Why Buildings Fall Down

Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail by MatthysLevy?, MarioSalvadori?

ISBN 039331152X

I'm not sure whether to recommend this, or whether I prefer HenryPetroski?'s ToEngineerIsHuman. When I can find both books in the Perry family Bookhenge, I'll write a detailed review.

-- BetsyHanesPerry

Probably you should look at how Chileans build their buildings. The strongest recorded earthquakes have ocurred in Chile, so they know how to build buildings so that they can resist even 7 on the Richter scale.

The stronger earthquake ever was 9.5 Chile, May 22, 1960 according to http://www.psigate.ac.uk/newsite/reference/weather.html

It goes without saying that any building can be made to fall down given sufficient destructive force. A bomb in the basement didn't fell the World Trade Center. A fully-fueled 757 flying into the side did.

An interesting question, of course, is what sort of catastrophic damages our structures should be able to withstand without collapse. Some have suggested that the WTC, for example, should have been able to withstand 9/11--and thus some blame must be assigned to the architects/engineers. Others think that's an unreasonable requirement for a civilian building.

What's even more interesting: It WAS designed to withstand the impact of a 737. When airplanes got bigger, they reexamined the buildings and found that they could *STILL* withstand the impact of today's larger airplanes. And they did. But there wasn't any reasonable way to model the fire that could occur after a fully fueled airplane crashed. That's what did the buildings in.

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