the thick square washer and has virtually no curvature in his holdown connector which give the benefits of force flow control.
As evidence of the successful use of the compound curve force flow feature of the present invention, a destruction pull test of the connector of the present invention caused the holdown to fail in the strap portion at a point above the compound curve; not in the curved portion adjacent the seat.
The work done by others in the field to improve the ability of concentric holdowns to resist huge upward forces due to earthquakes and high winds such as hurricanes and tornadoes generally resulted in raising the held column member needlessly high above the foundation member. Applicant has labeled this increase in the height of holdowns, especially concentricholdowns as set forth above, as the “tower effect”. The raising of the held column member or “tower effect”, required the designers who built the U-shaped members and other lifting blocks to increase the length and thickness of the side straps to hold the columns in an upright position and to prevent them from bending over laterally.
This “tower effect” problem has been greatly alleviated by the use in the present invention of a combination member in which a single member, due to its internal threads, holds the combination member to the anchor member and serves as a nut while its large area serves as a clamping surface.
By eliminating sharp bends in the holdown connector member of the present invention and the use of compound bending through cold working