Federal officials re-created a floor system of the World Trade Center and conducted a fire test on it Wednesday as part of their probe into the towers’ collapse after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but the results did not immediately provide any clear answers. During the test, conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at Underwriters Laboratories Northbrook, a slab of concrete was placed in a furnace, and soon flames were licking at the steel trusses, fireproofing material and metal decking underneath the floor. Images from inside the furnace of buckling trusses and cracking concrete were beamed onto a video screen for journalists, engineers and relatives of victims who were invited to view the test. The floor system failed after about an hour and 15 minutes because of high temperatures on the trusses and the concrete. A test last week of the floor system as it was actually installed in the towers did pass the two-hour fire rating required by the New York building code in the 1960s. Full Story
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