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Fire safety in wooden structures is interesting. A friend who does research in the area explained that, in some ways, wooden beams are simpler to engineer than

Fire safety in wooden structures is interesting. A friend who does research in the area explained that, in some ways, wooden beams are simpler to engineer than steel beams when dealing with fire. The goal, engineering wise, is to put a number on a given structure - how many hours can it burn before it falls? A steel beam will maintain most of its strength up to the point it suddenly becomes soft and loses all of it. The exact point in time this occurs is hard to predict, because it varies substantially with several variables. A wood beam will maintain the full strength of the beam, minus the average thickness of wood that is burned off per hour, which is a reasonably well known quantity. This makes it simple (though not easy, of course!), relative to steel structures, to put a number on a wooden structure - "this building can burn for 2 hours before it is no longer safe for firemen to try to put it out from inside".

tbabb 9y ago
The question is: how does the number for a steel structure compare to that of a steel one?
- bch 9y ago
  This doesn't answer the question, but on topic: I was working with a building engineer who described a situation where a car engine caught on fire underneath a buildings (large, extended) eve that was built with steel beams, and they did melt, obviously necessitating a lot of fix-up work. He reckoned though that if the beam was built of wood, in that situation you'd just have to clean of some blackened material and carry on business-as-usual. He also said that of steel, perfect glass, and wood, glass was (strength to weight) the strongest material (I don't remember if this was in compression, or tension, or ...), but it's so affected by its environment (chemically, physically (a scratch)), there's really no such thing as perfect glass, so it's moot.
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logicallee 9y ago
> A friend who does research in the area explained that, in some ways, wooden beams are simpler to engineer than steel beams when dealing with fire. This is kind of tangential, but I have a question pertaining to your friend's profession (the engineering behind how buildings burn.) I was surprised to learn that literally thousands in that profession (I don't believe them) are claiming 9/11 included "massive evidence for controlled demolition", led by: >Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects,[2] has worked as an architect for 20 years and was involved in the construction of numerous fireproof steel-frame building. (Both my quotes are from Wikipedia.) In general if thousands of computer scientists were claiming a random number generator has a backdoor, say, I'd tend to believe them. What does your friend say on this subject? If you haven't asked yet I would be interested if you would do so, and then write to me at my email contact listed here. Sorry for the kind of off-topic question.
- monocasa 9y ago
  > In general if thousands of computer scientists were claiming a random number generator has a backdoor, say, I'd tend to believe them. A) It's not thousands. Out of the ~100,000 members of the AIA, 160 voted to take another look at 9/11. B) I wouldn't accept an appeal to authority on the computer science side either. They'd have to explain how the RNG is biased.
  - logicallee 9y ago
    My apologies, I was quoting the figure "by December 2014, over 2,300 architectural and engineering professionals had signed the petition" and it states "According to the organization, the identities and qualifications of all licensed architects and engineers whose names are being published on its website as well as those of other supporters who are listed separately are subjected to verification before acceptance". Usually Wikipedia is actually quite harsh on conspiracy theories. For example the Flat Earth article's 7th word is "archaic" (it begins "The flat Earth model is an archaic conception of Earth's shape as a plane or disk".) The final paragraph of the lead states "In the modern era, pseudoscientific flat Earth theories have been espoused". (The flat Earth theory has vigorous, albeit often troll, online defenders.) So this explains my reaction - from the way the article was written I had thought thousands of architects and structural engineers thought there was massive evidence of a controlled demolition. You may check out your cousin comment for a reply from someone who has looked into this quite a bit I think. That person (tedivm) seems to think it's a pretty massive waste of time so hopefully this thread won't include much more of it. Sorry to waste your time if this was the case, and thanks for your reply. :)

tbabb 9y ago

The question is: how does the number for a steel structure compare to that of a steel one?

bch 9y ago
This doesn't answer the question, but on topic: I was working with a building engineer who described a situation where a car engine caught on fire underneath a buildings (large, extended) eve that was built with steel beams, and they did melt, obviously necessitating a lot of fix-up work. He reckoned though that if the beam was built of wood, in that situation you'd just have to clean of some blackened material and carry on business-as-usual. He also said that of steel, perfect glass, and wood, glass was (strength to weight) the strongest material (I don't remember if this was in compression, or tension, or ...), but it's so affected by its environment (chemically, physically (a scratch)), there's really no such thing as perfect glass, so it's moot.

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logicallee 9y ago

> A friend who does research in the area explained that, in some ways, wooden beams are simpler to engineer than steel beams when dealing with fire. This is kind of tangential, but I have a question pertaining to your friend's profession (the engineering behind how buildings burn.) I was surprised to learn that literally thousands in that profession (I don't believe them) are claiming 9/11 included "massive evidence for controlled demolition", led by: >Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects,[2] has worked as an architect for 20 years and was involved in the construction of numerous fireproof steel-frame building. (Both my quotes are from Wikipedia.) In general if thousands of computer scientists were claiming a random number generator has a backdoor, say, I'd tend to believe them. What does your friend say on this subject? If you haven't asked yet I would be interested if you would do so, and then write to me at my email contact listed here. Sorry for the kind of off-topic question.

monocasa 9y ago
> In general if thousands of computer scientists were claiming a random number generator has a backdoor, say, I'd tend to believe them. A) It's not thousands. Out of the ~100,000 members of the AIA, 160 voted to take another look at 9/11. B) I wouldn't accept an appeal to authority on the computer science side either. They'd have to explain how the RNG is biased.
- logicallee 9y ago
  My apologies, I was quoting the figure "by December 2014, over 2,300 architectural and engineering professionals had signed the petition" and it states "According to the organization, the identities and qualifications of all licensed architects and engineers whose names are being published on its website as well as those of other supporters who are listed separately are subjected to verification before acceptance". Usually Wikipedia is actually quite harsh on conspiracy theories. For example the Flat Earth article's 7th word is "archaic" (it begins "The flat Earth model is an archaic conception of Earth's shape as a plane or disk".) The final paragraph of the lead states "In the modern era, pseudoscientific flat Earth theories have been espoused". (The flat Earth theory has vigorous, albeit often troll, online defenders.) So this explains my reaction - from the way the article was written I had thought thousands of architects and structural engineers thought there was massive evidence of a controlled demolition. You may check out your cousin comment for a reply from someone who has looked into this quite a bit I think. That person (tedivm) seems to think it's a pretty massive waste of time so hopefully this thread won't include much more of it. Sorry to waste your time if this was the case, and thanks for your reply. :)