Scale Model of the WTC

Bell

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Bell said:
It's very hard to grasp to size of the towers. I think most of us have played with HO trains when we were little, right?

The Twin Towers, in HO (1:87) scale would be about 15' 8" (4.8 meters) heigh and 2' 5" (0.73 meters) wide. Still very huge...
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Could somebody help me expand this please? Taken the 1:87th scale, how much would the upper portions of both towers weigh? I don't know what the weight in real size was, and I'm sure dividing that number by 87 is not the way to get the right answer. And also the weights for a 1:100 scale? Much appreciated.
 
Bell said:
Could somebody help me expand this please? Taken the 1:87th scale, how much would the upper portions of both towers weigh? I don't know what the weight in real size was, and I'm sure dividing that number by 87 is not the way to get the right answer. And also the weights for a 1:100 scale? Much appreciated.
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Assuming the materials are all the same, you can get a good approximation of the weight by dividing the weight of the original by the cube of the scale factor. You need to do this since you are reducing each of the three dimensions by that factor.

So a 1:87 scale model of the WTC towers would weigh approximately 1/(87^3) or 1/658,503 of the original towers.
 
Bell said:
Could somebody help me expand this please? Taken the 1:87th scale, how much would the upper portions of both towers weigh? I don't know what the weight in real size was, and I'm sure dividing that number by 87 is not the way to get the right answer. And also the weights for a 1:100 scale? Much appreciated.
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Here they say that the weight of a tower was 500.000 ton.

I think that at scale 1:87, the weight is 500.000 divided by 87³.
 
pvt1863 said:
Assuming the materials are all the same, you can get a good approximation of the weight by dividing the weight of the original by the cube of the scale factor. You need to do this since you are reducing each of the three dimensions by that factor.

So a 1:87 scale model of the WTC towers would weigh approximately 1/(87^3) or 1/658,503 of the original towers.
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Firestone said:
Here they say that the weight of a tower was 500.000 ton.

I think that at scale 1:87, the weight is 500.000 divided by 87³.
Click to expand...

So one tower would weight 500.000/658.503 = 0,759 tons
That 759 kilograms? Or am I using the wrong metrics?

And would +/- 15 (WTC1) and +/- 30 (WTC2) floors then weight 103,5 and 207 kilos (roughly, divided 759 by 110)

Any comment appreciated.
 
Bell said:
So one tower would weight 500.000/658.503 = 0,759 tons
That 759 kilograms? Or am I using the wrong metrics?
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That's what I think anyway.

Bell said:
And would +/- 15 (WTC1) and +/- 30 (WTC2) floors then weight 103,5 and 207 kilos (roughly, divided 759 by 110)
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The steel in the lower parts of the WTC was heavier than in the higher parts. So higher floors weighted less than lower ones.
How to quantify it, no idea ... :blush:
 
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Apologies if this doesn't help your discussion, but some months ago I penned a post about scaling laws in models of the WTC.

Regarding the decreasing mass of upper floors, I've looked but found no good estimates for how the mass varied with height. The upper floors were lighter, to be sure, but even Greening doesn't treat it, since he found the collapse time to be pretty insensitive to falling mass. I'll take another look.
 
I have an image of a CTer catapulting in his full cigarette lighter then shouting "see!!!" at us....
 
R.Mackey said:
Apologies if this doesn't help your discussion, but some months ago I penned a post about scaling laws in models of the WTC.

Regarding the decreasing mass of upper floors, I've looked but found no good estimates for how the mass varied with height. The upper floors were lighter, to be sure, but even Greening doesn't treat it, since he found the collapse time to be pretty insensitive to falling mass. I'll take another look.
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Hi Mackey, I kind of expected you to leap in :)

Good post. I know that scaled towers will behave differntly than the real ones, and could not collapse the way the real towers did.

I started this discussion in the 'common sense' thread, because the size of the towers are so hard to comprehend. By comparing them to HO scale model trains, I hope to make it more clear how absolutely huge they were. Next I thought about the weight of the upper parts, because talking about x-hundreds of tons is hard to imagine how heavy those would be.

Dealing with large numbers is very hard, we can't imagine it, but by putting it in context with things we can imagine, it may help to understand those numbers.
 
pvt1863 said:
Assuming the materials are all the same, you can get a good approximation of the weight by dividing the weight of the original by the cube of the scale factor. You need to do this since you are reducing each of the three dimensions by that factor.
Click to expand...

Shhh ... Don't tell this guy

wtcmodel.blogspot.com

I did a little bit of reading on the strength of ants versus men. According to one site (that I can't locate right now), the apparent strength of ants has mostly do with the relationship between strength and the cross-sectional area of muscles.

So that wasn't very useful.
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I'm waiting for him to show pictures of himself setting his "model" on fire trying to prove that the fire didn't matter. :D
 
Bell said:
I started this discussion in the 'common sense' thread, because the size of the towers are so hard to comprehend. By comparing them to HO scale model trains, I hope to make it more clear how absolutely huge they were. Next I thought about the weight of the upper parts, because talking about x-hundreds of tons is hard to imagine how heavy those would be.
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They sure are.

The way I think about it is this -- the floor area of the Towers was over 100 times the size of the farm I grew up on.

Heck, I still can't really grasp it. Guess nerds like me are more comfortable with numbers. :eye-poppi
 
Bell said:
To sum it up:

WTC height: 1,368 ft (417.0 m)
WTC width: 208 feet (63.4 m)
WTC weight: 500.000 ton
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Hmmm .... Time to break out the back of an envelope.

500000 tons / 110 floors =~ 4545 tons / floor.
4545 tons / floor * 15 floors =~ 68200 tons.

208 ft * 208 ft = 43264 ft^2

208 ft * 208 ft * (1368 ft / 110 floors) * 15 floors =~ 8.08 million ft^3

(Twoofers : it's called showing your work, with units!)

Question time:

Is it possible to build a multistory building of steel and concrete with a ~45000 ft^2 base (whose enclosed volume is 90% air and has layout suitable for office space) without exceeding 4.5 ktons of structure per floor that can survive the impact of an 8 million cubic foot, 68 kiloton object falling on it?​

Part 2: For extra credit; What's the post-impact prognosis for the structure if the steel in said structure were magically made 50% weaker before impact?​

Any "Truthers" want to take a pass at answering this using "common sense?"
 
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Just a thought: Is this the weight of the empty towers or
with furniture and people? :confused:
 
yeah...we have to account for all the other crap in the building...especially furniture, carpeting, the elevator mechanical rooms...gears, and stuff. that building becoemse a lot heavier.
 
The collapse time is totally independent on the mass, if you scale Greening's m_f with a factor and also his E1 with the same factor the collapse is exactly the same. However if the mass distribution is not uniform and the energies E1 to detach the floor are not uniform the collapse time is different.
 
Einsteen, I'm not looking to for a scaled down version of the collapse. I'm only trying to put the height and weight of the towers in perspective.
 
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