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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Chino on April 09, 2013, 09:33:00 AM
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I know this seems like a really weird topic, but I started thinking about it on the way to school while listening to Toby Kieth's Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. Say 9/11 carried out the same way that it had, except the fires in the buildings eventually burned out instead of causing the towers to collapse. What would we have done with the buildings? Would we have had to demolish them manually (please no "they were demolished manually. 9/11 was an inside job!")? Would it have even been possible to repair such extensive damage so high up? I know nothing about architecture and/construction and am genuinely curious about this.
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Wow, that's actually a pretty interesting question. I can't imagine repairing them would be an option. Waaaayyy too much structural damage.
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If the towers didn't fall, Dream Theater wouldn't have won the March Metal Madness poll and it would have kick started the zombie apocalypse.
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I think there are two questions. Could they be repaired and would they be repaired. I suspect they could be. If the structural supports remained intact and strong enough to keep them from collapsing, then they could be reinforced. The would question is a lot trickier. The financial aspect would be complicated. Cost of demolition vs repair. Cost of rebuilding. Cost of insuring the repaired version of it. Insurance payout distributed across numerous underwriters. Honestly, who knows? Then there's the psychological consideration. A lot of people really lost their fucking minds in light of that whole thing. Plenty of people would insist on repairing it as some sort of defiant statement. Others would insist that it was too painful of a reminder and had to be removed. Although, the political considerations would almost certainly negate their pleas.
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I think there are two questions. Could they be repaired and would they be repaired. I suspect they could be. If the structural supports remained intact and strong enough to keep them from collapsing, then they could be reinforced. The would question is a lot trickier. The financial aspect would be complicated. Cost of demolition vs repair. Cost of rebuilding. Cost of insuring the repaired version of it. Insurance payout distributed across numerous underwriters. Honestly, who knows? Then there's the psychological consideration. A lot of people really lost their fucking minds in light of that whole thing. Plenty of people would insist on repairing it as some sort of defiant statement. Others would insist that it was too painful of a reminder and had to be removed. Although, the political considerations would almost certainly negate their pleas.
But how do you get cranes up to that level? When the building is being constructed the cranes are attached to the structure and grow with the building. Once constructed, how to you get such heavy loads to that height?
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The same way they were removed upon completion. They're dismantled and carried. That's assuming there's much crane work that needs to be done. I suppose the biggest issue is do the trusses need to be replaced, or is it only the flanges that need repair. My understanding is that once steel gets heated like that, it's lost much of it's strength permanently, so I suppose it's the trusses, but I'm not sure.
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But how do you get cranes up to that level? When the building is being constructed the cranes are attached to the structure and grow with the building. Once constructed, how to you get such heavy loads to that height?
I believe the method they use to dismantle such cranes is to build smaller cranes that are able to lower the bigger ones piece by piece. They repeat the process until a small enough crane remains that can be removed by hellicopter.
I guess the opposite method would be valid to build a big crane at the top - start with a small one and build the bigger ones piece by piece.