WTC 7 Comparision, Time to compare Apples and Oranges again.

So I am listening to Jim Quinn based in Pittsburgh on the radio today while taking someone to work and he mentions something of interest on there.

He comes up wit the O'Donnell comment that she stated that "No steel structure ever fell due to fire" and he brings up the overpass in CA that "collapsed due to fire" and now he brings up this incident which recently happened.

It is a warehouse fire which is supposedly steel and collapsed due to fire. I am not all that knowledge in this incident yet to make some kind of assessment about what happened but it killed 9 firefighters which is the most since 9/11 apparently.

Anyway the point of this is that this building is supposed to be like WTC 7 as Quinn might have you believe so I will let you guys see what the difference is.

Here is a few links and images about the incident.

www.chicagotribune.com...






www.chron.com...
www.guardian.co.uk...

Anyway Let me know what you think.



[edit on 6/20/2007 by ThichHeaded]

A few things to mention when comparing this to the trade center.

First thing I noticed was that it is not even a complete global collapse. Even within the collapse zone, you can see where the column lines have remained.

Here's a quick sketch of what I mean.



Now look at the areas I have highlighted and you'll see what I mean.



Hopefully it comes out big enough to see.

This is all well and good for the fact that trusses do indead fail at high temperatures. The problem is the columns.

The building had no fire sprinklers and was not required to have them. The fire chief said sprinklers would not have put out the fire but would have at least slowed it.

Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said the one-story warehouse had a drop ceiling that contained lots of oxygen. That, along with the combustible furniture, made it "a much more complicated building from a firefighting event than one might imagine."

No sprinklers. I'll give them that.

Not sure of the construction of the ceilings in WTC. But, most likely drop ceilings.

Furniture. There was furniture in WTC. But, not a warehouse full of it.

It's similar in the way the trusses could have and probably did fail (at first).

What this fire does not prove is what would happen to the next floor and the next and the next and the next... that wasn't on fire.

If anything, this fire proves that steel frames just don't globaly collapse with the acceleration of gravity. At least the columns don't. Just my opinion and please take it as such.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the firemen and their loved ones.

9 Men lost. What a shame.

Agreed though..Post Title says it all... Apples to Oranges.

Been in the fire service for 20 years - few points

Problems with truss roof/floor beams is that a truss by definition has less
mass than a solid beam of similar load bearing capacity. Less mass means
will heat up faster and hotter. Steel will therefore lose its strenght and
fail much quicker. Here is NJ been a number of multiple fatalities from
truss roof collapse - most famous is Hackensak Ford in 1989 - 5 men lost
in car dealership when truss roof failed. Fire codes in NJ require that all
truss roof/floor structures have promient symbol (triangles with R for Roof
F for floor) posted in front of building to warn FF. WTC had truss
supporting floors - impact dislodged spray-on fire proofing and exposed
steel to heat from fires. Floors began to sag from heat pulling exterior
support columns out of alignment and triggering collapse.

Modern building have a very high fuel load thus generating large amount
of heat quickly. In SC was furniture store - wood combined with synthetic
fabrics and foam padding (urethane is sometimes called "solid napalm" for
speed at which burns). Synthetics are made in whole or in part from
petroleum - have 50 to 100% more heat capacity (BTU) - 12,000 to 16,000
btu/lb vs organics - wood/paper/cloth, 9,000-8500 btu/lb) The WTC towers
also had a high fuel load - Cubicles and furnishing (Urethane/Styrofoam),
computer and peripherals which are almost entirely plastics these days,
carpeting, ceiling tile which all burn hot. Add to this tons and tons of paper
and have huge fuel load which when ignited is impossible to put out.

So while not directly comparable given size of building (single story vs
110 story high raise) can see some similarly in what happened.

Well, let's state the obvious:

This is a flimsy, single-story warehouse structure built on the cheap that only has to support the weight of its own roof and normal weather-related loads.

These sorts of buildings have a nasty propensity to collapse under heavy rains, snow loads, tornadoes, and fires--you see it all the time. That's why they're called firetraps.

It has next to nothing to do with the WTC complex.

Originally posted by gottago
It has next to nothing to do with the WTC complex.

But it does show that collapsed trusses do not automatically mean collapsed columns. Just an observation.