HurriQuake Nails

Reported March 2007

EAST GREENWICH, R.I. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Each year millions of dollars are lost to natural disasters. A hurricane tends to push and lift roofs off of homes, while an earthquake rocks a house back and forth.

And when it comes to manufacturing a fastener resistant to nature, engineers at Stanley Bostich say they've nailed it with the HurriQuake Disaster Resistant Fasteners.

"With both [hurricanes and earthquakes], there's a lot of pull through -- meaning that the material you're joining pulls up over the head of the nail. And so that focused our energy on making the head larger," Ed Sutt, Stanley Bostitch's engineer manager of fastening technology, tells Ivanhoe.

Engineers used geometry to design the oversized head. Underneath, flat screw shanks fit in the grooves made by the nail rings circling the bottom of the nail, which creates less slipping. "In order to keep it from coming out of the wood, it has deep rings, which is nothing new, but they're located low on the shank," Sutt says. "There were a lot of mathematical calculations, but at the same time there was a lot of trial and error."

To see if the HurriQuakes are tougher than other nails, he put them to the test. The HurriQuakes survived wind speeds equivalent to a category 5 hurricane, while the wood crumbled.

"The HurriQuake nail ... can provide a structure up to two times the resistance to high-winds and up to 50 percent-more resistance to earthquake-style forces," Sutt says. "A homeowner's gotta understand this is only one piece of making your house more disaster-resistant."

HurriQuake nails exceed standard building codes and add about $15 more to the cost of building an average home. Engineers say the HurriQuake nail can also be used inside your home and will cut down on squeaky floors and stairs.

The American Society of Civil Engineers contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Todd Langston
Director, Brand Management
Stanley Bostitch
1 Briggs Drive
East Greenwich, RI 02818
(401) 884-2500 ext. 32768
tlangston@stanleyworks.com

American Society of Civil Engineers
(703) 295-6404
jbuhrman@asce.org

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