Scribd
Upload
35 views1 page

The 3P Program1

The document discusses three incidents involving high-rise buildings in New York City - a 1945 plane crash into the Empire State Building, the construction of the World Trade Center towers in the 1950s, and the terrorist attacks on 9/11 where planes were flown into the towers causing them to collapse.

Uploaded by

Hamza Ubaid
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
35 views1 page

The 3P Program1

The document discusses three incidents involving high-rise buildings in New York City - a 1945 plane crash into the Empire State Building, the construction of the World Trade Center towers in the 1950s, and the terrorist attacks on 9/11 where planes were flown into the towers causing them to collapse.

Uploaded by

Hamza Ubaid
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

ON THE FOGGY SATURDAY MORNING of July 28, 1945, a twin-engine U.S.

Army Air Corps B-25 bomber lost in the fog crashed into the Empire State
Building 914 feet above street level. It tore an 18-by-20-foot hole in the north face
of the building and scattered flaming fuel into the building. New York firemen put
out the blaze in 40 minutes. The crew members and 10 persons at work perished.
The building was repaired and still stands.

Just 10 years later, in 1955, the leaders of the New York City banking and real
estate industries got together to initiate plans for the New York City World Trade
Center (WTC), which would later become known as the Twin Towers, the world’s
tallest buildings at the time. However, as the plans emerged, it became clear that
the buildings required new construction techniques.

On September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the Twin Towers by flying two
hijacked Boeing 727 passenger jets into them, each jet smashing approximately
two thirds of the way up its respective tower. A significant consequence of the
attack was the fire that started over several floors fed by the spilled jet fuel. The
fires isolated more than 2,000 workers in the floors above them. Only 18 of the
more than 2,000 were able to descend the flaming stairwells to safety. Most of the
2,000 perished in the subsequent collapse of the buildings. By comparison, almost
all of the workers in the floors below the fire were able to make it down to safety
before the towers collapsed. Differences in high-rise building construction
techniques as well as the difference in the quantity of fuel involved are factors in
the very different performance of these newer structures compared to the Empire
State Building.

In the hour following the plane crashes that destroyed or damaged many exterior
columns and removed the fire protection from others, the prolonged and intense
heat of the flames (more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit) caused the structural steel
members to lose strength, resulting in beams sagging and an inward deflection of
the remaining exterior columns. As a result, the floor structures broke away from
the exterior columns. As the top floors fell, they created impact loads on the lower
floors that the columns could not support and both buildings progressively
collapsed.

For an engineer, 9/11 raises questions of how these structural failures could have
happened, why the building codes did not better protect the public, and how to
reduce the risk of such disasters in the future. There are even larger questions about
acceptable risk and the proper approach to risk as an issue of public policy.

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy