Failure mode in WTC towers

[bofors]

Of course my model is still pretty crude...

I am sorry, but it is painfully obvious to thousands of people that your model is not just crude but also critically flawed. Major Tom just proved it.

Likewise, there is a good reason why the US government, including NIST, is not funding rigorous finite element analysis simulations of the "collapses" itself. They know dam well that the results will prove the official story to be a lie.

Perhaps as a Canadian you do not understand this, but the fact the US government has not funded several universities to conduct such rigorous finite element analysis simulations and seriously study related issues of the "failure" of these buildings is and of itself proof of a cover-up.

No, instead, we have a few obviously misleading papers by Bazant & Co., hand-waving by an MIT Prof. and some bogus visual simulations at Purdue. While it certainly beyond the comprehension of these JREF clowns, to any body with a basic understanding of the US research infrastructure the avoidance and cover-up of these "collapses" is blatant.

 

[SDC]

Major T. "proved" it? He has some photos and video which he's interpreted. That's possibly interesting, but it isn't proof. Perhaps he could supply his credentials as an expert in the field of interpreting this material. I don't recall that he has done that.

 

[DGM]

I am sorry, but it is painfully obvious to thousands of people that your model is not just crude but also critically flawed. Major Tom just proved it.

Likewise, there is a good reason why the US government, including NIST, is not funding rigorous finite element analysis simulations of the "collapses" itself. They know dam well that the results will prove the official story to be a lie.

Perhaps as a Canadian you do not understand this, but the fact the US government has not funded several universities to conduct such rigorous finite element analysis simulations and seriously study related issues of the "failure" of these buildings is and of itself proof of a cover-up.

No, instead, we have a few obviously misleading papers by Bazant & Co., hand-waving by an MIT Prof. and some bogus visual simulations at Purdue. While it certainly beyond the comprehension of these JREF clowns, to any body with a basic understanding of the US research infrastructure the avoidance and cover-up of these "collapses" is blatant.

Then crap or get off the pot and show us how it happened. The world is getting sick of people like you that say they know what happened and don't put their money where there mouth is.

Do you have the guts to put your reputation on the line or are you just blowing smoke?


BOFORS............PROVE IT!

 

[A W Smith]

You hadda mention JuA,

A falling piston that weighs hundreds of millions of pounds causing an increase in air pressure? Impossible, I say!

I wonder when this seemingly interminable meeting of Junior Underachievers will finally be adjourned?

when they finish making foot stools and welcome mats of course.

Mark tell me you didnt see the same cable in the classroom JA film from the 1950s i saw the other day? I woke up too early and had the tv on.
now i gotta look for it over at archives

 

[Furcifer]

Apollo20, I agree and I do enjoy your work and your posts.

You should try to read them and understand them as well.

My basic complaint to an overly theoretical approach is that some people using them seem to have little interest in comparing them to known forensic patterns and known features of these "collapses" in particular.

There are no FMEA's (Failure Mode Effect Analysis) or forumlas to plug into the unique case of the WTC collapse. This neccessitates a theoretical approach, its the essence of what many call "science". Please cite and explain these "known forensics patterns". Many of us here are unaware they exist. As to the known features you say so many have little interest in, I suggest you research exactly what exists on the web and in this forum before you make such silly statements.

It is as if people can be so interested in models that they seem to be disturbed, though unaffected, by people pointing out that the patterns their model predicts do not apply in the case of WTC 1 and 2.

Being disturbed is an affect. Likewise the interest you speak of is also an affect. You contradict yourself a few times in the same sentence. I'm also having trouble determining the "patterns" the models predict? The models attempt to predict the chaotic nature of the collapse while reducing the number of variables so as to be understandable. Again, please read what A20 has recently posted and try to understand what he is saying.

It must strike you as curious that after 6 years nobody seemed to notice that huge portions of 2 of the 8 facades peeled off the building as single sheets, meaning that both spandrel connections and column-to-column bolt connections survived the initial peeling intact.

No, we read the NIST report. It's all in there. (except your "huge portions", you're making it up now) To further assist you, you should also note that most of the floor truss connections were sheared off the exterior and core columns. This suggests that most of the core and exterior columns remained in place prior to the floor trusses coming detached.

I

f people don't notice things so large, what else don't they notice?

You'd be surprised what people don't, or WON'T notice. There are people who didn't notice the planes hitting the towers, or the mountain of evidence indicative of the fact that they were the primary cause of the collapse. Some people eh?

Here we have people trying to explain this peeling (and "pressure pulses") with some floor collapse model, but they didn't notice that the collapse wave on one side of the west facade, WTC 1, is leading the same wave on the other side of the same facade by 10 to 20 stories.

Again, you really need to see what is out there on the internet. You're apparently very green in this area. What you're failing to understand is the implications of these observations have on the models that have been hypothesized. Incorporating them into the next generation of models (if anyone choses to continue chasing this unicorn) is indeed important. Your choosing to help in this endevour would, I am sure, be greatly appreciated. Not by me mind you, but somebody has to be desperate for help.

It is by carefully noting the forensic conditions of supporting columns and distinctive features of the "collapses" that we could NARROW THE POSSIBILITIES even before theorizing begins.
This is what was never done.

For you, finding a needle in a haystack would be too easy. You want to find a needle in a mountain of needles. That's great, I'm sure you will have the funding for this project once your million monkeys sitting at a million typerwriters publishes their first play.

 

[Major_Tom]

Please cite and explain these "known forensics patterns". Many of us here are unaware they exist.

My first 100 or so posts were about this.

For a person that is contributing zero information of interest you are not short of canned, fixed judgements of others.

I'd suggest you spend more time defending your side of the argument and less time insulting me.

Or continue... It will make my job even easier.


Gravy mentates:

A falling piston that weighs hundreds of millions of pounds causing an increase in air pressure? Impossible, I say!

This is the best you can offer as a counter-argument? A piston? I was expecting a bit more intellectual resistance.



You folks are going to have to come up with something better than that overworn piston argument.

It will be way too easy to pick apart. I hope you have something else on behind that figleaf.

 

[pomeroo]

My first 100 or so posts were about this.

For a person that is contributing zero information of interest you are not short of canned, fixed judgements of others.

I'd suggest you spend more time defending your side of the argument and less time insulting me.

Or continue... It will make my job even easier.

Let's see: your "argument" consists of your inability to comprehend the explanation of the collapses offered by real scientists and engineers and your promotion of a thoroughly debunked explosives-hypothesis that is supported by absolutely nothing. Very impressive. I wonder why you don't take your stunning discoveries to a real news outlet.

 

[Newtons Bit]

My first 100 or so posts were about this.

For a person that is contributing zero information of interest you are not short of canned, fixed judgements of others.

I'd suggest you spend more time defending your side of the argument and less time insulting me.

Or continue... It will make my job even easier.

I fail to see how anything you've posted presents a flaw in the overwhelming consensus theory.

 

[Darth Rotor]

When I think of member failure,

You immediately reach for your blue pill.

Try doing an analysis of the forces on a beam, at the point of elastic, and then plastic, deformation. Consider design load for a member in compression, and then for one in shear. The failure mode was as a result of shear forces, not compression.

Are you seeing the light yet?

The key to analyzing a failure mode is to examine the forces on the beam in and around the failure zone, and to correctly sum forces that act on that zone. Your rhetoric based position shows no evidence of you doing that.

Why do I bother?

DR

 

[Newtons Bit]

You immediately reach for your blue pill.

Try doing an analysis of the forces on a beam, at the point of elastic, and then plastic, deformation. Consider design load for a member in compression, and then for one in shear. The failure mode was as a result of shear forces, not compression.

Are you seeing the light yet?

The key to analyzing a failure mode is to examine the forces on the beam in and around the failure zone, and to correctly sum forces that act on that zone. Your rhetoric based position shows no evidence of you doing that.

Why do I bother?

DR

Actually, the failure mode was generally compression. However for people to understand that they would need a more general knowledge of what buckling really is. The elementary assumptions that each columns is perfectly straight just prior to a compressive failure is a good thing for simplifying the math involved, but it is fundamentally flawed for trying to determine the bending stresses in the column. Yes, the column has failed - in the traditional engineering terminology in which the column has reached a maximum axial stress and starts to decline - but the splices will fail in bending.

I should point out for people like Major_Tom, who might see the above and leap up and pronounce, "ah hah! Not all columns failed in that manner! This one failed differently!", that I am painting with a large brush: there were many, many different failure types. I have said generally compression, it was probably also alot of pure bending. Columns, stripped of their diaphragm supports, being pushed outwards by impacting debris.

 

[bofors]

I fail to see how anything you've posted presents a flaw in the overwhelming consensus theory.

Can you please explain how this "overwhelming consensus theory" accounts for the discrepancy ("Curioso #4" posted above) Major Tom has exposed at the Northwest corner of the North tower?

Specifically, why does the "blow-out" on North side of the Northwest corner of the North tower lag so many floors behind that of the West side?

 

[Furcifer]

My first 100 or so posts were about this.

For a person that is contributing zero information of interest you are not short of canned, fixed judgements of others.

I'd suggest you spend more time defending your side of the argument and less time insulting me.

Wow. I had no idea your posts, in a forum, would come to be known as "defined forensics patterns".

This so called "canned fixed judgments" are as a direct result of your arrogance and lack of comprehension. This is not an insult, this is an observation. In so much as I appreciate your observations, I hope you can appreciate mine and try to open yourself up to actually learning, instead of preaching.

 

[Norseman]

This means I need to rewrite curioso #1 this evidence of arson more carefully. The timing between cause and effect is physically impossible. I will demonstrate this more clearly within a few posts.

Corrected that for you Major Tom, because that is what you believe those smoke and fire puffs in WTC 1 are evidence of at the moment of Flight 175's impact in WTC 2.

From your website:

At the very moment that the second aircraft hit the South Tower at 9:02, just before this photo was taken, there were 2 small explosion witnessed on floor 97: window 103 on the north face and, just around the corner, from window 458 or 459 on the west face.

The following video clip records these explosions very well.

9/11 North Tower Explosions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciFGdAczRBM

Did you see that? Looks like arson, no?

Could that explain why fire appears in these coner windows so quickly?

Hint: yes.

Yes of course it was arson, a group of suicidal Al-Qaeda hijackers crashed a giant molotov cocktail into each tower. As I have explained to you before those puffs in WTC 1 were very, very likely caused by the pressure wave from the giant jet fuel deflagration when Flight 175 hit WTC 2. Take a look on top of page 4 of this presentation for an expert explanation of the behavior of a deflagration:
http://www.chem.mtu.edu/~crowl/cm4310/Chapter6b.pdf

I have also pointed to the possibility of a pressure wave caused by the top of WTC 2 swinging north because of the aircraft impact. Or as bofors pointed out to you, in a sensible moment, it was caused by some highly flammable material innocently present inside WTC 1 that happened to catch fire at the moment of Flight 175's impact in WTC 2. Or maybe it was caused by a backdraft somewhere inside WTC 1, or maybe it was caused by a flashover, or maybe it was caused by a partition wall collapsing. In other words a lot of possibilities.

But oh no, that's not good enough for you, again from your website:

Dear reader, these fires were not raging uncontrollably. They appear to be planned and pretty well-controlled.

The fires appear to be masking a burning or weakening process ocurring, on the west face, mainly across the 97th and 94th floors

So there we have it. You are a believer in collapse initiation caused by heat weakening cloaked by fire, and a complete collapse of the towers secured by explosives fracturing column welds. No wonder that you are linking to Max Photon's website.

The text in your photo album of the north tower west side fire progression is a tour de force in argument from incredulity. I am still not sure if my jaw is back in place after I went through the album last night.

I am tired of you coming here writing posts without points, pretending that you do not understand what you see and asking us for explanations. When we explain it you are of course not interested in our explanations, you have already made up your mind. I am sure you will complain that I am hard on you now. Of course you get a hard time when you come here beating around in the bush not being honest with what you actually believe and arguing from incredulity. So far you have only shown us the very evidence of aircraft impact, office fire weakening the structure, gravity driven collapse and your own lack of ability to interpret what you see in your impressive collection of photos and videos correctly. The burden of proof is on you, but I have to point out that you are looking for ghosts in broad daylight.

By the way you got the time of Flight 175's impact wrong.

 

[bofors]

Or as bofors pointed out to you, in a sensible moment, it was caused by some highly flammable material innocently present inside WTC 1 that happened to catch fire at the moment of Flight 175's impact in WTC 2.

It seems the fireball precedes the actual impact of 175, so I think it is possible that 175's pre-impact wake of air could be responsible for this fire ball.

Here is another video which captures this event from a slightly different perspective:



Note the ground shake, apparently from the impact of 175, occurs after the fireball.

Again, I do not think that researching this anomaly (Curioso #1) is going to prove anything.

 

[Norseman]

It seems the fireball precedes the actual impact of 175, so I think it is possible that 175's pre-impact wake of air could be responsible for this fire ball.

Here is another video which captures this event from a slightly different perspective:



Note the ground shake, apparently from the impact of 175, occurs after the fireball.

Again, I do not think that researching this anomaly (Curioso #1) is going to prove anything.

No, the puffs of fire and smoke in WTC 1 appears after impact in WTC 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJig1wj7oLI

But I agree with you that Major Tom is not going to prove anything with this.

--------------------------
I doubt that the camera shaking was caused by the ground shaking. Might be the pressure wave arriving or maybe somebody bumping the camera.

 

[bofors]

No, the puffs of fire and smoke in WTC 1 appears after impact in WTC 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJig1wj7oLI

How do you explain the pre-impact flashes of light apparent in the video you just posted on the South tower in exact vicinity of 175 collision?

 

[Norseman]

How do you explain the pre-impact flashes of light apparent in the video you just posted on the South tower in exact vicinity of 175 collision?

[qimg]http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4778/lightsouthyy5.jpg[/qimg]

Bofors, that is some kind of video/compression artifact. The same type artifact appears several places throughout the video on the towers and other buildings. At the start of the video you can also see in it on the northeast corner of WTC 1 just to left of the impact hole and on the antenna. Later in the video you can see it on buildings to the left of the towers.

 

[GregoryUrich]

You immediately reach for your blue pill.

Try doing an analysis of the forces on a beam, at the point of elastic, and then plastic, deformation. Consider design load for a member in compression, and then for one in shear. The failure mode was as a result of shear forces, not compression.

Are you seeing the light yet?

The key to analyzing a failure mode is to examine the forces on the beam in and around the failure zone, and to correctly sum forces that act on that zone. Your rhetoric based position shows no evidence of you doing that.

Why do I bother?

DR

Regarding the columns, see Newtons Bit's post. Regarding the horizontal beams I agree with you to the extent that NIST found that most of the beams failed somewhere in the middle and the photos appear to be shear failure.

In that post, I was trying to distinguish between member failure and connection failure in the columns. My main point was that member failure should be obvious from the photos. I.e. buckling failure in the member would lead to partial or complete fracture, while buckling failure at the welded connections would leave rather straight, 36 foot columns.

 

[bofors]

Bofors, that is some kind of video/compression artifact.

Is that your explanation for the flashes in this video too?:

 

[twinstead]

Is that your explanation for the flashes in this video too?:

What part of "The same type artifact appears several places throughout the video on the towers and other buildings" don't you understand? This effect also appears on OTHER videos. Quit looking at videos and concentrate on the physical evidence.

Quit being just another member of the YouTube generation