A More Nuanced View of the WTC Tower Cores
Bottom:
Top:
Transition gif can be seen here. Their layout in the WTC cores can be seen in the architectural plans here.
I knew that the columns got thinner towards the top, but I didn't realize that they weren't box columns the whole way. The transition to I-beams was in different places for different columns (and a couple of columns were I-beams the whole length of the tower), but the transition to I-beams for the biggest core columns seems to occur roughly around the 70th floor.
This is interesting in a few respects. First, the weight of the upper columns was obviously much lighter (as you would suspect from design principles) than lower columns-- this makes any rapid top-down collapse mechanism all the more difficult.
Second, I didn't realize the core columns in the "plane" impact areas were not huge box columns. This makes the idea that the plane smashed through the outer columns than got destroyed by the core columns all the more unlikely-- especially for the WTC1 hit where the core columns on the 92nd floor were fairly dinky. Finally, this changes my analysis of the number of core columns in the rubble pile -- though as it turns out, since I now can calculate the exact number of core columns because I know their lengths, it makes the lack of core columns all the more striking.
Top:
Transition gif can be seen here. Their layout in the WTC cores can be seen in the architectural plans here.
I knew that the columns got thinner towards the top, but I didn't realize that they weren't box columns the whole way. The transition to I-beams was in different places for different columns (and a couple of columns were I-beams the whole length of the tower), but the transition to I-beams for the biggest core columns seems to occur roughly around the 70th floor.
This is interesting in a few respects. First, the weight of the upper columns was obviously much lighter (as you would suspect from design principles) than lower columns-- this makes any rapid top-down collapse mechanism all the more difficult.
Second, I didn't realize the core columns in the "plane" impact areas were not huge box columns. This makes the idea that the plane smashed through the outer columns than got destroyed by the core columns all the more unlikely-- especially for the WTC1 hit where the core columns on the 92nd floor were fairly dinky. Finally, this changes my analysis of the number of core columns in the rubble pile -- though as it turns out, since I now can calculate the exact number of core columns because I know their lengths, it makes the lack of core columns all the more striking.
posted by spooked at 2:49 PM
1 Comments:
at least the first 90' or so of a real 767 would have squashed like a beer can against the perimeter columns and would never have made it any where near the core columns regardless of their size.
while that was occuring both wings would have broken off, also not penetrating thru the perimeter columns.
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