Well I'm not 100% through it, but here's my impression so far:
Some of the major claims the trio puts up:
- No building in history has ever completely collapsed due to fire
- Fires burned out quickly
- explosive collapse
- no steel recovered was seen to have exceeded 250oC/never got hot enough to melt steel
- Nano-thermite
Nat Geo did several experiments including a demonstration on the performance of a loaded exposed steel beam in a fire, a demonstration of the prep work involved in controlled demolitions, as well as the traces they leave behind, and thermite cutting of a column.
For the 1st mentioned experiment Gage completely disregards the results:
Gage -- "
This test does not refute or address the overwhelming evidence for explosive controlled demolition
This is the reason I say that I say it's irrelevant is they have experiments like this that show that steel weakens in fires. It's easy and more profound for me to say it's irrelevant you can turn steel into a noodle I will still -- we still have the evidence of explosive controlled demolition which they do not refute."
His response based on my listening is gained from two issues:
- His claim that the fires "burned out quickly"
- No steel highrise structures have completely collapsed.
The former has been addressed elsewhere repeatedly as an absolute falsehood. I like comparing these two fires to give the size some context:
This
fire is roughly as large if not larger than
this building which truther's
label as an inferno in contrast to towers' one and two.
The latter is his usual paradox that
1st time in history is somehow indicative of impossibility. He -- as usual -- doesn't think about other factors which affect building performance or connect together the idea that if the construction material can fail, then so too can the assembly it comprises. He offers no engineering justification for his rejection of the test, instead rejecting it on the grounds of
"I don't care that steel weakens, my conclusions take precedent". Quite arrogant.
DRG comes to the same conclusion as Gage but instead after calling the experiment a strawman, focuses on a strawman of his own; blatantly misrepresenting NIST's data on recovered steel pieces, yet supposedly there's evidence that simultaneously proves that incendiaries "melted" the steel. DRG also claims that in order to get the same results as in the WTC that you would have to have sustained extended periods of temperatures in the 2000oF range for the steel to lose it's strength.
Earth to DRG! ENTIRE FLOORS WERE IGNITED! You DO NOT NEED 2000 degrees to soften steel enough to induce visco elastic creep! Especially in a building which had a significant chunk of it columns either removed or damaged by an impact unevenly shifting loads to the remaining columns.
Both people need to take remedial class in this; I don't care that Gage touts 20 years of professional experience. His claims are the equivalent of an idiot's IQ in his respective field. DRG just plain doesn't know squat and he has to misrepresent NIST to make his point.
On another note DRG also comments that the experiment was done at far too small a scale to model the structural reaction to the WTC. That wasn't the point of the experiment; instead it was to demonstrate that once the steel steel was exposed by the impacts, they were not only subjected to the redistributed loads of 15 to 30 stories,
but also losing stability because of the thermal weakening of the material and changes in the geometry of the structure. The towers lost both their active and passive fire protection from the direct effects of the impacts. The gypsum wallboard protecting the core regions were pulverized, knocked down, or broken up. The foam that protected the trusses and portions of the core was knocked free. The entire floor plan of multiple floors was ignited like a grill guzzled with lighter fluid with tons upon tons of flammable materials and chemicals.
So was their experiment a model of the towers? No, but DRG and Gage either entirely missed the purpose of the experiment, or they plain ignored it.
Going back to the first time in history claim; there's a reason why disasters like this are rare in tall buildings; because early fire detection and automatic fire-extinguishing systems are widely used in today's construction. Early detection, and prevention of fires is important to this, and the ability to access the areas affected by the fires. Most of your examples, Mr Gage, are either built using a different material with a vastly superior fire rating (IE reinforced concrete), or some measure was available to mitigate the spread of the fires (fire fighting or automatic sprinkler systems). In the towers, automatic sprinklers were wrecked, and the fires were located at heights well beyond any conventional firefighting methods to reach. There were few rated fire partitions in the usable office spaces. By all accounts the fires were free to spread from floor to floor until the buildings collapsed.
Controlled demolition and nanothermite:
Gage often hits a contradiction with his "explosive demolition" argument. On one hand he wants us to believe that having sections of the perimeter column trees hitting buildings 500-600 ft away are indicative of explosives. Yet on the other he wants to claim that "nano thermite" is used because it's "explosive" (sic) and it reduces the noise levels. Nat Geo explains the conventional CD well, and IMO it also inadvertently puts Gage into a corner when he claims that explosives launched the perimeter columns 500 ft through their blast impulse alone (and DRG is no help in claiming this magic stuff can be slathered on like honey). How many demolitions of any kind send chunks of steel weighing several tons flying like high velocity shrapnel? And how many do so silently? And what high output cocktail with only
millimeters of thickness can sustain an energy output long enough to impart this required energy to "launch" them?
In the end Neither of them really explain any of this...
Well that's my long post... Time to finish the Pentagon section
ETA: I should be shot for trying to engage in something rational with this guys but....
DRG destroyed this piece of crap.
http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/archive/Jack-Blood-32k-090109.mp3
He went through it point by point, showed from an insider view how disingenuous and stupid the whole thing was
Thanks. I'll have a listen early in the morning before I start on my study models for design. In the mean time what points did you find most interesting from his commentary?
And that's just the ones who were even stupid enough to weigh in after it aired.
I watched the documentary hoping I might hear something new from the usual members of the truth movement. Unfortunately dismally disappointed in that they simply rehashed a lot of material which is based on either ignorance or false representation of data. This has some pretty serious implications on the credibility of these individuals as they often push their authority in specific professional practices -- one of which I'm preparing to enter -- and these errors on their parts don't have any place in professional practice. Gage in particular is free to believe what he wants but his beliefs have no place in architecture.
