Could a stronger roof-to-wall connection lower your insurance costs? Florida’s revised OIR-B1-1802 form now recognizes certain performance-based retrofit solutions for wind mitigation credits. Learn how proper installation, documentation, and Simpson Strong-Tie retrofit solutions can help improve resilience and qualify for savings.
Tag: structural engineering
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Multi-Period Seismic Design
One of my most vivid memories from college is my Struct I professor teaching us that civil engineering is an empirical field. He wasn’t just defining what empirical meant, he was also teaching us we need to ready our minds for change. This instruction came at a fortuitous time. This was 1997 and three years prior to that the Northridge earthquake had rocked Los Angeles and was about to change the way structural engineers look at seismic design and detailing forever. Beginning with the changes codified in the 1997 UBC, the standard of practice for seismic design today has evolved to become radically different from what was followed prior to Northridge. In this article the change I would like to help us all understand is multi-period seismic in ASCE 7-22 — where it came from, what’s “multi-” about it, and how it will affect what you do in your own designs.
Shearwall Holdowns in Multistory Wood Buildings and the Canadian Building Code
When I graduated from university in 2013, British Columbia had already been allowing six-storey light-frame wood buildings via its provincial building code for a few years. Shortly thereafter, I joined Simpson Strong-Tie and became more familiar with practices in the other western provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) which took a bit longer to embrace these six-storey structures. Over the past twelve years, it’s been interesting to watch their popularity rise due to increased demand for housing and sustainability, with the industry’s confidence growing alongside this evolution.
Upcoming Presentation: Ensuring Seismic Deformation Compatibility in Mass Timber Connections
Ever wonder how mass timber beam-to-column and column-to-column connections hold up when seismic deformation begins to push a structure beyond its expected limits? For engineers working with mass timber, understanding this behavior is central to design decisions, connection detailing, and project performance. Simpson Strong-Tie senior product engineer Alex Mueller and product engineer Giovanni Pereira will examine seismic deformation compatibility for mass timber connections in a webinar on December 17, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. PT. Presented by Simpson Strong-Tie and hosted by STRUCTURE as part of its sponsored webinar series, the session reviews the mechanics, research insights, and engineering considerations that shape connection performance during seismic demand. Read on to learn more about the focus of this webinar.
Framing the Future: The Evolution of Moment Frames
Discover insights from Simpson Strong-Tie engineer Emily Morris Frazier, P.E., as she examines the evolution of moment frame construction over the past 150 years. She traces the transition from early rivet and angle connections to the prevalent use of welded moment frames in seismic zones. Emily addresses the challenges that emerged after significant earthquakes, which spurred the development of prequalified connections to boost safety and performance. She highlights the ongoing advancements in design strategies that aim to enhance the resilience of modern structures.
How Simpson Strong-Tie Helped Shape My Career
Matthew Cristi is a structural engineering project manager at Los Angeles Air Force Base and a Civil Engineering Officer in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. He earned his degrees from CSUN and Stanford and has worked at KPFF and Los Angeles Air Force Base. Matthew first connected with Simpson Strong-Tie through a scholarship and continues to value their support and resources in his professional work.
My Adventure Visiting Simpson Strong-Tie As a Student Scholarship Recipient
Daphne Milkert, a senior at Milwaukee School of Engineering is a recipient of the 2023 Simpson Strong-Tie Scholarship. During her scholarship trip to the Bay Area, she engaged in activities like visiting Pier 39, exploring the Tyrell Gilb Research Lab, and participated in a hands-on tradeshow showcased the versatility of Simpson Strong-Tie products. Discover her insights from the trip and what she found valuable about her experiences and the connections she made.
Choosing Resiliency: Lessons from Hurricane Michael
In this post, Doug Allen, P.E., a structural engineer with Simpson Strong-Tie, looks at the choice homeowners in disaster-prone areas face between simply building to code and building to standards of resilience or IBHS FORTIFIED Home™ standards instead.
Resilience, or resiliency: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
In the wake of the most recent and very devastating hurricane seasons, the theme of structural resiliency has resurfaced with renewed urgency for increasing numbers of homeowners, builders, Designers and civic planners. Hurricanes pose a triple threat of high winds, substantial rain and storm surge. Extreme weather has cost the nation nearly $100 billion in damage during 2018. Accordingly, awareness has risen within affected and surrounding coastal regions regarding their communities’ existing structural resilience ratings (low or high) and the need to improve in view of the losses as well as the time and cost to rebuild what was destroyed.
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Still Using Lag Screws? Consider Self-Tapping Wood Screws Instead
Lag screws are traditionally specified for many structural loads in wood construction. However, recent innovations in engineering for self-tapping wood screws have made them an increasingly popular, labor-saving alternative to lag screws. In the following post, Aram Khachadourian, P.E., of Simpson Strong-Tie discusses the structural and economic advantages of this option.
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CFS Designer™ v2.5 Makes Cold-Formed Steel Design Easier Than Ever
With the use of engineering software tools, structural engineers can design buildings faster and more efficiently than ever before. In this blog post, Clifton Melcher, P.E., a senior project manager for cold-formed steel connectors, discusses the various enhancements included in version 2.5 of Simpson Strong-Tie® CFS Designer™ software.
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