07-18-2007, 03:05 PM
|
#84 (permalink)
|
| Banned Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Los Angeles Gender:  Posts: 11,896 Country:  Points: 39,908, Level: 100 | Level up: 0%, 0 Points needed |  |  Quote:
Originally Posted by baloney_detector  "Highly unlikely"...aye?
Well, as a mechanical engineer with an background in civil engineering, I'd say that the Twin Tower collapse was a mathematical certainty if a well-understood set of conditions are met.
Structural steel will, in fact, buckle at a certain temperature while under a certain load.
And there is no reason why this well-established fact would simply change on September 11, 2001.
(There is even a photo in the final government report that shows the outer wall of one of the towers buckling just moments before its collapse.) | The steel wouldn't need to melt, and I haven't heard that being suggested.
The combined weight of 20+ floors above the point of entry would impose a tremendous load on the steel frame which was obviously weakened from such a colossal impact.
Once the 84th (?) floor collapsed gravity did the rest
|