Was there a design flaw or would any building of that height have failed?
In: Engineering
Structures are designed to withstand only so much load. Typically it’s the weight of the building, plus the natural forces it will experience, plus a little extra for safety margin. The more force you try to prepare for the more money you have to spend on constructing the support. Why spend money trying to reinforce a building against the force of another building falling on top of it?
Well on 9/11 that’s exactly what happened. The fires buckled the support beams causing the dozen or so floors to fall and crash into the building beneath it. It wasn’t just the weight of the material, but the force of thousands of tons of steel and glass and concrete falling only dozen feet. That caused other beams to buckle and give way, floor by floor as each floor collapsed into the other, causing the building to fall within its own shadow (more or less).
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