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MiTek’s New Hardy Frame “Picture Frame” Doubles the Efficiencies of its Special Moment Frame MiTek’s New “Picture Frame” Provides Four Special Moment Connections, Enabling Smaller Member Sizes and Significantly Increased Capacities
March 2017 #10212 Page #85
Joe Kannapell - Senior VP MiTek Industries, Inc. www.mii.com
Third Generation of the Component Industry…
Chesterfield, MO, February 21, 2017 – MiTek® USA announced today that Hardy Frame® has added an innovative design to its Hardy Frame Special Moment Frame (SMF) product offering. By designing and fabricating the beam-to-column SMF connections – at the top and the bottom of the frame – the efficiencies in the utilization of the column are significantly increased. With increased column efficiencies, the designer can economize special moment frame member sizes, the number of frames required in a wall line, or achieve higher capacities when lateral forces are high and shear-load demands are extreme.
For those who just came here and those of us who have been here a long time, this a fine place to be. All of us are reaping the benefits given us by two generations who built a solid foundation for our industry, and a third generation now coming into its own. Not unlike our great country, which came into its own under third generation Americans: Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.
MiTek USA’s Hardy Frame Shear Wall System has long offered Hardy Frame Prefabricated Narrow Shear Wall Panels and Hardy Frame Prefabricated Special Moment Frames, along with installation accessory items, steel connectors, post installed epoxy and cast-inplace anchoring solutions. The Hardy Frame Shear Wall System is now expanding to include the new “Hardy Frame Picture Frame,” a four-sided special moment frame with special moment connections at all four corners. Anchorage to the concrete for tension and shear can be a simple pinned base. The innovative addition of a beam with special moment connections (which replaces the need for an engineered, steelreinforced concrete grade beam) provides the advantages of a fixed base connection, along with an easier field installation and reduced need for inspections.
Our second generation leaders, like Dwight’s son Joe, solidified the foundation built by their Dads. They refined the processes mostly underway and computerized them. They began building the factories that would give them competitive advantages. And when, 10 years ago, the economy failed them, they had their Dads to bolster them.
Our first generation leaders, like the late Dwight Hikel, had to possess the tenacity to build a new industry during turbulent, boom or bust cycles, separated from the lumber yards where most of them began. They had to develop the tools, like labor-measurement and mechanization, which systematized their businesses, and produced the profits that enabled growth.
Interest in Hardy Frame Special Moment Frame design solutions is at its highest point since the product was introduced in 2008 due to “soft story retrofit” ordinances adopted within a growing number of California building jurisdictions. MiTek has developed a new special website (link) for all soft-story retrofit related issues to showcase its structural retrofit solutions: http://www.HardyFrame.com/softstory. (A recent illustrated Journal of Light Construction feature article explains the Hardy Frame SMF installation process, in detail.)
Now our third generation leaders, like Joe Hikel’s sons Jason and Ryan, face no fewer challenges, but they (and we) have been blessed with the collective wisdom and systems of those who preceded them. And they (and we) benefit from a housing industry that seems to have stabilized and come of age. When their grandfathers pioneered this industry, would they have believed that tens of millions of square feet of high density, 4 and 5 story housing would now be componentized? Yes, this component “With this exciting innovation, we now offer Hardy Frame products to meet engineers’ daily design challenges, from creating architectural industry is a fine place to be. openings for large windows and doors for new structures, to strengthening soft story buildings for preparation of severe seismic events,” said Maged Diab, President of MiTek USA.
Joe Kannapell 3rd Generation American
PHONE: 800-289-5627
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