WTC Collapses

[MacGyver1968]

scans of the original documents are in appendix A, page 302, from this link:

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-2Draft.pdf

the images are locked, so you'll have to click and be patient loading the document, unless someone wants to sreengrab and upload. whatreallyhappened.com had the scans online, but I can't find them now.

from the NIST report:

Finding 11: Documents from The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey indicated that the safety of the WTC towers and their occupants in an aircraft collision was a consideration in the original design. The documents indicate that a Boeing 707, the largest commercial aircraft at the time, flying at 600 mph was considered, and the analysis indicated that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and
safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact. No documentary evidence of the aircraft impact analysis was available to review the criteria and methods used in the analysis of the aircraft impact into the WTC towers, or to provide details on the ability of the WTC towers to withstand such impacts.
....page cxii

Thanks for posting the relevant part. I can't download .pdf's on my phone or at work.

[scott3x]

They conveniently had troops in the region before 9/11 so it really didn't take them long to get in there.

this doesn't mean a thing. we "conveniently have troops" all over the globe.

This point has been responded to in the 9/11 Why thread.

[scott3x]

Even NIST believes it existed. They say it went 'missing' or something of that sort. Mac, let's imagine for a moment that this really -was- an inside job. Do you honestly think that such people would want such a paper to come to light? Do you think that if they could manage to snuff out the lives of around 3000 people in a single day that they'd have much trouble 'dissapearing' one little paper from a guy who's already dead and can't say what it said from memory?

The designers only considered the kinetic energy of the impact in their design, they did not account for the fuel, and the resulting fires...

Not according to John Skilling, who actually designed the World Trade Center. Here's what he had to say about it to the Seattle Times, when he was still alive, and right after the first bomb attack on the WTC buildings, back in 1993:
Skilling, based in Seattle, is among the world's top structural engineers. He is responsible for much of Seattle's downtown skyline and for several of the world's tallest structures, including the Trade Center.

Concerned because of a case where an airplane hit the Empire State Building, Skilling's people did an analysis that showed the towers would withstand the impact of a Boeing 707.

"Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there."...

Although Skilling is not an explosives expert, he says there are people who do know enough about building demolition to bring a structure like the Trade Center down.

"I would imagine that if you took the top expert in that type of work and gave him the assignment of bringing these buildings down with explosives, I would bet that he could do it."

You are really showing your mild paranoid schizophrenia (yes, I'm a Dr. in Psychology. ) When unable to produce a document, you blame it on the boogeyman..those insider guys..they "dissapeared" it. That's not reasonable thought..that's crazy person talk.

I said it was a possibility. I would say that's not 'crazy person talk', but a reasonable assumption. Sometimes I really think that you're simply too trusting Mac. Tell me, do you think Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK too? Or that Roosevelt didn't want Pearl Harbor to be attacked?

You may have noticed that the paper said the buildings were designed for -600- miles per hour; not the measly 180 miles per hour that you mention. Where did you get that number from anyway?

The 180 number comes from the FEMA report.[/quote]

I did some digging; I thought I remembered that account. It would appear that the person who originally claimed this is none other then Leslie Robertson, who mentioned it in his article Reflections on the World Trade Center, who, contrary to what a NOVA presentation would have us believe, was actually a junior member of the firm [Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson] that designed the towers. Skilling was known at the time to be the engineer in charge; surely you realize that if 9/11 truly was an inside job, how inconvenient it would be to have Skilling's document come to light? Seriously, they even tried to diminish Skilling and overemphasize Robertson and his claims by saying that -Robertson- was the one in charge.

It also makes sense as that is about the approach speed of a 707.

The cruising speed of a 707 is 550 mph. Skilling apparently decided to design for a bit more then that, 600 mph.

A B-25 got lost in the fog and hit the Empire State Building back in the 40's. The designers of the WTC considered this incident and and upgraded the scenario to planes of their era..the 707. Planes lost the fog traveling at less than 1000 feet altitude don't go 600 mph. Planes in the fog at low elevation go slow...like 180. It's one of those common sense things.

Look, you can say that common sense is whatever you please; it doesn't add any weight to an argument. The bottom line is that Skilling, who actually designed the towers, as opposed to Leslie Robertson, a junior member of the firm despite NOVA saying otherwise, said that he'd designed the towers to withstand the impact of a 707 at 600 mph. In all honesty, I think it would be simple enough for engineers to calculate what the towers could withstand; who knows, perhaps psikey is right and all that's needed is knowing the distribution of the concrete and the steel. Nevertheless, until we've got those calculations, it would be nice to be able to see Skilling's analysis; but ofcourse, it went 'missing'.

The formulas I posted in the above post show how much energy difference that speed differential makes, as the planes generally weight the same. The only time planes fly that fast is when they are 30,000 feet in the air, where the air is nice and thin.

According to http://www.serendipity.li/wot/wtc_demolition_init.htm:
The speed of impact of AA Flight 11 was 470 mph = 689 ft/s.
The speed of impact of UA Flight 175 was 590 mph = 865 ft/s.

So looks like you're mistaken there.

[scott3x]

scans of the original documents are in appendix A, page 302, from this link:

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-2Draft.pdf

the images are locked, so you'll have to click and be patient loading the document, unless someone wants to sreengrab and upload. whatreallyhappened.com had the scans online, but I can't find them now.

from the NIST report:

Finding 11: Documents from The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey indicated that the safety of the WTC towers and their occupants in an aircraft collision was a consideration in the original design. The documents indicate that a Boeing 707, the largest commercial aircraft at the time, flying at 600 mph was considered, and the analysis indicated that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and
safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact. No documentary evidence of the aircraft impact analysis was available to review the criteria and methods used in the analysis of the aircraft impact into the WTC towers, or to provide details on the ability of the WTC towers to withstand such impacts.
....page cxii

Thanks for posting the relevant part. I can't download .pdf's on my phone or at work.

For when you get access to a computer, it's on page 114 of the pdf.

[scott3x]

One could get the impression that people don't want this solved.

Your the second person today I've heard say that someone "disappeared" their data. Who exactly are these people?

The types that have secret societies; 60 minutes did a piece on the Bush Clan's secret society, Yale's Skull And Bones society. To get a few others, you may want to read Jim Marrs' "Rule by Secrecy", which I found to be pretty good.

[psikeyhackr]

What are you saying negative to?

.
this:

the designers would have to make the tower that much heavier to cover a scenario that is highly unlikely.

.
A building that size had to BE really heavy just to support itself.

I haven't seen anyone explain what they did to the building that they would not have done if they hadn't tried to make it plain resistant. My guess is they added more perimeter columns because so many people say they were so lightly loaded.

But it still comes down to needing to know the weight distribution.

psik

[psikeyhackr]

common sense would suggest that the majority of the wind force would be concentrated on the upper half of the building.
the lower half would be protected from the wind by other buildings.

.
So would you design a building on that basis never knowing when buildings would be torn down in the future? Depending on direction sometimes buildings can cause wind speeds to increase because of constriction.

I thought you were supposed to ignore me.

psik

[leopold]

.
I thought you were supposed to ignore me.
psik

somebody has to keep you in line.

[shaman_]

who cares! all the chemicals existed in the towers to produce lemon souflee, there were no lemon souflees falling out of the windows. what is missing is the process in getting from the ingredients to the souflee.

A molten flow of aluminium from the plane with some other material in it isn't analogous to making a souflee.

what is remarkable is that you consider the possibilty that chemcials randomly break down and randomly come together to reform into thermite chemicals

I considered it a possibility because steel was found from WTC7 which had been partly dissolved from a eutectic reaction. You are trying very hard to mischaracterize what I say….

Have you noticed that you again sound like a creationist trying to ridicule abiogenesis or evolution?

AND you consider the possibilty that conditions difficult to replicate in a controlled laboratory could come together in a chaotic and random way to produce a quantity of thermite residue. you consider all that as plausible...

Those results were discussed in a peer reviewed document….

but you dismiss the idea that thermite was placed in the towers as unlikely conspiracy theory.

That's right.

The 911 conspiracy theory relies on the government feeling the need to jeopardize the entire conspiracy by demolishing buildings in front of everyone that was already going to be smashed into by planes at full speed. Smashing planes into a skyscraper isn’t an innocuous act but they just had to collapse them as well. If they really wanted to simulate a terrorist attack destroying the towers they could have just blown up the buildings with a big bomb. This is what terrorists do and would have been entirely conceivable. But no you expect me to believe that they managed to sneak in bombs/thermite/thermite (it constantly changes) into the building without anyone noticing. Massive amounts would have been needed in both buildings to cut the columns but no one noticed. Apparently they managed to get it on every floor or perhaps just the impact floors which required a pilot willing to give his life or for the conspiracy (or remote controlled), to hit the exact floors with the superthermite! The incendiary was not effected by the impact, massive explosion or the fires which raged across the building for the next hour and then they set the charges off. However, even though they managed to plan this ridiculous convoluted conspiracy they set it up so that the results of the incendiary started falling out of one of the windows giving away the whole thing! Then they needed to rush the clean up, even though thousands had access to the completely damning evidence for many months. Then they needed to run a complete sham investigation, fudging and ignoring the evidence all the way. All because smashing planes into the building wasn't enough they needed to demolish them as well. WTC7 was also destroyed so a billionaire could make some more money and some files could be destroyed. This cost millions or billions of dollars to pull off but it was all worth it because years later it enabled the US to very successfully invade another country to help then with democracy and get some oil. Thousands are in on the massive conspiracy but no one has come forward yet.



Plausible? I don’t think you should be even using the word.

not recently. what does it say that you think helps your position?

My position is that both you and Tony are quick to dismiss the possibilities that don’t fit your versions of the conspiracy.

Greening theorises that thermite reactions occurred naturally. Interestingly towards the end of the document he speculates that oxygen cylinders from the plane could lead to fires much hotter than 1000C.

I think it highly unlikely that he thinks in such a conclusive manner on this issue.

how neat that you divide people into 2 groups. those of rational thinking theorizers that comtemplate carefullly the issues, and those religious "truthers" that always speak in such absolutist terms. oh but wait... isn't dividing people into 2 distinct groups kind of....absolutist?? black/white, beleivers/non believers, with us/against us, truther/debunker ????

Pay attention. There are those who think there was a conspiracy and those who are not convinced. I am going to refer to those who think that there was as ‘truthers’. I am not going to type ‘those who think there was a conspiracy’ every time. I am going to type ‘truthers’ because it is easier. If my use of the term causes you some distress then I will use a different one.

There you go again- falsely attributing your own rigid absolutist thinking to others.

It is the reasoning you have Tony have explained to me. Are you going to lecture me on misrepresenting other's positions?

this is certainly true of the NIST report. bloomberg said the steel was not required to investigate the collapse, it would all be done on a computer simulation, if that isn't she-horning, i don't know what is.

Steel was inspected at the scrap yards. There was more to the NIST report than a computer simulation.

I don't see where that applies to the majority that question the official version.


OK, we agree we can rule out pure aluminium, aluminium cladding, aluminium skin from the plane etc

I am suggesting it is the aluminium from the plane mixed in with other materials within the towers.

the experiments to replicate a soup of what was in the building and make it glow yellow orange have failed,

Oh come on. Putting some wood chips and plastic into a little pot is a very poor attempt to replicate what wasn’t going on in the towers.

More truther double standards, steel buildings collapsing from fires, or fire tests demonstrating the behaviour of steel in fires are discarded with feeble excuses of not being similar enough to the WTC. Yet heating some plastic and wood chips in a tiny little pot is a replication of the river of molten material seen flowing out of WTC minutes before collapse.

so you have even less than unsupported speculation

Bases on observations noted on WTC7.

Vs a 100% repeatable match with thermite residue.

Video of thermite residue please so I can see the match.

you are suggesting that thermite residue could just form in quantity by chance in a fire.

Actually I didn’t say it was thermite residue. I said it was aluminium mixed in with some iron. You are claiming that is thermite residue.

the presence of thermite residue in a fire indicates thermite arson. people have been convicted on this

Please show me an example of someone convicted of thermite arson.

What you are suggesting would have ramifications for the legal system and all those convicted for thermite arson....or alternatively what you are suggesting is an absurdity.
what do you think is likely?

It becomes apparent just how poor your position is when you desperately need to twist my words and misrepresent my position just so you are able to come up with a response.

yes, the memo was broadcast yesterday, all hive-truthers recieved the message electronically at the same time and all adjusted their thinking per instructions in the memo. all praise Griffen-Ra our ever watchful eye lord on high <genuflect left brest>

I suspected it was in the latest email from your spiritual leader Steven Jones as it had never been used in a couple of hundred pages of 911 and then you used it three times in one page and Tony twice on the previous. It won’t catch on quite as well as ‘No steel framed high rise has ever blah blah…..” though.

no it is not possible. it fails for many reasons, but i'll give you one - there was no elemental sulfur.

.. any why must it be elemental sulfur? What effect would sulfur dioxide have on steel?

no, thats just your perception. I am interested in other possibilities. if they are not plausible or impossible then i will reject them.


a lot, don't know, some tons at a guess.

So how many tons of thermite/thermate would be needed to produce that?

yes i agree with these observations (apart from maybe the last bit)

Assuming that did agree regarding the bowing, those particular observations would fit the the aluminium soup (mmm) explanation better than the thermite incendiary one. Correct?

[Ophiolite]

I considered it a possibility because steel was found from WTC7 which had been partly dissolved from a eutectic reaction. You are trying very hard to mischaracterize what I say….

Have you noticed that you again sound like a creationist trying to ridicule abiogenesis or evolution?

He sounds like someone who doesn't know what a eutectic is.

[scott3x]

The Windsor Tower in Madrid and the Twin Towers

This post is in response to the 2nd part of shaman_'s post 1082 in this thread.

I agree. So does 911review.org, even including a diagram of this belief and stating that it is mistaken. It states the reverse; that the core columns reinforced the concrete core.

.. and I am saying that is not correct. The information I have regarding the towers states that the floors were concrete but it was the steel box columns providing the support in the core. There was no support provided by any concrete walls.

Alright, you've seen my source, let's see yours; perhaps others here can weigh in as well.

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/wtccoreconstruction

Look at your source again. See the picture of the towers with the sun behind them which shows that there is no concrete core. Read the explanation for that picture. Does it make sense? It sounds like nonsense to me.

You got me on this one shaman_. Yet more evidence that I do cede a point when I see there is evidence against it :-p.

Even your own 911 article says “In contrast to the WTC Towers, the Windsor building was framed primarily in steel-reinforced concrete, with columns of concrete reinforced by thin sections of rebar. 4"

To be sure. You are aware that the 9/11 research article in question was referring to the frames of the buildings, not the cores, right?

The framing of the building does not exclude the cores.

Perhaps Tony, Headspin or psikey can weigh in on that. All I know is that the article in question definitely does distinguish between the perimeter walls, interior core colums and core when it comes to gravity loads. Quoting:
"Distribution of gravity loads was; perimeter walls 50%, interior core columns 30% core 20%."

But in the comment, “the Windsor building was framed primarily in steel-reinforced concrete, with columns of concrete reinforced by thin sections of rebar.”, there is no distinction. That was what we were discussing.

That's all the frame of the Windsor tower, not the core; notice that the concrete frame is only reinforced by thin sections of rebar. It's only logical that if the steel is reinforcing the concrete, it's the steel that's the strong element; the fact that it was only some thin sections of rebar vs. the massive steel perimeter columns of the WTC buildings speaks volumes concerning their relative strengths. By the way, in the previous comment, I got mixed up; I was referring to the infamous anonymous article concerning the twin towers structures', which Headspin disagreed with and which I have now dropped.

I'm talking about the Madrid Tower's lightly steel reinforced concrete frame, which was susceptible to spalling when subjected to fires,

But spalling was not an issue for the Madrid tower as the concrete did not collapse. The steel did.

Sigh. The upper part of the concrete frame -did- collapse. Yes, so did the thin sections of rebar reinforcing it. Even so, it took hours from a very intense fire to do it; and it did so -gradually-.

Steel without fireproofing is more susceptible to fire than concrete. The two examples support that.

Not a chance. Not sure what your second example is, but I believe your first one is the concrete frame, which was only thinly reinforced with steel.

I haven't seen any evidence that steel can't resist fires quite well.

You cannot be serious. Can you see how that statement might be another example of you playing dumb? I have shown you multiple examples of steel weakening due to fire.

Weakening, yes. But unless the steel is fairly thin, such as what you might find in a warehouse or a bridge, for instance, it simply bends or sags; it doesn't collapse. And unless the temperatures are truly intense, it distributes the heat amoung its length, lessening the head load in the parts exposed to the fire.

And steel doesn't spall.

Neither did the concrete at the Madrid tower.

I've heard no evidence of that. I know that concrete -can- spall, though.

No, no no. I originally just quoted what I had just quoted above but then realized it was the same thing I'd quoted before. So I'll phrase it as an answer to your question this time.

The Windsor tower -frame- (as opposed to the core) was weak because it was primarily framed in steel-reinforced concrete,

No you are confused. You have taken the statement “the Windsor building was framed primarily in steel-reinforced concrete,” and invented a distinction between a frame and core.

Sorry, but the distinction is quite clear. It's also clear in the twin towers.

The only distinction to be made here is between the concrete core and the perimeter steel columns. Where there was concrete there was no collapse. The steel however collapsed.

Again, the columns were concrete, reinforced only with thin sections of steel rebar.

with columns of concrete reinforced by thin sections of rebar. The concrete pillars in the Windsor building are clearly visible in the photographs showing the intact core exposed by the collapsed facade. The very light construction of the perimeter, described here, makes it clear that the core was the main load-bearing component of the building.

The Twin Towers and Building 7 were both 100% steel-framed, with large wide-flange columns and box columns, some measuring over four feet wide and fabricated of steel up to five inches thick. Severe fires in other skyscrapers which, like the WTC Towers, were 100% steel-framed, have not produced even partial collapses.

They had not been hit by planes, jet fuel … sigh… you should know the rest by now…

The effect of the planes was negligible to the twin towers' structure, as was the jet fuel and the office fires.

The twin towers' frames were 100% steel framed. Stronger, and no spalling possible.

No but steel is down to approx 50% strength at around 600c. Kind of a problem don’t you think..

First of all, I haven't seen any evidence that the office fires could actually heat the steel to that degree. Secondly, I'm not sure that even the affected floors would collapse even if the steel was heated to that extent in some parts. And remember we're only talking 1 or 2 floors; what of the rest? They certainly didn't have fires burning in them before the sudden collapse of the building. I think you really should take note of the Windsor Tower; it was more weakly constructed and the fires lasted longer and where more intense, and yet it only produced a gradual, partial collapse.

[scott3x]

The real challenge

This post is in response to the 3rd part of shaman_'s post 1020 in this thread.

It’s the second paragraph[:]
As will be seen, it appears likely that NIST got the load distributions wrong in favor of survival of the structure. A simple explanation is that the core supported all floor loads within the core plus approximately half of the floor loads outside the core. Further, the DCR for the core is found to be roughly in agreement with Banovic, Foecke, and Luecke [2007] who state “The core columns were designed to carry the building gravity loads and were loaded to approximately 50% of their capacity before the aircraft impact”.

That's one small step for conspiracy theorists but one giant leap for the truth ;-)! Well, perhaps I'm being a little dramatic

I’m sure NIST have made errors in their report somewhere. Only a truther desperate for a rare win would really get too excited about it.

After actually reading what the guy said, I'm actually beginning to think NIST got it -right- and it's this guy who got it wrong this time around. NIST's reports are full of flaws; the challenge is getting people like you to see this.

Well, since Headspin disagrees with some of that source, if he, Tony or psikey agrees with you on this I'll leave it at that unless I get more evidence.

Hooray!! From now I should talk to you through them. I can spend pages and pages painstakingly showing you how you are wrong on a simple point but you will never concede even after you have long run out of responses. Yet one word from them and you will accept something.

Not necessarily true. However, Headspin has been at this much longer then I have and Tony is a mechanical engineer. So unless I have something truly solid, I will generally concede to their views.

[scott3x]

The WTC steel, part 2

This post is in response to the 4th part of shaman_'s post 1082 in this thread.

I've gone over this before, but perhaps when you wrote this I hadn't yet gone over it (this post is something like 400 posts before present after all). Anyway, basically, the 767 wasn't going fully loaded and the twin towers were definitely designed to handle their impacts, according to John Skilling, who some argue was the true lead designer of the towers (as opposed to Leslie).

It seems that Robertson and Skilling completely contradict each other here.

This was my response to Tony regarding this issue.

“1. Where is the actual evidence of the analysis? I’m not suggesting that one wasn’t done but that it would need to be checked.

It's conveniently gone missing

2. Why would Robertson contradict his boss?

To steal some credit for the design of the buildings without actually saying he designed them and perhaps get other rewards? Skilling died before 9/11, so it's not like he can contradict him.

3. The building did stand for an hour and tens of thousands of lives were saved. 4 (Most importantly) Structures have failed before when tested with conditions that they were supposedly designed for.”

Fine; however, the WTC steel was specifically tested to see whether or not they would have collapsed given the fires that occurred on 9/11. There has not been -1- report that they collapsed, with or without fireproofing. One thing though, I -really- would like to see Tony's source for the "calibration" test wherein they tested some steel with no fireproofing at all.

From what I remember, it wasn't demonstrated, but feel free to provide your alleged evidence (once more?) for me to (once again?) debunk it.

By ‘debunk’ you mean ignore it and pretend you never heard of it.

No, I mean take it apart, one fallacy at a time.

There are many sources for the Cardington tests.
http://www.vulcan-solutions.com/cardington.html#office

“The demonstration test was designed to represent a typical office fire, and was less thoroughly instrumented than the others.

The maximum temperatures recorded were 1213°C (atmosphere) and 1150°C (steel beams).”

From your own site.
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/...cardington.htm

The fire was fuelled by office furniture and the test went for 74 minutes.

Yes, I've noticed that even 9/11 Research claims that the steel beams reached temperatures above 1000C. However, both Headspin and you haven't been able to find this data in the actual raw data. Furthermore, even supposing they did reach those temperatures, the steel beams didn't collapse. Surely you noticed this?

[scott3x]

Steven's debunking of a peer reviewed paper's statement and Jim Hoffman's debunking of a NIST statement

This post is in response to the 5th and final part of shaman_'s post 1082 in this thread.

[Steven Jones:]
Correct — jet collisions did not cause collapses — we can agree on that. MIT’s Thomas Eager also concurs “because the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure” (Eager and Musso, 2001).

We continue with Bazant & Zhou:

The conflagration, caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure, causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures apparently exceeding 800C… (Bazant and Zhou, 2002, p. 2.)

But here we note from the recent NIST report that: “The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes” and office material fires would burn out within about 20 minutes in a given location. (NIST, 2005; p. 179, emphasis added.) Certainly jet fuel burning was not enough to raise steel to sustained temperatures above 800C.

But, as demonstrated, office materials can.

I... see that you have handily sidestepped the fact that I've proven my point- Steven Jones has just handily debunked some Bazant and Zou's peer reviewed material and you haven't even batted an eye...

What the bujesus are you talking about? They claimed that the jet fuel wouldn’t go over 800C and that is handily debunking a peer reviewed document? As I pointed out the jet fuel was only the source of ignition for the fire. The office fires could go over 800C.

From Jim Hoffman's Imagined Heat section in his Building a Better Mirage critique of the Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Towers (Draft):
The highest temperatures estimated for the samples was 250 ºC (482 ºF). That's consistent with the results of fire tests in uninsulated steel-framed parking garages, which showed maximum steel temperatures of 360 ºC (680 ºF). How interesting then, that NIST's sagging truss model has the truss heated to 700 ºC (1292 ºF).

Are you talking about the fire only lasting 20 minutes? The materials would take 20 minutes to burn and the fire would move to the adjacent material. The peak temperature of a particular area would be approximately 20 minutes.

Wha? Temperatures aren't measured in minutes, sorry . I think you meant in 20 minutes the fire would reach its peak temperature in a given area.

If you look at some of the temperatures from the office test,
http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/pro...est/page47.htm

you will see that there are beams over 600C in 20 minutes. These beams were starting at 20C while the areas of the WTC would certainly not have.

I'm not up on those tests, but those tests weren't designed to mimic the conditions of the twin towers; there -were- tests to mimic the conditions of the twin towers and in all of those tests, the buildings didn't collapse. Even NIST's tweaked out computer simulations refused to go further then 'poised for collapse' in the case of the twin towers.

Certainly something that couldn't have happened without synchronized explosives, yes.

Utter cow manure. I am trying to get through to you that it didn’t happen that way. They are deceptively phrasing [the material].

I would argue that it's you who have been listening to the deceptive phrasing from NIST et al...

Sagging floors in a localized area of the buildings don't create a tower that collapses at near free fall speeds, sorry.

Just saying it over and over doesn’t make it true Scott. You say it like a prayer designed to help you keep the faith.

I'm just trying to point out an important point. You're right, saying something over and over doesn't make it so. However, some points -are- true and I believe they bear repeating.

I constantly marvel at the fact that you fail to question -why- it is that NIST never modelled the actual collapse of the towers, instead leaving things at 'poised for collapse'.

Their investigation was intended to find the cause of the collapse.

I'd argue that the investigation was intended to disguise the true cause of collapse and that actually trying to model the collapse via fire may well have revealed more about the innacuracy of their model then leaving things at 'poised for collapse'.

Describing it as all the columns bucking at the same time can give the impression of something unnatural happening. It doesn't quite work like that. There was clear weakening of the support columns leading up to the collapse. Floors were sagging and pulling on the perimeter columns. This is evidence that the conspiracy theorists are unable to account for. When the supports were sufficiently weakened so that a collapse started the remaining ones were not able to hold the extra load so they fail as well. So they didn't fail at exactly the same time.

I'm sure Tony or Headspin could really debunk these arguments.

Perhaps they could. I am discussing this with you Scott because you make grand, confident, smug claims. When challenged you cannot actually support your claims though.

While I have made a few mistakes, I'd argue that it's you who generally can't support many of the claims you've made.

So you resort to less than honest tactics and spamming links you don't understand, all the while playing nice and asking people not to use insults. This just encourages me to make sure I pin you down on your assertions.

Well I'm glad that we're focusing on the assertions instead of engaging in insults. Aren't you?

As for myself, I'll simply ask if you can provide evidence that the office fires could have collapsed even 1 floor.

I’ll give you this link again.

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/fire...erformanceofst

Sorry, but I'm not going to wade through a bunch of links trying to find your alleged evidence for you

[scott3x]

John Skilling's missing analysis and the Journal for 9/11 studies site, Round 3

This post is in response to the 1st part of shaman_'s post 1166 in this thread.

No, I just don't have an encyclopedic memory. I now understand what you're saying, after backtracking 6 posts. Anyway, what evidence does Leslie have that the jet fuel wasn't taken into consideration?

His word. The opposing comments of the two is something of a stalemate. However as I have said a couple of times, structures have failed before when tested with conditions that they were supposedly designed for. It doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

I agree. However, there has been a lot of analysis of the building's structure -after- the event as well. To draw an analogy, it's like someone saying that the Titanic was sunk by the -top- of the iceberg, when anyone who has done enough research knows that the bottom part was the real damage dealer.

Even NIST doesn't say that. Instead, it says that it couldn't be found. Funny how all this evidence that might contradict the official story either gets destroyed or goes missing, don't you think?

”All this evidence” ?

Yes, all the evidence that I've presented. I understand that you don't yet see it as evidence. Give it time

You are referring to one analysis which another designer claims doesn’t even take into account the fuel, and even if it did show up it may be incorrect.

Fortunately, many more analysis have been done which clearly show that the building could have withstood the impact, the jet fuel and the ensuing fires.

As I said, structures have collapsed before when tested by conditions that they were supposedly designed for. You are getting desperate if you think a missing analysis is the proof of a conspiracy.

When did I say it was proof of a conspiracy? I just noted how it seemed convenient for the official story that the analysis has apparently gone missing.

Perhaps they were flawed and he threw them out.

Well, -that's- certainly a view that the official story would like...

It is just speculation like yours.

Alright, I admit this line of discussion isn't getting us anywhere.

No one has denied that Skilling actually did an analysis on the effect a fully loaded 707 would have on one of the twin towers (except you?).

I was making a point about our baseless speculation. When you read my more recent responses you will see that I think that there was some sort of analysis done.

Ok.

For whatever reason, the analysis has apparently gone missing. There is also no evidence that Leslie actually knew whether or not Skilling had taken the jet fuel into account other then his word. Has he even claimed to have -seen- the analysis?

Don’t know.

Ok.

Look, you can pigeonhole me as a conspiracist all you want, but at some point in time, I think you may do well to realize that if 9/11 -was- an inside job, the first thing the people in on it would want to do would be to cover their tracks. So when there's evidence that steel was destroyed prematurely

Steel was at the site for six months.Anyone could have grabbed a piece.

Dream on . I suggest you read 9/11 Research's excellent article on the subject, WTC Steel Removal. Let's take a look at just how restricted access was to Ground Zero:
FEMA's BPAT, who wrote the WTC Building Performance Study, were not given access to Ground Zero. Apparently, they were not even allowed to collect steel samples from the salvage yards. According to Appendix D of the Study:

Collection and storage of steel members from the WTC site was not part of the BPS Team efforts sponsored by FEMA and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

The steel at the site was investigated and showed signs of high temperatures.

Not much of it. But some of it yes. Some apparently showed signs of evaporation/vaporization, something that a bit of jet fuel and office furniture could never have accomplished. Jonathan Barnett, a lead investigator, seems to imply that this was a mistake. The real question is, what caused him to change his mind?

If you were covering your tracks you would not take down the towers in such a manner that the conspiracy theorists claim. You would have evidence lying there for months which anyone could take.

I think you meant to add a 'not' in there. Anyway, apparently 250 tons of the steel was stolen by September 29, 2001, allegedly by one of the New York's Mafia families. I'm not sure that's the truth, but you may want to look at the article in the Daily Telegraph concerning the matter. If the site is busy, it's also archived on 9/11 Research.

If you were really trying to cover your tracks you would just fly planes into the damn buildings without putting bombs or incendiaries in the buildings.

The death toll wouldn't have been as high that way. I'm personally still interested in knowing who was telling the people in the towers to remain in their offices. It certainly elevated the death toll.

and that analysis that looks as though it would have contradicted the official story's account of events dissapears, it's quite reasonable to wonder if perhaps a cover up is indeed taking place.

When you take all the evidence into account, and actually assess the claims made by the 911 conspiracy theorists then no it isn’t reasonable to think there is a conspiracy.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here.

Your only source of information is conspiracy sites Scott

No, it's not. While it's true that I rely heavily on sites that support alternate theories to the officially sanctioned ones concerning what happened on 9/11, it's also true that these sites and I have referenced mainstream publications as well.

and you deeply believe them like a religion even when the flaws have been pointed out.

I have yet to see you bring up any evidence to support this claim.

Hey you thought that a missile hit the pentagon and only abandoned that to jump on the absurd flyover theory. Your conclusions are rarely ‘reasonable’

There is apparently little if any evidence that the pentagon was hit by a missile. However, I'm certainly not the only person who thought that this may well have been the case. The truth is apparently even worse; that explosives were planted -in- the building. The opportunity was certainly there; extensive renovations had been done precisely where the alleged plane crashed; who's to say that a few of the people allegedly renovating weren't (also) doing something else.

Sigh. I spent a few minutes on the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth and found a structural engineer who firmly believes that the collapses were controlled demolitions:
http://www.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=995879

Lets look at his personal statement[;]

Buildings collapsed all by "controlled demolition" methods. Fire and impact were insignificant in all three buildings. Impossible for the three to collapse at free-fall speed. Laws of physiscs were not suspended on 9/11, unless proven otherwise.

Wow that poorly informed ramble completely trumps the peer reviewed papers by the engineers who were at the site!

shaman_, you're not a structural engineer, are you? Perhaps you might do well to consider the possibility that he's right.

I bet I could find a few more. Personally I think the whole exercise is rather pointless and find that we should be spending more time focusing on the arguments of the people involved, not the credentials.

That’s fine Scott but you said, “sites such as the peer reviewed "The Journal for 9/11 studies"”. Understand that their ‘peer review’ is not by people most qualified to do so.

That's where you and I may need to agree to disagree again...

[scott3x]

What many experts say about the idea of jet initiated fires taking down the WTC buildings

This post is in response to 2nd and final part of shaman_'s post 1166 in this thread.

No one has said that it was impossible to bring down the WTC buildings. However, many experts disagree that the WTC buildings could have been brought down by plane crash initiated fires.

Experts? The people who are experts in relevant fields like structural engineering overwhelmingly support the official story.

Prove it. Right now, the only substantial list that I've seen that in regards to people documented experts on buildings is the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth site.

The Architects and Engineers site now has 562 Architects and Engineers who have signed the following petition:
*******
[B]Please Take Notice That:

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 - specifically the collapses of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story and therefore the 9/11 investigation must be re-opened and must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
*******

Yes, yes, some of the engineers are software engineers. I never said that their list was perfect. But even when you take out those engineers, I'm willing to be that when you compare this list to the list of (generally debunked) 'peer reviewed' papers supporting the official story, you'll find it to be substantially larger.

Also, you may not have noticed, but people like Steven Jones have certainly noticed that they all seem to have different ideas as to what happened regarding the Twin Towers.

And then, ofcourse, there's other 9/11 truth organizations, such as the Pilots for 9/11 Truth and Firemen for 9/11 Truth. There are also other groups that have declared the official story to be riddled with fallacies.

.. and we have just seen a good example of how much these people know before they add their name.

What example are you referring to?

While we are talking about ae911, here is another site for you to read if you are bored one day.
http://www.ae911truth.info/tiki-index.php

When a site starts describing others as 'boneheaded', I think it's safe to say that their arguments aren't exactly going to be top notch . If you think there is anything relevant in the site, feel free to excerpt it; as I've said before, I'm not going to make your case for you.

[scott3x]

The jet fuel distribution within the South Tower

This post is in response to leopold99's post 1191 in this thread.

In regards to the South Tower, 9/11 Research also comments that "fires in the South Tower remained limited to a few floors and one side of the building -- a fact documented by numerous photographs of the attack.

do you believe that scott? all that jet fuel stayed on one side of the building?

Me and Headspin, atleast, have found 9/11 Research to be a trustworthy source of information. leopold has said he has put me on ignore now, but if anyone has evidence to contradict this assertion, by all means, speak up.

[scott3x]

Rule by Secrecy

This post is in response to psikeyhackr's post 1209 in this thread.

read a book called "Rule by Secrecy", concerning the types of secret societies that could have pulled something like 9/11

I read that and had no problem with it until the last couple of chapters. Ancient alien gods just didn't cut it with me.

I bought into it for a while; then I went online and found some pretty damning criticisms of that part :-p. But I found much of the rest to be quite compelling.

[shaman_]

The Windsor Tower in Madrid and the Twin Towers

This post is in response to the 2nd part of shaman_'s post 1082 in this thread.



You got me on this one shaman_. Yet more evidence that I do cede a point when I see there is evidence against it :-p.




That's all the frame of the Windsor tower, not the core; notice that the concrete frame is only reinforced by thin sections of rebar. It's only logical that if the steel is reinforcing the concrete, it's the steel that's the strong element; the fact that it was only some thin sections of rebar vs. the massive steel perimeter columns of the WTC buildings speaks volumes concerning their relative strengths. By the way, in the previous comment, I got mixed up; I was referring to the infamous anonymous article concerning the twin towers structures', which Headspin disagreed with and which I have now dropped.




Sigh. The upper part of the concrete frame -did- collapse.

No you are still confused. The concrete framing did not collapse. The only structural element that collapsed was the steel perimeter columns.

Yes, so did the thin sections of rebar reinforcing it. Even so, it took hours from a very intense fire to do it; and it did so -gradually-.

Had it been constructed like the WTC things would have most certainly been very different. Then again it wasn’t smashed into by planes either……

Not a chance.

You are claiming that concrete is more susceptible to fires than steel is that correct?

Why do they fireproof steel then and not concrete?

Why do they cover steel in concrete when constructing buildings?

You have no idea what you are talking about here scott.

Weakening, yes. But unless the steel is fairly thin, such as what you might find in a warehouse or a bridge, for instance, it simply bends or sags; it doesn't collapse.

That’s just moronic. The steel is bending or sagging because it is getting soft and losing its strength. If it is no longer able to provide support then of course it can lead to collapse.

And unless the temperatures are truly intense, it distributes the heat amoung its length, lessening the head load in the parts exposed to the fire.

The steel in the Cardington tests did not conduct the heat away particularly well at all.

I've heard no evidence of that.

The steel perimeter columns collapsed. The concrete did not.

I know that concrete -can- spall, though.

Yes it can. Steel is more susceptible to fire than concrete though.

Sorry, but the distinction is quite clear.

No you are still wrong. The Madrid Tower was supported by a concrete core and concrete framing. From
http://www.concretecentre.com/main.asp?page=1095

• Despite a complete burn-out, the strength provided by a technical concrete floor, plus the passive fire resistance of the building's concrete core and frame, prevented the building from collapse.
• The only part of the building to collapse was the network of steel perimeter columns supporting the slab on the upper floors.

It's also clear in the twin towers.

The towers were a tube of steel columns in a tube of steel columns. The Windsor tower was completely different. You need to understand that.

Again, the columns were concrete, reinforced only with thin sections of steel rebar.

The steel collapsed but the concrete remained.

The effect of the planes was negligible to the twin towers' structure, as was the jet fuel and the office fires.

Considering the evidence shown to you repeatedly you have no excuse for stupid statements like that. You are in a fantasy land.

First of all, I haven't seen any evidence that the office fires could actually heat the steel to that degree.

I showed you an example of an office fire test which, according to the reports I have and your 911research site, reached over 1000C. I have shown you this numerous times. NISTs own workstation tests (no they are not computer simulations) reached similar temperatures. You have shown no evidence to counter this but just mindlessly claim not to have seen the evidence I have presented numerous times. How can you have a rational discussion with such a person?

Secondly, I'm not sure that even the affected floors would collapse even if the steel was heated to that extent in some parts. And remember we're only talking 1 or 2 floors;

The fires reached a high intensity across more than one or two floors.

what of the rest? They certainly didn't have fires burning in them before the sudden collapse of the building.

So what? The floors near the collapse initiation were weakened by the impact and fires and were not able to handle the thirty above coming down on them with momentum. With each floor the momentum and the force increased.

I think you really should take note of the Windsor Tower; it was more weakly constructed

Show me evidence it was more weakly constructed.

and the fires lasted longer and where more intense, and yet it only produced a gradual, partial collapse.

IT HAD A CONCRETE CORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[shaman_]

The WTC steel, part 2

This post is in response to the 4th part of shaman_'s post 1082 in this thread.



It's conveniently gone missing

Oh right government agents stole some calculations on paper because it would completely ruin their massive conspiracy.

Yes much easier than just blowing up the building with a bomb and saying terrorists did it. Taking implausibility to new levels.

To steal some credit for the design of the buildings without actually saying he designed them and perhaps get other rewards? Skilling died before 9/11, so it's not like he can contradict him.

Worthless speculation.

Fine; however, the WTC steel was specifically tested to see whether or not they would have collapsed given the fires that occurred on 9/11.

Show me these tests. You have mentioned a test on a component with very little fireproofing but gave no details of temperatures or times.

There has not been -1- report that they collapsed, with or without fireproofing.

In the Cardington tests the unprotected column started buckling at 670C.

One thing though, I -really- would like to see Tony's source for the "calibration" test wherein they tested some steel with no fireproofing at all.




No, I mean take it apart, one fallacy at a time.

Scott you don’t have the ability to take anything apart. Your posts are nothing more than spamming the work over others over and over and then playing games to cover your inability to back up your claims.

Yes, I've noticed that even 9/11 Research claims that the steel beams reached temperatures above 1000C. However, both Headspin and you haven't been able to find this data in the actual raw data.

I don’t think those results are from the same test. The document I have (dated 1999) is a report on the tests and is definitely referring to the office test as there are pictures and dialogue accompanying the graphs and results. However even in the spreadsheet there are temperatures up well over 600C. A column started buckling at 670C!

Furthermore, even supposing they did reach those temperatures, the steel beams didn't collapse. Surely you noticed this?

The point was not to destroy the building which they purposely built for those tests. The beams did sag though. The columns were shielded. Had they not been then perhaps the structure would have started to collapse. Time and time again you ignore these points.