why did the world trade center take the path of most resistance when it collapsed?

Question

why did it fall through itself, instead of falling over? Even if the beams were soft they would still offer some resistance, wouldn't they. I just can't understand how all the support columns could melt at exactly the same time.

Answer 1

Thats a very important point. If you think and research what happened on 9/11, the more weird it becomes.

First off, the beams could not have melted by a normal fire because the beams in the towers (and every other sky scraper) were made in blast furnaces at extremely high temperatures. Once a metal is made at a high temperature, it wont melt until it reaches that temperature again. Open air fires will never be able to achieve temperatures high enough to match the temperature in a blast furnace. Therefore, metal melting because of the fuel is not a plausible cause by any standards.
Even if the metal did melt, and the floors did collapse, what would happen to the skeleton that supports the whole structure? the whole tower was reduced to rubble so what happened to the whole skeleton of the building? Sky scrapers have an internal skeleton and an outer covering, all of steel. Where the heck did it go?
Another strange thing is that when the towers collapsed, they went down at the same speed as a billiard ball falling from the same height. That means there was nothing stopping the floors from falling to the ground.
When the towers went down, so did the surrounding buildings, all in demolition style implosions. They all collapsed within themselves. But unlike the towers, the surrounding buildings had theie employees evacuated hours earlier. There is no plausible reason as to why the other buildings fell.
By sheer logic the whole event seems impossible.

Answer 2

It had no pressure to the side,so it didn't fall sideways. The plane hit several floors down from the top floor. the heat from the fire weakened the steel supports on that floor. It was only a matter of time before the weight of several floors above pressing down on that floor caused the buckling of the support beams. Then each floors weight was added in succession, but not softly squeezing the floors below but rather pounding them. Otherwise the floors below could have supported the weight as they had before the plane hit.

Answer 3

They are built to with stand a direct hit from aircraft since there so tall.This one collapsed due to intense heat from tanks full of jet fuel spewing down from the planes and friction causing fire that heated the beams enough to bend them.
This is a very good question.And I don't know the exact engineering involved but I do know there made for such an event just miss calculated the fire happening.

Answer 4

regardless of what some people say, there have been no bombs or some thing like that. they want to comprehend how a hearth works, and they want to comprehend the type of the WTC. in case you look on the structures, they were really 2 tremendous-length chimneys, with a huge area of the help on the fringe of the progression. The gasoline of the plane did not stay in the region of the crash. a huge volume of the gasoline spilled down the elevator shafts in the middle of the homes, causing all that smoke people reported seeing on the bottom of the towers. really, the completed tower grow to be on fireplace, and not in any respect basically the impacted flooring. Elevators and different kit falling created the sounds of explosions on the bottom of the towers. also, the nice and cozy temperature from the fireplace throughout the completed progression created a dry vacuum, turning out to be a lot less resistance for the block that grow to be about to offer way on it. once the impacted flooring weakened, the load of the better flooring compacted onto the subsequent floor, and the subsequent, and the subsequent, it is the reason it appeared like a chain of explosions. each and each and every floor actually exploded from the load of the better block falling on correct of it. keep in suggestions, there grow to be no longer some thing there to reason the better flooring to break down. It grow to be one large block of bolstered concrete and metal, so the completed top area grow to be coming down as one large block. in case you weigh about 100 and twenty pounds or a lot less, attempt this attempt: gently stand on correct of an empty soda can, ensuring you do not weigh down it. at the same time as status on it with one foot, bend over and rapidly tap the perimeters of the can. be particular to retract your fingers rapidly. you'll finally end up with a can completely overwhelmed correct to bottom. that is really what got here about to the towers. As for tower 7 falling as if it were in a vacuum, properly, it really did. The progression internally grow to be on fireplace for a lengthy time period. the nice and cozy temperature displaced the air and humidity, turning out to be a digital vacuum interior relative to the cooler, humid air outside. because the progression began to break down, video shows the exterior walls and domicile windows increasing, turning out to be more beneficial of a vacuum interior. The progression collapsed rapidly, the solid cement filling the void interior, with the heavier air outside helping.

Answer 5

The support columns didn't collapse at first. What collapsed were the concrete slabs that made up each floor.

The support columns ran up through large concrete slabs that were the floors. What happened was that the columns weakened and allowed one floor to fall. Of course it fell straight down.

The weight of that concrete slab (4500 tons) hit the next floor slab directly from above from above. That floor was designed to hold only 1500 tons. So it fell down too. The process was repeated, as the slabs fell one by one.

Without the floor slabs to hold it together, the rest of the structure fell.

More details:

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

Answer 6

Falling over is NOT the path of least resistance. Conservation of momentum requires a massive momentum input in order to tip a building over.

Answer 7

It's not a matter of resistance, it's a matter of massive tonnage and gravity. In order for it to fall over it would have needed some kind of force pushing it over, but the only force it had was gravity pulling straight down.

Answer 8

Just one point I wanted to make. Although jet fuel would not be likely to produce enough heat to melt steel it wouldn't have to. The steel would lose a considerable amount of strength being heated by those fires. The steel does not have to be liquid in order to collapse....

Answer 9

Why not ask the question in the engineering section?

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20VI%20Materials%20&%20Structures.pdf