Technical question on WTC collapse

darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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EagleSmack said:
lone wolf said:
Thanks Wolf. You sort of refute the other guys insinuating that steel girders don't just get launched from the building. Instead of doing the research I just mentioned that he was unfamiliar with the Twin Towers construction. I saw a documentary on the construction of the towers and it stated that the exterior walls is what held the load as opposed to the standard way buildings are built.

So regardless of who or how the building was destroyed that is why these massive exterior columns trashed and sliced through the other buildings.
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No totally wrong, the buildings were superb constructions, enormously over engineered with a wide safety margin, the interior columns were impervious to damage from aircraft or fire, they were professionally demolished and that;s all there is to it. The buildings designers considered the 707 in the design which is close to the aircraft that struck, the kenetic energy was virtually the same. Internal fires never passed 6 or 7 hundred degrees, this was confirmed by two firemen who had reached the impact zone and reported calling for backup and survivors from that floor, they expected no problem in extinguishing the isolated already dying fires, there was no fuel load either in the buidings nor the planes to conduct combustion long enough to anywhere approach the temperature necessary for failure of any mechanical components. And nothing even remotely close to accounting for the pulverization of so much concrete or even one yard of it. Ignoring those facts won't be possible for very much longer.
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lone wolf

lone wolf

Grossly Underrated
Nov 25, 2006
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Too over-built - but under designed. They wanted clear space for huge open office areas and that was the building's weakness. Open web steel joists and floorpan don't have the stiffening effect of structural steel beams. When the outside frame was hit, the reaction would have been much the same as a bell being rung with a hammer. There was no structural steel web to prevent the outer frame from gyrating around the central support. Just that one blow would have been enough to shear or dangerously weaken joist connections.

To me, it makes sense to have some system in place to minimize the effect of catastrophic failure and have the building fall into its own footprint rather than scatter itself over a quarter mile's worth of Manhattan landscape. The idea has been pooh-poohed, booed and jeered back in some archival threads - but it also makes just as much sense that those who would know aren't about to say.

Woof!
 
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