Hm - a 33 000 tons ship at 5 m/s (10 knots) horzontal speed at collision has evidently more (2.78 times!) KE...
You referred to scale model tests and computer simulations that show limited penetration and damage from colliding ships. I looked and found that those tests involved 1,000 ton ships, unless there were other tests I'm not aware of. Please show the evidence that colliding 33,000 ton ships would behave the same way. I'll assume that they would, for the purpose of argument below, but I'd like to see the evidence. (Pointing to an authoritative text stating something like "all nautical collisions between ships of equal size behave the same regardless of scale" would be sufficient, but I doubt you'll find such a claim.)
...than an upper block of WTC 1 (also 33 000 tons) but only contacting vertcally the lower structure at 3 m/s.
Okay, but the upper block accelerating at 0.5g (due to the residual resistance) for 3 meters develops a velocity above 5 m/sec, so let's say it's the same velocity (and thus the same kinetic energy) as the 33,000 ton ship.
The ship collision may stop after a penetration of 5-10 meters into the other ship (of same size). The pointed bow of the striking ship really breaks the side of the stricken ship but after a while (even if the driving force of the striking ship is still on) the destruction is arrested.
The colliding ship stops because the kinetic energy is limited. I accounted for the additional engine thrust; it's significant (at least, if you assume as I did, somewhat unrealistically, that all of the engine horsepower is converted into thrust with 100% efficiency) but not a large contribution compared to the initial kinetic energy.
The ship has a pointed bow that concentrates force, but it's penetrating steel plate that's designed to resist the force of ocean storm waves. The falling tower block has steel columns that also concentrate force, but they're penetrating concrete floors designed to resist the force of desks, chairs, filing cabinets, and people walking on them. (Surely, you're aware that a ship with a hull made of a few inches of concrete layered onto 22 gauge steel would crumble as soon as it was launched.) So I'm not giving the colliding ship any penetrating advantage over the colliding upper block. For the sake of argument I'll say it's the same -- that the kinetic energy of the upper block at 5 m/sec can cause it to penetrate the same "5 to 10" meters into the lower block as the colliding ship penetrates into the target ship's hull.
But wait -- by the time it's penetrated 5 meters of the structure below, the 33,000 ton upper block has gained another 1.6 billion Joules from the conversion of gravitational potential energy. This is far more than the about 400 million joules of kinetic energy it had when it was going 5 m/sec. Remember that the 400 megajoules of kinetic energy at 5 m/sec is more than enough to penetrate the 5 meters; the colliding ships prove that. So all that additional potential energy gained from graviational force acting on the upper block is free to become kinetic energy. So the upper block has not stopped, it has not slowed down, it has in fact sped up; the 33,000 tons are now moving at almost 10 meters per second.
If the kinetic energy of the upper block moving (let's use your smaller figure now) at 3 m/sec (150 megajoules) is sufficient to penetrate even half a meter of the structure below, then by falling that half a meter the upper block has gained back those same 150 megajoules from gravitational potential energy, and the collapse will continue.
That's what Apollo20 means when he says "gravity overwhelms everything."
Why the upper block of WTC 1 would cause the lower structure to collapse is beyond me.
I'm aware of that. But I'm doing my best to help.
What you've failed to take into account is that in each of your successive figures, the upper block has gained more energy than it lost from resistance.
Also, your figures suggesting that the resistance increases enough to arrest collapse because the upper and lower structures get increasingly entangled in one another do not depict a possible scenario. The lateral forces on the column ends (your black lines) in the fourth drawing are too large for them to stay connected. They break apart at their welds. And the floors cannot fall past each other as you've depicted in the 5th frame and cannot support the weight of multiple other floors stacked up on them as you've depicted in the 4th frame. So, the situation in your fifth drawing cannot develop.
If you're ever at a construction site, and the top couple of floors of framework start falling, do not think, "it's okay, they'll get tangled in the lower framework and won't fall all the way to the ground. I have nothing to worry about." Instead, run.
So pls re-do your energy calculations using my observations.
Done.
Respectfully,
Myriad