Except where the floor is. Or is the floor also 99.86% air?
I also wonder if you know where I'm going with this...
It is Bazant, not me, that includes the total floor area as a parameter, where the solid columns being impacted only occupy 0.14 %.
The floors (and their masses) are just hanging 3.7 m apart on the columns, while the 260+ columns are impacting each other, repeatedly.
To continue the example above with only one column of 212 cm² (or 0.0212 m²) cross area being impacted by a similar column + mass 127 tons, we can assume for simplicity that each column supports on average a floor area of 4000/260 = 15.4 m².
So the 127 tons are spread on 15.4 m², or 8.2 ton/m².
So we have now a hammer with a head of 15.4 m² loaded with 8.2 ton/m² or total 127 tons! This hammer then impacts a lower column (nail) that has only 0.0212 m² cross area. What happens?
I assume the lower column punches a hole through the big hammer head dropping from above.
Alternatively, we make the hammer head 0.0212 m² large to mirror exactly the column below! But then we have to make this hammer head 55.5 metres tall and attach, say, 15 weights (floors) of 8.5 tons each to it every 3.7 metres to make up the total 127 tons.
OK - the 55.5 m tall hammer now impacts the column below. What happens?
Well, first of all it is no longer one mass (127 tons) as per Bazant's simple assumption but 15 masses of 8.5 tons (all attached/bolted to the hammer head) that are involved in the action.
These masses do not really know that they have impacted a column below because it is the column they are attached/bolted to that is impacting the column below.
Now, the question is - does the contraption hammer/upper part with 15 masses bolted to a 55.5 m tall column remain intact? According Bazant, yes. According common sense (and laws of physic), no.
Reason is that the 15 weights, in order to transmit their kinetic energies to the poor column below, must first transmit their kinetic energies to the column of the upper part that they are attached to, which in turn transmits the total kinetic energy to the column below. This takes time and there is an interesting flow of energies in the upper part at alleged impact that Bazant ignores. It is much simpler to assume the upper part being just one, solid, rigid mass that remains intact.
But if an impact really takes place, it is probable that the bolted connections of the weights (floors) of the upper part shear off and the floors and the upper column, free of weights, drop down. It never happened ... because there was no impact.
Read http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist.htm and you understand why!
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