Failure mode in WTC towers

[beachnut]

I for one have not pushed explosive or thermite demolition, but don't be silly. Explosives or thermite can fail any structural component just as well as a "NIST fire".

Not in the WTC. It did not happen, and you lack any evidence to support the failed 9/11 truth movement groups you are a current member in. Are you a " Judas" to your own group?

Please show an example of thermite taking down a building. Oh, you said structural component. Okay, lets see the large core columns cut with thermite, in a way that leaves no thermite residual or proof like we have on 9/11. No proof after the act. Kind of means thermite was not used. Why are you a member of Thermite Jones group of liars who believe thermite did it. Has he retracted his statements from 2005?

8. Explosions -- multiple loud explosions in rapid sequence -- were heard and reported by numerous observers in (and near) the WTC buildings, consistent with explosive demolition. Some of the firemen who reported explosions barely escaped with their lives.

You have pushed the explosive stuff by signing up with Jones. You also said officials in our government are murderers, you signed the petition saying this. Make up your mind. You either support Jones or you don't. When will you quit being a member so I can believe you again? How does thermite make loud explosive noises?

Falling buildings are not observed to generate melting of large quantities of molten metal -- this requires a concentrated heat source such as explosives.

Oh, your fearless leader makes the implication, you deny it. Wow; when did you stop your membership, your name is still up on the list. How do explosives melt metal? Please try to support on of the founders of your own group. You are a member, does this mean Jones is full of bull?

You sound like you got trained by DRG; do not say anything, never commit, sell those DVDs and Books!

The pulverization of concrete to powder and the horizontal ejection of steel beams for hundreds of yards, observed clearly in the collapses of the WTC towers, requires much more energy than is available from gravitational potential energy alone. Explosives will give the observed features. Other scientists have provided quantitative analysis of the observed pulverizations, and I can provide references if you wish. Here we are appealing to the violation of Conservation of Energy

The group you belong to started on this junk! How can you keep a straight face reading Jones' junk? Pure stupid stuff.

Sorry, you are wrong, thermite is 10 times less heat energy than just the Jet fuel. Why are you unable to get simple ideas into your engineering idea on 9/11. See fire is more trouble than explosives and thermite. You need ten times more thermite in weight to equal the jet fuel fires in the WTC. Plus you have the contents on fire. Steel fails in fire, you have to have people believe steel does not!
You lost again. You should stop being a member, and try to be an engineer.

fire, not thermite, no explosives, (but you need to support your membership in Jones' thermite explosive cult)

Now all you need is silent explosives, and sideways thermite to show us the large scale destruction the likes of the gravity collapse of the WTC. Impact, fire and collapse. Why is 9/11 truth so research challenged.?

 

[Max Photon]

Heating from thermite could easily create sagging floor and inward bowing columns

Those of us who lack an engineering background wonder why the twoofer pretend-engineers seem to know so much less than the real engineers. Mackey raises a point that is comprehensible to everyone: given the observable inward bowing, how would explosives produce such an effect?

C'mon, stretch those imaginations. All of you frauds have screamed about explosives, in the absence of a shred of evidence, for years. Explain how powerful blasts pulled the exterior columns inward.

I for one have not pushed explosive or thermite demolition, but don't be silly. Explosives or thermite can fail any structural component just as well as a "NIST fire".

As well as or better than!

For example, it would not take much thermite at all to soften the top and bottom chords of floor trusses midspan, or at the air ducts, to cause them to sag and pull inward on perimeter columns. And remember, as the mighty adoucette said, it did not take much pull from the floors to cause perimeter columns to bow inward.

It would also not take much thermite to heat the perimeter column splice bolts, to reduce their moment capacity, while sagging floors were exerting a catenary pull. Weakened splice bolts would make the inward bowing columns more prone to failure at a smaller eccentricity.


Yes, it is not easy to see how powerful blasts from explosives could pull perimeter columns inward.

However, it is very easy to see how thermite could be used to pull perimeter columns inward.


Max

 

[beachnut]

As well as or better than!

For example, it would not take much thermite at all to soften the top and bottom chords of floor trusses midspan, or at the air ducts, to cause them to sag and pull inward on perimeter columns. And remember, as the mighty adoucette said, it did not take much pull from the floors to cause perimeter columns to bow inward.

It would also not take much thermite to heat the perimeter column splice bolts, to reduce their moment capacity, while sagging floors were exerting a catenary pull. Weakened splice bolts would make the inward bowing columns more prone to failure at a smaller eccentricity.


Yes, it is not easy to see how powerful blasts from explosives could pull perimeter columns inward.

However, it is very easy to see how thermite could be used to pull perimeter columns inward.

Max

Show us. On 9/11 fire did it all, now show us one example of thermite on a large 110 story building doing anything. So far your disrespectful fantasy has failed because you have no examples. Zero

Show an example of themite defying gravity and doing what you say it can do. Show some detailed plans. Please tell me you have something more than this stupid fantasy junk to support your failed ideas?

Yes it is a fantasy, you can not show thermite doing anything but melting through an engine block. Now you need to get sideways flowing thermite that leaves zero evidence. BTW, thermite is ten times less heat than jet fuel.

 

[Apollo20]

Beachnut:

Now when you go posting stuff like this I have a problem:

"Please show an example of thermite taking down a building...... lets see the large core columns cut with thermite, in a way that leaves no thermite residual or proof like we have on 9/11. No proof after the act. Kind of means thermite was not used"

Why do I have a problem with this? Because when you address your words to Gregory Urich (as if he has pushed some kind of thermite theory), I do not believe you could show me where GU has been a proponent of thermite; so why use this line of argument?

NIST blame the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 on heat weakening of the structural steel, as others such do but with very different heat sources in mind.

So, Beachnut you have to agree, we are merely quibbling about how the steel was heated are we not?

All I can say is there are plenty of CHEMICAL possibilities you are missing......

 

[beachnut]

Beachnut:

Now when you go posting stuff like this I have a problem:

"Please show an example of thermite taking down a building...... lets see the large core columns cut with thermite, in a way that leaves no thermite residual or proof like we have on 9/11. No proof after the act. Kind of means thermite was not used"

Why do I have a problem with this? Because when you address your words to Gregory Urich (as if he has pushed some kind of thermite theory), I do not believe you could show me where GU has been a proponent of thermite; so why use this line of argument?

NIST blame the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 on heat weakening of the structural steel, as others such do but with very different heat sources in mind.

So, Beachnut you have to agree, we are merely quibbling about how the steel was heated are we not?

All I can say is there are plenty of CHEMICAL possibilities you are missing......

A building on fire? I agree. But thermite and explosives have not been suggested by the evidence. However you are correct. A building set on fire is a whole complex set of chemical reactions, commonly called a building fire.

Thermite and explosives are Gregory's group's bread and butter for false ideas. He joined a group who pushes thermite. It seems he says he does not support it, then makes the claim it can do it. Show me a large column destroyed by thermite. I have never seen thermite used where it did not leaves a pile of iron afterwards. Plus I have not seen it melt great areas around it, just localized melting of aluminum blocks and steel alloys under the movement controlled by gravity. Now there is this device you can load to cut through columns, but it leaves the device. And those devices would be found after the WTC fell. None were found.

I have to say, you are right the thing we call building fires; and those fires set by 10,000 gallons of accelerate are complex. I hate to be in a computer component plastic fire, it is nasty, as are carpets, desks, and paper. I start my wood stove with paper from the office, it gets very hot and is a most complex process. I do not understand truth movement members who discount fire! It was after all the thing you are calling "plenty of CHEMICAL possibilities"; an office fire. How quaint.

I am sorry, each time I see a member of Jones' group I go read the groups past lies. To be a member and not call them out is like being a NAZI and not calling them out for killing Jews on an industrial scale. It is my country, I do not like idiot ideas fooling the people lacking knowledge for some stupid political biases and pure greed from dumb people like Dylan. If you want to make up some magical properties of a building fire, you are talking to the wrong person. I have seen fire, I know it destroyed the WTC after the 7 to 11 times greater than design impacts took place. If you need some help, go back to school, seems like my school took all the CTer qualities out of me; I save my imagination for fiction and watching movies. It is my country, I do not appreciate people telling lies like Gregory when he says he has evidence of officials in the US murdering others on 9/11. He even signed it. If you want to support Gregory, fine. Join the idiot movement of false information.

So show us a thermite reaction that leaves no proof, yet destroys a column of the WTC. You may of missed Gregory's posting of pure truth junk in other threads. He does support explosives and thermite, he is a member of Jones' group, he is not telling the truth in his affiliations. He signed a petition blaming US people for the murders. I have to say, it you have problems making a connection to Greg and the truth movement, use google, the one thing Google does show is a full blown truth movement instrument, Gregory.

I am waiting to see any proof the truth movement has for simultaneous thermite failures initiated ever, in any building; and in that effort leaving zero evidence as shown so clearly by Major Tom with his radio controlled explosives gallery of photos proving his ideas wrong.

So far Max Photon has come up with some thermite numbers, but his efforts would go out quickly and actually become fused iron patches next to the steel. I wonder if these genius understand where the heat goes in a thermite reaction.

If Gregory does not push thermite theory he needs to not be a member of Jones' group of false information merchants, and denounce the petition he signed that accused others for the murder of 3,000 people that 19 terrorist did; he denies this. Simple stuff. You need to research what groups Gregory belongs to, it does matter when it pertains to the subject in question. Just as Einstein saw NAZIs as a threat to knowledge and freedom of thought, so are 9/11 truth movements a threat to knowledge, truth and logic. Fooling people who lack knowledge on 9/11 is not nice. Jones and Gregory are fooling people. Gregory's goal is clear, to show gravity collapse can not happen. Just as Einstein saw the NAZIs intent, any rational person paying attention can see Gregory's intent, he has not hid it well, and he does lie about it.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

No Mr. Szamboti. A moment frame with an eccentric axial load has bending moments in it along the length of the column.

This is structural engineering 101. And just to show everyone else that you don't have any freaking clue about what you're talking about, I took a moment frame with eccentric end connections and tossed it into Risa-3d.


[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1632947acab3124d5f.jpg[/qimg]
Here's the problem.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1632947acab1536746.jpg[/qimg]
And the magnified deflected shape. Sure looks like there's bending there to me!

There you go again with the pinned supports and no sidesway inhibition. To act like a pinned connection the end of the column would need to be able to rotate .04 radians or 2.25 degrees. That was not possible in the towers with the sidesway inhibiting beams with composite floor slabs restraining any rotation at both ends. You also fail to take into account the great inertia a massive building like the towers would have had. I'll show the little exercise on finding slenderness ratio factors again for those who might want to see why I say you are not correct again.

http://cnx.org/content/m10746/latest/

In the exercise column AB would represent the perimeter columns and columns CD and FG would represent core columns. The mass and inertia of the building would ensure a behavior represented by anchor points A, C, F, and J.

Your figure is a frame which is the same as frame DEHG in the exercise, which does not represent the configuration of any of the columns in the towers.

By the way, bluster isn't becoming of an engineer.

 

[X]

As well as or better than!

For example, it would not take much thermite at all to soften the top and bottom chords of floor trusses midspan, or at the air ducts, to cause them to sag and pull inward on perimeter columns. And remember, as the mighty adoucette said, it did not take much pull from the floors to cause perimeter columns to bow inward.

It would also not take much thermite to heat the perimeter column splice bolts, to reduce their moment capacity, while sagging floors were exerting a catenary pull. Weakened splice bolts would make the inward bowing columns more prone to failure at a smaller eccentricity.

Yes, it is not easy to see how powerful blasts from explosives could pull perimeter columns inward.

However, it is very easy to see how thermite could be used to pull perimeter columns inward.


Max

Or perhaps the steel weakening could be accomplished by something a little less high-tech?
Like say a fire?

 

[Furcifer]

For example, it would not take much thermite at all to soften the top and bottom chords of floor trusses midspan, or at the air ducts, to cause them to sag and pull inward on perimeter columns. And remember, as the mighty adoucette said, it did not take much pull from the floors to cause perimeter columns to bow inward.

It would also not take much thermite to heat the perimeter column splice bolts, to reduce their moment capacity, while sagging floors were exerting a catenary pull. Weakened splice bolts would make the inward bowing columns more prone to failure at a smaller eccentricity.


Yes, it is not easy to see how powerful blasts from explosives could pull perimeter columns inward.

However, it is very easy to see how thermite could be used to pull perimeter columns inward.


Max

Mind boggling. You come up with these complex, intricate theories (hereunto unnamed and now dubbed Theory of MAXimum Complexity) with total disregard to logic, reason and physical properties.

You have made an error in thinking that thermite gets hot, so the heat can be used to sag the floors. Wrong.

They use thermite for cutting/welding for a reason.

Thermite gets too hot and is too focussed to do what you are saying.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

I took a look at your failure mode, and applied some simple arithmetic, which is often a good idea before you rush to publish things.

First of all, let's look at the tower dimensions. The cores were 87 x 133 feet and the outer dimensions were 209 feet square. That gives floor spans from the core to the perimeter of 61 feet and 38 feet.

Next, the alleged antenna drop. The source referenced in your paper gives a drop of at most 10-12 feet over the first two seconds of collapse. Let's take the upper end of that range.

Now, assume that the core has dropped by 12 feet relative to the perimeter columns, and the floor joists have remained connected. The result will be that the perimeter columns are pulled in at every level above the point where the core is severed, which is not what was observed. However, let's propose that a mechanism exists by which the core could only pull in on the perimeter columns close to the collapse initiation zone, and nowhere else. What is the maximum amount the perimeter columns could be pulled in by a core drop of twelve feet?

First of all, it should be obvious that the longer the floor span, the greater the pull-in, so we'll look at the longer floor span of 61 feet. As the core drops, the floor truss will be angled, so the horizontal projection of its length is given by constructing a right-angled triangle where the vertical side is 12 feet, the hypotenuse is 61 feet, and the horizontal is the unknown to be determined. By Pythagoras' theorem, therefore, the projection is SQRT( 61^2 - 12^2 ) feet, which is 59 feet 10 inches. Subtract this from 61 feet and we have 1 foot 2 inches.

The maximum distance the perimeter columns could be pulled in by the mechanism you suggest is therefore 1 foot 2 inches, and this is about two seconds after collapse initiation.

According to NIST, the perimeter columns on the South face of WTC1 were pulled in up to 55 inches - approximately four times the maximum pull-in expected according to your collapse model - at 10:23am, shortly before collapse initiation.

Realcddeal, do you have any explanation for why your model fails so grossly at predicting either the time or the extent of the pull-in of the perimeter columns? And do you have any excuse for not already having done this trivially simple piece of arithemetic yourself?

Dave

First, you are assuming the collapse floor only fell 12 feet in a 2 second time frame during the inward pull of the perimeter columns. That assumption isn't supported anywhere. The 12 foot drop of the antenna by that amount when it was 140 feet further up is not indicitive of the exact fall of the collapse floor and the core columns they were attached while the perimeter columns were being pulled inward.

By the way, the core was 137 x 87 feet and with the 209 foot square building with 14 inch square perimeter columns at each side the floor trusses were 35 and 60 feet long.

 

[pomeroo]

First, you are assuming the collapse floor only fell 12 feet in a 2 second time frame during the inward pull of the perimeter columns. That assumption isn't supported anywhere. The drop of the antenna by that amount does not mean that is all the collapse floor and the core columns they were attached to dropped while the perimeter columns were being pulled inward.

We have established that explosives cannot possibly account for the inward bowing. Max's uninformed fantasy about thermite has been exposed as nonsense. We are left with the observable fact that the exterior columns were pulled inward. You can't begin to explain why without abandoning your absurd speculations.

 

[rwguinn]

There you go again with the pinned supports and no sidesway inhibition. To act like a pinned connection the end of the column would need to be able to rotate .04 radians or 2.25 degrees. That was not possible in the towers with the sidesway inhibiting beams with composite floor slabs restraining any rotation at both ends. You also fail to take into account the great inertia a massive building like the towers would have had. I'll show the little exercise on finding slenderness ratio factors again for those who might want to see why I say you are not correct again.

http://cnx.org/content/m10746/latest/

In the exercise column AB would represent the perimeter columns and columns CD and FG would represent core columns. The mass and inertia of the building would ensure a behavior represented by anchor points A, C, F, and J.

Your figure is a frame which is the same as frame DEHG in the exercise, which does not represent the configuration of any of the columns in the towers.

My bolding

By the way, bluster isn't becoming of an engineer.

neither is a lack of comprehension of the basics...

and, like, dude--it ain't bluster when you're right...

 

[Furcifer]

First, you are assuming the collapse floor only fell 12 feet in a 2 second time frame during the inward pull of the perimeter columns. That assumption isn't supported anywhere.

Give it a break already. You're at the point of desperation now, implying that the antennae dropped only 12 feet and then broke off, but the rest of the core dropped more and somehow the trusses in the upper block managed to come detached, but the ones in the impact zone remained attached.

Now I've got Freddy Mercury stuck in my head:

Is this the real life-
Is this just fantasy-
Caught in a landslide-
No escape from reality-
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see-

 

[Furcifer]

By the way, the core was 137 x 87 feet and with the 209 foot square building with 14 inch square perimeter columns at each side the floor trusses were 35 and 60 feet long.

Hey Dave, you've got an extra foot there buddy! I bet I know where you'd like to put it...

 

[Tony Szamboti]

My bolding



neither is a lack of comprehension of the basics...

and, like, dude--it ain't bluster when you're right...

Blah, blah, blah. Do you ever support your contentions?

 

[Tony Szamboti]

We have established that explosives cannot possibly account for the inward bowing. Max's uninformed fantasy about thermite has been exposed as nonsense. We are left with the observable fact that the exterior columns were pulled inward. You can't begin to explain why without abandoning your absurd speculations.

Another blah, blah, blah comment without support. Some of you guys seem really good at that.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Or perhaps the steel weakening could be accomplished by something a little less high-tech?
Like say a fire?

Fire wouldn't cause molten metal in the rubble. What is your explanation for it?

 

[Furcifer]

Blah, blah, blah. Do you ever support your contentions?

The contention is implied in the bolding. This is the source of your error.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Show us. On 9/11 fire did it all, now show us one example of thermite on a large 110 story building doing anything. So far your disrespectful fantasy has failed because you have no examples. Zero

Show an example of themite defying gravity and doing what you say it can do. Show some detailed plans. Please tell me you have something more than this stupid fantasy junk to support your failed ideas?

Yes it is a fantasy, you can not show thermite doing anything but melting through an engine block. Now you need to get sideways flowing thermite that leaves zero evidence. BTW, thermite is ten times less heat than jet fuel.

The jet fuel was gone in ten minutes. You have to use office fires for your argument. What about the holes and sulfidation found in steel from WTC7? Do you have an answer for that?

Oh, earlier you asked how thermite might be ignited. How about a fire proof box with magnesium ribbon and a small amount of thermite in it which is then placed on the larger mass of thermite. When the magnesium ribbon ignites the thermite inside the box it would burn through the box igniting the larger thermite mass. I am surprised you couldn't think outside the box well enough to conceive of a way to protect the ignition source in a fire.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Hey Dave, you've got an extra foot there buddy! I bet I know where you'd like to put it...

Maybe he needs that extra foot to count with because in the initial collapse of the North Tower a fall of 12 feet in 2 seconds isn't what was observed.

 

[DGM]

Tony:
Did your collapse sequence start at the base of the antenna and work its way down from there? If not how would you account for no exterior column bowing from the antenna base to the initiation zone?