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Originally Posted by willravel
Both North tower and South tower were designed to take a direct airplane hit. Did you see the limited damage the 757 did to the Pentagon? Also, how does that explain the top floor caving first? It should have collapsed from near the center, not the very top. Not trying to be argumentative, but I wrote into the Star about their shotty work and they never responded.
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I'm not surprised. the Star tends to be a paper that puts some of their (more shoddy) work behind them. My quick answers (and I am a lay-person) to your questions are basically common perspective: I read that the towers were built to withstand a Boeing 707 hit. Which they did (well not a 707, but close). But the floors around the crash did collapse first, and they basically pancaked downwards in growing momentum (pulling the top downwards with them). Apparantly the way the floor struts were attached to the centre column and the outer frame were the weak points, plus the heat involved (i did read that it was varied heat from about 900 to 1300 F) was enough to weaken the strength of the steel thingies so that they also warped.
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Originally Posted by willravel
Where did the heat from the fire go? A fire inside of a building would creat some heat that would want to escape. That same heat that was able to meraculously melt and warp the steel frame, but was unable to effect aluminum, which ahs a much, much lower melting temperature.
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Apparantly the aluminum from the plane did melt in places. The steel frame did bend and warp, but it had not only heat from a fire, but significant heat from a significant fire, plus the stresses of a building load.
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Originally Posted by willravel
I can understand some of the supports giving way between the impact and the fire, but why did the top floors of both towers collapse straight down first? There was no smoke coming from the top of the building as most of it was coming from the blown out windows and the crash holes in the buildings. It is logical to assume that the heat was following a similar path to escape the building. The heat was traveling upwards along the frame, but the initial collapse was at the very top floors. It doesn't fit.
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Those towers are very heavy (i read about 500,000 tons each?) the only way they could fall would be straight down. nothing would be strong enough to push them sideways. I presume the collapse seen from the inside, would be initial pancaking of the floors around the crash site, due to the extreme damage and heat, followed by a subsidence of the remaining floors above, as their support below gave way. The view from outside, before the final collapse became evident would be of the top of the build falling in much like a sink hole appears to form. (of course I'm just picturing this in my mind, and typing out of my ass...)
As for smoke escape, i don't see anything strange. and I think that subsidence collpse (yes i like that term, ithink I will go with it) still covers the behaviour.