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Alumni in the Spotlight
Christopher Ryan Pinckney , ( B.S. CompE 02 ) graduated from Harvard Law School in June, 2006. He is a first-year associate with the Jones Day Law Firm in its Washington , D.C. office. The firm employs over 2200 attorneys, and has 30 offices worldwide: 16 abroad and 14 in the United States . Pinckney will be starting in the New Lawyers Group, specializing in intellectual property and litigation.
Clemson University civil engineering alumnus Ed Sutt ( M.S. CE '96 Ph.D. CE '00 ), a fastening engineer with Bostitch, has designed a nail that could save thousands of lives and homes in the event of a hurricane or earthquake. For that, Popular Science magazine has named the HurriQuake nail its 2006 Innovation of the Year, beating out 100 new technologies from around the world. (See December issue: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2006/innovator_5.html.)
Sutt took notice of a hurricane's devastating effects when, as a student, he visited the Caribbean following Hurricane Marilyn in 1995.
I couldn't help but notice it was the fasteners that failed in house after house after house, not the wood, said Sutt. It occurred to me that breaks were occurring around the fastener or nail, so we needed to come up with a better fastener to hold the house together.
Because nail design has not changed much in the last 200 years, Sutt went to work creating a prototype that would:
- Resist the nail head ripping through sheathing,
- Enable the shank to stay put in the frame during high winds or earthquakes, and
- Keep the midsection of the nail from snapping when a house rocks back and forth
under stress.
Civil engineering professor Scott Schiff, one of Sutt's former instructors, conducted independent testing on the nail for Popular Science at the Clemson University Wind Load Test Facility.
I was amazed at the resistance the nail puts up. In one test on the HurriQuake 2 (a thicker version of the original nail), with 20,000 pounds of load on an 8-foot shear wall mimicking what a house goes through in the course of several storms or an earthquake, the nail held. Normally that's what would give first, says Schiff. This potentially could make a huge difference on insurance premiums and housing codes.
Hurricane and earthquake damage in the United States in the last 15 years is in the billions of dollars.
Other independent testing around the country showed the HurriQuake has up to twice the uplift capacity of standard nails, which includes the nail shank's withdrawal from framing and the nail head's pull through the sheathing, the nail can double a house's resistance in high winds and can provide up to 50 percent more resistance to earthquake-type forces.
The nail is available only in the coastal region from Texas to North Carolina at construction supply stores. Bostitch is adding new production lines to meet nationwide consumer demand. Bostitch ( www.bostitch.com ), headquartered in East Greenwich , R.I. is a subsidiary of The Stanley Works, a leading manufacturer of tools.
Clemson University civil engineering alumnus Ed Sutt designed the HurriQuake nail which Popular Science magazine selected as its 2006 Innovation of the Year, beating out 100 new technologies from around the world.
The HurriQuake nail is made of carbon-steel alloy and adds about $15 to the cost of a house. Its design took six years to perfect, with the bottom section of the nail having angled barbs that resist pulling out in wind gusts of up to 170 mph. The shank at the top of the nail is twisted to keep boards from wobbling and weakening a joint. The head of the nail is up to 25 percent larger than average to resist sinking into wood or pulling through.
Civil engineering graduates Meg Nikovits ( B.S. CE 99 ) and Anne Cope ( B.S. CE 95; M.S. CE 97 ) are structural engineers for the Reynold Smith and Hill (RS&H) Aerospace and Defense Program on Merritt Island , Florida .
For nearly fifty years, RS&H has been involved in the design, management, and testing of aerospace launch support equipment and facilities for NASA and the Air Force, as well as other Department of Defense agencies.
Nikovits (left) and Cope are shown during the rollout of the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad in preparation for NASA Mission STS 121.
Verde Eargle , ( B.S. EE 48 ) expressed his desire to return to Tiger Territory as part of his 85 th birthday celebration, so he came back for Homecoming to see the Clemson roll over Georgia Tech 31-7. This was Verde's first home Clemson football game since he graduated 58 years ago but who's counting?! He has seen the Tigers play UT in College Station , Texas , but there's nothing like being in Death Valley !
Verde worked for most of his career 34 years at General Electric Corporation. While at GE, he was responsible for earning three patents; including one for improving thermostat control systems for residential use. From 1982 until his retirement, he was with Trane, Inc.
Joining Verde for the 2006 Homecoming festivities were his son, David Eargle (far right) , from Houston , Texas , and Verde's niece, Valerie Truesdale ( BA S Ed 74 ) . Valerie is the Superintendent of Oconee County Schools. While on campus, Verde dropped by Riggs Hall to say hello to CoES Dean, Esin Gulari (second from left, above, right, below).
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