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Layman's terms please! Tower collapse issue

One conclusion then is that the outer envelope, you mean the four outer walls consisting of 63 columns each, can stand on its own. The outer envelope does not need any floors to stand. Quite the opposite, the floors need the outer envelope to hang on (via bolts). Remove all floors and the walls stand.


My god, that is one of the the stupidest things you have ever said.


Without the floors, what is there to keep the exterior columns from buckling under their own weight?
 
According to my sources, an average American sheep produces 8.2 pounds of wool per year.
http://www.sheep101.info/wool.html
The towers weighed approximately 154,000,000 kg per Tower /2.2 = 70000000 lbs each.
http://www.physforum.com/What-was-the-weight-of-a-WTC-Tower_4299.html
70000000/8.2= 8536585 sheep contributed to its construction (or one sheep's production for over 8.5 million years). There were 6.32 million sheep in the US in 2004. I can't be bothered to find out the US sheep population when the towers were built.
http://www.sheep101.info/farm.html
The US has less than 1% of the world's sheep population, so I'll approximate the world population at 100 times the US's or >600 million sheep (plenty of wool to construct the towers if imported wool was used).
Now I'm just asking questions.
What are yarmulkes made of?
Was there a spike in wool prices when towers were built?
Were people in the wool industry forewarned about the attacks?
Was there any suspicious futures trading in the livestock market around Sept. 11, 2001?
Wool is somewhat fireproof, would the fires have been able to get hot enough to weaken the structures enough to initiate collapse?
Was NIST allowed to examine all the wool or was it all sold to China to make cheap yarmulkes?
Wool is also pretty water repellent, why would anyone build with something that repels the number one fire fighting substance?
Why weren't the towers dyed in pretty colors for a more festive appearance?
 
My god, that is one of the the stupidest things you have ever said.


Without the floors, what is there to keep the exterior columns from buckling under their own weight?

Sorry, you are totally wrong! How would the wall columns buckle without floors (and then no loads on them)? Outwards or inwards. Sorry, kept in place by the spandrels acting as belts around the tower. Inline, sideways? Sorry, no influence by floors there.

Main function of the floor, bolted on and hanging on the wall, was to walk on! Another function was to transmit horizontal wind loads on one wall to the opposite wall allowing the tower to sway, albeit steadily, sideways.

With all floors hanging on a wall the stress in the wall columns was 20% of yield all the way. Remove the floors and the stress was 1% of yield (only due to columns own weight). Buckling stress in both cases are >100% of yield, so nothing will happen.

Without floors WTCs were very strong cages. And cages of any size do not collapse due own weight. Read my article comparing WTC1,2 with a bird cage.
 
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Silly question, Heiwa...

Have you submitted any of your findings for peer-review?
 
Silly question, Heiwa...

Have you submitted any of your findings for peer-review?

The third graders were busy, so the engineers, architects, and scientists here have reviewed Heiwa's findings. We find them...wanting....inexcusable...and totally false
 
In WTC1 case the bolt was only there to prevent the floor to fall down. Main steel structure would still stand.
You have no idea how the WTC towers were designed. Kids jumping on a bed solves the WTC falling in your fantasy world where you ignore the terrorist in planes impacting the WTC at 470 to 590 mph with KE of 1300 to 2093 pounds of TNT. You give a free pass to terrorist killing Americans so you can satisfy your fantasy conspiracy thinking. As you fail to grasp building concepts, the only thing you have proven to the world is your lack of understanding reality and your persistence at promoting failed ideas based in made up conspiracy theories.

Will you ever be on topic in this thread? If you have nothing to explain in layman terms on momentum transfer, you are spamming and exposing your lack of knowledge on 9/11.
Your dumb statements, proven wrong on 9/11 make your work pure failure on 9/11.
Reason why a steel building cannot collapse due to release of potential energy is, in simple terms, that the potential energy will mainly be applied to secondary structure - the floors - that will be overloaded and detached from the primary structure - the columns! The potential energy will then not be applied to the primary structure ... that will remain intact! http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist.htm
Your ideas on 9/11 are messed up, and reveal your lack on knowledge in physics, structures, and expose your propensity to see conspiracy theories in tragedies.
 
You have no idea how the WTC towers were designed.

Your ideas on 9/11 are messed up, and reveal your lack on knowledge in physics, structures, and expose your propensity to see conspiracy theories in tragedies.

OK, short description. Gravity is a force of attraction between any two objects. WTC1 consisted of many objects and, when WTC1 was intact and all objects were attached to each other, gravity resulted in compressive stresses in the primary load bearing objects (the columns) that were <30% of the yield stress.
A floor is not a primary load bearing object. It just transmits its weight to the primary load bearing objects.
If you cut a primary load bearing object in one location it cannot transmit any load and the stress in it at the cut becomes zero. If you then cut the same object a bit away, the lose part will evidently fall down. If it is located in the wall, it is likely it drops down to the ground outside the structure.

In WTC1 we are told that 280+ primary load bearing objects were simultaneously cut in two locations in an initiation zone ... and disappeared. Fair enough! I do not believe it because it is a crazy idea, but let's assume it anyway.

What happens then?

Well, if the upper block above the initiation zone was then hanging in a crane and slowly lowered down and placed on the lower structure, the lower structure would evidently carry the upper block ... as before.

But there was no crane lowering the upper block!

We are told that it (1) free falls and (2) impacts instantaneously and (3) causes a shock wave in the lower structure, it is overloaded, etc. These are crazy ideas, but must be considered in a serious analysis.

PE is released at (1) and becomes KE at (2). Nist suggests that the PE = KE exceeded the total strain energy, SE, of the structure (below), KE=PE>SE, but it is nonsense. PE/KE and SE have nothing to do with each other!

Nothing to do with each other? Exactly.

The PE must evidently be applied to the structure below, but gravity does not work like that for lose objects!

The upper block consists of 280+ vertical primary load bearing objects (the columns).

In order for this upper block with 280+ objects to 'impact' the lower structure and overload it, it must be 100% aligned with all 280+ objects below. And then, if the 280+ objects touches the 280+ objects below, they must not slip off! Remember - each column has been split at two locations and the intermediate part has disappeared. Do you believe that the cross surfaces of the broken parts are identical allowing a perfect fit?

Evidently, the upper block was not 100% aligned at (1) with the lower structure and therefore it will miss the lower structure at (2). No impact, no shock wave! And no global collapse due to PE>SE!

So why did the lower structure blow up in 1000's of pieces if there were no impact and shock wave? Only answer is some sort of CD in my opinion.

That is one conclusion of the article on my web site.
 
OK, short description. Gravity is a force of attraction between any two objects. WTC1 consisted of many objects and, when WTC1 was intact and all objects were attached to each other, gravity resulted in compressive stresses in the primary load bearing objects (the columns) that were <30% of the yield stress.

What an interesting and unorthordox use of terminology. Now, what are you trying to say and what is the basis of your figures?

A floor is not a primary load bearing object. It just transmits its weight to the primary load bearing objects.

I see you still refuse to accept that the floors provide a bracing effect as part of the overall structural system, restraining the loadbearing outer envelope. Tell you what, why don't you post a proper structural analysis proving that the envelope was self-supporting. You know, with like, highyl detailed calculations and everything. Remember to take account of the wind loadings.

If you cut a primary load bearing object in one location it cannot transmit any load and the stress in it at the cut becomes zero. If you then cut the same object a bit away, the lose part will evidently fall down. If it is located in the wall, it is likely it drops down to the ground outside the structure.

Wrong

In WTC1 we are told that 280+ primary load bearing objects were simultaneously cut in two locations in an initiation zone ... and disappeared. Fair enough! I do not believe it because it is a crazy idea, but let's assume it anyway.

Really? Show me where "we are told" this.


Well, if the upper block above the initiation zone was then hanging in a crane and slowly lowered down and placed on the lower structure, the lower structure would evidently carry the upper block ... as before.

But there was no crane lowering the upper block!

We are told that it (1) free falls and (2) impacts instantaneously and (3) causes a shock wave in the lower structure, it is overloaded, etc. These are crazy ideas, but must be considered in a serious analysis.

Remind me again where we are allegedly told this. Remember to include full references in order that we can check it ourselves.

PE is released at (1) and becomes KE at (2). Nist suggests that the PE = KE exceeded the total strain energy, SE, of the structure (below), KE=PE>SE, but it is nonsense. PE/KE and SE have nothing to do with each other!

I hope this isn't what you consider to be some sort of structural analysis.

The upper block consists of 280+ vertical primary load bearing objects (the columns).

In order for this upper block with 280+ objects to 'impact' the lower structure and overload it, it must be 100% aligned with all 280+ objects below. And then, if the 280+ objects touches the 280+ objects below, they must not slip off! Remember - each column has been split at two locations and the intermediate part has disappeared. Do you believe that the cross surfaces of the broken parts are identical allowing a perfect fit?

Evidently, the upper block was not 100% aligned at (1) with the lower structure and therefore it will miss the lower structure at (2). No impact, no shock wave! And no global collapse due to PE>SE!

Don't be ridiculous. You have been told umpteen times about the design of the WTC structure. Impacting column-column is simply not required for collapse.

So why did the lower structure blow up in 1000's of pieces if there were no impact and shock wave? Only answer is some sort of CD in my opinion.

When did the lower stucture "blow up"? What the heck are you talking about?

That is one conclusion of the article on my web site.

Correct. It's just not the conclusion you think it is.
 
In order for this upper block with 280+ objects to 'impact' the lower structure and overload it, it must be 100% aligned with all 280+ objects below. And then, if the 280+ objects touches the 280+ objects below, they must not slip off! Remember - each column has been split at two locations and the intermediate part has disappeared. Do you believe that the cross surfaces of the broken parts are identical allowing a perfect fit?

Evidently, the upper block was not 100% aligned at (1) with the lower structure and therefore it will miss the lower structure at (2). No impact, no shock wave! And no global collapse due to PE>SE!

That's an utterly laughable oversimplification. You're assuming that there are two possible outcomes: (1) Everything lines up perfectly, therefore the upper structure impacts the lower structure, or (2) the alignment is not perfect, therefore every element of the upper structure misses every element of the lower structure. You're ignoring the following events, all of which are more or less certain:

(a) Some, but not all, columns impact vertically, leading to a massive overload of the impacted columns, leading to their collapse. Since the structure is interconnected, this will cause weakening of other columns, leading to their subsequent collapse when left unsupported.
(b) Columns will impact floor slabs, and floor slabs will impact columns. This will fragment the floor slabs, causing the floors to collapse. Without the support of the floors, the columns will collapse; your assertion that the unsupported perimeter column structure is stable is nothing more than fantasy.
(c) Columns falling at an angle will impact obliquely on other columns, leading to an impulse delivered to those columns in the direction in which they are least able to resist it. This will lead, among other things, to peeling outwards of large sections of perimeter column trees.
(d) Impacts between cross-members in the core structure, and between elements of the hat truss and the lower core columns. These can again either be axial or oblique, leading to different failure modes.

As usual, you're starting from a definition of an event which excludes the event which actually took place, then using that definition to prove that the actual events could not have taken place. It's a very cleverly constructed circular argument, the subtlety of which suggests to me that you're not as ignorant as you seem, but that you're deliberately trying to mislead. Just my opinion, though.

Dave
 
As usual, you're starting from a definition of an event which excludes the event which actually took place, then using that definition to prove that the actual events could not have taken place. It's a very cleverly constructed circular argument, the subtlety of which suggests to me that you're not as ignorant as you seem, but that you're deliberately trying to mislead. Just my opinion, though.

I'm beginning to wonder if he's deluded, rather than incompetent or trolling. No qualified engineer witha working knowledge of building structures could adopt this ludicrous position.

Are you ill, Heiwa?
 
If you cut a primary load bearing object in one location it cannot transmit any load and the stress in it at the cut becomes zero.

What?! You are talking about objects in compression, right? This example makes no sense. Either you're making a total hash of the english language or your understanding of statics (a second-year college course) is total crap.
 
The upper block is 4 000 m² large where the primary load bearing columns occupy 5-6 m² cross area. Same with the lower structure.

If the upper block is supposed to impact the lower structure after alleged free fall, evidently the columns of the upper block must drop straight on the columns on the lower structure ... and not slip off. Otherwise there is no solid, instantaneous impact that can cause a shock wave that shakes the columns below into pieces.

Anything else is just ... well dropping a bale of wool on a very solid lower structure. No impact! The upper part misses the relevant structure below.

Re peer review. Some of you are my peer reviewers. The other greenhorns I just ignore.

Re floors - they are not primary load bearing structure of any static loads. They just transmit weights on them to the columns.
 
What?! You are talking about objects in compression, right? This example makes no sense. Either you're making a total hash of the english language or your understanding of statics (a second-year college course) is total crap.

Try to cut a structural member under any load and then see if it can transmit any load after that!
 

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