Free Republic

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) - Early tests on steel beams from the World Trade Center show they generally met or were stronger than design requirements, ruling them out as a contributing cause of the collapse of the towers, federal investigators said Wednesday. Engineers with the National Institute of Standards and Technology have conducted preliminary tests on some of the 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, said Frank Gayle, who is leading NIST's review of the steel. The tests found that, typical for construction steel used in the 1960s when the World Trade Center was erected, the steel beams exceeded requirements...

Burn Rate of WTC Cubicles Key to Probe GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) - Computers and other office equipment fueled the World Trade Center fires long after the jets that crashed into the towers incinerated, suggesting a need to consider new fire codes for modern office buildings, federal investigators said Tuesday. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is investigating the cause of the buildings' collapse on Sept. 11, 2001, recreated the World Trade Center fire in a mock cubicle. Investigators discovered that while the jet fuel and the plane's contents burned up in a matter of minutes, the contents of...

<p>Fireproofing on the steel floor supports in the World Trade Center was never tested and may have been too thin to hold up in a fire for the two-hour minimum set by the city building code, federal investigators said yesterday. The north tower fell about an hour and 45 minutes after terrorists attacked with the first hijacked jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001. The south tower collapsed about an hour after it was struck. Nearly 2,800 people were killed.</p>