US 10,371,192 B2Granted

Weldless building structures

AssigneesNucor Corporation, Asia Fastening (US), Inc.

InventorsLionel E. Dayton, Richard W. Lukes

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A building structure including a first building member and a second building member may be connected by a plurality of fasteners, each fastener having a head, a threaded portion having a through hardness of between HRB 70 and HRC 40, a thread-forming portion of at least HRC 50 hardness enabling the fastener to form threads in at least the second steel building member, and a fluted lead portion of at least HRC 50 hardness with a nominal diameter between 70 and 95% of major diameter, such that the fastener is capable of providing a ratio of strip torque to thread-forming torque of at least 3.0 and a ratio of strip torque to drive torque greater than 6.0 when the second steel building member having a thickness of 0.25 inch and the fluted lead portion having at least one diameter within nominal diameter between 80 and 98% of major diameter.

Claims23

Dependent claims

A fastener comprising:

a head,
a threaded portion adjacent the head,
a thread-forming portion of at least HRC 50 hardness adjacent the threaded portion, and
a fluted lead portion of at least HRC 50 hardness adjacent the thread-forming portion with a nominal diameter in a range from 60% to 95% of major diameter of the threaded portion adapted to form a fastener opening,
the thread-forming portion having a series of lobes with recesses between said lobes and said lobes positioned about the rotational axis where each lobe having a lead portion and a tailing portion, the lead portion and first adjacent recess is at a first angle in a range from 50° to 100° from a plane tangent to the lobe adjacent the leading portion, and the tailing portion and second adjacent recess is at a second angle in a range from 25° to 50° from a plane tangent to the lobe adjacent the tailing portion, where the first angle is greater than the second angle.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 15/722,509Filed 2 Oct 2017 · continuation
Priority: 19 Feb 2010
Published: US 2018/0073541 A115 Mar 2018
Granted: 6 Aug 2019
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification27 codes

F16B 25/103
Screws performing an additional function to thread-forming, e.g. drill screws or self-piercing screws: by means of a drilling screw-point, i.e.…
E04B 1/24
Structures comprising elongated load-supporting parts, e.g. columns, girders, skeletons: the supporting parts consisting of metal
E04B 1/38
Constructions in general; Structures which are not restricted either to walls, e.g. partitions, or floors or ceilings or roofs: connections for…
E04B 1/4157
Connecting devices specially adapted for embedding in concrete or masonry: longitudinally-externally threaded elements extending from the concrete…

Family

Application61/306,309Us provisional application · filed 19 Feb 2010
Application13/031,181Parent of this continuation · filed 18 Feb 2011
Application14/012,526Parent of this continuation · filed 28 Aug 2013
US 8,529,178 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 10 Sep 2013
Application14/988,314Parent of this continuation · filed 5 Jan 2016
US 9,267,527 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 23 Feb 2016
US 2018/0073541 A1Pre-grant publication · published 15 Mar 2018
US 9,797,430 B2Parent of this continuation
US 2011/0203217 A1Published application
US 2013/0340382 A1Published application
US 2016/0252126 A1Published application
US 10,371,192 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

Timeline

Citations

Open elsewhere

Building an agent or pulling many patents? Use the API or MCP server instead of scraping pages. Get an API key