The WTC buildings had MUCH larger floor areas, but similar story heights. Also, the WTC buildings had external structural columns and spandrels which would reduce the wall area through which pressured air could escape. If a floor collapse in, say, 0.1 seconds (i.e. air volume between two floor slabs is reduced from HxWxD to 0 in 0.1 s and escapes through the wall openings), that means air would have to escape from the WTC buildings at average speeds of hundreds of km per second, but at only tens of km/h from the Sao Paulo building. That explains why the ejections are less pronounced there.
To throw in a few guesstimated numbers and a quick back-of-the-envelop calculation:
A) WTC1/2:
Dimensions of 1 story (from floor to ceiling) are 60 m wide, 60 m deep, 3,50 m high, for an air volume of 12,600 cubic meters.
The wall area of a story is 60 m by 3.5 m per wall, 4 times that per story (four walls), for a total wall area of 840 square meters. Of that area, 1/3 is blocked by perimeter columns. Of the remaining 560 square meters, 1/3 is blocked by the spandrels, so there are 373 square meters of wall openings per story. As the ceiling slab descends upon the floor, that area is reduced from 373 m^2 to 0. Ignoring the effect of acceleration (i.e. assuming constant fall speed), that means that during the collapse of that floor, the average wall openings are 187 m^2.
So 12,600 m^3 of air must escape through 187 m^2 of openings within 0.1 seconds: The average air speed works out as v = 12,600 m^3 / 187 m^2 / 0.1 seconds = 674 m/s!!
B) WPdA Building
Dimensions of 1 story are 24 m x 10 m X 3.5 m = 840 m^3 (I am seriously eyeballing! Insert better numbers, if you have any!)
The glassed wall area is (24+10+12+10) x 3.5 m = 196 m^3 (I am guessing that half of one of the two long walls is concrete core and thus sealed). If this, nothing needs to be deducted, as the steel work within the facade provides negligible obstruction. But ok, hey let me be generous, and deduct 10% anyway: we have an area of 176 of glass panes through which air can escape. Half that, or 88 m^2, is the average glass wall area during the ceiling collapse.
So 196 m^3 of air must escape through 88 m^2 of openings within 0.1 seconds: The average air speed works out as v = 196 m^3 / 88 m^2 / 0.1 seconds = 22.3 m/s.
Average speed of laterally ejected in Sao Paulo would thus be expected to have had only 3.3% the speed of the WTC ejections.
Are you following,
@John85?