Was there a design flaw or would any building of that height have failed?
In: Engineering
No design flaw. The steel columns of the floors where the planes hit got heated by the first. They did not melt, but heat softens metal even if the metal isn’t a liquid yet. Those softened columns then failed, and the weight of all the floors above came crashing down and that momentum was enough to cause the columns beneath to fail as well.
The floor was designed to withstand fire for hours, but the problem was the the impact damaged or completely blew off the fire proofing in the columns, so you just had the steel columns getting heated directly.
And again because some one will say “oh jet fuel can’t melt steel beams!!” They are right, it can’t. But you don’t have to melt something to make it soft and bendable. Go watch a video of a blacksmith making horseshoes or knives. Those don’t have to melt to become bendy.
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