I bet you’d be shocked if someone told you the epicenter for structural engineering was located in Stockton, California. Well, for two days in late October this year, it was. That’s where Simpson Strong-Tie held its 2013 Light-Frame Engineering Symposium.Continue Reading
Know Your Code
I attended a CFSEI and Steel Framing Alliance webinar last week entitled Specifying Cold-Formed Steel: Finding and Avoiding Pitfalls in Structural General Notes and Architectural Specifications. The presenter was Don Allen, P.E., from DSi Engineering, LLC, and he focused on issues specifically related to design and specification of cold-formed steel (CFS) in contract documents.
Wings or No Wings?
While the title of this blog post might remind you of the tasty turkey dinner you enjoyed on Thanksgiving, it’s actually a question regarding a shear wall component’s effect on performance. What type of fastener do you use to attach wood structural panel sheathing to cold-formed steel (CFS) framing, and what is the effect on a shear wall assembly?
Structural sheathing is most commonly attached to CFS framing with self-piercing or self-drilling tapping screws, power driven pins, and adhesives.
The AISI North American Standard for Cold-Formed Steel Framing – Lateral Design standard (S213) specifies using either #8 or #10 self-tapping screws (depending on the assembly) that comply with ASTM C1513, and have a minimum head diameter of 0.285” or 0.333”, respectively.
It’s worth noting that you cannot verify ASTM C1513 compliance by simple inspection. While screw dimensions are easy to measure, other features such as hardness, ductility, torsional strength, drill drive, and thread tapping cannot be evaluated in the field or by visual inspection. It’s prudent that a Designer and jurisdiction expect a screw manufacturer to validate its product’s compliance with ASTM C1513. This can be done through test reports by an accredited test lab and evaluation data, or by an evaluation report published by an ANSI-accredited product certification entity such as ICC-ES or IAPMO UES.Continue Reading
Happy Thanksgiving!
Wishing you and your loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving. Our U.S. offices are closed Thursday and Friday, November 28-29 for the holiday. Talk to you next week!
– Paul
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Call for Papers: 22nd International Conference on CFS Structures
The Wei-Wen Yu Center for Cold-Formed Steel Structures has issued a Call for Papers for the 22nd International Conference on Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) Structures, to be held Nov. 5-6 in St. Louis, MO. The goal of the conference is to enable sharing of state-of-the-art information pertaining to CFS design.
Both engineering researchers and practitioners have provided valuable contributions to the conference. Past proceedings are available online.
Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to submit abstracts for consideration by the conference steering committee. Application-oriented topics highlighting innovations in CFS applications are strongly encouraged. The deadline is Dec. 31. Abstracts may be submitted by e-mail to ccfss@mst.edu.
What are your thoughts? Visit the blog and leave a comment!
NOVA airs episode featuring Strong Frame® Special Moment Frame Testing for NEES-Soft
NOVA, the highest rated science series on television, recently aired a segment on the Colorado State University-led NEES-Soft project that tested Simpson Strong-Tie® Strong Frame® special moment frames as a seismic retrofit solution for soft-story buildings. Simpson Strong-Tie and our special moment frame were prominently featured in the clip. You can watch the entire “Making Stuff Safer” episode on PBS here.
Simpson Strong-Tie Literature at Your Fingertips
A couple of years ago, my brother-in-law asked if I could stop by the swim club where he is a board member. He was overseeing a construction project to upgrade the buildings and patio covers, which involved dry-rot repairs and the addition of Simpson Strong-Tie® connectors to create a continuous load path. He wanted me to meet with the contractor and make some suggestions for alternate connectors. The as-built conditions didn’t work for the specified connectors at a few locations, and there were some spots where he thought the connectors were “ugly.” I’m probably in the minority on this, but I think shiny galvanized steel connectors are just beautiful. So the “ugly” comment stung a little bit.
Once I got over my hurt feelings, I grabbed my Wood Construction Connectors catalog, a Deck Connection and Fastening Guide, and a few other fliers and technical bulletins that I thought might be helpful and drove across town to meet them. With literature in hand, we were able to come up with ways to work around the more difficult areas, and also select some more aesthetically pleasing architectural connectors at prominent locations. I thought we were done, and then the contractor had a few more questions on anchoring that I needed an Anchoring and Fastening Systems Catalog to look up some information on – and I didn’t have one! I managed to muddle through with my smartphone and find the information online, but couldn’t help but think that there had to be a better way to access design information when you are out of the office.
The better way has arrived in the latest version of the Simpson Strong-Tie® Literature Library mobile app. It was just launched this month and is much more comprehensive than the first version. There are several new features that I wanted to highlight for you.
Steel Roof Decking
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:
2013 Buildings At Risk Summit Focused on Individual and Community Safety, Resiliency
The Structural Engineers Association of Northern and Southern California hosted the third annual Buildings At Risk ǀ Earthquake Loss Reduction Summit in Los Angeles on October 8 and in San Francisco on October 15. Robust panel presentations and discussions presented by professionals from diverse yet complimentary fields targeted a mixed audience of building owners, architects, engineers, government officials, insurance representatives, and financial industry representatives.Continue Reading
Hurricane Sandy, One Year Later
[Simpson Strong-Tie note: Shane Vilasineekul is the Simpson Strong-Tie Engineering Manager for the Northeast U.S. and one of our guest bloggers for the Structural Engineering Blog. For more on Shane, see his bio here.]
The end of this month will mark the one year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy hitting the coastlines of New Jersey, New York, and surrounding states. A lot of construction has taken place in the last 12 months, but most of the rebuilding will occur over the next few years. The boardwalks were a high priority because of their effect on tourism, which is so vital to the local economies, and most of them have been completed (see my previous post about rebuilding after Sandy here). Now the focus has shifted to repairing, raising, and rebuilding homes.
I am writing this while sitting in the Newark airport, headed home after presenting one of our workshops on high wind design. The workshop was held at a hotel in Manahawkin, New Jersey that happened to be used last year by residents displaced by the storm, including some of the architects and engineers in attendance this morning. After talking to a few of them at the breaks, it sounded like they are struggling with the current state of building provisions, which were quickly put in place to ensure rebuilt properties are more resilient, including new flood elevations and renewed focus on code compliance.