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29
HerrBBQ 29 points ago +56 / -27

I'm extremely confident in saying that the way the Twin Towers fell is entirely explainable by their shoddy 70s new age construction. Remember, their structural stability relied on the outer web of steel, not a steel and concrete core like most skyscrapers. The heat of the fires caused the steel that supported the floors to deform and sag (not melt!), which pulled the outer web of steel inwards. The stress of being bent and pulled in by the sagging floors while having to support the rest of the building above caused the outer steel at those floors to break at some points. When some of these beams broke, it increased the load on surrounding beams, which also broke. Eventually there wasn't enough strength to support the rest of the building above, so the entire thing catastrophically fell down into the next floor, which instantly failed, leading to a chain reaction.

Building 7 was sketchy as fuck. "Pull it"

28
TDS_Consultant 28 points ago +34 / -6

Even soft buckled steel causes resistance to the falling mass above. This little resistance would be enough to cause the off tilt top mass to rotate. Regardless of construction, buildings constructed of steel on and concrete don't instantly convert into zero structural resistance dust almost instantly.

5
Pb82_Awards 5 points ago +7 / -2

Thermite in the dust, to boot!