AS 4084 compliance guide
AS 4084 is the Australian Standard for steel storage racking. In 2023 it was rewritten and split in two, and much of what is still published about it quotes the superseded 2012 edition. Here is what changed, and what the standard asks of you once the racking is in your building.
What AS 4084 covers
AS 4084 deals with steel storage racking: how it is designed, how accurately it has to be built, how it is tested, and how it is meant to be used and maintained once it is standing in your warehouse. It is written around adjustable static pallet racking in cold-formed or hot-rolled steel, which is the selective racking in most Australian warehouses.
Whether it applies to you is not really the question. An Australian Standard is voluntary in itself and only becomes law where legislation calls it up. What is not voluntary is your duty under work health and safety legislation to manage risk so far as is reasonably practicable, and when a regulator, an insurer or a court asks which benchmark you worked to, AS 4084 is the benchmark that exists. Racking supplied, modified or re-configured from 2023 onwards should be to the current edition.
What changed in 2023
AS 4084—2012 was superseded on 12 May 2023 by two separate standards. Part 1 is written for the people who design and supply racking. Part 2 is written for the people who own and run it, and it is the one your warehouse is measured against. Part 2 was amended in March 2024.
| AS 4084—2012 | AS 4084:2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | One standard covering design, operation and maintenance | Two: Part 1 Design, Part 2 Operation and maintenance |
| Formal inspection | At least every 12 months; a trained member of your own staff was accepted | At least every 12 months, by a competent person |
| Damage | Assessed and repaired | Classified green, amber or red, each with a defined response |
| Load signs | Load limits, the designer, manufacturer and supplier, installation date and beam levels | The same, plus the tolerance grade and the firm responsible for the structural design |
| Seismic design | Rarely applied to selective racking in Australia | Required for selective racking |
| Records | Not set out in detail | Inspections, damage found, repairs and modifications to be recorded |
If a quotation, an inspection report or a load sign still refers to AS4084-2012, it is quoting a superseded document. That does not by itself make the racking unsafe. It does mean nobody has looked at it against the current standard.
What changed for the designer
Seismic design
Designing selective racking for earthquake loads was uncommon in Australia and is now expected. It affects frame and bracing design, and it is one reason a 2023 design can differ visibly from a 2012 one on the same site.
Direct strength method
Part 1 introduces the direct strength method for designing the perforated cold-formed uprights that pallet racking is built from. It is a more accurate way of predicting what a punched upright will actually carry.
More component testing
Expanded test methods, so that the design data behind a rack comes from measured performance rather than assumption. This is work your supplier does, and it is a fair question to ask them about.
Splices in upright frames
Splices in upright frames are to be avoided. If you are being offered a tall frame made from spliced sections, ask what the design says about it.
Before the racking arrives
Configuration drawings and specifications
Every installation should come with drawings showing exactly how that racking is configured — frame heights, beam levels, beam types, bay dimensions — and the specification the design was based on. Without them, nobody can later tell whether a beam has been moved, and no inspector can tell you whether the rack is being loaded the way it was designed to be.
Ask for them at quotation stage, not after the installers have gone.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 1.6(b).
Load signs
Load signs must be permanent and corrosion resistant, and fixed where people can actually see them — not a laminated sheet cable-tied to an upright. Between them they state the maximum unit (pallet) load, the maximum load per beam level and the maximum load for the bay, along with who designed, made and supplied the rack, when it was installed, and the beam spacings the ratings assume.
The 2023 edition adds the tolerance grade the racking was built to and the name of the firm responsible for the structural design. Nobody hand-writes a new capacity onto a sign: a new rating comes from the manufacturer or an engineer, and the sign gets replaced.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 1.6(a), extended in AS 4084:2023.
Manuals and training
The supplier has to provide user manuals and appropriate training on correct use and maintenance. In practice that means your forklift operators and your storeperson know the load limits, know what damage looks like, and know who to tell when they find it.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 8.1.1.
What to check at handover
End frame height
Where the end frame of a row faces an aisle or other trafficable area, the frame carries on above the top beam far enough to cover a good part of the load sitting on it. The 2012 edition put that at half the height of the unit load. It is what stops a nudged pallet going over the end of the run.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 1.3.11, restated in AS 4084:2023. Confirm the figure for your installation against the rack designer’s drawings.
Upright protectors
Frames at the end of a row, where it meets an aisle cross section, need upright protectors. These are the cheapest safety item in the building and the one most often deleted from a quotation to save a few dollars a bay.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 2.4.1(a) set 400 mm as the minimum height. Confirm the current figure before ordering.
Clearance above the load
There has to be room between the top of a pallet and the underside of the beam above it, or the operator cannot place a pallet without lifting into the beam. The 2012 edition set a minimum of 75 mm for beam levels below 6.0 m and 100 mm above that.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 1.7.2. Your designer’s specification may require more for a particular truck or load.
Flue space and frame spacers
Back-to-back rows need a flue between them: a gap that keeps one row’s loads clear of the other’s and that a sprinkler system depends on. The 2012 edition set 100 mm, which works out at a 430 mm minimum frame spacer in a standard configuration.
AS 4084—2012 Figure 1.7.2. Check your building’s fire and sprinkler design as well as the standard — it may ask for more.
Floor anchors
Where racking is served by a forklift or any other mechanical device, which is almost every pallet rack, each base plate needs two floor anchors. Anchors that were never installed, or that went into a slab joint or a slab that could not take them, are among the most common findings in an audit.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 2.7.5.
Running the racking
No changes without authorisation
Moving a beam level, adding a level, changing pallet type, moving to a heavier forklift or re-configuring a run all change the loads the frame was designed for. None of it is allowed without the supplier’s authorisation, and the load signs have to be updated afterwards. This is the single most common way a compliant rack quietly becomes a non-compliant one.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 8.1.3.
Beam locks on the shelf
Keep a stock of beam locking devices in the building. A beam without its lock can be lifted out by a forklift tyne, and a beam that comes out under load brings the level down with it. Locks go missing during re-configuration; having spares on site is what gets them replaced the same day rather than next quarter.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 8.3.6.
Routine checks
The 12-monthly inspection is a minimum, not a maintenance regime. A short walk of the aisles, weekly in most operations, catches the damage that happened yesterday while the driver still remembers it. Anyone you have trained can do these, and they do not replace the formal inspection.
Inspection and damage
The 12-monthly inspection
A formal, documented inspection at least once every 12 months. Under the 2023 edition it has to be carried out by a competent person — someone with real experience as a racking designer, engineer, installer or inspector. The 2012 edition accepted a trained member of your own staff, and that is no longer enough for the formal inspection.
Twelve months is the floor, not the target. High-traffic operations, cold storage and sites that re-slot frequently need it more often.
AS 4084—2012 cl. 8.2, tightened in AS 4084.2:2023.
Green, amber, red
The 2023 edition classifies damage with a traffic light. Green is acceptable damage and the rack stays in normal use. Amber means repair or replacement is required, commonly within four weeks, and reduced loading or restricted access may be needed in the meantime. Red means the loads come off the affected bays immediately and the area is barricaded until it is repaired.
The value of the system is that it takes the argument out of it on the warehouse floor. A red is a red.
Repairs
Damaged uprights and beams are not straightened, cut, welded or drilled in place, and components are not swapped between brands to make a repair up. Repairs use the manufacturer’s parts or an engineer’s design, and are signed off by a competent person.
Records
Keep the inspection reports, the damage found, what was done about it and every modification made to the racking. Those records are what shows you have been managing the risk rather than saying you have.
What AS 4084 does not do
Four things it is regularly assumed to do, and does not.
- It is not a licence. Nobody issues an “AS 4084 certificate” for a warehouse. What exists is a design to the standard, an installation built to that design, and an inspection report written against it.
- It does not override your rack designer. Where the specification for your particular racking is more conservative than the standard, the specification wins.
- It does not cover every system in the same depth. Cantilever racking, drive-in, shelving and mezzanines carry their own considerations and in some cases their own standards.
- It does not discharge your WHS duty. Working to the standard is evidence that you are managing the risk. On its own it is not a defence.
How Super Rack can help
We have been supplying and installing storage racking in Australia since 1992, from warehouses in Brisbane and Melbourne. Racking we supply comes with the configuration drawings, the load signs and the specification behind them, because you cannot demonstrate compliance without those three things.
Our audit team inspects, photographs and risk-rates every bay, beam and upright, including racking we did not supply, and prices the repairs so you can plan them.
Edition: this guide describes AS 4084.1:2023 and AS 4084.2:2023 (Amendment 1, March 2024), and where a figure comes from the superseded AS 4084—2012 it says so. It is Super Rack’s plain-English summary of what the standard asks for, not the Standard itself and not legal advice — the Standard is published by Standards Australia. Dimensions are given to show what the standard addresses, not as a substitute for your rack designer’s specification. If in doubt, ask us or ask the engineer who designed your racking.