Moderated Steel structures cannot globally collapse due to gravity alone

[Architect]

Attack the argument (such little as it is), not the poster, lads.

Incidentally Heiwa's paper on the Estonia disaster is referenced in some official findings, so I think that on balance you have to assume that he's a naval engineer of some description. It's just that his grasp of buildings seems........tenuous.

 

[Furcifer]

Yes. A failure of a column for any reason (buckling due fire suggested by NIST) will just cause the primary load carried by it to be transferred to adjacent columns via the beams. Sudden simultaneous collapse of all columns resulting in free fall of structure above is not possible.

No. It's called a cascade and it happens to all kinds of buildings and it it a specific area of building code.

Unless the building industry is "in on it" and making up stuff to cover up 9/11. Of course that means they planned it many years prior, adjusting building codes around the World to reflect this effect.

Hell, the people most familiar with this would be the masons. Ooo, look at me I'm making up my own conspiracy. How quaint. I'll ignore the obvious and claim cover up at every turn. How fun, I'm in the know and no one can deter me from the truth now...

Seriously though, the static and dynamic are two seperate beasts. Dynamic stresses are accounted for as much as possible, but seriously, look at building codes in cities with the most potential dynamic stresses, Earth Quakes.

See here: http://www.eng.uci.edu/node/1320

This is a random person I got when I Googled progressive collapse:

http://www.civ.neu.edu/people/faculty/mehrdad_sasani_phd/

Can I have your permission to send him some of your posts? I know how busy you are and actually sending email to a person with experience in these matters is too time consuming. You'd rather be here defending yourself from the evil forces of JREF! I am here to help! I can be your liason.

Just curious.

 

[Architect]

Unless the building industry is "in on it" and making up stuff to cover up 9/11. Of course that means they planned it many years prior, adjusting building codes around the World to reflect this effect.

Indeed. Sometimes, when everyone is telling you you're wrong, it's not because you're a misunderstood genius. It's just because you're wrong.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Yes. You are just describing how to carry out structural damage analysis; you identify the first structural failure (e.g. due to fire or overload) and do a static structural analysis to see if there will be a second failure that further modifies the structural arrangement and the loads applied. Then you redo the static analysis with that case to identify the third failure, etc, etc. You establish a path of failures.

NIST never did that for WTC7. Evidence for that is that NIST agrees in the final 'final' report - see fig. 3-15 - that the structure above floor 16 is in 100% free fall for 2.25 seconds. The beauty with a structure in free fall is that gravity does not impose and loads at all on the structure! All gravity induced stresses and deformations in the structure becomes zero (0 !!) and no failures can take place anywhere.

Strangely enough NIST suggest the opposite and show three, four pictures to this effect, incl. parts flying around but the pictures are simply faked!!

The WTC7 structure was very simple - vertical columns carrying primary loads transmitted to them by horizontal (floor) beams carrying secondary loads.

A failure of a beam anywhere for any reason (fire!) will just cause the secondary load on it to drop down on the beam below ... and that's it. Further failures are arrested. The loads in the columns do not change at all.

A failure of a column for any reason (buckling due fire suggested by NIST) will just cause the primary load carried by it to be transferred to adjacent columns via the beams. Sudden simultaneous collapse of all columns resulting in free fall of structure above is not possible.

It is all explained at http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist7.htm .

Heiwa

So, you are claiming that if you keep removing supports in a steel structure, it will still not collapse. Are you claiming that it will stand up till the last support is removed, or that even after this, it will keep hovering? (Both claims are roughly equivalent in terms of absurdity.)

Hans

 

[leftysergeant]

Like the WTC collapses. Steel structures cannot globally collapse due to gravity alone ... and when they explode in mid-air, US experts confirm this happens every time.

This sort of drivel is why we have a hard time taking you very seriously. Show me a mid-air explosion or drop that from your repetoire.

As for all-steel structures not collapsing globally, you're way off the planet, let alone the base. Kader Toy Factory. End of that garbage.

You admit that steel truss roofs will collapse due to over-loading with snow.

A nasty great deal more than snow fell on the floors of the towers when they started collapsing. And a bloody great deal more of the same stuff fell on each succeding floor. A greater mass was continuously falling on each floor. There were no vertical columns inside the building to entangle the falling floor trusses and thus arrest them. Historical examples are abundant for exactly this sort of collapse. (You really need to read more.)

And, once those floors were gone, what do you think was supposed to hold up the perimeter columns?

You really need to start looking at things as entire assemblies, not just a bunch of parts.

You claim expertise in naval engineering, so there is no excuse for you not to know that steel that has not even been exposed to fire can be broken apart. Otherwise, ever foundered ship would remain where it runs aground, untouched, structurally, by pounding surf. All of them should be able to ride out the most God-awful hurricane to ever hit them.

The core columns of the towers broke after the failure of the floor trusses pulled the perimeter columns out of alignment. This freed all that crap above the break to fall and cause the failures of all the successive floor trusses, thus of the perimeter columns.

There is just no way around it. I don't even need any math skills to demonstrate this.

 

[Heiwa]

So, you are claiming that if you keep removing supports in a steel structure, it will still not collapse. Are you claiming that it will stand up till the last support is removed, or that even after this, it will keep hovering? (Both claims are roughly equivalent in terms of absurdity.)

Hans

???? No, what makes you think that? First failure may cause some deformations and a second failure. Second failure may cause some deformations and a third failure, etc. But, deformations and failures require/absorb energy so after a while failures and deformations are arrested. Lack of energy. Unless you add energy - see Controlled Demolitions.

 

[Heiwa]

This sort of drivel is why we have a hard time taking you very seriously. Show me a mid-air explosion or drop that from your repetoire.

As for all-steel structures not collapsing globally, you're way off the planet, let alone the base. Kader Toy Factory. End of that garbage.

You admit that steel truss roofs will collapse due to over-loading with snow.

A nasty great deal more than snow fell on the floors of the towers when they started collapsing. And a bloody great deal more of the same stuff fell on each succeding floor. A greater mass was continuously falling on each floor. There were no vertical columns inside the building to entangle the falling floor trusses and thus arrest them. Historical examples are abundant for exactly this sort of collapse. (You really need to read more.)

And, once those floors were gone, what do you think was supposed to hold up the perimeter columns?

You really need to start looking at things as entire assemblies, not just a bunch of parts.

You claim expertise in naval engineering, so there is no excuse for you not to know that steel that has not even been exposed to fire can be broken apart. Otherwise, ever foundered ship would remain where it runs aground, untouched, structurally, by pounding surf. All of them should be able to ride out the most God-awful hurricane to ever hit them.

The core columns of the towers broke after the failure of the floor trusses pulled the perimeter columns out of alignment. This freed all that crap above the break to fall and cause the failures of all the successive floor trusses, thus of the perimeter columns.

There is just no way around it. I don't even need any math skills to demonstrate this.

Simple physics and math skill will prove you wrong. Go back to school, fool!

 

[TheRedWorm]

Ok, show us the maths that prove lefty wrong.

 

[BigAl]

???? No, what makes you think that? First failure may cause some deformations and a second failure. Second failure may cause some deformations and a third failure, etc.

You describe a cascading failure. Failure in something that isn't monolithic and homogeneous is always a cascade. This can be demonstrated by trying to make a piece of paper tear along two paths at once.

The "pop pop pop" described by at least one fireman sounds to me like the bolts one of the beam joints failing in sequence.

 

[beachnut]

Simple physics and math skill will prove you wrong. Go back to school, fool!

Stop drinking and try to learn some physics.

Math and physics show you are wrong, and you can’t publish your stuff without being laughed at. Your work looks like a delusional mess of garbage. Your bouncing kids on bed, pizza boxes, and anti-gravity mentality prove your work to be pure delusional. Please show me where your work is published in a journal. Please show me your application for the Pulitzer Prize. Have you done anything besides messing up engineering principles?

 

[leftysergeant]

Simple physics and math skill will prove you wrong. Go back to school, fool!

Let A represent the weight of one floor slab.

Let B represent the velocity of the floor slab.

A(B) is sufficient to smash the next floor slab loose from the perimeter columns.

You are trying to tell us that 2A(B) is not going to break the next floor slab in line.

What color is the sky in your universe?

 

[leftysergeant]

But, deformations and failures require/absorb energy so after a while failures and deformations are arrested. Lack of energy. Unless you add energy -

We do add energy. Every time a floor collapses, there is an additional mass striking the next floor slab with the same acceleartion as the mass that hit the first slab. Are you forgetting that there are no vertical supports under the floor slabs to spread the load? You are not talking about a standard building here. You are talking about a series of roofs. Roofs break when you over-load them. You have admitted that yourself.

 

[Bell]

Heiwa, I need your engineering expertise on this question:

Heiwa, would you be so kind as to comment on this following post?

Sigh... once again, for the truthers. And I'd love to see this question answered for a change.

How can such a floor...



... stop something like this...

 

[Ratas]

I'm just doing project for course on steel structures at the moment.. I wonder if my professor would agree with these breakthrough theories of Heiwa, and let me save a huge load of time designing it so that it stays up. Just saying that it CAN NOT collapse seems to be enough. You don't need anything near a university level understanding of mechanics to see that this whole statement of Heiwa is pretty stupid and ignorant. Debating about it seems somewhat unnecessary, it all comes to two options: either Heiwa is a troll, or living in another universe.

 

[TheRedWorm]

Hey, he could be both

Welcome to the forum, Ratas.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Welcome Ratas.

If you think Heiwa's off his rocker in this thread, then you've missed a few of his masterpieces. He's uncorked some really... erm, special ones in his time:

There's his "pizza box analogy":

...Thus you need 110 pizza boxes. You stack 95 of those boxes on top of one another and glue them together (to represent the butt welding of the wall columns). Each pizza box is evidently loaded with a suitable pizza, so that the compressive stress in the walls becomes representative (e.g. 30% of the buckling stress all the way)...

... Thus you simply have to hold B 3.7 cms (one floor level) above A and then drop B on A to simulate the initiation of the destruction of WTC1 in scale 1/100. Nothing happens at impact of course and the reason is that gravity acceleration follows another scale factor than simple length. So you have to increase the drop height 3.7 cms to a suitable value x so that the energy applied at impact becomes representative that knowledgeable JREF members easily can calculate.

His argument from incredulity that the outer columns were "unlikely" to bow inwards, despite photographic evidence of such:

Wall perimeter columns bending inward? Based on the available loads/stresses/cross areas/slenderess ratios and boundary conditions it is unlikely that it would occur. It is recommended to check the videos and photos again.

... followed up by his charge that the photos proving him wrong were doctored:

Yup. Checked it again. Reality's still there. Reality says your calculations are nonsense, and you're still running like a scared child from pointing out when the detonations occur.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/879047797a8d614f3.jpg

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/879047797c0d6b77c.jpg

[URL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/879045fd54c927534.jpg[/URL]

Indeed. That's exactly what mechanical engineer Tony Szamboti (realcddeal) did: claimed the images were fakes.

Reality's a bitch for some people.

I must agree with Tony Szamboti - the pictures or rather the deformations look strange to me. Hollywood manipulations?

... followed by a now positive claim that the bowing could not have happened:

The 'sagging' floor is pulling the wall inwards? You must be joking! The wall box column is much too strong for that.

... in complete denial of the evidence.

And then his claim that the floors below would entangle the upper structure and stop it:

Evidently the lower structure will withstand the upper block falling on it!! The strength of the lower structure occupies only 0.13% of the area of the structure. The upper block misses that ... and gets entangled in some weak floors and the collapse is arrested. Basic.

... which was a part of his overall magnum opus: The falling vertical columns of the upper section would miss impacting load bearing components of the structure below:

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!

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.

Anyway, if you want an example of what not to espouse in your classes, just click on those quotes above and read his posts.

 

[Heiwa]

Welcome Ratas.

Anyway, if you want an example of what not to espouse in your classes, just click on those quotes above and read his posts.

Better read the full paper at http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist3.htm .

 

[Baylor]

Histrionic old men like Heiwa use the 9/11 tragedy as an outlet to vent their frustrations and increase traffic to their crappy websites.

Dark machinations in the death of President Kennedy laid the spiratual groundwork for these bizarre plots behind 911.

In both cases the obviously guilty culprits are ignored in favor of politically expedient & more desirable targets.

 

[Bananaman]

Heiwa, why do you bother continuing with your drivel? What's in it for you? Is your ego so wrapped up in your fantasies that it'd give you a breakdown to admit you're talking total piffle?

I don't get you. You post endless nonsense and then have the nerve to be patronising. I find it distressing to watch.

As someone said earlier, when everyone tells you that you are wrong, it is not necessarily because you are the only one who is right, it might just be because you're wrong.

Bananaman.

 

[leftysergeant]

Okay, Heiwa, let's break this down to one or two factors at a time. You have admitted that steel span roofs can collapse under the weight of snow. Since the floor trusses in the tower resemble nothing as much as they do steel span roofs, we can assume that they suffer a similar vulnerability. Concrete and steel debris will, any way I look at it, probably have the same effect as too much snow. Now, if there is sufficient steel and concrete debris piled up on the 80th floor to make it collapse, would there not be more than enough on the 79th to take it out as well? What would stop it?