Category: Building Strong

Building Safety Month 2019: Partnering to Build Strong and Smart

Simpson Strong-Tie is proud to sponsor Building Safety Month. This annual event, which takes place over the entire month of May, is intended to raise awareness of building safety and all that it involves. The International Code Council pairs together professionals from the building construction, design and safety communities with corporations, government agencies, professional associations and nonprofits to promote building safety.
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Five FRP Advantages for Contractors and Structure Owners

FRP fiber-reinforced polymer provides a number of advantages over traditional concrete-strengthening materials and methods. Strengthening concrete structures by means of this composite has benefits for contractors and property owners alike.

While FRP is not feasible for all applications, there are demonstrable FRP advantages for many structural rehabilitation projects.
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How to Restore Your Home After a Hurricane

In 2011, it was Hurricane Irene; in 2012, it was Sandy and then Hurricane Patricia; 2017 gave us Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate. This year, with Hurricane Florence, we’ve been reminded that damage can’t be predicted by the frequency of the hurricanes or even necessarily where one ranks on the Saffir-Simpson Scale when it makes landfall. Many factors can make even a Category One Hurricane devastating.
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It’s Alive! Self-Healing Concrete, Materials Science and Other Evolutionary Developments

Legions of catatonic organisms lie asleep in the matrix, waiting only for momentary exposure to water and oxygen in order to awaken — whereupon the organisms immediately germinate, grow and fulfill their destiny, sealing the cracks in the fabric of their universe before falling dormant once again.
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Girls Inc. Visits Simpson Strong-Tie Lab

On July 6, the Simpson Strong-Tie home office in Pleasanton, California, welcomed girls from Girls, Inc. of Alameda County. This visit provided an opportunity for the girls to hear from and interact with the many women leaders of Simpson Strong-Tie.

The construction and manufacturing industries continue to be male-dominated fields. The visit provided the girls the opportunity to meet several of our women leaders and also learn about other career paths that might not be automatically associated with the manufacturing industry. Our leaders — including Jacinta Pister, senior vice president, Worldwide Manufacturing; Jennifer Lutz, vice president, Human Resources; and Shelby Short, director, Global Quality Systems — shared stories of their personal success and professional growth at Simpson Strong-Tie.
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Little Locales Using Big Data to Prevent Bridge Failures

Situated on the northwest coast of Oregon, the resort town of Seaside — population 6,685 — seems an unlikely place for advanced seismic and tsunami simulations. But just offshore Seaside’s charming 1920s boardwalk and its broad, sandy beaches famed for razor clamming, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is slowly sliding underneath the behemoth North American plate.
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Hurricane Season: Understanding High-Wind Home Preparation

As we’ve seen with the hurricane seasons of that past decade or so, homes are not always built to withstand a major storm. The hurricane season of 2017 was one of the deadliest and costliest seasons in US history. Countless homes and buildings were severely damaged or destroyed, leaving thousands of families displaced. It will take years for communities to rebuild and recover from such devastation.

Fortunately, there are solutions that can help protect your home from a hurricane or high-wind event.
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Timber Strong Provides Real-World Engineering Experience

For the last three years, Simpson Strong-Tie has sponsored events at the Pacific Southwest Conference, a three-day competition promoted by the  American Society of Civil Engineers for civil engineering students. This year, 18  universities from Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii sent teams to Tempe, Arizona, for the competition, which was co-hosted April 12–14 by Arizona State and Northern Arizona Universities.

The students compete in numerous events over the three days, with the two main events being Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge builds sponsored by American Concrete Institute and American Institute of Steel Construction respectively. In the previous two years, Simpson sponsored Simpson Jeopardy and Timber Towers / Giant Jenga, but this year we were excited to sponsor the inaugural Timber Strong Design Build competition.
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Better Engineering for Stronger, Longer-Lasting Bridges and Wastewater Infrastructure

Eighty-one years ago this May, traffic opened on a newly constructed bridge span between Marin County, California, and the city of San Francisco. At 4,200 feet long and with towers 746 feet high, the steel suspension bridge was the longest and tallest bridge of its time. Built at a cost of $35 million, held together with 1.2 million rivets, and painted international orange from end to end, the Golden Gate Bridge was an instant symbol not just of California idealism, but of American engineering and construction might.

While the Golden Gate is no longer the longest or tallest bridge in the world, its iconic status has endured. Named one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Golden Gate enjoys regular special attention from 13 ironworkers and 28 painters who replace corroding steel and rivets with high-strength steel bolts and constantly touch up the span with paint to prevent corrosion.
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