Heiwa's Pizza Box Experiment

[Lennart Hyland]

Heiwa, why not answer all the questions before ending this thread?

 

[Hokulele]

[pedant mode] First off, a bale of cotton is 500lb. Standard weight[/pedant mode]

If Heiwa is allowed to change the laws of physics, I am allowed to change standard weights and measures.

Why bother...
This post brought to you by the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. and ATM Machine makers of the world...

Eh, it was a good excuse for me to re-read one of Bazant's papers and brush up on my math and physics.

 

[technoextreme]

Yup

http://heiwaco.tripod.com/cv.htm

Isn't this a form of fraud? I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the law but trying to pass yourself as an expert on something that you have no experience is not a good thing in the United States. I think you would get arrested or loose your license at worst.

In physics, a rigid body is an idealization of a solid body of finite size in which deformation is neglected. In other words, the distance between any two given points of a rigid body remains constant in time regardless of external forces exerted on it.

Bazant assumes that the WTC1 upper block is a rigid body. This is a false assumption and invalidates his hypothesis.

Even worse, Bazant then ignores the external forces acting in this rigid body except gravity when it crushes down anything in its way, e.g. the lower part of WTC1.

Time for an actual engineer to enter the fray. It is a model!!!! Say it again now. It is a model!!!! Models are not perfect. You are an engineer. You should know this.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Volume wise 94% of WTC1 upper block was air, 5% were concrete, etc, and say 1% was steel.

And as the load capacity of structural members is concerned the volume is meaningless. An individual floor in the tower was capable of supporting an additional 5 floors under a dynamic load and an additional 11 floors under a static load. Think of that entire section coming down on an individual floor at once, the failures occurred one floor at a time in rapid succession. Whether the upper block remains intact or not during collapse the majority of equivalent mass of the upper section remained. This does not change regardless of any claim you make.

Evidently the mass of the upper block does not disappear. It will drop outside or stop inside the lower structure. All explained at http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist3.htm .

Your line of reasoning is false, the reason for which lies in the my above response, and has been explained to you multiple times, by multiple people.

Feel free to continue with your line of reasoning but I certainly don't want to be one of your clients when I'm working with a design in which occupant safety is paramount, your interpretation of analogies is stunningly incorrect even to the most laymen of individuals, and at this point it's impossible for me to consider you credible under any circumstances knowing that.

Actually, you do not need a Pizza Tower experiment to prove Bazant wrong. Just use common sense and clear thinking. Time to end this thread.

As I said in another popular thread: ..there's rarely such a thing as "common sense" in an argument. If the idea is so obvious then why include the second sentence? Why do you have to spell it out? Because "use common sense" actually means "pay attention, I am about to tell you something that inexperienced people often get wrong."

And the "pizza tower" didn't do anything in the first place to model a building collapse, nor will plastic trays, not will bails of cotton. The towers and the analogies you've used up to now are worlds apart. Considering you're in an engineering field, it appalls me that you've used such weak analogies to begin with.

 

[Shrinker]

So in conclusion, Heiwa has claimed over and over that...

1. Bazant assumes the top part of the towers remains intact during it's descent.
2. This clearly cannot be true.
3. Therefore Bazant conclusions are worthless (GIGO)

He has stated these things in almost every post in the thread. Not a single debunker in 4 pages has managed to grasp Heiwa's point and address it.

A poor show.

PS for new members, I'm not a truther.

 

[rwguinn]

So in conclusion, Heiwa has claimed over and over that...

1. Bazant assumes the top part of the towers remains intact during it's descent.
2. This clearly cannot be true.
3. Therefore Bazant conclusions are worthless (GIGO)

He has stated these things in almost every post in the thread. Not a single debunker in 4 pages has managed to grasp Heiwa's point and address it.

A poor show.

PS for new members, I'm not a truther.

1. Because the idiocy of that point has been addressed numerous times in the past 7 years.
2. Non-engineers who claim to be engineers refuse to understand the concept of "Simplification for analysis purposes"
3. Because it's not worth addressing.

 

[Zipster]

Actually not. I calculate the density as the weight of all items in the upper block except the air divided by the volume of the upper block. If you add the weight of the air, the result is virtually the same.

Actually, if you add in the weight of the air, the result will not be virtually the same. That much volume of air will add significant weight to the floor.

Seriously, go look up the density of air and multiply by the approximate volume of air on a floor. The problem here is that air changes density as altitude increases. If you really want to make things easy, just assume the WTC doesn't go high enough to affect a significant change in air pressure and use the density at Standard temperature and pressure.

For example. Using the picture of a floor on Wikipedia, I calculated the volume of a floor to be roughly 393,750 ft^3. Standard air has a density of abou .075 lbm / ft^3. Thus, the weight of air alone on the floor is about 29,531 lbm. Even though that's spread out over the entire floor, it's no small weight to neglect.

 

[Mr.D]

Most of you are giving Heiwa way too much credit.

His basic error happens way before you even begin to think about scales and models and materials. It's a complete non-understanding of the very first thing you learn on the very first day of freshman physics 101.

Whatever, when a lead bar of any weight hits a bale of cotton of any weight, or vice versa, two forces develop; F is acting on the bale of cotton and -F is acting on the bar of lead according Newton (but not Bazant).

(bolding mine)

Heiwa; Under what conditions is net force equal to zero?

Answer: Static.

In other words, your "one block hits another" and "balance the forces" scenario is self-contradictory, unphysical, fundamentally incorrect and demonstrates a complete non-understanding of even the most basic concept of Newton's Laws - the definition of Force.

I'm feeling a bit generous though so I'll submit that, all you've proven is that if the top part of your pizza box tower is sitting on the bottom part and the whole thing is stable and still then absent outside forces ...

It's going to stay that way.

Congratulations on your discovery.

 

[technoextreme]

2. Non-engineers who claim to be engineers refuse to understand the concept of "Simplification for analysis purposes"

Heh... Everyone would be hanging themselves in college if Heiwa's method of non simplification was used to teach engineering.

 

[Minadin]

Error

I agree. However, if this sort of (apparently newly found) honesty is to continue, you've got about 1,100 posts left to edit.

 

[GreyICE]

Wait this stupidity is coming from a supposed engineer???? No.... No...... No....... No engineer would be dumb enough to try and model a building with a material that turns into goop with a sprinkler hose.

I refuse to believe THAT comes from an engineer. Call it professional pride or whatever, but that would be laughed out around freshman statics.

Maybe an electrical engineer or something, they're half crazy from frying their brains with current all the time

 

[Zipster]

Most of you are giving Heiwa way too much credit.

His basic error happens way before you even begin to think about scales and models and materials. It's a complete non-understanding of the very first thing you learn on the very first day of freshman physics 101.



(bolding mine)

Heiwa; Under what conditions is net force equal to zero?

Answer: Static.

In other words, your "one block hits another" and "balance the forces" scenario is self-contradictory, unphysical, fundamentally incorrect and demonstrates a complete non-understanding of even the most basic concept of Newton's Laws - the definition of Force.

I'm feeling a bit generous though so I'll submit that, all you've proven is that if the top part of your pizza box tower is sitting on the bottom part and the whole thing is stable and still then absent outside forces ...

It's going to stay that way.

Congratulations on your discovery.

Good ole' Dynamics saves the day! Plenty of people made the same mistake in my Dynamics class coming from Statics when I was in college.

 

[twinstead]

People. Give the man a break. Being laughed at by people who know what they are talking about when you just KNOW you're right is stressful.

 

[X]

Isn't this a form of fraud? I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the law but trying to pass yourself as an expert on something that you have no experience is not a good thing in the United States. I think you would get arrested or loose your license at worst.

Actually, that was discussed a while back too.
In Sweden, there is no professional association like in Canada.
For example, in Manitoba (where I live), I can not call myself an Engineer without being part of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Manitoba (APEGM, for short). Even after I graduate, I will be an "Engineer In Training" (EIT) for several years before I can call myselg a "Professional Engineer", and sign "P. Eng" after my name.

In Sweden, there apparently isn't any such regulation.

Good ole' Dynamics saves the day! Plenty of people made the same mistake in my Dynamics class coming from Statics when I was in college.

That was never the problem I had in Dynamics. My problem in Dynamics was starting the course 3 weeks in (turned out I didn't actually need to take the course I was in which had a timetable conflict with Dynamics). Never quite recovered from that late start. It didn't help that the midterm was one week after I started the class.

 

[Zipster]

Actually, that was discussed a while back too.
In Sweden, there is no professional association like in Canada.
For example, in Manitoba (where I live), I can not call myself an Engineer without being part of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Manitoba (APEGM, for short). Even after I graduate, I will be an "Engineer In Training" (EIT) for several years before I can call myselg a "Professional Engineer", and sign "P. Eng" after my name.

In Sweden, there apparently isn't any such regulation.

In the US after college, most engineering majors can call themselves engineers. None of this "Engineer in Training" stuff. At work, it college grads usually start as Junior or (I prefer) Associate Engineer. We then work up the ranks to other titles like Staff, Senior, Principle, etc..

But we do have a Professional Engineer title (P.E.). It requires a massive two part test. The first part you take while still in college. You then follow around a certified P.E. for a few years and then take the second half of the test. Then you can add P.E. after your name and do things like sign-off on blueprints. It's not required by any means, but just something handy to have.

 

[Hokulele]

In the US after college, most engineering majors can call themselves engineers. None of this "Engineer in Training" stuff. At work, it college grads usually start as Junior or (I prefer) Associate Engineer. We then work up the ranks to other titles like Staff, Senior, Principle, etc..

But we do have a Professional Engineer title (P.E.). It requires a massive two part test. The first part you take while still in college. You then follow around a certified P.E. for a few years and then take the second half of the test. Then you can add P.E. after your name and do things like sign-off on blueprints. It's not required by any means, but just something handy to have.

Actually, there is an EIT title in the US. Before you can take the P.E. exam, you have to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam (what you were calling the first half of the P.E. exam), which will allow you to call yourself an EIT. You can take this before you have completed your degree, and most people do this either during their final year of university, or immediately after (while they still remember everything!). The EIT title is independent of any job, and often people put this on their resume when they are applying for a position as a Junior or Associate Engineer.

 

[Zipster]

Actually, there is an EIT title in the US. Before you can take the P.E. exam, you have to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam (what you were calling the first half of the P.E. exam), which will allow you to call yourself an EIT. You can take this before you have completed your degree, and most people do this either during their final year of university, or immediately after (while they still remember everything!). The EIT title is independent of any job, and often people put this on their resume when they are applying for a position as a Junior or Associate Engineer.

Shows how much I looked into it! In the aerospace industry, I don't see going through the P.E. process gives much of a return when it's done. Which is why I didn't really look into the details.

The industry's advancing towards not having any paper drawings of parts or assemblies at all. It's not like the old days where one engineer had to do the detailed stress analysis on the part he's designing and sign off on it. We've got a separate group that does that for the designers. But I digress.

 

[rwguinn]

Shows how much I looked into it! In the aerospace industry, I don't see going through the P.E. process gives much of a return when it's done. Which is why I didn't really look into the details.

The industry's advancing towards not having any paper drawings of parts or assemblies at all. It's not like the old days where one engineer had to do the detailed stress analysis on the part he's designing and sign off on it. We've got a separate group that does that for the designers. But I digress.

[cont. derail]
Actually, it gains you a soupcon of credibility when/if you end up contracting (job shopping) that puts you a little bit above the run-of-the-mill contractors--at least in the eyes of some people. You just have to make sure that any contract which requires a PE also pays the insurance premiums.
That's the way i work it. That ", P.E." after the name is worth something, even in Aerospace[/back to your regularly scheduled nonsense]

 

[doobiedoright]

I will take his silence to mean he acknowledges that if set on fire.......his pizza tower would be smashed to bits by the impactor!

 

[Heiwa]

Actually, if you add in the weight of the air, the result will not be virtually the same. That much volume of air will add significant weight to the floor.

Seriously, go look up the density of air and multiply by the approximate volume of air on a floor. The problem here is that air changes density as altitude increases. If you really want to make things easy, just assume the WTC doesn't go high enough to affect a significant change in air pressure and use the density at Standard temperature and pressure.

For example. Using the picture of a floor on Wikipedia, I calculated the volume of a floor to be roughly 393,750 ft^3. Standard air has a density of abou .075 lbm / ft^3. Thus, the weight of air alone on the floor is about 29,531 lbm. Even though that's spread out over the entire floor, it's no small weight to neglect.

Having finalized the Pizza Tower discussion without any faults found in my experiment by the participants of this thread, subject is now air (like most of the postings). It seems that there is so much air inside the Tower that it affects its strength. Even worse, the amount of air stacked on top of the Tower is 1000's times more, which you shall not forget. I am sorry that I forgot that. However, for some reason it doesn't matter. Can you figure out why?
But I agree - there is also air inside the Tower. According Bazant's 1-D theory it is also compressed to infinity by the rigid impactor dropping down. Reason for this is that air is not rigid and as it too cannot escape below the Bazant crush front and the rigid impactor (it is like that in an 1-D world - no escape except down and no windows anywhere that you can open to vent it out), it is also compressed. Yes, in a 1-D world (NWO?) life is tight. Only one direction. Down.
Pls, do not reply that the direction is Up.