Controlled demolition vs. the towers collapsing

[Java Man]

In regards to the main tower steel, this is false. None of the steel was recycled until the FBI was finished with it. The pieces were kept until the FBI and NYPD were finished with their examinations.

I agree with that. But they were not kept until they whole investigation was over and NIST handed the report. My point is that it should have been kept longer to support the models.

 

[Sabretooth]

So....people are selected to take architectural classes?

In other words, architects are murderer's!!!1!!!

 

[ergo]

Did the buildings fall straight down or not, excaza? This is important to your supermegagigajoules theory.

I guess I'll just answer it for him.

Yes the buildings fell straight down, BUT they didn't fall into their own footprints, because nothing literally can fall into its own footprint!

This must be the "footprint argument". Very compelling.

 

[Anders Lindman]

So....people are selected to take architectural classes?

Only architects who are given the task of designing skyscrapers to actually be built would be required to sign such secrecy agreement. So most architects would not even know about this, even if they have worked decades as professional architects.

 

[Disbelief]

No hard evidence. My theory is that the core columns were cut diagonally by design, and with a plug held in place by gravity at each diagonal cut to keep the core columns at full strength. Then if a hard enough shock wave would hit from below, then the plugs would pop out of position and the core columns would completely lose all their vertical strength and collapse.

No insurance company would ever insure a skyscraper then. In the event that something other than an earthquake triggered a collapse, the liability would be ridiculous.

 

[BigAl]

I agree with that. But they were not kept until they whole investigation was over and NIST handed the report. My point is that it should have been kept longer to support the models.

You are unaware of the number and timing of the reports that came from the WTC collapse.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Completely absurd!

You don't need to make any design changes for a structure of that size to collapse mostly straight down. Scale works for you in this respect. The bigger it gets, the more severe its strength against bending would need to be to allow it to tip over.

Two artifacts from the collapses prove this. Firstly, the "kink" seen in the upper block of WTC 2 during collapse -- even after it started to come down, even with a much shorter ~25 story segment, it bent rather than tilted intact. And secondly, the core columns of both Towers survived the collapses, for a few seconds away. So clearly there was no such apparatus as you describe.

There are also published papers on the subject, notably the second appendix of Dr. Bazant's much discussed paper. There are also analogues, such as the collapse of very tall radio towers, and even they do not simply topple over. Their own inertia causes them to buckle and fall straight down.

Don't worry, there is no secret cabal or architects using hidden knowledge and undocumented features to sabotage your buildings.

But wouldn't the core columns have been incredibly difficult to pancake if they remained at full strength?

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Ok huhhh, a couple of points.

If the pilot knew he was going to hit a tower so far ahead of time to be able to empty the fuel tanks on time. Wouldn't it just been easier to evade New York altogether? A jetliner like that can dump between 1.5 and 2 tonnes per minute. Take a moment to calculate how much time it would take to empty the tanks. Not to mention FAA restrictions about altitude.

Secondly:

"and if the tank was relatively empty, remnants of fuel could turn into an extremely explosive vapor." (http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/Aircraft_Wire/fuel_tank_dangers.htm)

"27 November 1989 - Avianca Airlines Flight 203
Avianca 203 was a Boeing 727 that took off from Bogotá, Colombia, bound for Cali. Just five minutes into flight, a bomb on the floor of the starboard side of the passenger cabin at seat 15F detonated. The blast ignited vapors in an empty fuel tank causing a massive explosion that ripped the plane apart. The crash killed all 107 aboard (101 passengers, 6 crew) as well as 3 people on the ground. The Medellín drug cartel claimed responsibility for the attack as an attempt to kill presidential candidate Cesare Gaviria. Gaviria was not aboard but the group's chief assassin was later convicted for the bombing." (http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0283.shtml)

Are you going to send people with soap and a brush into the tanks in mid flight?

You are making unwarranted assumption. The chief engineer of the design team, Leslie Robertson, is on record as stating the jet impact assumptions behind the design.

LESLIE ROBERTSON: With the 707, to the best of my knowledge, the fuel load was not considered in the design. Indeed, I don't know how it could have been considered.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2907_wtc.html

Fuel load was not taken into detailed consideration during the design of the Twin Towers. Other designers have stated that the scenario for jet impacts would have been jets in landing patterns lost in the fog and, because they were at their destinations, low on fuel and slowed to approach speeds. That is another reason the fuel loads weren't given much consideration.

Furthermore, it's a distraction to discuss the jet fuel. That burned off within minutes. The important thing to consider when thinking about the main tower fires were the flammable interiors and contents; those are what burned long and hot enough to compromise the structure.

 

[Anders Lindman]

No insurance company would ever insure a skyscraper then. In the event that something other than an earthquake triggered a collapse, the liability would be ridiculous.

That would be another reason why this knowledge is not made available to the public, not even to insurance companies.

 

[R.Mackey]

But wouldn't the core columns have been incredibly difficult to pancake if they remained at full strength?

Non sequitur. The core columns survived, at least in a remnant about fifty stories high. They didn't have to pancake.

If they get loaded eccentrically by the huge pile of rubble falling past them, they can be snapped off at the ends with relatively little effort.

Also as Dr. Bazant proved in that paper, there is far more energy than required to destroy them utterly. It's just unlikely they'll actually face the full force of impact, instead of poking through it to some degree.

There's no mystery here. Hence your rather startling proposal that architects are a secret cult of forbidden structural engineering knowledge isn't needed.

 

[BigAl]

Sixteen acres of "debris"? Don't you mean dust?

A

Debris. Actually it was larger than that because the WTC Plaza was 16 acres and the debris exceeded the plaza on all 4 sides, I figure 24 acres not counting WTC7's footprint.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

But wouldn't the core columns have been incredibly difficult to pancake if they remained at full strength?

Compromising the core columns would not be the important failure mode to consider here. The rubble ripping away the floors would be. The important thing to remember is that the failure points on each floor would not be the column-to-column connections, they would be the floor truss to column ones. Once you remove those, the columns suddenly have no lateral stability and can fall under their own weight, much less be displaced by the masses hitting it.

 

[Java Man]

You are using an example from the main towers to claim that the steel components in 7 World Trade were similarly marked. They were not. [/URL]

Were not? So how did they know how to build it? Did they clean the marks afterwards?

 

[Myriad]

This is my favorite kind of conspiracy theory.

"<Professionals of some variety> do <something incredibly stupid that benefits no one including themselves> and keep it a secret!"

"But, <something incredibly stupid that benefits no one including themselves> is incredibly stupid and benefits no one including themselves."

"Right, that's why they have to keep it a secret!"

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[BigAl]

No hard evidence. My theory is that the core columns were cut diagonally by design, and with a plug held in place by gravity at each diagonal cut to keep the core columns at full strength. Then if a hard enough shock wave would hit from below, then the plugs would pop out of position and the core columns would completely lose all their vertical strength and collapse.

And none of the thousands of people involved; designers, suppliers , construction crew and inspectors noticed!

 

[ergo]

Debris. Actually it was larger than that because the WTC Plaza was 16 acres and the debris exceeded the plaza on all 4 sides, I figure 24 acres not counting WTC7's footprint.

Huh. So I guess there was quite a bit of mass shedding, wasn't there?

 

[Java Man]

Fuel load was not taken into detailed consideration during the design of the Twin Towers. Other designers have stated that the scenario for jet impacts would have been jets in landing patterns lost in the fog and, because they were at their destinations, low on fuel and slowed to approach speeds. That is another reason the fuel loads weren't given much consideration.

Furthermore, it's a distraction to discuss the jet fuel. That burned off within minutes. The important thing to consider when thinking about the main tower fires were the flammable interiors and contents; those are what burned long and hot enough to compromise the structure.

Thus my case stands. The statement that it could withstand the impact of 707 is false. As even a small amount of fuel would have caused an explosion and started the fires which you yourself claim "are what burned long and hot enough to compromise the structure." Those fires and the damage they caused do not depend on landing or take off speeds, fuel loads and fog. So you're arguments clearly support the case that the WTC was not built to survive a 707 impact. Actually from your argument we could imply that even a smaller airplane could have brought down the towers since the post impact fire was more important than 100 tones of fuel.

 

[ergo]

Non sequitur. The core columns survived, at least in a remnant about fifty stories high. They didn't have to pancake.

The remnant you speak of would not be the result of floors pancaking around it. The remnant itself disappears seconds after it appears.

Also as Dr. Bazant proved postulated in that paper, there is far more energy than required to destroy them utterly.

(supermegagigajoules!)

 

[BigAl]

Huh. So I guess there was quite a bit of mass shedding, wasn't there?

24 acres is a rectangle about 1,000ft on a side, in other words, not as tall as the towers by a significant amount.


Your point?

 

[Disbelief]

That would be another reason why this knowledge is not made available to the public, not even to insurance companies.

So, an insurance company that has to pay out billions would not employ their own engineers to do an investigation? They would not look over any investigations that others did? They would not have multitudes of photographs if a skyscraper suddenly collapsed?

All mechanical systems fail, so one of the thousands of skyscrapers in the world is bound to fall from this failsafe. How many architects are licensed to sign this secrecy agreement? Why would any architect do this?