The successful application of steel in building structures has paralleled and entrenched standardization. The normalization of profiles, shapes, pieces and fittings was rigorously controlled from the factory to the field. Pre-established and calculated connections facilitated steel’s democratization by sharing validated models for engineering, architectural design and construction. The steel building construction sector developed an open exchange of fabrication, specifications and assembly standards. Further, this knowledge was certified in the factory and by academia supporting the use of published computations and theory. Industrialists imagined all manner of skeletal and reticulated building structures from the cataloguing of parts and assemblies.
One of the most enduring systems, the Unistrut building component system was based on both standardized shapes and simple bolted joinery for securing pieces together in a plurality of directions and arrangements. Charles Attwood created Unistrut in the early 1920s for mounting electrical components in equipment, racking or scaffolding applications. A spring-activated nut that is pushed and glided in a u-shaped profile is the central proprietary element. The nut is positioned along struts at any point and makes multiple arrangements possible. Expanded further, the Unistrut system went from a simple strut and tie structure to a reticulated 3d space frame with the addition and invention of a mulit-directional hub connector.
Known as Moduspan, a subsidiary system of the Unistrut corporation, it employed a simple plate-based joining system for fastening a structural framework of upper, lower and diagonal chord members. The horizontal and vertical plates clipped together maintain an x,y,z coordinated system for coordinating anchor points. The standard Unistrut channels 40mm x 400mm could be bolted to the plates at different locations to vary length, angle and overall geometry. Applicable to floor and roof construction, as an open treillis, a type of three-dimensional truss, it was just one of many space frame prototypes (Mero, Triodetics, Abstracta) invented in the second half of the 20th century. Attwood marketed the no welding or drilling, flexible and adaptable business model from the early 1900s and it is still applied today. Moreover, the Unistrut and Moduspan design for assembly principle could today be reversed and speak to a design for disassembly model making all components part of systems with multiple service lives.
Moduspan connector
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