Their unique, award-winning new wave truss system uses a web extruded by Hydro.
What Goes Up, Must Not Come Down
Total Structures, Inc., of Ventura, California, is an innovative designer and installer of temporary structures used for trade show exhibits and staging for concerts, corporate events, film, and television. Their unique, award-winning “new wave” truss system uses a “web” extruded by Hydro.
As the name suggests, “new wave” is the next generation in trussing. Carbon cords are passed through holes in aluminum extruded plates to form a web that is superior in strength yet lightweight. The design provides a unique opportunity to use an epoxy adhesive to bond components, rather than the traditional, and time consuming, welded assemblies. Anodizing produces a range of colors and textures that goes beyond the typical polished silver and powder-coated finishes.
Hydro brings value to Total Structures “new wave” as a single-source supplier. Hydro Aluminum’s Phoenix facility produces highly complex 10’, 9-void hollow extrusions, then slices the extrusions into ¼”-thick individual webs and tumbles them to remove sharp edges. Further, Hydro provides the specialty 6005-T6 alloy that Total Structures needed for extra strength.
Hydro also teamed with Total Structures to develop a process that yielded less distortion during extrusion and the ability to slice extrusions to form structural shear webs. Truss diagonals cut on an angle, and perpendicular end frames are formed from an extruded plate. The complex extrusion is economical to produce. Total Structures can later cut it using electrical discharge machining (EDM) to incorporate logos directly into the truss.
Offering appealing alternatives to the traditional aluminum trusses, the “new wave” versatile design presents aesthetic qualities in cords and structures never seen before. It has been awarded six times in the past five years, most recently winning First Place in the “Professional Category – Commercial” of the 2004 International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition held by the Extrusion Technology for Aluminum Profiles Foundation. Bottom line: there simply is no other truss on the market that allows this much flexibility in appearance and function.
