WTC7 and the girder walk-off between column 79 and 44

[ozeco41]

...We can only speculate about specifics but the possibility that nano-thermite devices could be used to destroy the TT cannot be denied.

True - the possibility.... cannot be denied.

But the issue cjnewson88 raised was not about the possibility you speak of.

He was commenting on Tony's ridiculous claims about back pressure blasts from shaped charges. No need to derail to rescue Tony yet again. Let him deal with his errors himself.

 

[Oystein]

Lots of good posts - I have some minor quibbles, to make future posts closer to perfection:

...
Dr Niels Harrit, your co-author on the paper that you were unable to get properly reviewed and published agrees with me. he stated that "I personally am certain that conventional explosives were used too, in abundance... Tons! Hundreds of tons! Many, many, many tons!"

a) Tony isn't one of Harrit's co-authors
b) As far as I can discern (not from this interview, but his "body of work"), he arrives at such estimates of "hundreds of tons" from his estimates of the abundance of red-gray chips. In his dust samples, these were roughly 0.1% of total dust, and assuming there were (order of magnitude) 100,000 tons of dust created during the collapses, he uses a pocket calculator and finds 100 tons of "unreacted thermite". So that's his way of thinking. But he also says "my opinion is: we should not speculate on a scenario for the demolition". By agreeing with conventional explosives, I think he is just keeping all twoof options open, but doesn't really have any theory about what and how much.

I stated that thousands of charges would have been necessary to bring down WTC7. ... Controlled Demolition Inc. describes their efforts to bring down the J.L. Hudson building in Detroit:

... 4,118 separate charges in 1,100 locations on columns on nine levels of the complex. Over 36,000 ft of detonating cord and 4,512 non-electric delay elements ... 2,728 lb of explosives ...​

WTC7 was twice the height of the Hudson building. it was a building of more modern construction than Hudson and the above ground portions were wider and deeper too. it's likely that in any plausible scenario, anywhere between 8,000 to 12,000 shaped charges would have been needed.
...

To be fair, the Hudson Department Store was an unusually complicated structure, and required some "overkill" to assure "control" of the collapse.

The Landmark Tower in Fort Worth, comparable in size but simpler and more modern in structure and thus better comparable to WTC7, required only 369 linear shaped armor-piercing charges to break structural steel, and a total amount of explosives of 364 pounds:
http://www.dhgt.com/PDF/A talented team of demolition experts.pdf

Since "control" of the collapse couldn't really have been an objective of the imaginary WTC7 demolishers, the number of charges could easily be reduced. Cutting each column once would be more than sufficient. Attacking a few selected bracing elements might be even more efficient.


What I am arguing here is: It's alright to provide references from real CDs, but the validity of extrapolating from their figures to what it would hypothetically take to just destroy a large skyscraper is limited.

 

[GlennB]

Real suspects of 911
Paul Bremer: His offices were hit when the plane hit the North Tower, but he did not go to work that day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpw7fUj11bA&feature=youtu.be
On Board of directors of:
1:53 "Komatsu - In July 1996 patented a nano-thermite demolition device
Patent 5532449 Issued on July 2, 1996

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus which can demolish a concrete structure at a high efficiency while preventing a secondary problem due to noise, flying dust and chips, and the like.
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5532449/description.html

This device could melt/destroy concrete, It would be a fairly simple matter to make a device to melt/cut steel. We can only speculate about specifics but the possibility that nano-thermite devices could be used to destroy the TT cannot be denied.

Utter desperation now, C7 ?

".....comprises: generating a plasma arc from the plasma torch of a plasma arc generator, mixing thermite powder with a supply gas for the plasma torch, passing the mixture of thermite powder and supply gas to the plasma arc, directing the plasma arc at the surface of the concrete structure, and controlling the rate of supply of the thermite powder to the plasma arc in response to the operation of the plasma torch...."

Related Japanese patent references from 1973, 1980

 

[Oystein]

...
Related Japanese patent references from 1973 ...

What was the name of the WTC architect, and when was it opened??

 

[Christopher7]

True - the possibility.... cannot be denied.

But the issue cjnewson88 raised was not about the possibility you speak of.

He was commenting on Tony's ridiculous claims about back pressure blasts from shaped charges. No need to derail to rescue Tony yet again. Let him deal with his errors himself.

Tony is not in error, you are.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

a) Tony isn't one of Harrit's co-authors

Right, my bad, I had him confused with Legge.

In my defense, I had said that a few times this thread and Tony himself seemed more interested in jamming his foot down his gullet up to the kneecap rather than correct me on something I got provably wrong.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Since "control" of the collapse couldn't really have been an objective of the imaginary WTC7 demolishers, the number of charges could easily be reduced.

Since secrecy, unlike every other controlled demo in history, was arguably the sooper sekrit nin-jews paramount objective, the complexity would have been multiplied many times over. The narrowness of the time-frame also multiplies the complexity many times over. Using the windows twoofers claim (the two weeks prior to 9/11 that they falsely claim bomb sniffing dogs were removed and/or the equally mythical 36 hour power down) the manpower required for a job that would have taken CDIs 12 man crew the better part of a decade to complete is multiplied to an absurd extreme.

Something we never hear about Szamboti, Harrit, Jones et al, is pre-weakening of the structures involved. While a standard component of controlled demolitions (done in part to reduce the backblasts that Tony swears doesn't exist), the only thing more absurd than thousands of ninjas tearing apart a major Wall Street office complex to access and plant explosives directly on structural beams is thousands of other ninjas carting about big-ass tanks of oxygen and acetylene and tearing apart a major Wall Street office complex to access and cut through structural beams in full view of thousands of stock brokers, accountants and secretaries shuffling about.

If there was no pre-weakening involved, then the number of charges would have been multiplied.

 

[BasqueArch]

I don't think the fires had anything to do with the collapse, as the effects from them would not have been anywhere near significant enough. That is what has been found in the scrutiny of the NIST claims in their 2008 report.

Detail A below shows the initial conditions as drawn.

Detail B below shows the girder displacement as calculated by TS without the column 76 girder push. The girder load is at the tip of the cantilevered seat.

….. The shortening due to sagging of the girder at 700 degrees C was 0.752 inches total and that would be split about each side for .376" per side. This gives a total contraction after cooling of about .800 + .376 = 1.18" per side.

…..
The expansion and shortening occurring simultaneously in the beams to the east of the girder between columns 44 and 79 gives a maximum of 4.753" net expansion at 649 degrees C. …..Even giving an inch or so to TFK's notion that the west side girder at floor 13 pushed column 79 to the east doesn't do it …..

Detail B1 below shows the girder displacement with the 1” column 76 girder push. The girder load is at the tip of the 4 7/16” cantilevered seat.
“The temperature of the girder between Columns 76 and 79 on Floor 13 was sufficient to displace Column 76 to the west and Column 79 to the east.” (NCSTAR 1-9 p527).

Detail C shows the sagging girder with a 20” deflection, similar to the beams deflection modeled by NIST. Any girder deflection would place the girder load at the tip of the cantilevered seat.

Detail D shows the condition at 13th floor Column 79 seat. The 83.7k load was calculated at 100 psf for 837 sf of area at the tip of the 4 7/16” cantilevered seat. It looks like torque would fail the seat in bending or shear and the girder would slide off, but I can’t do the math.

NIST didn’t consider the vertical failure of the seat and its model included a seat stiffener at Col 79 not shown in the plans.
“Since vertical failure of the seat was not considered (Section 11.2.5), the connections at Columns 79 and 81 were both modeled as stiffened seats.” (NCSTAR 1-9 p.558) See “Figure 12-25 Seat connection in global model Column 79. (p. 559)

The conclusions that the columns, beams and girders failed by fire were the result of the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), FEA - ANSYS and LS-DYNA models over time.
NCSTAR 1-9 p 536 “ The ANSYS model included nonlinear effects, such as: nonlinear temperature-dependent material properties including thermal expansion, plasticity and creep; nonlinear geometry; and user defined elements that captured the details of temperature dependent connection failures.”

Other forces unaccounted for in the above details leading to failure of this girder or buckling of Column 79:

• Twisting and failure of the girder at the Critical Twist Angle:

NCSTA 1-9 p487 " When lateral support of the top (compression) flange was lost, floor beams and girders could laterally displace and buckle in a lateral-torsional mode. ...If a beam or girder twisted half of its flange width laterally, it would not be able to support its gravity loads. ….Figure 11-19. Critical Twist Angle in Beams/Girders." The beams framing onto the girders were eccentrically located at the top section of the girder.

• Lagging expansion of the concrete due to the fires on the 12th and 13th floors bearing and laterally pushing on the girder.
• At Column 79 Floors 6-13 failure of the bolts or welds for the two girder fin supports. Loss of east-west horizontal support of the columns over 8 floors shown. (NCSTAR 1-9A Figure 4-17 p. 81)

The opinion that fires had nothing to do with the collapse of WTC7 is political and false.

 

[BasqueArch]

Originally Posted by Tony Szamboti
I will say that I believe the asymmetrically located east penthouse was pulled down inside the building so it wouldn't fly off or topple, with column 79 taken out up high only. The window damage you point out is only high in the building and supports this....So the initially directional and focused shockwave would have expanded conically to about 30 to 40 feet wide after traveling 45 feet and produced four blown out windows.

....

Originally Posted by Tony Szamboti
A shaped charge blast at column 79 could have caused precisely the damage we observe of four adjacent broken windows on the north face. .....

See:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=8277885#post8277885


Can you spot the blunder:

1. TS' silent blast.
2. Then penthouse begins collapse.
3. Then penthouse continues collapse.
4. Then no broken windows
5. Then one window breaks.
6. Then another window breaks
7. Then two more windows break.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

..and it means that us military engineer types using shaped charges to cut steel didn't need to hide behind barriers to protect us from the back blast. And all those bits that whistled over our heads were either our imaginations OR pure coincidence from some other activity which seemed to happen every time we used the shaped charges.

Somehow I think I will stay with the conventional understanding. Even if Tony was prepared to put his money where his mouth is and stand unprotected behind an exploding shaped charge I would still retreat the distance and behind cover.

And Claymore mines.... they operate in the exact opposite manner to shaped charges. They use a convex explosive charge to cover a wide swath to a significant distance in front of the charge rather than a narrow point a few inches from the warhead in the case of a HEAT round. A common infantry/anti-personnel weapon in use since Viet Nam; just one more thing that doesn't exist according to Tony.

And little Katie Bender would have been 28 years old by now, possibly having children of her own....

 

[BasqueArch]

For my 1,000th post.
At lower right pick the full screen button.​

1. http://vimeo.com/21678371​

2. http://vimeo.com/21678413​

3. http://vimeo.com/21674069​

 

[Oystein]

Since secrecy, unlike every other controlled demo in history, was arguably the sooper sekrit nin-jews paramount objective, the complexity would have been multiplied many times over. The narrowness of the time-frame also multiplies the complexity many times over. Using the windows twoofers claim (the two weeks prior to 9/11 that they falsely claim bomb sniffing dogs were removed and/or the equally mythical 36 hour power down) the manpower required for a job that would have taken CDIs 12 man crew the better part of a decade to complete is multiplied to an absurd extreme.

Something we never hear about Szamboti, Harrit, Jones et al, is pre-weakening of the structures involved. While a standard component of controlled demolitions (done in part to reduce the backblasts that Tony swears doesn't exist), the only thing more absurd than thousands of ninjas tearing apart a major Wall Street office complex to access and plant explosives directly on structural beams is thousands of other ninjas carting about big-ass tanks of oxygen and acetylene and tearing apart a major Wall Street office complex to access and cut through structural beams in full view of thousands of stock brokers, accountants and secretaries shuffling about.

If there was no pre-weakening involved, then the number of charges would have been multiplied.

That all makes sense, but isn't what I was getting at.

All I am saying is:
- The number and total mass of charges used for real controlled demolitions is larger than what you need at least for mere destruction.
- Also, that these numbers don't necessarily scale in a straightforward way with building size. If a building rests on 4 columns, you need only 2 charges to make it collapse completely, no matter if its 10 stories tall or 100.

You go beyond that by pointing out some of the objectives and constraints that the Twoofers' imaginary demolishers must have had, that are not the same as those that real CD companies have, and that also tend to increase the number and total mass of charges.

Just cautioning you to take CD references and claim this is what you need.

 

[ozeco41]

And Claymore mines.... they operate in the exact opposite manner to shaped charges. They use a convex explosive charge to cover a wide swath to a significant distance in front of the charge rather than a narrow point a few inches from the warhead in the case of a HEAT round. A common infantry/anti-personnel weapon in use since Viet Nam; just one more thing that doesn't exist according to Tony.....

Yes. I didn't think of those - Ryan spoke of the Artillery/Armour stuff - HESH, HEAT, APDS and all those other acronyms. I've never played with them but being a sapper I have used shaped charges for dems training. And the Claymore is standard Infantry Grunt stuff - in the Aussie Army through my time we tended to use a lot of US gear due to our involvement in Vietnam. But the basic engineers demolition methods and gear tended to be British origin - little changed from WW2.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

You go beyond that by pointing out some of the objectives and constraints that the Twoofers' imaginary demolishers must have had, that are not the same as those that real CD companies have, and that also tend to increase the number and total mass of charges.

Fair enough. Point taken.

As Loizeaux points out in the BBC doc, the controlled demolition of towers 1, 2 and 7 simply could.. not... have... happened... period. I was making straight one-to-one comparisons. You correctly point out they are more limited than that, but the guy who actually does this for a living places it all entirely into the realm of fantasy regardless of wether it's thousands of charges or hundreds.

 

[ozeco41]

... Something we never hear about Szamboti, Harrit, Jones et al, is pre-weakening of the structures involved....

If there was no pre-weakening involved, then the number of charges would have been multiplied.

You are right.

And there is another slant on pre-weakening:

Pre-weakening was a standard claim back in 2006-7-8 when the focus was on the Twin Towers. Usually in the form of pre-cutting the lower parts of the cores. Clearly a false claim given that there is sufficient video evidence of Twin towers collapse mechanisms.

Don't lose sight of why the truthers now put all the emphasis on WTC7. They lost the claim for Twin towers CD early for the simple reason that sufficient evidence was in full view to show "No CD" to anyone with the dual handicaps of honesty and a thinking brain.

The truthers preferred tactics for CD discussion is to claim an anomaly which could possibly be involved in CD THEN immediately reverse burden of proof for the debunkers to prove the whole scenario wasn't CD. Debunkers often willing to accept reverse burden of proof because it is not a big handicap when the evidence is so overwhelming "our" way. Remember also that no truther has ever put forward a reasoned supportable complete hypothesis in favour of CD - all of them one or two anomalies out of context.

And WTC7 was a gift from the Gods for truthers because the evidence is all hidden so debunkers cannot prove it wasn't CD with anywhere near the ease it was for the Twins. And overlooking it aint the debunkers burden of proof.

So take this thread as an example. Tony (for the main example) sticks true to form and chooses to "prove" that NIST was wrong on the walk-off explanation.

Just a few fatal flaws on his non-argument like:
1) If the claim is CD whether NIST got the explanation right or wrong is totally irrelevant to the question of "CD or not?"

2) It is up to him as claimant to prove his claim which at this stage he pretends to limit to "NIST wuz wrong" but gives away his real agenda by multiple references to CD.

3) He hasn't even completed his claim that NIST was wrong which at best is supporting evidence of little value if ever we get to his claims of CD. The "No CD" claim rests on the fact that there either was or was not CD - it does not rely on whether NIST's explanation was right.

4) If we ever move on to the CD claim - not in this thread maybe - the girder walk-off is just another example of truther trickery (i) Identifying an anomaly; (ii) implying that it alone somehow proves CD; (iii) calling on us to prove it wrong AND (iv) never putting a complete supportable hypothesis.

(Probably the sole current exception to this tactic is C7's trolling where his apparent objective is to keep debate going round in circles - a ploy he is very successful with - and he uses "stand alone" anomalies as the pivots for circling. The commitment to circling proven many times when he ignores sound technical explanations which are too accurate for him to respond to. See my recent examples.)

 

[ozeco41]

For my 1,000th post.
At lower right pick the full screen button.​

1. http://vimeo.com/21678371​

2. http://vimeo.com/21678413​

3. http://vimeo.com/21674069​

Congratulations.

I recall on the Richard Dawkins Forum back in 2006-7 we used to make a big thing of 1000 posts - you got "veteran status" and access to some sub forums limited to veterans. Not appropriate here or in 2012 but it was a novelty in those relatively early days of forumming.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

(Probably the sole current exception to this tactic is C7's trolling where his apparent objective is to keep debate going round in circles - a ploy he is very successful with - and he uses "stand alone" anomalies as the pivots for circling. The commitment to circling proven many times when he ignores sound technical explanations which are too accurate for him to respond to. See my recent examples.)

If I had a dollar for every @#$%ing time he repeats "2.25 seconds of freefall" ad nauseam, I'd be driving a Ferrari, married to Jessica Simpson and cheating with Scarlett Johansen.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Detail A below shows the initial conditions as drawn.
[qimg]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/wtc7a.jpg/[/qimg][qimg]http://imageshack.us/f/96/wtc7a.jpg/[/qimg][qimg]http://imageshack.us/f/96/wtc7a.jpg/[/qimg][qimg]http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg96/scaled.php?server=96&filename=wtc7a.jpg&res=landing[/qimg]
Detail B below shows the girder displacement as calculated by TS without the column 76 girder push. The girder load is at the tip of the cantilevered seat.


[qimg]http://imageshack.us/f/818/wtc7b.jpg/[/qimg][qimg]http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg818/scaled.php?server=818&filename=wtc7b.jpg&res=landing[/qimg]

Detail B1 below shows the girder displacement with the 1” column 76 girder push. The girder load is at the tip of the 4 7/16” cantilevered seat.
“The temperature of the girder between Columns 76 and 79 on Floor 13 was sufficient to displace Column 76 to the west and Column 79 to the east.” (NCSTAR 1-9 p527).
[qimg]http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg217/scaled.php?server=217&filename=wtc7b1.jpg&res=landing[/qimg]

Detail C shows the sagging girder with a 20” deflection, similar to the beams deflection modeled by NIST. Any girder deflection would place the girder load at the tip of the cantilevered seat.

[qimg]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/wtc7c.jpg/[/qimg][qimg]http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/9341/wtc7c.jpg[/qimg]

Detail D shows the condition at 13th floor Column 79 seat. The 83.7k load was calculated at 100 psf for 837 sf of area at the tip of the 4 7/16” cantilevered seat. It looks like torque would fail the seat in bending or shear and the girder would slide off, but I can’t do the math.

NIST didn’t consider the vertical failure of the seat and its model included a seat stiffener at Col 79 not shown in the plans.
“Since vertical failure of the seat was not considered (Section 11.2.5), the connections at Columns 79 and 81 were both modeled as stiffened seats.” (NCSTAR 1-9 p.558) See “Figure 12-25 Seat connection in global model Column 79. (p. 559)
[qimg]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/wtc7d.jpg/[/qimg]
[qimg]http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg855/scaled.php?server=855&filename=wtc7d.jpg&res=landing[/qimg]

The conclusions that the columns, beams and girders failed by fire were the result of the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), FEA - ANSYS and LS-DYNA models over time.
NCSTAR 1-9 p 536 “ The ANSYS model included nonlinear effects, such as: nonlinear temperature-dependent material properties including thermal expansion, plasticity and creep; nonlinear geometry; and user defined elements that captured the details of temperature dependent connection failures.”

Other forces unaccounted for in the above details leading to failure of this girder or buckling of Column 79:

• Twisting and failure of the girder at the Critical Twist Angle:

NCSTA 1-9 p487 " When lateral support of the top (compression) flange was lost, floor beams and girders could laterally displace and buckle in a lateral-torsional mode. ...If a beam or girder twisted half of its flange width laterally, it would not be able to support its gravity loads. ….Figure 11-19. Critical Twist Angle in Beams/Girders." The beams framing onto the girders were eccentrically located at the top section of the girder.

• Lagging expansion of the concrete due to the fires on the 12th and 13th floors bearing and laterally pushing on the girder.
• At Column 79 Floors 6-13 failure of the bolts or welds for the two girder fin supports. Loss of east-west horizontal support of the columns over 8 floors shown. (NCSTAR 1-9A Figure 4-17 p. 81)

The opinion that fires had nothing to do with the collapse of WTC7 is political and false.

You left something out. The girder between column 76 and 79 would have buckled before it could even push column 79 a half inch to the east.

There also is no way to cause 20 inches of deflection on the girder between column 79 and 44 the way you show it. The deflection at 500 degrees C for this girder with the load on it would have been more like 2 inches.

Try again.

 

[tsig]

So we're back to hush-a-boom high explosive (except when it's not) bombs? Oh dear..

Not just hush-a-boom but also a one-way boom.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

From the Global Security website you linked to

When the shaped charge detonates, most of its energy is focused on the steel plate, driving it forward and pushing the test gas ahead of it.

Sloppy wording from a website whose author likely wasn't expecting crazy people to use his work to justify chasing phantoms through Dick Cheneys sock drawer. The focus point of a shaped charge receives the most energy of any point in its vicinity, it does not receive most of the energy from the explosive. It's a subtle change that makes a world of difference.

Your claim that there is virtually no backscatter from a shaped charge is still basically career suicide (potential employers know how to use google, you should be more careful).

Your hallucinatory shaped charge on column 79 would have blown out every gawdamn window on the floor it was on. No ifs, ands or butts. The hundreds of other charges (as per Oysteins suggestion) would have blown out all the rest.

No broken windows = No bombs.

Period.