Moderated Continuation - Why a one-way Crush down is not possible

[alienentity]

If there is anything inane here it is comments like these. Just open mouth and insert foot is all one can really say about these types of baseless and unsupported quasi ad-hominem comments.

You obviously are not in a position to judge anybody's engineering capability.

You're wrong Tony. I am. I've read the output of quite a few engineers, who've explained the physics of building collapse, and am quite capable of recognizing that you're denying basic physics, for your own political and quite disingenuous reasons.

By the way, I notice you can't even decide whether I'm disgusted with you personally or also with your intellectual dishonesty. In this case, I'm decidedly against your pretense of being an engineer to pass off the inane comment you did - remember what it was?

I'll remind you: You are denying that the accelerating and increasing mass could crush the remaining building. This is idiocy.

 

[alienentity]

Just as a quick footnote to the idiocy of Tony's comment - in his 'missing jolt' paper, the whole premise is that the collapse would have been quickly arrested unless there was this large 'impulse' or 'jolt' thru which kinetic energy was transferred.

On the surface this idea is at least plausible in that it doesn't allow for the upper block to accelerate very far before stopping.

In Tony's latest gaffe, he's now allowing acceleration for, say, 20 or 30 floors (as an example), and then claiming that it would still be unable to crush the structure below.

Watch him equivocate and move the goalposts. What rubbish.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

I did not say he core was intended to provide lateral stability to other parts of the building, although it was an integral part of the lateral restraining system for the perimeter.

I wasn't claiming you were... your post however was an understatement of the design specifications of the perimeter columns which provided lateral stabilty not only from wind loads, but instead virtually all lateral loads the building was expected to sustain in its period of use.

I said the core was self-supporting. It coud have supported itself due to gravity with no additional lateral restraint and with plenty of reserve. I think it would have also withstood winds of 40 mph.

Do you know of any studies which would help to substantiate this?

If there is anything inane here it is comments like these. Just open mouth and insert foot is all one can really say about these types of baseless and unsupported quasi ad-hominem comments.

You obviously are not in a position to judge anybody's engineering capability.

You'll have to forgive me when I find fault in considering any form of food item or accessory as an approximate model for a built structural system. Heiwa's comparison of the towers to pizza boxes and lemons aren't just "not the best examples"... they're not examples at all. They have no relation to a structural system and his analogies make absolutely no effort to bring up any relevant points. So if those are his best examples, he will need to find another audience to waste time on. His analogy is about as relevant to scaling the towers as the guy who mounted chicken wire and essentially did nothing but mirror Richard Gage's card board box experiment with tin cans. I'm rather surprised you haven't been touching on those issues with his models while making your case.

I'll remind you: You are denying that the accelerating and increasing mass could crush the remaining building. This is idiocy.

Just to reiterate some context:

Notice the bending of the exterior columns as the collapse initiated. The upper section had barely begun to move by the time this deflection of the columns took place. And the likes of Heiwa expect that the columns should have resisted this type of stress after it began to accelerate...

 

[FineWine]

Heiwa, you seem to enjoy invoking Newton's 3rd Law, so let's work with that.

When part C impacts the 96th floor, what effect does that have on the 1st floor? I would say essentially none. Therefore, the 1st floor has essentially no effect on part C.

Repeat for floors 2-95.

Very nice! I keep hammering at his misconception from the top down, so to speak. You are exposing his fallacies from the bottom up. Of course, he can't ever acknowledge the magnitude of his error from any angle. He has too much ego and emotion invested.

It's funny that he raves incessantly about the big part and the small part, but reverses them and thereby gets everything wrong.

 

[beachnut]

...
Nobody in Germany and France where I am active supports Bazant! Or do you have any info to the opposite?

Prove it! You can't. There are zero structural engineers who support your ideas who have built buildings greater than 40 stories high. Your work is delusional.

 

[MIKILLINI]

Mikillini, you know what thought really distresses me? It is remotely possible that Bill Smith can't grasp the simple--indeed, simplistic--point I'm making. But there is a school somewhere that gave Heiwa a degree in engineering. Should I be as shocked as I am? Is it even conceivable that he doesn't get the idea that the collapsing floors hit one floor at a time?

Oh I'm quite sure he does realize what we've pointed out, but he can't admit to what this point reveals: It shows where his axiom is flawed. It also proves how pizza boxes and lemons are stupid models to use as examples of the WTC collapses.

 

[Heiwa]

.
Nice job producing something meaningless.

I asked you for NUMBERS. Not "X", "Y" & "Z".

You are able to write "X", but not __ GJ's?

You are the person that was strutting about the importance of a structural DAMAGE analysis. I still haven't seen squat out of you for this.

I just re-read your updated assessment. It's got just as many fundamental errors, silly errors, as your previous papers. Trivial to prove wrong.

But it had few numbers. The ones it DID have were generally wrong. Too bad you don't read the NIST report. You could fix some of those wrong numbers.

Now, how about answering my questions.

1. What are the weak link components on Floor 98 that would have to break in order for the collapse to continue?
2. What are the components of floors 96 thru 100 that actually DO break when the columns on floor 98 buckle?
3. What are the components of floors 96 thru 100 that actually DO break when Part C crashes into Floor 98?
4. How much energy would it take to break them? (In Joules, please.)

Tom

OK, part C drops on part A and applies 1 GJ energy. At impact 0.5 GJ energy is used to deform parts C and A elastically (the temperature of associated structure is raised 0.05°C).
Thus there remains 0.5 GJ energy to produce local failures in interface C/A. The local failures are assumed to be broken columns punching holes in the floors. As there are about 300 columns that can punch holes in the floors of parts C and A the 0.5 GJ is not sufficient to do that. Destruction is thus arrested at once.

 

[triforcharity]

Heiwa,

Since you seem to be ignoring me on another thread, I figured I would come here and ask you to address the thread on the Temerature of the WTC fires.

 

[GlennB]

The complete central core was self-supporting.

You then amended this to state :

It could have stood on it's own with gravity loads being the only loading.

and then

I said the core was self-supporting. It coud have supported itself due to gravity with no additional lateral restraint and with plenty of reserve. I think it would have also withstood winds of 40 mph.

So it would be self-supporting until the next decent winds come along? Uh-huh. Either you're making this up as you go along or the original statement was deliberately weaselish.

And "braced frame" and "moment frame" seem to have different meanings in building construction. When you use phrases like "fully braced" people might think those are also weasel-words.

 

[boloboffin]

The idea that the core was self-supporting is ludicrous. There was no cross bracing in the core at all. It couldn't have stood a minute without the support of the perimeter columns, and in fact it didn't.

 

[alienentity]

The idea that the core was self-supporting is ludicrous. There was no cross bracing in the core at all. It couldn't have stood a minute without the support of the perimeter columns, and in fact it didn't.

A veritable FAILathon for Tony today.

 

[bill smith]

No, the connections were not intended for cantilever loads, they were only intended for vertical shear.

You can see what they looked like in NIST NCSTAR 1-6B pages 23, 24,and 27 as well as in NCSTAR 1-1A.

Do you mean that the metal of the connectors welded to the columns and the flanges of the floors was not ductile and would not bend.

 

[funk de fino]

I don't think you can tell us whether the core is self supporting or not and back your claim that I am clueless when I say it was self-supporting. It's obvious you are using a silly little excuse to cover for it. Boy, you are really acting like an adult here Funky.

That core was not capable of standing on its own. A child can see this.

Pleae explain what "fully" braced means Tony?

You are the one who will not admit you made a false claim about the eviudence that NIST had and you are also running away from questions about the imaginary documentary you say you saw. You are not only clueless you are a coward and a fraud. The best guys I have ever worked with or taught were guys who could hold their hands up and say "I was wrong" and move on and learn from it. You would never be in that group.

Stop calling me Funky. Its against forum rules.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

That core was not capable of standing on its own. A child can see this.

Pleae explain what "fully" braced means Tony?

You are the one who will not admit you made a false claim about the eviudence that NIST had and you are also running away from questions about the imaginary documentary you say you saw. You are not only clueless you are a coward and a fraud. The best guys I have ever worked with or taught were guys who could hold their hands up and say "I was wrong" and move on and learn from it. You would never be in that group.

Stop calling me Funky. Its against forum rules.

No a child can't just see whether the core was self-supporting or not.

Do the calculations if you can or shut your trap.

I think you are referring to a guy named Christophera in regards to this imaginary documentary you keep bringing up. He claimed there was a documentary that showed the core was concrete.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

The idea that the core was self-supporting is ludicrous. There was no cross bracing in the core at all. It couldn't have stood a minute without the support of the perimeter columns, and in fact it didn't.

You have no idea.

Bracing doesn't just mean diagonal bracing. The horizontal beams at every floor are braces to support the columns laterally and keep the slenderness ratio down so local buckling does not occur.

Where are your calculations to back what you say here Joe?

Another case of foot in mouth disease here. There is an old saying that if you don't know much about a subject it is better to keep your mouth shut and let people just think you don't know much about it, rather than saying something and removing all doubt.

You and Alienentity have removed all doubt as to your abilities to comment on the engineering aspects of this subject.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Do you mean that the metal of the connectors welded to the columns and the flanges of the floors was not ductile and would not bend.

At least on the core side, I think a sixty foot overhang of the floors would have possibly broken the bolted joint in the vertical shear connections by shear tearout through the flange on the truss. The perimeter side had a gusset plate on top which would have provided some moment resistance.

It really depends on just how much weight was on the floor area it was supporting and I would actually have to do a calculation to show this would occur. However, the least that would happen is that the truss would bend completely downward against the core.

You need to look at how the connections were constructed. They were extremely robust in vetical shear, which for the most part is the only load they would have taken. They were not designed to resist moments due to cantilevered loads.

 

[Dave Rogers]

No a child can't just see whether the core was self-supporting or not.

Do the calculations if you can or shut your trap.

Tony, would you like to present your calculations here to back up your claim?

Dave

 

[aggle-rithm]

So, in case anyone's keeping score...

Heiwa is jerking people's chains, mindlessly quoting his "axiom" over and over again and not caring whether it's right or wrong.

Bill is his clueless sycophant, following his every thought like an enraptured puppy.

Meanwhile, Tony is trying desperately to bend reality in order to accommodate his cherished beliefs.

And, every so often, Heiwa is rescued from a tough spot by a few other truther pals who come in wielding their verbal billy clubs to disrupt the discussion.

In other words...we're exactly where we were fifty pages ago.

What a colossal waste of time.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Tony, would you like to present your calculations here to back up your claim?

Dave

I explained it to you here and have done some simple calculations on the 911 free forum concerning this a month or so ago. Haven't you seen that post?

 

[GlennB]

No a child can't just see whether the core was self-supporting or not.

Yet you concede it would be vulnerable to a mere 40mph wind. Not my idea of "self-supporting" at all.

And would you admit that mention of "bracing" or (even worse) "fully braced" in a technical context could easily mislead the casual reader?