"Joe Nicholson" wrote to "Mike Ross" (19 Dec 02  09:56:00)
 --- on the topic of "Word Trade Center"

 -=> Quoting Mike Ross to Charles Angelich <=-

 > BTW the buildings falling straight down is a known failure
 > mechanism called pan-cake or accordion mode. The weight of
 > the upper floor falling on the one below it causes it to fail
 > instantly and the whole thing cascades floor after floor all
 > the way to the ground.

 JN> Even 3- and 4-story buildings are designed that way today. That
 JN> is the theme of a few engineering stories before and after WTC,
 JN> written mainly for first responders to emergency situations.

Well, what I think Charles was refering to in the case of demolition is
the older style structural steel frame cage type construction. As you
rightly point out new buildings aren't made like that anymore.

 Mike
 ****

... Multi-tasking:  Crashing both hard drives at once.
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30