Richard Gage Blueprint for Truth Rebuttals on YouTube by Chris Mohr

[bill smith]

Here are fires that are used as examples of big fires that didn't collapse. Which of these are steel-reinforced concrete, have heavy concrete cores, etc?

The One Meridian Plaza Fire
The First Interstate Bank Fire
The 1 New York Plaza Fire
Caracas Tower Fire
The Windsor Building Fire
The Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel Fire
The Parque Central
Madrid fire

Which of these does Richard Gage use in Blueprint for Truth... I don't want to have to watch it yet again!!

There may be some useful information here Chris.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html

 

[chrismohr]

There may be some useful information here Chris.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html

Thanks Bill,

I did look at this already, but am looking for structural information about these buildings. Maybe some of the links will tell me more.

Nobody owes me an answer to my questions, everything we do here is on our time. At some point someone who knows will surf on over and answers arrive eventually.

 

[bill smith]

Thanks Bill,

I did look at this already, but am looking for structural information about these buildings. Maybe some of the links will tell me more.

Nobody owes me an answer to my questions, everything we do here is on our time. At some point someone who knows will surf on over and answers arrive eventually.

Somewhere in that article it says that all the buildings are steel-framed except for the Windsor Towers.

Here it is:-

'' The Windsor fire was more severe than any of the fires described above, and the incident has been widely publicized, with comparisons to the fires in the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11/01. However, the Windsor Building, unlike all the buildings mentioned above, was framed in steel-reinforced concrete rather than steel. ''

I am actually surprised that so few of the debunkers have chipped in so far. We will see if they respond in due course I guess.

 

[newton3376]

Only because they were still taken in by the lies about the Twin Towers collapse on 9/11.

Someone needs to stundie this......

 

[newton3376]

I am actually surprised that so few of the debunkers have chipped in so far. We will see if they respond in due course I guess.

I guess I'm a bit confused Bill.....what question do you want answered?

Any building is a potential candidate for collapse due to fire.....

 

[tfk]

Chris,

Speaking for myself, I'm sick & tired of answering the same questions for the 35th time. When the first 34 explanations are ignored by the clueless.

But here goes...

Windsor Towers, Madrid, Spain. (partial collapse)
The one that partially collapsed and is massively relevant is the Windsor Towers in Madrid. Despite the clueless mantra "It didn't completely collapse".

However, Windsor does better than that for anyone with a functioning brain. Within the same fire, it runs an experiment that distinguishes between structural steel columns that will collapse from typical fires from those that will not likely collapse from typical fires.

(Note that any steel structure CAN collapse, if the heating lasts long enough. That is why fire protection is only rated for 1 hour, 2 hours, etc. The insulation merely slows down the heating of the supports, hopefully until the fire is put out or burns itself out.)

In the Windsor Towers, all of the columns that were not insulated collapsed. All of the columns that were insulated survived. This is the perfect demonstration of the behavior of structural steel in fires.

All of this info can be read here:
http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/pr...Study/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/default.htm
Read carefully (& attempt to understand the implications of) the "Analysis" section near the bottom of the page.

This Manchester University website also has a fine web page on the WTC towers collapse. You should read it. Very insightful. By a bunch of experts who are not "shills of the Bush gubbamint".
http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/pr...toricFires/BuildingFires/worldTradeCenter.htm



tom

PS. I did not think that I "ripped you a new one" over your comments regarding Gross. I thought that I "respectfully disagreed with your conclusions".

Must be an issue of style...
;-)

 

[tfk]

Re: "Help debunking the comments in Skeptic Magazine..."

[Begin debunking]

... I’m a layman like you.

[End debunking]

Why can't these people ever come up with a real, qualified expert to deliver their trash?
Why is it always highly politically motivated, but clueless, amateurs?

There is a cogent, instructive answer to these two questions.


tk

 

[chrismohr]

Thanks Tom,

OK I was exagerrating for effect. Last time I counted I still have only one! And I was almost finished looking this stuff up for myself, and was coming in to the thread here to say to everyone, never mind. But you added some stuff I hadn't dragged out so thanks for the repetitive effort.

 

[chrismohr]

Jeremy Hammond response: draft

Hi gang,

Here's what I'm thinking of saying in response to Jeremy Hammond' rebuttal of my skeptic.com article where I talk about the collapse of the Delft Building. He said I was ignorant of the difference between steel frame and reinforced concrete (not true), that only part of the building came down (which I said too)... and of course that Delft teaches us nothing about what can happened on 9/11. My draft response (please correct if mistakes are found, and thanks again tfk...)

I'm going to respond one item at a time. Regarding the Delft Building fire collapse, Jeremy accused me of being unaware of the difference between a steel-reinforced concrete building and a steel-framed building. I do know the difference, and I know that Delft was a reinforced concrete building (I read Brian Meachum's preliminary pdf report). Both building types employ steel for structural support. I was simply following the lead of 9/11 Truth people like Richard Gage in his video Blueprint for Truth: they give example after example of tall buildings that did not collapse in a fire, and look at how THEY are constructed:

Windsor Tower Madrid (partial collapse): Reinforced concrete was used in the core and under the 17th floor.
The Parque Central in Caracas, Venezuela: reinforced concrete structure consisted of perimeter columns connected by post-tensioned concrete macroslabs” Severe deflection in steel beams, concrete held up.
The One Meridian Plaza Fire: constructed of steel and concrete
And most ironic of all: the recent 2009 Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel Fire. Construction was only began after its builder, ARUP East Asia, had conducted a thorough internal study of the WTC collapses. Instead of the steel-only structural framework of Building 7, ARUP used a combination of concrete and steel framing for the TVCC building. Those incredible shots of the Mandarin Oriental on fire were taken during the first hour of the fire. The firefighters were able to gain control of the blaze in about an hour, fully extinguishing the fire six hours after it began. By contrast, the fires in Building 7 were never fought, because FDNY had no water to reach the building.
For that matter, in the Windsor Tower, all of the columns that were not insulated collapsed. All of the columns that were insulated survived. This is a perfect demonstration of the behavior of structural steel in fires.


So I can be forgiven if I called Deflt a steel building, even if it was concrete reinforced with steel just like many of Gage's examples. The initial Meachum study said "The fire and subsequent collapse of a substantial portion of the Faculty of Architectural Building at the Delft University of Technology is significant in that fire-related collapse of structures is rare, with collapse of reinforced concrete structures even more so." I interpret this to mean that reinforced concrete is even more fire-resistant than steel-framed structures with only spray-on fireproofing. So my example is of a building that is even tougher in its construction than the WTC buildings. And the "substantial portion" that collapsed still fell mostly straight down, very fast.

Jeremy tried to rebut my claim that a big part of the building collapsed (I never called it a global collapse), but is there a difference between "a substantial portion" and "a big part"? What I said: the part that collapsed behaved in a manner similar to the collapse of Building 7.

So here's the deal: I'll remove the Delft comparison if you, Richard Gage and everyone else in the 9/11 Truth movement limits your descriptions of fiery buildings that didn't collapse to steel frame buildings at least 40 stories high which take up a whole city block, employ a "Tube in a tube" design, came off its core columns near the bottom where the collapse initiated, was struck by another burning building, weakened by unfought fires for over 6 hours, and had trusses that were attached with two 5/8" bolts. Of course that is absurd. My point? Comparisons HAVE to be made between buildings with some differences in them when the sample size is so small. And I submit that my comparison stands up fairly well and your comparisons, well, many of them collapse on closer scrutiny.

 

[ozeco41]

Theres nothing I can add Chris.

I like your last paragraph.

 

[TsuDhoNimh]

Thanks Bill,

I did look at this already, but am looking for structural information about these buildings. Maybe some of the links will tell me more.

The Caracas fire:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parque_Central_Complex
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3751790.stm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/18/world/main649824.shtml

Notable differences: There was no structural damage because of collision with an airplane, no jet fuel dousing several floors.

And the fire would have been confined to the 34th floor except that the sprinklers and pumps hadn't been maintained or tested for years!

 

[Dave Rogers]

Chris, just one point:

[...] Windsor Tower Madrid (partial collapse): Reinforced concrete was used in the core and under the 17th floor.

[...]

For that matter, in the Windsor Tower, all of the columns that were not insulated collapsed. All of the columns that were insulated survived. This is a perfect demonstration of the behavior of structural steel in fires.

Would it be worth putting this slightly differently by saying that the reinforced concrete sections of the Windsor all survived, whereas the solely steel-framed sections all collapsed? Since you're discussing the difference between concrete- and steel-framed buildings in a fire, that seems to me to be the key point.

Apart from that, an excellent response, especially the final paragraph.

Dave

 

[chrismohr]

I'm glad you all liked my response to Jeremy Hammond's rebuttal of my skeptic.com article. Jeremy did not share your enthusiasm:

"Chris, if you knew the difference, at the time your wrote the article, between a steel-framed building and a reinforced concrete building, then you were not guilty of mere ignorance, but of being willfully dishonest with your readers.
I look forward to you correcting your factual errors and misinformation at Skeptic, including, but not limited to, this one."

I promise I'll share my response with y'all soon.

 

[Childlike Empress]

I'm glad you all liked my response to Jeremy Hammond's rebuttal of my skeptic.com article. Jeremy did not share your enthusiasm:

"Chris, if you knew the difference, at the time your wrote the article, between a steel-framed building and a reinforced concrete building, then you were not guilty of mere ignorance, but of being willfully dishonest with your readers.
I look forward to you correcting your factual errors and misinformation at Skeptic, including, but not limited to, this one."

I promise I'll share my response with y'all soon.

Here again the link to that exchange.

 

[beachnut]

Here again the link to that exchange.

Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent political analyst. A political analyst backing Jones' lie of thermite. 911 truth has another paranoid conspiracy theorist. Why is Hammond so bad at physics and chemistry?

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com...-magazines-science-of-controlled-demolitions/

Mohr lastly states that the R.J. Lee Group “didn’t find thermitic material”. But what he really means to say is that R.J. Lee never tested any of the material it found in the dust to determine whether any of it was thermitic or not. NIST, incidentally,

R J Lee found no thermite, because there was no thermite. Hammond is making up stuff.

Jonathan H. Cole, P.E., performed a series of experiments with thermate and was able to reproduce similar results as observed with the WTC 7 sample.

Cole's experiment did not have similar results to the corroded WTC 7 sample. Cole's results had iron fuse to steel, something not found in the WTC, not seen on the WTC 7 sample.

Jason Bermas does the 9/11 Truth movement a great service by choosing to finally bring much of this important information into one place and presenting it in a medium that can effectively reach a wide audience.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/a-review-of-jason-bermass-fabled-enemies/

When will the Pulitzer Prize be awarded for his revelations, for bringing back 911 truth, in reruns? never

 

[BasqueArch]

Hi gang,

,,,,,
And most ironic of all: the recent 2009 Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel Fire. Construction was only began after its builder, ARUP East Asia, had conducted a thorough internal study of the WTC collapses. Instead of the steel-only structural framework of Building 7, ARUP used a combination of concrete and steel framing for the TVCC building. Those incredible shots of the Mandarin Oriental on fire were taken during the first hour of the fire. The firefighters were able to gain control of the blaze in about an hour, fully extinguishing the fire six hours after it began. .....

The TVCC building structure was reinforced concrete with a steel space frame at the roof spanning the open atrium below. The outer curtain walls were insulating foam sandwiched between thin zinc-titanium (400C melting point) sheets, both very flammable causing the spectacular night fire of the outer skin. I noticed that AE911T avoided describing the structure as concrete. I remember seeing photos in a Chinese web site of the building's interior which showed relatively little fire damage.
Cannot find some links at the moment.

Scheeren said preliminary findings indicate that the main concrete structure of the fire-damaged building does not have to be torn down. The main CCTV building itself was not damaged, he said.

"The preliminary findings are that the building can be repaired," he said, "It's still intact and safe. There will mainly be a repair effort but not a complete rebuilding."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-10/29/content_8867286.htm

 

[tfk]

Chris, just one point:

Would it be worth putting this slightly differently by saying that the reinforced concrete sections of the Windsor all survived, whereas the solely steel-framed sections all collapsed? Since you're discussing the difference between concrete- and steel-framed buildings in a fire, that seems to me to be the key point.

Apart from that, an excellent response, especially the final paragraph.

Dave

Dave, Chris,

My point was contrasting the survival of the thermally insulated steel columns to the failure of the uninsulated steel columns.

Reasoned extrapolations from this strongly suggest that:
a. if the principle supports for buildings are thermally insulated steel, they are highly likely to continue to support their loads in a similar fire.
b. if the principle supports for buildings are thermally uninsulated, then that building is in grave danger of collapse in a similar fire.
c. The Windsor Towers did not suffer total collapse precisely because its principle supports were not uninsulated steel, but reinforced concrete.
d. IF the principle supports of the Windsor Towers had been steel (like the WTC towers) that had been uninsulated due to maintenance (or plane impact or any other reason), then it is highly likely that the Windsor Towers would have totally collapsed just like the WTC buildings did.

One needs to be careful in comparing the performance of steel in reinforced concrete columns to its performance in pure steel columns. In the two cases, the steel is loaded completely differently (compression in steel columns but tension in reinforced concrete columns) and serves completely different functions (carries the loads in steel columns, but supports no external load in reinforced concrete columns).

With that caveat in place, it is true that the concrete forms a very effective thermal barrier for the steel when fires happen. Thereby allowing the steel to continue to perform its true function (making sure that the concrete stays loaded in compression where it is strong, and not in tension where it is weak).

tom

 

[BasqueArch]

Dave, Chris,

My point was contrasting the survival of the thermally insulated steel columns to the failure of the uninsulated steel columns.

Reasoned extrapolations from this strongly suggest that:
a. if the principle supports for buildings are thermally insulated steel, they are highly likely to continue to support their loads in a similar fire.
b. if the principle supports for buildings are thermally uninsulated, then that building is in grave danger of collapse in a similar fire.
c. The Windsor Towers did not suffer total collapse precisely because its principle supports were not uninsulated steel, but reinforced concrete.
d. IF the principle supports of the Windsor Towers had been steel (like the WTC towers) that had been uninsulated due to maintenance (or plane impact or any other reason), then it is highly likely that the Windsor Towers would have totally collapsed just like the WTC buildings did.

One needs to be careful in comparing the performance of steel in reinforced concrete columns to its performance in pure steel columns. In the two cases, the steel is loaded completely differently (compression in steel columns but tension in reinforced concrete columns) and serves completely different functions (carries the loads in steel columns, but supports no external load in reinforced concrete columns).

With that caveat in place, it is true that the concrete forms a very effective thermal barrier for the steel when fires happen. Thereby allowing the steel to continue to perform its true function (making sure that the concrete stays loaded in compression where it is strong, and not in tension where it is weak).

tom

Re Windsor Tower fire

http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/pr...Study/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/default.htm

 

[chrismohr]

From the Skeptic.com exchange, my final words on Jeremy Hammond's blog:

Jeremy wrote: "Chris, if you knew the difference, at the time your wrote the article, between a steel-framed building and a reinforced concrete building, then you were not guilty of mere ignorance, but of being willfully dishonest with your readers."


Dear Jeremy,

My Buddhist friends talk a lot about "assuming good intent" when facing disagreements. In that spirit, I submit to you that:
1) I have a good layman's understanding of the issues I am talking about, and I run the things I say by scientists and engineers.
2) I am honest.
3) I sometimes make mistakes.

In the case of the Delft collapse, yes I knew it was steel-reinforced concrete, but having seen on 9/11 Truth videos several examples of steel-reinforced concrete buildings or cores not collapsing in fires, I thought such buildings were acceptable to use as examples, and my mistakenly calling Delft a steel building or even a steel-framed building did not change the fact that all buildings, regardless of materials, can collapse in a fire.

In preparing for my March 6 debate with Richard Gage, I asked him what he thought were the most compelling reasons to believe in controlled demolition. I warned him that I would look at his best evidence, and it could even change my mind, in which case I would have to call off the debate. We directly debated his strongest arguments. Neither Richard nor I ever once accused the other of being ignorant or a liar or insane. You and some others in the 9/11 Truth movement have chosen to attack me by saying I am either incredibly ignorant or a liar. As you praise David Chandler's notorious "pearls before swine" video attack on me, you too grossly magnify my errors and look for evidence that I am willfully dishonest, assuming ill intent, and thereby encouraging the people who admire your work to dismiss out of hand what I am saying. I notice that the more people attack me personally, the less they tend to look at what I am actually saying.

The people who are qualified to say I am ignorant and unable to understand the issues I am debating are the scientists and engineers who accept the "natural collapse" theory and who know way more than either of us. They universally support my efforts to debate this issue from a layman/journalist's perspective and say I am interpreting their explanations well (and that I make mistakes sometimes).

I wish you well in your quest for the truth, and I may yet change my mind if new evidence (such as independent proof of thermitics in the dust) presents itself to me. But now it is time we part ways. While I always welcome corrections even from 9/11 Truth people, I am not willing to allow the debate to descend to me defending against charges of utter ignorance and willful dishonesty.

In the meantime know I share with you a desire for a world guided by peace, justice and truth.

 

[newton3376]

From the Skeptic.com exchange, my final words on Jeremy Hammond's blog:

Jeremy wrote: "Chris, if you knew the difference, at the time your wrote the article, between a steel-framed building and a reinforced concrete building, then you were not guilty of mere ignorance, but of being willfully dishonest with your readers."


Dear Jeremy,

My Buddhist friends talk a lot about "assuming good intent" when facing disagreements. In that spirit, I submit to you that:
1) I have a good layman's understanding of the issues I am talking about, and I run the things I say by scientists and engineers.
2) I am honest.
3) I sometimes make mistakes.

In the case of the Delft collapse, yes I knew it was steel-reinforced concrete, but having seen on 9/11 Truth videos several examples of steel-reinforced concrete buildings or cores not collapsing in fires, I thought such buildings were acceptable to use as examples, and my mistakenly calling Delft a steel building or even a steel-framed building did not change the fact that all buildings, regardless of materials, can collapse in a fire.

In preparing for my March 6 debate with Richard Gage, I asked him what he thought were the most compelling reasons to believe in controlled demolition. I warned him that I would look at his best evidence, and it could even change my mind, in which case I would have to call off the debate. We directly debated his strongest arguments. Neither Richard nor I ever once accused the other of being ignorant or a liar or insane. You and some others in the 9/11 Truth movement have chosen to attack me by saying I am either incredibly ignorant or a liar. As you praise David Chandler's notorious "pearls before swine" video attack on me, you too grossly magnify my errors and look for evidence that I am willfully dishonest, assuming ill intent, and thereby encouraging the people who admire your work to dismiss out of hand what I am saying. I notice that the more people attack me personally, the less they tend to look at what I am actually saying.

The people who are qualified to say I am ignorant and unable to understand the issues I am debating are the scientists and engineers who accept the "natural collapse" theory and who know way more than either of us. They universally support my efforts to debate this issue from a layman/journalist's perspective and say I am interpreting their explanations well (and that I make mistakes sometimes).

I wish you well in your quest for the truth, and I may yet change my mind if new evidence (such as independent proof of thermitics in the dust) presents itself to me. But now it is time we part ways. While I always welcome corrections even from 9/11 Truth people, I am not willing to allow the debate to descend to me defending against charges of utter ignorance and willful dishonesty.

In the meantime know I share with you a desire for a world guided by peace, justice and truth.

Chris....as usual you did an excellent job.

You have far more patience then I think I would.