Страница:
272 из 286
Appendix A presents a more detailed discussion of the structural effectsof fire.
• As floor framing and supported slabs above and in a fire area are heated, they expand. The people who designed the towers were not fools and knew all this. They designed the towers to survive much more serious fires than those that occurred on September 11. As a structure expands, it can develop additional, potentially large, stresses in some elements. If the resulting stress state exceeds the capacity of some members or their connections, this can initiate a series of failures (Figure 2-20).
• As the temperature of floor slabs and support framing increases, these elements can lose rigidity and sag into catenary action. As catenary action progresses, horizontal framing elements and floor slabs become tensile elements, which can cause failure of end connections (Figure 2-21) and allow supported floors to collapse onto the floors below. The presence of large amounts of debris on some floors of WTC 1 would have made them even more susceptible to this behavior. In addition to overloading the floors below, and potentially resulting in a pancake-type collapse of successive floors, local floor collapse would also immediately increase the laterally unsupported length of columns, permitting buckling to begin. As indicated in Appendix B, the propensity of exterior columns to buckle would have been governed by the relatively weak bolted column splices between the vertically stacked prefabricated exterior wall units. This effect would be even more likely to occur in a fire that involves several adjacent floor levels simultaneously, because the columns could effectively lose lateral support over several stories (Figure 2-22).
• As the temperature of column steel increases, the yield strength and modulus of elasticity degrade and the critical buckling strength of the columns will decrease, potentially initiating buckling, even if lateral support is maintained. This effect is most likely to have been significant in the failure of the interior core columns.
To believe the silly little tale you are being told here, you must believe that the designers were fools and did not follow the law and design a building that could resist a serious multi-floor office fire. Note, that if the above scenario is correct then the towers would collapse in the event of any such fire. The aircraft impact plays no significant role in the sad little tale told here, only the fire.
2.2.1.5 Progression of Collapse
The fact that the towers collapsed in 8-10 seconds (essentially free-fall) is massive evidence that they were deliberately demolished.
|< Пред. 270 271 272 273 274 След. >|