WTC 1 & 2. What happened after collapse initiation?

[pomeroo]

To be honest, virtually everything he says is equally ridiculous from an engineering perspective. That example may be the most obvious to a non-expert, but I decided any "debate" with him was impossible a long, long time ago.

Please understand that I much prefer reading the science lectures provided by you, Newton's Bit, and RWGuinn to posting my own uninformed observations. But, it seems pointless to engage someone as clueless as Heiwa on matters he is manifestly incompetent to discuss. The man claims to be an engineer and he doesn't think that dropping a third of a building from a great height onto the bottom two-thirds destroys the whole structure. Seriously, why go any further than that?

 

[pomeroo]

uhhhhhhh what?

When you come in late, you miss the good stuff. I am not exaggerating: he actually makes--and stands by--this preposterous, absurd, lunatic claim.

Please see posts #540, 541, 542, 544, 547, 560, 561, 563, 567, 571 (spectacular), 572, 577, and 580 (the last two are, if possible, better than #571).

 

[JihadJane]

What makes you think that these marks were stamped into the steel and not just painted on?

“Saw-Teen See, the managing principal at Leslie E. Robertson Associates, one of the successor firms of the WTC's structural engineer of record, provided information to the study team, of which she is a member, on markings that identify the steel for those areas under scrutiny, said DePaola. Each piece of steel in the towers was stamped with its location in the building, he added. The team knows the impact floors, so the goal is to find the marking on the steel for that area, he added.”

http://911digitalarchive.org/REPOSI...al_guard_bureau/CRRDB/data/documents/1417.pdf

“LJ - It seems to be a difficult task to make sense out of the beams and
girders?

GC Yes, but each piece that went into the towers had a unique identification mark on it. The identification mark was either put on with chalk or paint in big letters and numbers. That was so the workmen could see it and get it to the right place in the building. It was also stamped onto the steel. These stamp-marks provided us with a way to identify the steel.”

------> from interview with Gene Corley, structural engineer and team leader for building performances studies of Oklahoma City bombing and WTC attacks.

http://skokienet.org/node/3876

Do you seriously think that the core was comprised of braced frames on all floors?

No, but I don't know for certain.

 

[JihadJane]

JJ: ********My comment referred to the explosive, mushrooming appearance of the Towers' demise. I am not a military expert. I do not know what can turn carpets and furniture into microscopic dust or what process corroded steel at high temperatures. Nor do you. The physical evidence that could prove what happened to the Towers has been destroyed. Everything, therefore, is conjecture; somewhat pointless, eternal conjecture.*******

And there is the core mistake ["Nor do you"]made by the entire Truth Movement.

Yes, we do know these things, and none of the features you describe above are in any way unexpected. Tens of thousands of pages have been written in explanation. Your ignorance does not apply to us.

Perhaps, then, you'd like to share some pre-911 articles describing how collapsing high rise buildings routinely transform their contents into mid-air mushrooming clouds of microscopic dust and how building fires can be expected to cause the intergranular melting such as that observed in WTC steel, which The New York Times described as the "deepest mystery" to emerge from the FEMA report.

You claim that "tens of thousands of pages have been written in explanation" is false. What we have seen are hypotheses, not explanations, and "scientists" manipulating their calculations and parameters to get them to fit their hypotheses. The NIST report is a prime example of this hypothesising dressed up as explanation.

Without the physical evidence there can never be a conclusive explanation for the Towers' failure.

 

[JihadJane]

Maybe not a shock, more like a pleasant surprise to Osama bin Laden:

Source:Pentagon Releases Bin Laden Videotape - U.S. Officials say Tape Links Him to Sept. 11 Attacks

Has the translation you are relying on been verified by non-partisan language experts?

Do you know the chain of custody of the tape?

Do you know of any hard evidence linking Osama bin Laden to the 911 attacks?

 

[JihadJane]

What part of the answer to assertion 6 did you miss?

"It was then examined and cataloged by a series of forensic investigators, city officials and site managers"

Then "Some time later (the timing varied due to logistical factors) the steel was shipped off site to China"


Are you insinuating that the forensic investigators did not in fact forensically examine the steel?

I sense a goalpost shift coming or an accusation of lies by Brent and his team.

You correctly identify Blanchard's statement as a "claim" and an "assertion". There is nothing in his article backing up the two claims you highlight which, indeed, are contradicted by various official studies such as:

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

HEARING CHARTER

'Learning from 9/11: Understanding the Collapse of the World Trade Center'
Wednesday, March 6, 2002

http://web.archive.org/web/20030106...gov/science/hearings/full02/mar06/charter.htm

which describes severe shortcomings in evidence gathering in the chaotic aftermath of the attacks.

Accusing people of lying is rarely wise (how can you tell?) but removing and destroying evidence from a crime scene is a serious offence so Blanchard could, hypothetically, have good reasons for being economical with the truth.

 

[Toke]

I know next to nothing about explosives but do know that a lot of money is spent on finding better and better ways to blow things up. It is, therefore, not inconceivable that the Towers were blown up without us knowing how exactly it was done.

It is still not clear why some firefighters' radios didn't work on 911 so their performance is not necessarily relevant to hypothetical radio-controlled explosives.

I see.
So the towers could have been blown up with as yet unknow high tech explosives and detonation equipment.

Since the collapse did not require explosives, your hypotetical explosive charges can be reduced to the point where they are silent and invisible.
Why not go a step further, and reduce them to non-existence?

 

[Newtons Bit]

“Saw-Teen See, the managing principal at Leslie E. Robertson Associates, one of the successor firms of the WTC's structural engineer of record, provided information to the study team, of which she is a member, on markings that identify the steel for those areas under scrutiny, said DePaola. Each piece of steel in the towers was stamped with its location in the building, he added. The team knows the impact floors, so the goal is to find the marking on the steel for that area, he added.”

http://911digitalarchive.org/REPOSI...al_guard_bureau/CRRDB/data/documents/1417.pdf

“LJ - It seems to be a difficult task to make sense out of the beams and
girders?

GC Yes, but each piece that went into the towers had a unique identification mark on it. The identification mark was either put on with chalk or paint in big letters and numbers. That was so the workmen could see it and get it to the right place in the building. It was also stamped onto the steel. These stamp-marks provided us with a way to identify the steel.”

------> from interview with Gene Corley, structural engineer and team leader for building performances studies of Oklahoma City bombing and WTC attacks.

http://skokienet.org/node/3876



No, but I don't know for certain.

I suggest you take a look at NIST 1-3B It indicates that the columns were stamped and/or stenciled. It doesn't really say which was which. I would guess that the built-up columns were stenciled, but that is just a guess.

I couldn't get the interview with Gene Corley to load sadly. I would like to read it.

As far as braced frames go, there's a logical way of looking at it. The exterior of the building was a giant moment frame. This resists lateral loads. So do braced frames. Braced frames are about an order of magnitude stiffer than moment frames (they deflect less under the same force). For the moment frame to even engage and do something to resist wind forces, the braced frames have to deflect huge amounts, well beyond their capacity. They would break before the moment frames, which were designed to carry wind loads, were ever stressed.

 

[GlennB]

Perhaps, then, you'd like to share some pre-911 articles describing how collapsing high rise buildings routinely transform their contents into mid-air mushrooming clouds of microscopic dust ....

Point - buildings of such size haven't collapsed before in this way, so what precedent are you going by? What would you expect?

Question - what do you mean by "transform ... microscopic dust" ? There is a lot of disinformation out there regarding the average size of the particles generated. If you take your information from 9/11 CT sites you'll almost certainly be misinformed. So - what is your take on the "pulverisation" issue?

 

[Pardalis]

Without the physical evidence there can never be a conclusive explanation for the Towers' failure.

It doesn't mean you can fill the gaps with nonsense.

Do you have physical evidence of CD? No.

 

[WildCat]

Accusing people of lying is rarely wise (how can you tell?) but removing and destroying evidence from a crime scene is a serious offence so Blanchard could, hypothetically, have good reasons for being economical with the truth.

Why don't you make a citizens arrest? Please put your attempt on youtube, it will be comedy gold!

And if I understand you correctly, you are a proposing some kind of secret silent explosive?

Do you accept that airplanes hit the towers?

 

[JihadJane]

I see.
So the towers could have been blown up with as yet unknow high tech explosives and detonation equipment.

Since the collapse did not require explosives, your hypotetical explosive charges can be reduced to the point where they are silent and invisible.
Why not go a step further, and reduce them to non-existence?

It has not been conclusively shown that the collapse did not require explosives. There have been a few hypotheses put forward about how it might have collapsed without explosives. That's all.

Without the physical evidence, which was removed and destroyed, all we can ever have is hypotheses. It is not possible to surmount this obstacle to moving from hypothesis to reality. No hypothesis can be checked against real world facts derived from real bits of the buildings.

There are some good arguments for and against both the explosives hypothesis and the "pile driver" hypothesis. One of the strongest arguments against the latter is that much of the mass that was supposedly crushing the buildings to dust and broken steel after "collapse initiation" landed outside the buildings' footprints.

Blanchard (see posts above) writes in his analysis of the Towers’ collapse:

“A review of all photographic images clearly show about 95% of falling debris being forced away from the footprint of the structure, creating a giant “mushroom” effect around its perimeter.” (Assertion #2)

 

[JihadJane]

I suggest you take a look at NIST 1-3B It indicates that the columns were stamped and/or stenciled. It doesn't really say which was which. I would guess that the built-up columns were stenciled, but that is just a guess.

I couldn't get the interview with Gene Corley to load sadly. I would like to read it.

As far as braced frames go, there's a logical way of looking at it. The exterior of the building was a giant moment frame. This resists lateral loads. So do braced frames. Braced frames are about an order of magnitude stiffer than moment frames (they deflect less under the same force). For the moment frame to even engage and do something to resist wind forces, the braced frames have to deflect huge amounts, well beyond their capacity. They would break before the moment frames, which were designed to carry wind loads, were ever stressed.

Don't know why Corley link isn't working. Works ok for me. Here's the full title of the article, if that's any help:

"Interview with Dr. Gene Corley - Internationally Renowned Structural Engineer Based in Skokie"

Thanks for explaining why braced frames would have made the Towers less resilient.

 

[tsig]

It has not been conclusively shown that the collapse did not require explosives. There have been a few hypotheses put forward about how it might have collapsed without explosives. That's all.

Without the physical evidence, which was removed and destroyed, all we can ever have is hypotheses. It is not possible to surmount this obstacle to moving from hypothesis to reality. No hypothesis can be checked against real world facts derived from real bits of the buildings.

There are some good arguments for and against both the explosives hypothesis and the "pile driver" hypothesis. One of the strongest arguments against the latter is that much of the mass that was supposedly crushing the buildings to dust and broken steel after "collapse initiation" landed outside the buildings' footprints.

Blanchard (see posts above) writes in his analysis of the Towers’ collapse:

“A review of all photographic images clearly show about 95% of falling debris being forced away from the footprint of the structure, creating a giant “mushroom” effect around its perimeter.” (Assertion #2)

So you say there is no evidence and that the lack of evidence is proof of conspiracy?

 

[Toke]

I have a napkin and a pen.

If you stop something having dropped 3,7m over a further 3,7m drop, you would have to support twice it´s weight.
If you stop it in 1,85m, you would have to support four times the weight.
0,925m = 8 times the weight
0,4625m = 16 times the weight
(what is the abbrevertion for "and so on")

You can not have the whole building act as a spring due to inertia. (see book and string)
So the springing/buckling must be in the first floors hit.
Buildings do not have much vertical reserve strenght. (1,5-2?)
A collum cannot bend very far before strength approaces 0.

So sequential collapse is reasonable.

How far out in the hemp is this?

I am an electrician/electrical engineer, not structual engineer. It you laugh tell me why.

 

[JihadJane]

Point - buildings of such size haven't collapsed before in this way, so what precedent are you going by? What would you expect?

I was responding to R.Mackey (#798) who said that the Towers’ explosive mushrooming appearance, corroded steel and carpets and furniture turning into microscopic dust were in no way unexpected. I was wondering what precedent he/she was going by.

Pre-2005, when I started reading about such things, I would have had no idea what to expect. Now, off the top of my head I guess I'd expect a gravity driven collapse to be less symetrical and complete and to produce a smaller quantity of less dense, coarser dust mostly produced when the remains hit the ground, more recognisable rubble and larger pieces of debris.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[I will reply to other posters' points either today or tomorrow.

It is great pleasure to "meet" supporters of the official theory who behave in a civilised and mature way online. It has never happened to me before! My apologies for my somewhat provocative entry onto this forum, which was partly the result of having mostly debated with less well-mannered(!) "debunkers" in the past.]

 

[Heiwa]

Rubble layer

AA. if you look at the video Frame by frame, you see very little crush up occurring.

BB. Please quote exactly where I said a layer of rubble of increasing thickness destroyed the towers. The rubble merely provides a KE boost which makes arrest even more unatainable.

You claimed the upper block must have been destroyed, I pointed out that, by examining the forces on the rubble layer in dynamic equilibrium, the force in the upper block is much less than the force in the lower. I made no such claim as you say I did.

You are wasting my time by repeating yourself without addressing what I have actually said, and now you attempt to put words in my mouth.

AA. I see the upper block being destroyed before any initiation and contact.

BB. This rubble layer that you introduced in the discussion, what is it? It doesn't sound very solid, so how can it destroy anything? And what forces are acting on this layer from above and below?

Seffen talks about 'a moving intermediate block betaL between the upper block and a crush front' that apparently consist of semi-broken parts, rubble, and produces a crush front, actually 280+ crush fronts that are perfectly applied to the 280+ columns at every stage of the crush down. The uniform density of this intermediate block is apparently increasing due compacting when destroying the tower.

Is it the rubble layer?

So when collapse occurs the liers now have an upper block that is not destroyed, then a rubble layer and below this rubble layer a 'crush front' and then intact structure waiting to be destroyed. NWO strucrural damage analysis in a nut shell. Quite nutty.

 

[GlennB]

I was responding to R.Mackey (#798) who said that the Towers’ explosive mushrooming appearance, corroded steel and carpets and furniture turning into microscopic dust were in no way unexpected. I was wondering what precedent he/she was going by.

Pre-2005, when I started reading about such things, I would have had no idea what to expect. Now, off the top of my head I guess I'd expect a gravity driven collapse to be less symetrical and complete and to produce a smaller quantity of less dense, coarser dust mostly produced when the remains hit the ground, more recognisable rubble and larger pieces of debris.

afaics Mackey's #798 responded to your claim about furniture and carpets being pulverised.
Unfortunately many 9/11 "Truthers" have taken certain studies - and the "60 micron average particle size" is a classic - to mean that the whole of WTC1+2 was thus reduced to fine dust. It wasn't. Such a claim is a complete joke. The metal wasn't reduced to dust to any significant degree whatsoever. The concrete was reduced to various sizes, much of which was in the macro range, i.e. gravel-sized upwards. In fact you could argue that the sand-particle size range could be classified this way, in that it will not drift far. Drywalling, insulation, fibrous organic materials etc were pulverised a good deal. Naturally soot particles also drifted on the breeze too.

JJ - you are being very cagey and defensive. I and maybe others are trying to get you to come right out and state what you believe. For a second time -- what is your take on the "pulverisation" issue ? If you have a strong opinion then what are your sources of information for this?

 

[tsig]

AA. I see the upper block being destroyed before any initiation and contact.

BB. This rubble layer that you introduced in the discussion, what is it? It doesn't sound very solid, so how can it destroy anything? And what forces are acting on this layer from above and below?

Seffen talks about 'a moving intermediate block betaL between the upper block and a crush front' that apparently consist of semi-broken parts, rubble, and produces a crush front, actually 280+ crush fronts that are perfectly applied to the 280+ columns at every stage of the crush down. The uniform density of this intermediate block is apparently increasing due compacting when destroying the tower.

Is it the rubble layer?

So when collapse occurs the liers now have an upper block that is not destroyed, then a rubble layer and below this rubble layer a 'crush front' and then intact structure waiting to be destroyed. NWO strucrural damage analysis in a nut shell. Quite nutty.

Squirrels eat nuts. Are you claiming squirrels gnawed down the towers?

 

[R.Mackey]

Perhaps, then, you'd like to share some pre-911 articles describing how collapsing high rise buildings routinely transform their contents into mid-air mushrooming clouds of microscopic dust and how building fires can be expected to cause the intergranular melting such as that observed in WTC steel, which The New York Times described as the "deepest mystery" to emerge from the FEMA report.

Your characterization of the dust is wrong. See Lioy et al. for an explanation of its contents, which are entirely ordinary in a structure collapse.

The mushrooming shape is caused by vorticity, as I once explained to Ace Baker. Under no circumstances is this evidence of explosives, or indeed anything unusual at all. These concepts were explored by researchers from Franz Grashof in the mid-19th century through Theodore von Karman before WWII, and can be found in any textbook; I would recommend Frank White's "Fluid Dynamics" for your particular case.

The intergranular melting is the very well known effect of sulfur and iron at moderate heat. This has been understood since approximately Roman times. This link gives you a picture of the phase diagram, from a ruddy textbook, copyright 1997. (Geochemistry of Hydrothermal Ore Deposits, H. Barnes, editor, Wiley, 1997.)

I know these things seem like deep, dark mysteries to you, but they're really extremely simple. Take some science classes, you'll learn something.

You claim that "tens of thousands of pages have been written in explanation" is false. What we have seen are hypotheses, not explanations, and "scientists" manipulating their calculations and parameters to get them to fit their hypotheses. The NIST report is a prime example of this hypothesising dressed up as explanation.

Hypotheses are not explanations? Is English not your first language?

Your claim of "scientists" manipulating calculations and parameters is a lie. You merely seek to slander those who have knowledge you lack. Not one of these "lies" is actually a lie, just more confusion voiced by your fellow ignoramuses. See my whitepaper for details.

As I said, all of this has been presented before. You simply don't know about it. And your claim that we can't know about it either is simple hubris on your part. You are in no position to afford such a luxury.