My wife, Kristin, sometimes gets angry with me while grocery shopping. It’s understandable. She’s asked me to grab some tomatoes or a loaf of bread and instead I’m just standing there looking up at the ceiling. Technically, it’s not a ceiling, but the underside of the roof, and I’m looking up to see the connection detailing, including whether or not the steel roof deck I’m looking at was welded, pinned, or screwed down to the steel joist, beam and angle supports.

If you’re a structural engineer, you might also do this inside your local supermarket, Target, Walmart or The Home Depot. Many of these “big box” stores are typically constructed of tilt-up concrete perimeter walls, tube steel interior columns, and roofs built of steel joists, girders and decking. Though Simpson Strong-Tie is well known in the light-frame wood construction industry, some may not know that we’ve long been developing and selling anchors and fasteners for commercial construction.

Outside of a few dips into a Verco or ASC steel decking catalog from my consulting days in Las Vegas, my first real foray into the steel decking industry was about two years ago. I was asked to assist in representing Simpson Strong-Tie as an associate member at the Steel Deck Institute’s (SDI) quarterly meeting held just down the road in Dallas in November 2011. Since joining SDI, my main focus has been to find out what the industry needs, both from the installer’s and designer’s standpoint for steel deck attachment. Though we’ve had a screw attachment offering for years, my colleagues and I have worked to develop a better overall system which now includes:

• The Quik Drive® PROSD150 auto-feed screw driving system for steel decking that can drive either our #12 support screws or #10 or #12 side-lap screws quickly and efficiently. Watch a 20-second video of the system in action here.
  
• Multiple support and side-lap screw options available in collated strips or in bulk, with different drill point tips suitable for different material thicknesses and different coatings for multiple environments – see our F-Q-STLDECK14 flier for more information.
• An easy-to-use Steel Deck Diaphragm Calculator for designing your diaphragm for wind or seismic lateral loads (includes combined shear and tension check, and detailed calculations can be printed on demand). Stay tuned for ongoing upgrades to this web app.
• A simple system for providing fastener substitution submittals for previously design projects (send us your structural plans or fill in the Steel Decking Submittal Request form)
  
• Approval of Simpson Strong-Tie(R) X-series screws for steel deck attachment by inclusion into the Third Edition SDI Diaphragm Design Manual, Appendix VII.
• Factory Mutual approval #3045651 – FM Global has you register with their RoofNav system to retrieve more information
• More fastening options in the R&D pipeline to increase shear and uplift diaphragm capacities to meet the needs of the most demanding jobs with cost-effective and innovative solutions

Back to my daydreaming in the grocery store structural analysis of the steel roof system. Have you ever wondered about best practices to design for openings in steel deck diaphragms (say for skylights)? Or about designing for concentrated loads? Or maybe you just want to learn about the roll-forming process or why the underside of deck is typically painted white? If so, you are in luck.

The Steel Deck Institute is presenting a webinar, Designing with Steel Roof Deck on November 13 at 11 am EST. The webinar is intended to expand participants’ knowledge of steel roof deck by introducing them to the benefits, manufacturing processes, shapes, properties, and finishes of this product. The basis of the presentation is SDI’s new Roof Deck Design Manual, which will be provided to participants. Various roof deck design considerations will be explored as well as an overall coverage of fasteners and industry construction practices.

Engineers from CANAM/United Steel Deck and Vulcraft will be presenting. Simpson Strong-Tie will be moderating the webinar and providing two PDHs (0.2 CEUs) for participants. Sign up for the webinar here.

-Bryan

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