Why did NIST only test 1% of the Twin Tower beams for temperature effects?

[kookbreaker]

Shouldn't engineers have license #'s? I believe that some ehre have offered up theirs as evidence. The proof, however, comes with the demonstration of knowledge.

 

[Pardalis]

As a mechanical engineer, couldn't you just contact the NIST and ask?

 

[Tony Szamboti]

What difference would it make? Is this a new attack to prove explosives were used?

I bet that is all the steel they had access to. But then you are leaving out the hundreds of engineers and scientists who had access to the steel right after 9/11 to study stuff to make improvements to buildings and such. If you are a practicing engineer, you are in the best position to find journals and studies your business can buy or acquire through libraries and find information on the WTC studies, that must number in the hundreds that only money and being in the practice of engineering would bring you in contact with. I envy those in academic or in a business/professional situation where the ability to have access to the information is so great

So what have you learned about 9/11 that would make this 1 percent thing an issue to change the way we look at 19 terrorists running planes into buildings and fires weakening steel and building structures to cause failure and collapse. What new twist do you have that makes this an issue?

I am interested in what really happened in NYC on Sept. 11, 2001. After hearing all of the talk about conspiracy in the last year I decided to look into it myself. I have read Jones' paper, the NIST report, the FEMA report and viewed several videos about it pro and con conspiracy.

After doing that I have some questions. As an engineer being asked to investigate and determine what happened I would want as much evidence in front of me as possible. It looks like the good engineers at NIST did not get that and I want to know why. Arlen Specter, who I have voted for several times, was told he could not look at John Kennedy's autopsy photographs when doing the investigation for the Warren Commission. He has said he was upset about it at the time.

My earlier question is who decided how much steel would be salvaged and what was the basis for that decision? R. Mackey's replied that many of the numbers were gone and while that might be true it is also a fact that the steel had varying wall thicknesses depending on vertical locations, which could have been used as a method for culling the beams from the fire affected areas.

 

[Architect]

Shouldn't engineers have license #'s? I believe that some ehre have offered up theirs as evidence. The proof, however, comes with the demonstration of knowledge.

I don't post details of my ARB and RIBA registration details because I don't want the Truth movement spamming me at work, so I don't think it's fair to have a shot at the chap just for not proclaiming such issues from the rooftops.

All will become clear when he posts on technical issues, which I hope will be soon.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

I can also tell you that. It's not true however.

Maybe in your case but not in mine.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Shouldn't engineers have license #'s? I believe that some ehre have offered up theirs as evidence. The proof, however, comes with the demonstration of knowledge.

Then why don't you ask a mechanical engineering question?

 

[beachnut]

I am a mechanical engineer.

OMG, a real ME, like a BSME, like my big brother? Wow, and your name, real CD deal. Is this a veiled foreboding of what you believe, realcddeal? The degree does not mean much after having physics PhDs preach nut case ideas, and critical thinkers like Fetzer being exposed as crazy. I think a degree is great but most lay persons can run rings around the degreed truther experts, a degree seems to be useless in the world of "9/11 truth". I would say a degree for someone in the truth movement proves the point that an expensive education is what you do with it. The truthers have wasted it.

There went all that school for naught, if you believe in a realcddeal, like your name implies, you could have skipped school to go right into fantasyland truthville. I missed your name at is funny, you start posting about a topic with no thesis, or idea where you want to go, you are afraid to say it. CD, when will you tell us?

Here is the truther test. If you think Dr Jones' paper has merit, your degree was a waste of time.

 

[Pardalis]

I am interested in what really happened in NYC on Sept. 11, 2001.

Four planes were hijacked by radical Islamists. Two of those planes rammed the World Trade Center towers which later collapsed due to the damage the impacts and the subsequent fires caused.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

RealDCDeal

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

For what it is worth, I am a qualified architect specialising in tall buildings work in the UK. I've done a fair amount of design in the 15 year architectural career and expect to do more. A fair number of our UK readers will know buildings which I've been part of the team on.

But enough of the peeing competition.

Let's look at your OP in a but more detail;

- What proportion of structural steelwork within the building would have been exposed to the fires which we're interested in? 1%? Less? Is the 1% figure any more than a soundbite, or does it tell us anything of interest?

- Of the steelwork which was exposed to fire, how much was recovered and could be accurately identified as coming from the affected areas? Likewise what proportion of such material provided a meaningful opportunity for analysis?

- How was recovered steel assessed for analysis? Did this involve a preliminary inspection of all samples, with follow-up work on the most promising? Was it merely a random selection? What were the selection criteria and who carried it out?

Once we have the answers to these - and I seem to recall that it is available from NIST reports and other material - then we will be in a position to consider whether there is anything which should trouble us. But in the meantime the 1% figure is about as helpful as suggesting that a car might be dangerous because it is only serviced 1/365th of the year.

Architect, you seem to have questions of your own about how much steel was salvaged/recovered. The NIST report makes a disclaimer that they only tested 1% of the steel, but doesn't say why they only had 1% to test. Unfortunately, that 1% does not have evidence of high temperature in the steel itself. So I want to know who decided how much steel NIST would get. If there was a conspiracy I sincerely doubt it involved any of the technical people at NIST and I am bothered about this little glitch in their being handed a small proportion of the facts to investigate the case. I have not seen an argument as to why more steel could not be salvaged for them to perform their investigation. The steel was numbered and also had varying wall thickness depending on its vertical location.

 

[beachnut]

Whawhahwha... holy crap Judy Wood has gone completely bat guano insane!

She was there a long time ago, she has just perfected stupid.

From billiard ball model of momentum WTC collapse to dustification of steel, I stand corrected. You are right.


http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/dirt1.html

 

[TjW]

Then why don't you ask a mechanical engineering question?

Is there any percentage of steel tested less than 100% that you would consider adequate? Or to put it another way, how much steel should have been tested?
It would be nice if you explained what you think may have been overlooked.

 

[R.Mackey]

I am interested in what really happened in NYC on Sept. 11, 2001. After hearing all of the talk about conspiracy in the last year I decided to look into it myself. I have read Jones' paper, the NIST report, the FEMA report and viewed several videos about it pro and con conspiracy.

[...]

My earlier question is who decided how much steel would be salvaged and what was the basis for that decision? R. Mackey's replied that many of the numbers were gone and while that might be true it is also a fact that the steel had varying wall thicknesses depending on vertical locations, which could have been used as a method for culling the beams from the fire affected areas.

If you did read the NIST report, you know this information is contained in, as I stated previously, NIST NCSTAR1-3:

The volunteers searched through enormous unsorted piles of steel and other debris for pieces from the WTC buildings, specifically searching for (McAllister 2002):

• Exterior column panels and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 that were exposed to fire and/or impacted by the aircraft,
• Exterior column panels and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 directly above and below the impact zones,
• Badly burned pieces from WTC 7,
• Connections from WTC 1, 2, and 7 (e.g., seat connections, single shear plates, and column splices),
• Bolts in all conditions,
• Floor trusses including stiffeners, seats, and other components,
• Any pieces that in the engineers' professional opinion might be useful.

No need to take our word for it, go straight to the source.

Since you read NIST, you are aware what the purpose of finding these pieces was, correct? If so, you also should understand why only a representative sample is more than sufficient. If not I will be glad to explain.

 

[A W Smith]

what percentage by weight of steel from the WTC towers was effected by heat? therein lies your answer.

 

[beachnut]

Anyone interested in 9/11 would never cite JFK stuff if they were going to be taken seriously. What does JFK have to do with 9/11, I believe NIST and FEMA did not work on any aspect of JFK. Your truthy-ness is showing.

I am slow, and I guess you are a truthy guy with a name like readcddeal. Right?

 

[A W Smith]

i call

 

[Architect]

Architect, you seem to have questions of your own about how much steel was salvaged/recovered. The NIST report makes a disclaimer that they only tested 1% of the steel, but doesn't say why they only had 1% to test. Unfortunately, that 1% does not have evidence of high temperature in the steel itself. So I want to know who decided how much steel NIST would get. If there was a conspiracy I sincerely doubt it involved any of the technical people at NIST and I am bothered about this little glitch in their being handed a small proportion of the facts to investigate the case. I have not seen an argument as to why more steel could not be salvaged for them to perform their investigation. The steel was numbered and also had varying wall thickness depending on its vertical location.

Apologies; you appear to misunderstand. I was posing the questions which I believed you, as an engineer with experience in this field, would wish to pose before arriving at an initial view as to the adequacy (or otherwise) of the testing regime.

Let's look at Mackey's reference:

Originally Posted by NIST NCSTAR1-3, pg. 27
The volunteers searched through enormous unsorted piles of steel and other debris for pieces from the WTC buildings, specifically searching for (McAllister 2002):

• Exterior column panels and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 that were exposed to fire and/or impacted by the aircraft,
• Exterior column panels and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 directly above and below the impact zones,
• Badly burned pieces from WTC 7,
• Connections from WTC 1, 2, and 7 (e.g., seat connections, single shear plates, and column splices),
• Bolts in all conditions,
• Floor trusses including stiffeners, seats, and other components,
• Any pieces that in the engineers' professional opinion might be useful.

Now this would suggest to me that there was a reasonably thorough (and I use that in the legal rather than ordinary sense) assessment of all recovered steel in order to narrow the sample set down to those which were most likely to offer meaningful results.

Thoughts/comments?

 

[Gravy]

realcd, whom have you contacted with your question? Gene Corley? Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl? Have you contacted ANY of the people who made the decisions that you're asking us – who had no say in the matter – about?

If not, why, and will you do so?

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Can you be more specific about why you find this troubling?

If additonal samples were tested, and found that some did not show the same high temperature effects as others, how would NIST's conclusion that thermal weakening of some structural members contributed to the collapse be affected?

If additonal samples were tested, and found that some had reached even higher temperatures than the ones originally tested, how would NIST's conclusion that thermal weakening of some structural members contributed to the collapse be affected?

Your choice of screen name suggests that you believe that controlled demolition was used to cause the towers to collapse. (If I'm wrong about this, I apologize, but in the context of this forum it's a reasonable interpretation.) If that is the case, then you believe that NIST was either incompetent (to have missed the obvious distinctive damage, debris, and residues that demolition charges or thermite would have resulted in) or corrupt enough to deliberately cover these findings up. In either case, how would the testing of more samples by incompetent and/or corrupt investigators have made any difference?

Respectfully,
Myriad

If additional samples had high temperature evidence then the case for fire weakening would be very solid.

I don't believe for a minute that the engineers and scientists at NIST are either incompetent or corrupt. I just have a problem with the lack of physical evidence and the fact that they were given so little steel to test. In addition to that I also have a problem with there not being any testing done for explosive residue. I would like to know who made that decision in light of the firefighter's oral histories of seeing, hearing, and feeling explosions.

I just chose the moniker "realcddeal" because I want to know whether CD was a real possibility or not and unfortunately, the lack of high temperature evidence and no testing for explosives has caused that question to be answered much less firmly than I would like.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

realcd, whom have you contacted with your question? Gene Corley? Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl? Have you contacted ANY of the people who made the decisions that you're asking us – who had no say in the matter – about?

If not, why, and will you do so?

Gravy, you are right I should go ask the question of those who might actually have the answer.

 

[Architect]

Real

Can I just ask a simple question? No tricks, no fancy traps:

Do you accept that unprotected structural steelwork is susceptible to failure from normal fire loadings?