Collapse Of WTC Buildings (Just the facts)

[poncho]

What made the World Trade Center buildings collapse? You can go first TP, I need to take a short break.

 

[tragic_pizza]

Planes, fully loaded with fuel and larger than the structure was designed to withastand, were employed in an attack upon each tower. The impact and ensuing fire caused the structure to fail. Gravity, kinetic energy, and debris did the rest.

 

[Phillip]

tragic_pizza, I concur and I'm an explosives engineer. You are right on!

 

[Phillip]

Me thinks Poncho is taking a LOONNNGGGG break.

 

[poncho]

tragic_pizza, I concur and I'm an explosives engineer. You are right on!

For a minute there I thought you might actually be serious when you said...

Sorry but I have a security clearance and I'm NOT going to refute you except using "public" information; but, I bet I can do it with that alone.

But then you never said that you wouldn't use it to try and establish yourself as an infallible expert on this topic with your very first post in this thread did you?

I think I can see where this will lead already Phillip. Judging from the same statement you seem to be more interested in refuting me while setting yourself up as some kind of an authority rather than using only publicly available information and research.

Now I'm going to take a really long break and give my poor old injured tailbone a rest from this computer chair for the evening. Talk with you guys in the morning.

 

[standingfirminChrist]

I also agree with Kevin Ryan’s objections regarding the NIST study. Kevin Ryan, at the time a manager at Underwriters Laboratories (UL), makes a point of the non-collapse of actual WTC-based models in his letter to Frank Gayle of NIST:



As I'm sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year… they suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team… I'm aware of UL's attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests… indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by… burning [jet fuel, paper, etc.]. (Ryan, 2004)



That models of WTC trusses at Underwriter Laboratories (UL) subjected to fires did NOT fail is also admitted in the final NIST report:

NIST contracted with Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. to conduct tests to obtain information on the fire endurance of trusses like those in the WTC towers…. All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing… The Investigation Team was cautious about using these results directly in the formulation of collapse hypotheses. In addition to the scaling issues raised by the test results, the fires in the towers on September 11, and the resulting exposure of the floor systems, were substantially different from the conditions in the test furnaces. Nonetheless, the [empirical test] results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11. (NIST, 2005, p. 141; emphasis added.)

Taken from www.physics911.net/stevenjones

 

[tragic_pizza]

Wait, wait, wait. So let me get this straight...

In addition to the scaling issues raised by the test results, the fires in the towers on September 11, and the resulting exposure of the floor systems, were substantially different from the conditions in the test furnaces.

Now, where I come from (Earth), that's called "the test was invalid because the conditions could not be duplicated." How on earth can any serious human go on to say

Nonetheless, the [empirical test] results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.

They can't reproduce the conditions. This means they can't be sure of the temperature of the fire(s), exact nature of structural weakening (and thus the exact tonnage of the strain being exerted on these assemblies), nature of the damage sustained by the assemblies in the initial crash...

... in any court of law, my friends, that's known as inconclusive, hyperbolic, and wildly speculative. Thus inadmissable.

 

[Phillip]

Give me a break Poncho. I was simply pointing out my credentials to speak on this subject. As an explosives engineer, we have studied how buildings of different construction are brought down. Since we design this stuff, we have a good idea of what to look for when the dust clears. Please, feel free to provide evidence rather than continuing to rant. The burdeon is on you to prove that anything beyond a plane filled with fuel brought the WTC down.

The construction is such that it allowed this to happen and as tragic_pizza already indicated--you cannot use speculation that the construction of new buildings has anything to do with what happened because that theory simply points towards conspiracy theory.

The central style of building manufacturing for ultra-high buildings is optimum and quite a new concept which ALLOWS us to build the tall buildings with optimum space usage.

Here in Oklahoma we are in the tornado belt, but most people don't build their homes out of concrete to prevent a tornado from hitting it. The odds are just too low that you will get hit by one and the problem still lies in the fact that probably any design of a tall building is going to have weaknesses that could cause possible collapse from a flying incendiary bomb the size of an airliner.

Although this does not prevent us from building with better construction techniques which will improve the structure in this situation; possibly causing the tower to stand long enough for a better evacuation. Can you build a tower that will withstand this kind of attack without falling? Possibly, but not likely.

The best prevention is to eliminate the source and provide security in our airports to prevent a recurrance.

Again, as far as my expertise: No, I am not "infallable", but I certainly do not hide behind the fact that I have extensive training in this area and will use that knowledge and experience when coming to my conclusions.

The reason I told you this is to let you know that I am not basing the conclusions completely on any reports and that I partially base it on the data itself.

I will not attack you as an individual and I will focus on the subject of the WTC collapse. However, I expect you to do the same and refrain from the type of answers you just provided.

 

[Phillip]

By the way, Poncho, I'm not violating any security clearance just because I use knowledge of explosives and building damage. So, get over it and let's get back to the facts.

 

[Phillip]

Tragic_pizza (again) nailed it on the head when he said that you cannot repeat the test. It is impossible to build a simulated building with the multitudes of complex stresses applied to the load-bearing members.

Do you remember the old movies about ships or war movies on the sea? The water splashing looked so fake? The reason was the surface tension of the water made it impossible to simulate large splashes of water when using a smaller tank of water.

This is the same reason that you cannot simulate steel beams and concrete without reconstructing an identical building with the same constructions methods, material and size.

There were weaknesses that will, no doubt, be corrected in other buildings and that includes thicker heat-retarding coating on the steel and tougher inspections to make sure there are no longer voids in the spray-on material as they were found in the WTC towers. In fact, it is my understanding that the other towers have already had the heat retarding material thickened and inspected.

Another weakness that will be improved with the way the steel floor girders were attached to the outside shell of the building. As you should know part of the new technology in these buildings was to use the outside of the building as a load bearing "tube". This makes a very rugged TALL building; but these buildings are simply not designed to have an aircraft full of kerosene fly into it dead-on.

Also, the kerosene caused more heat-energy over a longer period of time than gasoline would have, making it an excellent heat-producing agent which is almost impossible to prevent from flowing to lower floors allowing the heat to rise and vent directly into the weakened portion of the structure.

It actually amazed me that the towers stood as long as they did.

Believe me, they did not need anything more to bring those towers down.

It is also quite ridiculous to even consider trying to attach explosive charges on the proper load-bearing members and know EXACTLY where the plane will hit. As tragic_pizza also pointed out, the buildings obviously collapsed in exactly the method and location where one would expect based on the entry and blow-out points of the plane strikes. Both buildings showed the same result.

If they wired more than one floor, the building collapse would have been entirely different.

I suppose the "inside" bombers knew exactly which floor the pilot was going to hit?

 

[LadyEagle]

The "inside" bombers probably had a general idea, being that Mohammad Atta was an engineer.

 

[LadyEagle]

http://wtc7.net/

Van Romero, PhD, a demolitions expert,
current vice president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining
and Technology, and a former director of the Energetic Materials
Research and Testing Center at New Mexico Tech which studies explosive
materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and
other structures, said on the day of the attacks that, "My opinion is,
based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade
Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that
caused the towers to collapse."

In the interview, Romero goes on to say that the "collapse of the
structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish
old structures. 'It would be difficult for something from the plane
to trigger an event like that,' If explosions did cause the towers to
collapse, the detonations could have been caused by a small amount of
explosive, he said. 'It could have been a relatively small amount of
explosives placed in strategic points,' Romero said."
"'The explosives likely would have been put in more than two points in
each of the towers', he said" (9/11/01 Albuquerque Journal, Olivier
Uyttebrouck)

And Steven E Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, wrote a
paper that will be published later this year that suggests that the
official theory, that the collapses were the result of a progressive
'pancaking of the structures that resulted from fire-softened steel
giving way, doesn't hold up to analysis; that in fact explosive-
demolition hypothesis accounts for the photographic, video, and
physical evidence and eyewitness testimony much better than does the
official theory.

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

He shows that all the WTC collapses show at least 11 features of
controlled demolition, including 1) The large quantities of molten
metal observed in the basement areas of all three buildings. Those
making these observations included the structural engineer who
designed the WTC, Leslie Robertson. This molten metal is a byproduct
of high explosive reaction. Buildings falling due only to the energy
of gravity wouldn't generate molten metal, would they? Government
reports admit the building fires weren't hot enough to melt the steel.
The official theory has a hard time explaining this; it doesn't
explain this at all. In fact all government reports omit any mention
of the molten metal. 2) Symmetry of collapse-the buildings didn't
topple over. Especially curious in this regard is that a 34 story
section of the South tower began to topple over, but then the block
"turns to powder in mid-air!", quoting Dr Jones. 3) The collapses
were not gradual, they were rapid and symmetrical, even though the
fires were random, scattered, not very big nor very hot. How could
random, weak fires simultaneously weaken many steel support columns?
A random fire should have produce asymmetrical failure (if even that
were possible due to a fire, which has never collapsed a steel
structured building before or since 9/11), and a gradual, not sudden
failure of the building. But a controlled demolition easily explains
these observation. And do you know what FEMA, who did a major study
of the causes of the collapse said? It said that fire + damage-caused
collapse has "only a low probability of occurring." They can't
actually explain why the buildings collapsed, especially when they
refuse to consider the demolition hypothesis.

And what about WTC7, a 47 story building that was not hit by a plane,
nor was it engulfed in fire, but it collapsed completely in or near
its footprint.

http://911research.wtc7.net/letters/implosionworld/index.html

 

[Hope of Glory]

That models of WTC trusses

That's a very important phrase. It brings to mind the people who come up with "world models" for the warming (or cooling, depending upon the "model") trends. The models change every year.

I have had to fight fires that involved JP5 fuel, and let me tell you: It will weaken steel to the point that the structural integrity is almost non-existent.

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by Hope of Glory:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> That models of WTC trusses

That's a very important phrase. It brings to mind the people who come up with "world models" for the warming (or cooling, depending upon the "model") trends. The models change every year.

I have had to fight fires that involved JP5 fuel, and let me tell you: It will weaken steel to the point that the structural integrity is almost non-existent. </font>[/QUOTE]AMEN! I don't think anybody here, except you and tragic_pizza really appreciate the energy in jet fuel--not to mention the amount of jetfuel which has to carry enough fuel to cross the country PLUS fly to alternative airports if there are problems with the primary landing site.

One weak spot pointed out was the hangers which actually attached the floor beams to the outside walls which provided primary load bearing.

These pieces of metal had poor or lacked coatings of the heat-retardant spray-on material. Much of the delay in the tower's falling was caused by the amount of heat-retardant that WAS in place.

Good point there Hope.

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by LadyEagle:
The "inside" bombers probably had a general idea, being that Mohammad Atta was an engineer.

Being an engineer myself I can tell you without reserve that there would be absolutely NO way to know which floors the planes were to crash in.

First, the two planes hit at different altitudes.

Second, why is it so difficult to know the altitude of the plane? The planes were flying much faster than a normal speed at that altitude. It was probably everything the pilots could do just to "hit" the towers dead-on let alone control or "count" which floor they would hit.

High speed in a jet-airliner makes it difficult to hold altitude at low-levels so close to the ground. Ground-effect and thermal-rise makes such large planes difficult to control at these speeds and altitude.

Remember the Washington crash? It is thought the plane was aimed at the White House as a first target and missed due to "ground-effect", then it tried to turn around and ground-effect caused it to hit the ground so at some point in time the pilot used the huge Pentagon as a secondary target; probably decided as he lost control and saw the Pentagon looming ahead.

Finally, the energy provided by the jet-fuel would have "cooked-off" any energetic material anywhere close to the impact levels. By watching the buildings collapse it is obvious that the impact level is where the floors began to pancake. Therefore, IF there were planted charges--like I said, the impact would have destroyed any planted explosives; if not they would have cooked-off, as I said earlier.

Your theory does not jibe with the movies.

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by LadyEagle:
http://wtc7.net/

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
Van Romero, PhD, a demolitions expert,
current vice president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining
and Technology, and a former director of the Energetic Materials
Research and Testing Center at New Mexico Tech which studies explosive
materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and
other structures, said on the day of the attacks that, "My opinion is,
based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade
Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that
caused the towers to collapse."

In the interview, Romero goes on to say that the "collapse of the
structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish
old structures. 'It would be difficult for something from the plane
to trigger an event like that,' If explosions did cause the towers to
collapse, the detonations could have been caused by a small amount of
explosive, he said. 'It could have been a relatively small amount of
explosives placed in strategic points,' Romero said."
"'The explosives likely would have been put in more than two points in
each of the towers', he said" (9/11/01 Albuquerque Journal, Olivier
Uyttebrouck)

And Steven E Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, wrote a
paper that will be published later this year that suggests that the
official theory, that the collapses were the result of a progressive
'pancaking of the structures that resulted from fire-softened steel
giving way, doesn't hold up to analysis; that in fact explosive-
demolition hypothesis accounts for the photographic, video, and
physical evidence and eyewitness testimony much better than does the
official theory.

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

He shows that all the WTC collapses show at least 11 features of
controlled demolition, including 1) The large quantities of molten
metal observed in the basement areas of all three buildings. Those
making these observations included the structural engineer who
designed the WTC, Leslie Robertson. This molten metal is a byproduct
of high explosive reaction. Buildings falling due only to the energy
of gravity wouldn't generate molten metal, would they? Government
reports admit the building fires weren't hot enough to melt the steel.
The official theory has a hard time explaining this; it doesn't
explain this at all. In fact all government reports omit any mention
of the molten metal. 2) Symmetry of collapse-the buildings didn't
topple over. Especially curious in this regard is that a 34 story
section of the South tower began to topple over, but then the block
"turns to powder in mid-air!", quoting Dr Jones. 3) The collapses
were not gradual, they were rapid and symmetrical, even though the
fires were random, scattered, not very big nor very hot. How could
random, weak fires simultaneously weaken many steel support columns?
A random fire should have produce asymmetrical failure (if even that
were possible due to a fire, which has never collapsed a steel
structured building before or since 9/11), and a gradual, not sudden
failure of the building. But a controlled demolition easily explains
these observation. And do you know what FEMA, who did a major study
of the causes of the collapse said? It said that fire + damage-caused
collapse has "only a low probability of occurring." They can't
actually explain why the buildings collapsed, especially when they
refuse to consider the demolition hypothesis.

And what about WTC7, a 47 story building that was not hit by a plane,
nor was it engulfed in fire, but it collapsed completely in or near
its footprint.

http://911research.wtc7.net/letters/implosionworld/index.html </font>[/QUOTE]I do not know a Van Romero and I certainly don't remember him being director of energetic matls. Although, I will not say that he wasn't; however. If he was the Director of the department he probably is a manager and not a great engineer. I have seen very few directors who were good managers and good engineers both.

For these two people, one of which might have some experience and the other probably having zero experience with real energetics. And, if he has any experience, it no doubt is probably not very much.

There are also people who work in all businesses who buy into conspiracy theories.

Anyway, regardless of what they say, I will state to their face that it is ludicrus to believe that energetics that were planted could survive the crash and heat.

I will also give you another clue on why there were no explosives in the building. The Trade Center has been a target of terrorism before. It would be next to impossible for someone to "sneak" energetics into those particular buildings.

 

[Phillip]

Anyway, wt7.net is a conspiracy theory site of which I would hold about zilch in reliability.

I wish you would debate facts rather than showing sites or quoting that some scientist said the evidence didn't appear to be a result of the plane crashes.

Tell us WHY physically the evidence doesn't show it, not just someone's opinion. I don't think most people want to read big long dissertations by conspiracy theory sites that bury the facts in miles of commentary. Tell us specifically what evidence shows this.

AND PLEASE, tell me how the energetics survived the crash and ensuing fire if they were located anywhere near the struck floor.

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by LadyEagle:
http://wtc7.net/


In the interview, Romero goes on to say that the "collapse of the
structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish
old structures. 'It would be difficult for something from the plane
to trigger an event like that,' If explosions did cause the towers to
collapse, the detonations could have been caused by a small amount of
explosive, he said. 'It could have been a relatively small amount of
explosives placed in strategic points,' Romero said."
"'The explosives likely would have been put in more than two points in
each of the towers', he said" (9/11/01 Albuquerque Journal, Olivier
Uyttebrouck)

And Steven E Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, wrote a
paper that will be published later this year that suggests that the
official theory, that the collapses were the result of a progressive
'pancaking of the structures that resulted from fire-softened steel
giving way, doesn't hold up to analysis; that in fact explosive-
demolition hypothesis accounts for the photographic, video, and
physical evidence and eyewitness testimony much better than does the
official theory.

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

He shows that all the WTC collapses show at least 11 features of
controlled demolition, including 1) The large quantities of molten
metal observed in the basement areas of all three buildings. Those
making these observations included the structural engineer who
designed the WTC, Leslie Robertson. This molten metal is a byproduct
of high explosive reaction. Buildings falling due only to the energy
of gravity wouldn't generate molten metal, would they? Government
reports admit the building fires weren't hot enough to melt the steel.
The official theory has a hard time explaining this; it doesn't
explain this at all. In fact all government reports omit any mention
of the molten metal. 2) Symmetry of collapse-the buildings didn't
topple over. Especially curious in this regard is that a 34 story
section of the South tower began to topple over, but then the block
"turns to powder in mid-air!", quoting Dr Jones. 3) The collapses
were not gradual, they were rapid and symmetrical, even though the
fires were random, scattered, not very big nor very hot. How could
random, weak fires simultaneously weaken many steel support columns?
A random fire should have produce asymmetrical failure (if even that
were possible due to a fire, which has never collapsed a steel
structured building before or since 9/11), and a gradual, not sudden
failure of the building. But a controlled demolition easily explains
these observation. And do you know what FEMA, who did a major study
of the causes of the collapse said? It said that fire + damage-caused
collapse has "only a low probability of occurring." They can't
actually explain why the buildings collapsed, especially when they
refuse to consider the demolition hypothesis.

And what about WTC7, a 47 story building that was not hit by a plane,
nor was it engulfed in fire, but it collapsed completely in or near
its footprint.

http://911research.wtc7.net/letters/implosionworld/index.html [/QUOTE]

I'm repeating part of your post to show some discrepancies.

1. The two opinions are different. The first indicates low quantities of energetics placed at strategic points. The second indictes high levels of energy to bring down a symmetrical collapse.

2. Both indicate that the collapse was symmetrical. Have we not explained how that building was built and that it would naturally collapse in a symmetrical pattern?

The floor steel brackets let go and an extremely heavy floor drops. Even if only one side let go its high energy would cause symmetrical pancaking of all of the other floors---exactly what you see in the video tapes. If the fall started to become unsymmetrical the extremely heavy concrete which is confined in the structural "external tube" which provided most of the load bearing provided a direct path for the floors to pancake together and downward.

3. Finally, who in the world would not think there was an EXTREME amount of heat generated from an airliner full of kerosene? External flames would not be readily visible. The fuel was running down the shafts and any breaks in the integrity between the floors. The heat would have been ducted straight up the external pipe.

The probable failure would be at the weakest point, the floors directly involved and damaged by the impact of the crash which blew straight through the building causing symmetrical damage.

The building collapsed in exactly the same way MOST experts would think it would.

 

[Phillip]

Next?

 

[gb93433]

Don't forget that the elevator shafts were not lined up. They were offset at several floors up creating a moment arm.