Mitch Haley wrote: > Somewhere I've got a picture of a burned out barn with steel beams drooped over a wooden > beam.
If you read the article that Mitch referenced, you'll see further down the difference between a glue-lam wooden composite beam and a steel beam...making the point that steel can and does fail before some wood structures. I did some googling and found the following excellent discussion by a fire department expert. Based on my somewhat limited knowledge of structural engineering (I'm a petroleum engineer by training, but I had to take all the same core courses as the structural guys, and I my Dad was a structural engineer), this guy knows what he is talking about. One of his points is that the steel trusses were the weak points, and all fire departments know that. Once one part of a truss fails, the rest of the truss can fail quickly as undamaged parts have to pick up the loads of other parts that failed. He also mentions the problems with failed insulation on the steel, I have seen mentioned several times in discussions about WTC. Of course, that was partially due to issues with asbestos, and you can just imagine the restrictions in NYC for dealing with asbestos. Bottom line, I'm tired of hearing about "conspiracies" other than the one where 19 terrorists climbed on board undefended airliners, slit the throats of women, and bravely drove those planes into buildings that housed over 3000 civilians. As an aside...we're visiting in-laws in Oklahoma City and yesterday went to the site of the 1995 bombing. I'm sorry they executed Tim McVeigh....I would rather they caged him up and kept him at the site so people could kick his ass. Royce _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/ For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com