.
You obviously think just making up numbers PROVES SOMETHING.
A top down collapse means LOTS OF MASSIVE MATERIAL hitting LOTS OF OTHER MASSIVE MATERIAL. That means the
more massive material below slows down the
less massive material falling from above. Apparently you can only think in one direction.
The link I provided demonstrated a
20% CHANGE in collapse time resulting from altering the distribution of
THE SAME MASS. So I have shown your 0.0001% crap is nothing but that.
CRAP!
My video showed a gravitational collapse slowed down much more rapidly with one washer on each toothpick and that was only 5% of the falling mass. So I have shown mathematically and visually that your 0.0001% is a bunch of crap but all you can do is TALK. It is not my fault the the ENGINEERS that you hang out with are dumb memorizers that expect everyone to be impressed by their degrees.
Grade school kids should understand why the distribution of mass is important. Memorizers can't figure out when mathematics ain't physics.
psik
What are you even going on about? You've completely missed the point of just about every single thing I've written in this thread. Twisted it, misunderstood (probably deliberately) and skewed it. Having the weight of the perimeter panels off even by 100% only produces a tiny error in the total mass of the building. Here, let's look at an engineering example. But be warned, I'm using engineering jargon and my engineering judgment to make predictions of the building mass based on past experience with buildings.
The dead load of the floors is roughly 50 psf (includes super-imposed dead loads) averaged over the total building.
The in service live-load about 20psf.
The dead load of the floor trusses is probably about 3 psf.
The dead load of the columns (at the point of collapse) about 5 psf.
The dead load of the spandrel plates on the exterior of the building (what I'm assuming you're referring to as "panels") is about 0.1psf.
Total weight = 78.1psf.
Let's double the weight of the panels. It's now 78.2psf.
78.2/78.1 = 1.0013.
Not a real big difference is it? Now then, I just pulled these numbers out of my "filing cabinet" (an engineering euphemism for rear-end). You could actually compute the mass of all the concrete from the sections that NIST provides of the composite floor system. The SAP model that NIST used is available somewhere on the interwebs. You could use it to get cross-sectional areas of steel and therefore masses of that as well. You would have everything you need.
In any event, changing the distribution of mass DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT IT STILL PROGRESSES. Furthermore, your models are never going to be able to actually replicate the way the towers collapse. Your toothpick and washer model, though laudable in the fact that you actually put effort in trying to understand the collapse, has absolutely nothing to do with the WTC towers. The most obvious deficiency is in the strength of the "floors" in your model. Debris from above the WTC would punch through the flooring system. You can see this from the videos (those dust plumes that are below the exterior collapse front, that's a sign of debris on the interior part of the building collapsing faster than the top). Your rationales are also based upon a flawed understanding of the conservation of momentum. The impacting bodies DID NOT COLLIDE PLASTICALLY.
So tell me again. WHY DOES NIST NEED TO PROVIDE AN EXACT NUMBER? What purpose does it serve? I think the report is already overloaded with useless information. I can only reason that such information was included was to justify the researchers jobs. Do you think your model actually does provide a real simulation of the collapse and if you can just get those darn mass distributions right you'll prove it's an "INSIDE JORB"? If so, I'd call you delusional.
By the way, no one is impressed with my engineering degree (except my mother): I only have a bachelors. The models I've done mathematically speak for themselves. They're not there to provide an illustration of exactly how the WTC collapse progressed for that is impossible.
If all the experts: NIST, ASCE, SEA, SEI, ACI, college professors, practicing engineerings, etc, are saying one thing and you're saying another, you may want to come up with a better argument than, "It is not my fault the the ENGINEERS that you hang out with are dumb memorizers that expect everyone to be impressed by their degrees."
Try actually proving something.