We often get questions about using fasteners different from those listed in a connector’s catalog load tables. A question came up recently, and I said, “I did a blog post about that not too long ago.” Turns out that blog post is over 10 years old, which no longer qualifies as “not too long ago.” The options we offer as alternative fasteners for our connectors have grown since that blog post, so I thought it was worth revisiting the topic.
Author: Paul McEntee
A couple of years back we hosted a “Take your daughter or son to work day,” which was a great opportunity for our children to find out what their parents did. We had different activities for the kids to learn about careers and the importance of education in opening up career opportunities. People often ask me what I do for Simpson Strong-Tie and I sometimes laugh about how my son Ryan responded to a questionnaire he filled out that day:
Q. What is your mom/dad's job?
A. Goes and gets coffee and sits at his desk
Q. What does your mom/dad actually do at work?
A. Walks in the test lab and checks things
When I am not checking things in the lab or sitting at my desk drinking coffee, I manage Engineering Research and Development for Simpson Strong-Tie, focusing on new product development for connectors and lateral systems.
I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and I am a licensed Civil and Structural Engineer in California. Prior to joining Simpson Strong-Tie, I worked for 10 years as a consulting structural engineer designing commercial, industrial, multi-family, mixed-use and retail projects. I was fortunate in those years to work at a great engineering firm that did a lot of everything. This allowed me to gain experience designing with wood, structural steel, concrete, concrete block and cold-formed steel as well as working on many seismic retrofits of historic unreinforced masonry buildings.
Twelfth Day of Trivia — Outdoor Accents
I do wish I had 15 or 16 days to talk about more products. I thought about ending on mass timber products such as spline connections (CMSTC, LDSS, MDSS), tension straps (MDCST, MTWS), concealed beam hangers (CBH, ACBH, SCBH), or the heavy seated knife plate hanger (HSKP). Since I’ve written blog posts for most of those already, I decided to end with our Outdoor Accents® decorative hardware instead.
Eleventh Day of Trivia — Foundation Retrofit Plates
While working as a structural engineer in San Jose, California, I had the great opportunity to design many retrofits of historic (and some not-so historic) buildings. Younger me loved the site visits, crawling around in the dust and dirt to create as-built drawings, and I got tremendous satisfaction from helping to make these buildings safer and stronger. Older me would not enjoy the crawling so much.
Tenth Day of Trivia — Shearwalls
The Simpson Strong-Tie Strong-Wall® shearwall was introduced in 1999. The 1997 Uniform Building Code had incorporated restrictive 2:1 aspect ratio requirements for wood structural panel (WSP) shearwalls in high seismic areas. We conducted extensive cyclic testing of complete wall systems (not just components) to prove that narrow Strong-Wall shearwalls achieved the high performance required for seismic and wind designs.
Ninth Day of Trivia — Strong-Drive® SDS Screws
It’s difficult to talk about connectors without talking about fasteners. Simpson Strong-Tie developed the Strong-Drive® SDS Heavy-Duty Connector screw as a high-capacity alternative to nails or bolts, and the first connector using them was the PHD Predeflected Holdown. We released in both the PHD and the SDS screw in 1997.
Eighth Day of Trivia — Double-Shear Hangers
The first double shear hanger was the HUS, which appeared on the cover of the 1984 connector catalog. (Sorry that the image is a little dark. Thankfully, our photography and art design have improved over the last several decades.)
Seventh Day of Trivia — Nailed Tension Ties
We’ve discussed two types of bolted holdowns — the original welded HDs and their automated replacements, the HDAs. Just one year before the HDAs were introduced in 1988, our first nailed tension ties showed up.
Sixth Day of Trivia — Mudsill Anchors
Mudsills commonly attach to the foundation using cast-in-place anchor bolts. It can be labor intensive to lay out the anchor bolts, drill holes in the mudsill at the right location, and then bolt everything together. A very popular solution for anchoring mudsills is our MASA mudsill, launched in 2009.
Fifth Day of Trivia — Automated Holdowns
On day three, I talked about our first holdowns, the HD2 thru HD15, which were welded holdowns that use bolts. A major innovation in bolted-holdown manufacturing was the introduction of our HD2A through HD20A holdowns in 1988. The “A” stood for automated because these products were manufactured on a die that stamps out finished parts, eliminating welding and significantly decreasing costs.
Fourth Day of Trivia — HU Hangers
We manufactured the original U hangers with 16-gauge galvanized steel. In 1959, we created the heavy-duty HU hangers from 1/8″-thick steel angles and a gray primer coat. The HU hangers were available with and without top flanges.