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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (5721)	3/19/2004 10:51:50 PM
From: Don Earl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20039

Ray, Took me awhile to find the link, but the Empire State Building comment was something I ran across in this article: sciam.com <<<"Though the twin towers were not much taller than their famous uptown predecessor, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center rose during the late 1960s, a new era of construction characterized by rapidly erected, lightweight steel structures rather than heavy masonry walls," explained Robert Fowler, senior engineer at the structural engineering firm of McNamara and Salvia.>>> While I was looking for that one, I ran across this: newyorker.com <<<The second generation of tall buildings, which includes the Metropolitan Life Building (1909), the Woolworth Building (1913), and the Empire State Building (1931), are frame structures, in which a skeleton of welded- or riveted- steel columns and beams, often encased in concrete... The interiors are full of heavy, load-bearing columns and walls,...>>> We're probably splitting rabbits, but "heavy masonry walls", and "skeleton of steel columns and beams... encased in concrete", is "reinforced concrete" from where I'm sitting. Unless I'm completely missing something, the Empire State Building was constructed similar to a stem wall in a foundation, where the concrete bears the load and the steel holds the concrete together. As opposed to the WTC where all of the load bearing capacity came from steel columns, and none from concrete. You have to keep in mind though, that they did it that way because of the war in 1931. See what you missed by not taking Engineering 101? You never learned about the war and didn't know steel buildings are supposed to fall down a half hour after they catch fire.