The Bigger They Come, the Harder They Fall
Explosive demolition is the preferred method for safely and efficiently demolishing larger structures. When a building is surrounded by other buildings, it may be necessary to "implode" the building, that is, make it collapse down into its footprint.
A building implosion isn't truly an implosion -- atmospheric pressure doesn't pull or push the structure inward, gravity makes it collapse. But the term implosion is in common use for this sort of demolition. In this article, we use the word this way.
The basic idea of explosive demolition is quite simple: If you remove the support structure of a building at a certain point, the section of the building above that point will fall down on the part of the building below that point. If this upper section is heavy enough, it will collide with the lower part with sufficient force to cause significant damage. The explosives are just the trigger for the demolition. It's gravity that brings the building down.
In order to demolish a building safely, blasters must map out each element of the implosion ahead of time. The first step is to examine architectural blueprints of the building, if they can be located, to determine how the building is put together. Next, the blaster crew tours the building (several times), jotting down notes about the support structure on each floor. Once they have gathered all the raw data they need, the blasters hammer out a plan of attack. Drawing from past experiences with similar buildings, they decide what explosives to use, where to position them in the building and how to time their detonations. In some cases, the blasters may develop 3-D computer models of the structure so they can test out their plan ahead of time in a virtual world.
HowStuffWorks "How Building Implosions Work"
WTC7.net the hidden story of Building 7: Building 7's Location
Building 7 was the only of the seven buildings with a World Trade Center address that was on a different block. It, along with the 6 other buildings, were completely or largely destroyed on September 11th. No large buildings outside of the two turquoise zones in the map to the right suffered more than superficial damage, such as gashes caused by flying pieces of steel from the Towers.
Al
Explosive demolition is the preferred method for safely and efficiently demolishing larger structures. When a building is surrounded by other buildings, it may be necessary to "implode" the building, that is, make it collapse down into its footprint.
A building implosion isn't truly an implosion -- atmospheric pressure doesn't pull or push the structure inward, gravity makes it collapse. But the term implosion is in common use for this sort of demolition. In this article, we use the word this way.
The basic idea of explosive demolition is quite simple: If you remove the support structure of a building at a certain point, the section of the building above that point will fall down on the part of the building below that point. If this upper section is heavy enough, it will collide with the lower part with sufficient force to cause significant damage. The explosives are just the trigger for the demolition. It's gravity that brings the building down.
In order to demolish a building safely, blasters must map out each element of the implosion ahead of time. The first step is to examine architectural blueprints of the building, if they can be located, to determine how the building is put together. Next, the blaster crew tours the building (several times), jotting down notes about the support structure on each floor. Once they have gathered all the raw data they need, the blasters hammer out a plan of attack. Drawing from past experiences with similar buildings, they decide what explosives to use, where to position them in the building and how to time their detonations. In some cases, the blasters may develop 3-D computer models of the structure so they can test out their plan ahead of time in a virtual world.
HowStuffWorks "How Building Implosions Work"
WTC7.net the hidden story of Building 7: Building 7's Location
Building 7 was the only of the seven buildings with a World Trade Center address that was on a different block. It, along with the 6 other buildings, were completely or largely destroyed on September 11th. No large buildings outside of the two turquoise zones in the map to the right suffered more than superficial damage, such as gashes caused by flying pieces of steel from the Towers.
Al
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