are often not a reliable record of what was actually built. Non-destructive testing establishes real capacity where design records are missing, incomplete or untrustworthy — which in practice is most existing buildings.

If the structure falls short

An inadequate slab is not the end of the project. Where capacity does not meet the requirement, we design and execute the strengthening — jacketing, additional beams, slab strengthening, steel supports — so the site can still be certified without relocating the project or abandoning the premises.

This is usually far cheaper than the alternative, and it is the reason a structural assessment should happen before the lease is signed rather than after the equipment is ordered.

The transit load is the one that gets missed

Attention naturally goes to the final resting position. But the equipment has to travel there, often across slabs that were never assessed, on wheels or skates concentrating the load into small contact areas. The load path along the delivery route is part of the assessment, not an afterthought. See equipment loading and unloading at difficult sites.