Originally, I felt he was talking about the designer's decisions in the building design. Then I thought maybe he meant the "ASCE position", then I thought maybe he meant the Federal Law that allows "unique" buildings to be designed to some project specific standard rather than a building code.
Maybe he meant a little of all 3.
One thing I found curious, is Dr. Astaneh saying that the Sears Tower is designed according to a building code and therefore sturdier, or it just happens to be sturdier? I don't know if it was designed to a building code or not.
I remember early in my college years our professor stated that building codes were minimums for regular and common buildings. He said that didn't necessarily apply to special structures.
Where is the building official's responsibility in all of this if they approved some lower design standard? Did they even get a chance to review it?
And I'm sorry, but I do agree that designing a building for deliberate airplane collisions is not something that would happen back then and probably not for most buildings today unless that design included a missile battery and anti-aircraft system at the top of the structure.
-gm
On 9/13/07, Josh Comfort <jcomfort@ggbse.com> wrote:
I find it interesting that you guys focused on the "moral corruption" quote
from the article rather than the following excerpt: "New York building
codes would have prevented the towers' flimsy design, he (Astaneh) said, but
federal laws allowed engineers to ignore those codes. The same exception has
been granted to developers of New York's Freedom Tower, which will replace
the World Trade Center."
In my opinion, this is a more important item of discussion and really is the
basis for Dr. Astaneh's "moral corruption" quote.
Can someone with better knowledge about the design exceptions granted to
both the original towers and the new tower provide a summary of them?
Josh Comfort, P.E.
Golden, Graper & Burton, Inc.
1500 W. Fourth Ave., Suite 509
Spokane, WA 99204
(509)624-3224 (509)624-3225 Fax
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Feather [mailto: PFeather@se-solutions.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 10:27 AM
To: seaint@seaint.org
Subject: RE: WTC Studies-Structural Aspects
I too am a little disappointed with the articles and the tone. Leslie
Robertson is a world class engineer, the buildings (WTC) a true marvel
of modern engineering.
It is always easy to go back in hindsight to try and say "I would have
done this different", or "if only they had..."
This is one of the real differences between design and study; in design
you make decisions and create. Having done my share of unique problems
and large scale projects, cost is always an issue. Part of good
engineering design is to seek graceful, constructable, least cost
solutions. This is a long way from moral corruption. I guess if you
have not been there and done that, as we say, you cannot appreciate the
process or judge from experience.
Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view, expecting
some lunatic crazed religious fanatics to go to such extremes to try and
destroy your work did not become a part of the design lexicon until
after this event. It certainly was not part of the collective
consciousness at the time Leslie designed the buildings; we still
thought only in terms of accidents.
I would expect a far more unbiased objective evaluation based on real
concepts.
Paul Feather PE, SE
pfeather@SE-Solutions.net
www.SE-Solutions.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Wright [mailto: chrisw@skypoint.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 8:32 AM
To: seaint@seaint.org
Subject: Re: WTC Studies-Structural Aspects
On Oct 13, 2007, at 3:14 AM, Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl wrote:
> Yesterday, I presented the results of our 5-year studies of
> structural aspects of the World Trade Center in Sibley Auditorium
> of UC Berkeley. Articles in the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa
> Times, and San Jose Mercury News cover the main items of my
> presentation.
I don't know about California but Florida and Minnesota make
defamatory public pronouncements (such as accusations of 'moral
corruption') a violation of professional standards of conduct. The
proper place for Astaneh-Asl's criticism is a peer-reviewed journal
where the evidence can be presented and reviewed in detail. The
articles contain nothing substantive, only vague allegations of
negligence and misconduct with no basis for reaching objective
conclusions.
Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at
chrisw@skypoint.com | this distance" (last words of Gen.
.......................................| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania
1864)
http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw/
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-gm