The nation’s largest truck maker, Freightliner Corporation has finished the $5 million, state-of-the-art Wind Tunnel Research Facility located on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon. With a loud whirl the facility opened on April 13th, 2004 with the gathering of local and State dignitaries to include Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Portland Mayor Vera Katz, U.S. Rep David Wu, D-Ore. and City Commissioner Jim Francesconi.

Pacific Panel and Steel Truss, Inc. by way of our creative design department worked with the Engineers at Freightliner, VLMK Consulting Engineers and Alpine Structural Consultants over a three year period and the resulting design of the intake portion of the tunnel is built entirely of TrusSteel trusses. As Gary Derr, owner of Pacific Panel and Steel Truss said “We developed a framing concept and were able to answer their structural and geometric needs as well as address issues surrounding erection in the field. While we understood that the project with its overall size and tapering shape was to be a real challenge, we were confident TrusSteel could handle the job. This project once again proves TrusSteel is the best CFS truss system on the market and is certainly the most flexible from the point of view of flexibility of design.”

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