ResinDek Shelving System

When a financial company reached out to Jeff Andrews, President of Hammerhead Material Handling, for a new archival storage project that would be warehoused in California’s Inland Empire he knew that finding the right storage system could pose a challenge. As a Systems Integrator and solutions provider based in nearby Aliso Viejo, California, Andrews immediately identified two areas of concern: fire codes and seismic requirements for storage.

“The project required us to design and engineer a solution that would create tens of thousands of linear feet of storage to hold paper files. The paper files would not be stored in a box and needed to be easily accessible,” explained Andrews. “However, the geographic location is considered a very high seismic area and paper is flammable, so we needed to find a solution that would also meet fire codes.”

Comparing the Seismic Options: Steel Shelving VS. Rack-Based Storage

To ensure maximum density, Andrews and his engineering team elected to take advantage of the existing facility’s 35-foot-high ceiling by creating a three-level structure that would function similarly to a pick module. “In order to design a three-level, 30-foot-tall rack system that could withstand the potential seismic forces from an earthquake, standard racking would need to be anchored to a 12-inch-thick concrete floor slab. In this building there was only a 6-inch slab.

Fortunately, we had encountered this issue before on other projects and had recognized that TubeRack, made by Hannibal Industries, would work,” said Andrews. “Its construction allowed Hammerhead to create a three-level structure capable of holding the highly dense files while being compliant with seismic requirements, even with an inferior building slab.” he explained.