Gage: Hell No I Ain't Reading Mackey's White Paper

[ergo]

Further on...

"...Dr. Griffin’s argument regarding fireproofing is, therefore, unsupportable. The errors he and his quoted sources make regarding the energy requirements are deceptive and easily refuted."

Except that you don't do it here. You've simply reiterated the NIST conclusions without demonstrating why they would be probable.

"Furthermore, we also expect steel that was heated to have been weakened considerably, and thus would not be expected to survive the collapse intact or with any identifiable marking remaining. It is therefore unsurprising that no such samples were recovered..."

Yet NIST indicates that several pieces from the impact and damage zone were identified....

"...A search through debris will naturally be biased towards intact pieces, and these pieces by definition were exposed to less damage and less heat. "

This is so jaw-droppingly wrong. In a properly conducted investigation, collection of steel would be biased towards that exhibiting strains and failures from abnormal events, not regular pieces that tell nothing of the collapse mechanics. This is elementary. That Mackey is attempting to make such claims should send up huge red flags for any critical reader of this paper.

Moreover, it would not at all be "expected" that stressed steel would lose all of its identifying markers, and this just appears to be a guess on his part. Some would and did survive, as NIST has confirmed. A proper collection of samples to investigate the first-in-history, sequential global collapse by fire of three steel-framed highrises by supposedly different mechanisms would easily debunk this evasive and disingenuous claim. As we know, less than 1% of the WTC steel was saved for investigation.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

. It is not a logical fallacy to state that the official explanation does not explain the events credibly, and that it's more likely that some kind of other method, still not completely clear, was used to bring the buildings down.

Argument from incredulity........I'm a professional Mechanical Engineer and I've yet to see anything "incredulous" about the official explanation. 100% right? perhaps not but few things in life are and certainly not wrong in any major detail.

 

[beachnut]

...
You don't need to seek clarification from DeMartini. You already know that what he meant was that the buildings could withstand a 707 jet impact. We also already know that they withstood slightly more than that on September 11th.

Mackey quoting Leslie Robertson:

"...And then of course with the 707 to the best of my knowledge the fuel load was not considered in the design, and indeed I don't know how it could have been considered."

Except that Mackey has already quoted John Skilling, Robertson's boss, on this matter. Here's Mackey's edited version of what Skilling said: ".... the Towers would suffer a “horrendous fire… but the structure would still be there.”'

Here's what Skilling actually said : "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there."

Bedunker fakery at its finest. Mark Roberts, anyone?

"Of his five criticisms, three are attempts to shift the burden of proof,"

No, because you haven't understood the burden of proof.

"..one is a gross mischaracterization of a designer’s opinions,"

No, it is not a gross mischaracterization. It's a reasonable inference when reading and understanding the actual quote.

" and the last is simple well-poisoning. "

Meaningless, misapplied term here.

What you fail to realize the plane impact they talk about the WTC towers surviving was a slow speed low on fuel jet impact. Skiling never did a study of 10,000 gallons of jet fuel injected into the core of the WTC, your failed opinion on this subject is based on ignorance.

With the design impact at an energy level of 0.386 GJ, I have lost you in physics, and you fail to comprehend the impacts of Flt 11 and Flt 174 were 2.89 GJ and 4.38 GJ. The impacts on 911 were 7 to 11 times greater in energy, and you can't comprehend the damage to the fires systems renders Skilling's claim false for 911. You fail and have no clue why. Next time do the math, and study the conditions. 10 years of failure for a subject that can be figured out in minutes, proved by Passengers on Flight 93. Why have you failed for so many years?


The impact Robertson studied for the WTC would have not damaged the WTC much at 180 mph. No damage to the fire systems, the fires could be fought. On 911 no one was able to fight the fires, and the sprinklers were broken in the impacts equal in energy to 1300 and 2000 pounds of TNT. Physics is needed, and you don't do physics.

Gage has figured out he has a fringe industry, he has to use hearsay to attack Mackey's paper to avoid being the idiot. Gage has to do his delusional claims to make money... Did Gage beat his 344k year? Gage has to avoid Mackey's paper, it exposes him as a fraud, something you can't figure out given the answers.

 

[ergo]

"The WTC case is also an unusually large fire..."

This is a standard bedunker claim that, in any case, is easily refuted by historical evidence of highrise fires which dwarf the WTC fires in both extent and duration, and the intended point here (that it is expected that fire will bring down buildings) is rendered moot in any case by NIST's own historical survey of highrise collapses by fire. It gets really tedious to have to debunk this over and over.

"Dr. Griffin appears to backpedal from his remarks about smoke color, and cites Mr. Hoffman as stating that the presence of flames, not absence of black smoke, indicates a hot fire:"

As smoke is a product of incomplete combustion, yes, this is actually true, and this is actually the point. We know bedunkers don't understand this, but that doesn't change its factuality.

"Unfortunately for Dr. Griffin’s argument, orange flames are evident all over the WTC fires. "

At certain points over time (that time being a maximum of 102 minutes) and in varying locations. The dominant visual in the extensive and readily available video and photographic evidence is of massive volumes of smoke coming out of the towers, not flames. This also gets extremely tedious to address every single time, especially when any idiot can view the videos.

Mackey goes on with this claim:

"WTC 1 and 2 were at the time, in terms of involved floor area, the largest single-structure office fires in history. The author is confident that this fact alone qualifies the fires as extraordinary, even before including the additional factors caused by the aircraft impacts. These records have only been broken once – they were eclipsed later that same day by WTC 7. "

Largest office fires? Why the qualifier? And what's a "single-structure" office fire? If it's an office fire, it's contained within a single structure, is it not?

In any case, it's not clear on what Mackey is basing this claim (let alone why); he doesn't source it. As stated already, the fires were of varying intensity and location over an unusually large area and an unusually short period of time (as building fires go). Ryan assumes internal infernos, possibly based on NIST's hypothetical infrared diagram. But the idea of large, internal infernos is not supported by the visual evidence or the survivor testimony, and far less so for WTC 7. Given these facts, this claim is dubious if not irrelevant.

These are only a few of the examples I found, and I'm just on page 32. Glancing ahead, I see on page 130 a table comparing the official hypothesis with the CD hypothesis for WTC 7 and immediately find a distortion of the evidence, negation of witness and survivor testimony, along with outright false and ahistorical assertions about building behaviour in fires. This seems to be standard bedunker fare, yet Mackey wants qualified people to read this.

 

[NoahFence]

^^^
Look at him pretend to know what he's talking about....

how cute.

 

[twinstead]

"The WTC case is also an unusually large fire..."

This is a standard bedunker claim that, in any case, is easily refuted by historical evidence of highrise fires which dwarf the WTC fires in both extent and duration, and the intended point here (that it is expected that fire will bring down buildings) is rendered moot in any case by NIST's own historical survey of highrise collapses by fire. It gets really tedious to have to debunk this over and over.

"Dr. Griffin appears to backpedal from his remarks about smoke color, and cites Mr. Hoffman as stating that the presence of flames, not absence of black smoke, indicates a hot fire:"

As smoke is a product of incomplete combustion, yes, this is actually true, and this is actually the point. We know bedunkers don't understand this, but that doesn't change its factuality.

"Unfortunately for Dr. Griffin’s argument, orange flames are evident all over the WTC fires. "

At certain points over time (that time being a maximum of 102 minutes) and in varying locations. The dominant visual in the extensive and readily available video and photographic evidence is of massive volumes of smoke coming out of the towers, not flames. This also gets extremely tedious to address every single time, especially when any idiot can view the videos.

Mackey goes on with this claim:

"WTC 1 and 2 were at the time, in terms of involved floor area, the largest single-structure office fires in history. The author is confident that this fact alone qualifies the fires as extraordinary, even before including the additional factors caused by the aircraft impacts. These records have only been broken once – they were eclipsed later that same day by WTC 7. "

Largest office fires? Why the qualifier? And what's a "single-structure" office fire? If it's an office fire, it's contained within a single structure, is it not?

In any case, it's not clear on what Mackey is basing this claim (let alone why); he doesn't source it. As stated already, the fires were of varying intensity and location over an unusually large area and an unusually short period of time (as building fires go). Ryan assumes internal infernos, possibly based on NIST's hypothetical infrared diagram. But the idea of large, internal infernos is not supported by the visual evidence or the survivor testimony, and far less so for WTC 7. Given these facts, this claim is dubious if not irrelevant.

These are only a few of the examples I found, and I'm just on page 32. Glancing ahead, I see on page 130 a table comparing the official hypothesis with the CD hypothesis for WTC 7 and immediately find a distortion of the evidence, negation of witness and survivor testimony, along with outright false and ahistorical assertions about building behaviour in fires. This seems to be standard bedunker fare, yet Mackey wants qualified people to read this.

Who is this "we" you keep referring to? Do you forget that you are in the abject minority on this issue?

 

[ergo]

^^^
Look at him pretend to know what he's talking about....

how cute.

Cuter than you pretending to know what you're talking about, Noah.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

It's weird that truthers keep on trying to minimize the extent of the WTC fires and claim that there were larger ones. Even when they present evidence, it's clear that they didn't actually read the evidence. Take for example the NIST Historical Survey linked above. Look at the examples. Which ones are larger?

It certainly isn't the One Meridian Plaza fire. That one involved 8 floors which were at best 20,000-some square feet. Contrast that to either of the Twin Towers, which had what, 40,000 square feet or so per floor? 8 floors of One Meridian Plaza would equal 160,000 sq. ft. of fire. Whereas the 8 floors of the North Tower fire or the 6 floors of the South would've been 320,000 and 240,000 sq ft. respectively.

On top of that, read the FEMA report on that building's fire. The first fire was reported before 8:30PM on the 22nd floor. Within an hour, it had only spread to the 23rd and 24th floor. The report notes that by 2:15am, the fire was only starting to affect the 26th floor. Contrast this to either of the WTC fires that had engulfed the 8 or 6 floors respectively in each building well within an hour (re: NCSTAR 1-5 for the fire reconstruction). Not only were the floor areas greater in the Twin Towers, but the spread was much faster.

We can eliminate One Meridian Plaza from the list of fires that were supposedly bigger. Any of the rest of you feel like tackling any of the other buildings listed? The point here is that conspiracy peddlers like to just grab at evidence and claim that it supports their claims. From my initial perusal of the listed buildings, and my more in-depth look at one of the examples, I don't see that evidence supporting the claim at all. So far, it's contradicting it and supporting the established claim that the WTC fires were among the largest in history. Take it any way you want - floor area times number of affected floors, intensity, etc... it may not have lasted as long as, say, One Meridian Plaza, but it went through a larger fuel load in far less time. That indicates to me that it was more intense (willing to be corrected by that by Tri or anyone else here who could speak to that), which argues against any minimization of the WTC fires.

At any rate, the analysis of the evidence offered for the claim is not finished, but the first element of it to be analyzed doesn't support the claim. That doesn't bode well. Again: Anyone else want to tackle any of the other buildings listed? I don't feel like doing them all by myself .

 

[Quad4_72]

It's weird that truthers keep on trying to minimize the extent of the WTC fires and claim that there were larger ones. Even when they present evidence, it's clear that they didn't actually read the evidence. Take for example the NIST Historical Survey linked above. Look at the examples. Which ones are larger?

It certainly isn't the One Meridian Plaza fire. That one involved 8 floors which were at best 20,000-some square feet. Contrast that to either of the Twin Towers, which had what, 40,000 square feet or so per floor? 8 floors of One Meridian Plaza would equal 160,000 sq. ft. of fire. Whereas the 8 floors of the North Tower fire or the 6 floors of the South would've been 320,000 and 240,000 sq ft. respectively.

On top of that, read the FEMA report on that building's fire. The first fire was reported before 8:30PM on the 22nd floor. Within an hour, it had only spread to the 23rd and 24th floor. The report notes that by 2:15am, the fire was only starting to affect the 26th floor. Contrast this to either of the WTC fires that had engulfed the 8 or 6 floors respectively in each building well within an hour (re: NCSTAR 1-5 for the fire reconstruction). Not only were the floor areas greater in the Twin Towers, but the spread was much faster.

We can eliminate One Meridian Plaza from the list of fires that were supposedly bigger. Any of the rest of you feel like tackling any of the other buildings listed? The point here is that conspiracy peddlers like to just grab at evidence and claim that it supports their claims. From my initial perusal of the listed buildings, and my more in-depth look at one of the examples, I don't see that evidence supporting the claim at all. So far, it's contradicting it and supporting the established claim that the WTC fires were among the largest in history. Take it any way you want - floor area times number of affected floors, intensity, etc... it may not have lasted as long as, say, One Meridian Plaza, but it went through a larger fuel load in far less time. That indicates to me that it was more intense (willing to be corrected by that by Tri or anyone else here who could speak to that), which argues against any minimization of the WTC fires.

At any rate, the analysis of the evidence offered for the claim is not finished, but the first element of it to be analyzed doesn't support the claim. That doesn't bode well. Again: Anyone else want to tackle any of the other buildings listed? I don't feel like doing them all by myself .

The fires alone are only one aspect of it. Lets not forget that in all of the other building fires, none of them were hit by a commercial jet flying at 500mph. Not to mention the other buildings likely had all their fireproofing still intact, were actually fought with water, and were designed differently. All details conveniently ignored by nutters such as ergo.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

The fires alone are only one aspect of it. Lets not forget that in all of the other building fires, none of them were hit by a commercial jet flying at 500mph. Not to mention the other buildings likely had all their fireproofing still intact, were actually fought with water, and were designed differently. All details conveniently ignored by nutters such as ergo.

Yes, yes, that's true. But the original statement was simply of the size of the WTC fires, and so was the truther counterargument trying to refute that. Because of that, I'm isolating details that can be reasonably considered "size", such as square footage.

Since the claim and response is limited to the magnitudes of those fires alone, and don't include other contributory elements towards the collapses, I'm not discussing them at the moment. I'm concentrating on size alone.

And apparently writing closing sentences that people can make "That's what she said!" jokes about.

 

[A W Smith]

 

[Gravy]

Bedunker fakery at its finest. Mark Roberts, anyone?

Hey, that's me! I don't recall you sending me any critiques of my work. Let me know when you have that ready.

 

[Quad4_72]

Yes, yes, that's true. But the original statement was simply of the size of the WTC fires, and so was the truther counterargument trying to refute that. Because of that, I'm isolating details that can be reasonably considered "size", such as square footage.

Since the claim and response is limited to the magnitudes of those fires alone, and don't include other contributory elements towards the collapses, I'm not discussing them at the moment. I'm concentrating on size alone.

And apparently writing closing sentences that people can make "That's what she said!" jokes about.

Glancing over that list, I don't see any office fires that compare to the WTC in severity or magnitude. Perhaps ergo would be so polite as to oblige us on which high rise story fires he is referring to exactly...

 

[Newtons Bit]

Suit yourself. But I don't think I'll commission a 'rocket scientist' to build a house for me.

Would it make you feel better to know that I, a structural engineer, feels that RMackey is qualified to write aforementioned papers?

(And yes, you wouldn't want him to design your house. Not that it will fall down, he'll just make it too expensive )

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Oy....

Mercantile Credit Insurance Building, aka Churchill Plaza Building, Basingstoke. I can't find a per floor square footage figure, but the total for the entire 15 story building is given as 32,500 sq. m, which translates to an aggragate 349,827.089 square feet for the entire building. So if the entire structure went up, then that one in terms of area is larger.

However:

Floors 8 to 10 caught fire in 1991 although these were successfully extinguished and the building rebuilt.

If we presume that the 349,827 sq. ft. total ends up being 23,321.81 sq. ft. per floor (just dividing the total by 15.... obviously, this presumes that area is divided equally among all the floors), then the size of the fire was only 69,965 square feet.

Also:

The fire started on the eighth floor and spread rapidly to the ninth and then the tenth floor as the glazing failed. During the fire, the fire protection performed well and there was no permanent deformation of the steel frame. The fire was believed to be comparatively `cool' because the failed glazing allowed a cross wind to increase the ventilation. The protected connections showed no deformation...

... The protected steelwork suffered no damage.

This one is not comparable. Not even close.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

No, no no. you don't understand. Those highrise fires didn't cause a collapse therefore they are relevant even though they were very different when actually compared to the towers. Keep up will ya'? Fire is fire, steel is steel and... and... well, you know. Stuff.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Broadgate Phase 8:

14 floors in a building with an 84 meter (275.59 ft) by 55 meter (180.45 ft) ootprint. That translates into 745,938.99 sq. ft. If the entire building went up, we would seem to finally have our first larger fire in terms of total square footage.

But was that the case?
P113: Investigation of Broadgate Phase 8 Fire

On the 23rd June 1990 a fire developed in the partly completed fourteen storey building in the Broadgate development. The fire began in a large contractors hut on the first floor and smoke spread undetected throughout the building. The fire detection and sprinkler system were not yet operational out of working hours.

A "large contractors hut on the first floor". And the rest of the building was pretty much nothing more than the steel framework, some of the facade... very few combustibles on other floors. Plus, it notes that "smoke" spread "throughout the building". Not the fire?

Also, from the above linked paper:

... Figure 4 shows a structural plan at Level 2, i.e. the floor affected by the fire attack.

The floor. Singular.

The fire lasted 4.5 hours including 2 hours where the fire exceeded 1000°C. The direct fire loss was in excess of �25 million however, only a fraction of the cost (�2 million) represented structural frame and floor damage. The major damage was to the building fabric as a result of smoke. Moreover, the structural repairs after the fire took only 30 days. The structure of the building was a steel frame with composite steel deck concrete floors and was only partially protected at this stage of construction. During and after the fire, despite large deflections in the elements exposed to fire, the structure behaved well and there was no collapse of any of the columns, beams or floors. [115] The Broadgate phase 8 fire was the first opportunity to examine the influence of fire on the structural behaviour of a modern fast track steel framed building with composite construction.

Couple of notes:

• The building was still under construction. The fuel load per floor would've been minimal, far below the fuel load in the Twin Towers.
• According to the P113: Investigation of Broadgate Phase 8 Fire paper, there was still significant truss sag and column shortening. On top of that:

  ... the bolts in the connections at the columns which failed did not exceed a temperature of 540^oC for any significant length of time during the fire, while sampels taken from deformed truss members had not exceeded 600^oC.

  . That validates observations regarding failure modes in the Twin Towers.

In the end, this was a differently designed building with no contents, and most significantly no eccentric loading of the structure (no jetliner hit it). Therefore, the only comparable effect is the truss and column distortion. It was shown that such occurred in this building, it was argued that the same occurred in the Twin Towers. Those towers had the unfortunate issues of being hit by a jetliner and suffering greater fuel and weight loads.

Plus, if I'm reading things correctly, only one floor was actually exposed to fire. A single floor would only be 49,729 sq. ft.

It seems to me as if this fire was far smaller. Even if it were not, even if I were wrong and the fire engulfed other floors, there's a difference in intensity from the far lowered fuel load. Plus, the different design in addition to the lack of jetliner impact damage is sufficient difference to explain why this structure didn't collapse while the Twin Towers did. Remember: The investigation noted truss sag, column shortening, bolt failure. Add eccentric loading due to severed supports, and you might have had a different story.

This case is a bit more complex, but ultimately, it's not properly comparable either. Saying that Broadgate Phase 8 not collapsing is an argument that the Twin Towers shouldn't have either badly ignores all the differences.

However, we're talking about the extent of the blazes here. If I'm incorrect and the entire building did indeed go up, I'll concede that this fire was larger. However, I would want that validated. For the reasons given above, this fire does indeed appear to be far smaller.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Last one before stopping for dinner:

First Interstate Bank, 1988:
http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/pr...istoricFires/BuildingFires/interstateBank.htm

12th floor, plus 4 floors above. I'll read that as 5 floors total, even though the above linked NIST article says 4.

Area per floor: 1626 sq m, translating into 17,502 sq feet.

That ends up being 87,510 sq. ft. being affected by fire. Again: Around 320,000 sq ft. for WTC1, 240,000 sq. ft. for WTC 2. Enough said.

 

[NoahFence]

Cuter than you pretending to know what you're talking about, Noah.

I forgot more about the subject than you'll ever know.

 

[R.Mackey]

Looks like the Truthers are still confused. Big surprise.

No white paper should be assumed to be correct at face value, just like no expert should be assumed correct without examining her claims. But those claims are in my white paper, have been examined, and still stand up. I welcome anyone to find bugs in it as I have since the day it was released -- in fact, I demand it. If I've made a mistake, I don't want to stay mistaken.

However, all the endless nitpicking and Truther excuses do not constitute errors, and we've seen them all before. There is nothing in this thread that will meet the requirements I set forth in this other thread. You know, the one that Truthers are studiously avoiding? Its timer will very shortly click down to zero. Which is yet another demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy inherent in the Truth Movement.