Total Building Collapse from a Single Column Failure

[jaydeehess]

In the towers the steel members were permantly marked with identifiers. Recovered steel with intact markings could be positively placed. This was in most cases iirc, painted numbers.

WTC7 was different in that its structural members lacked such identifiers so I am at a loss as to how NIST could locate and test steel from the vicinity of column 79 on the 12/13th floor.

 

[jaydeehess]

But he told me in discussion and email that he doesn't understand the structural issues well to comment on failure modes...he defers to engineers.

Did he or any others have objections to the level of detail, or the production of, the fire progression fire simulation? Were they instead more concerned with the level and detail of NIST's final reccommedations?

 

[JSanderO]

No you don't. You're just pulling your beliefs outta thin air...

I find it sad that although you are an architect and therefore educated, you seem to believe - or at the very least require in your scenario of disbelief - that the floor collapse on 13 would leave the "other 3 sides" of column 79 in pristine condition and doing their "bracing" job as designed.

That's ludicrous....

I do not think this to be the case. All I said is that a a missing girder will not collapse a column or lead to Euler buckling which for a steel column requires it have an SR over 150 and that would mean unbraced for 273' feet.

If the failure was not Euler buckling as I believe Ozzie states.. what was the mechanism?

You tell me Mr Butz. I have been asking this since the thread was started.

 

[JSanderO]

Did he or any others have objections to the level of detail, or the production of, the fire progression fire simulation? Were they instead more concerned with the level and detail of NIST's final reccommedations?

My sense is the consensus was that NIST did not follow recommendations for an accident investigation, that they refused to accept the assistance of the NTSB or to properly catalog the evidence. Consensus was they did a piss poor job in their investigation. The group did not discuss the NIST report of thesis.

 

[jaydeehess]

So why bring them up in the context of fire temps? They are the experts in THAT field are they not? Yet no discussion on that front much less objection to the fire Sim?

 

[JSanderO]

In the towers the steel members were permantly marked with identifiers. Recovered steel with intact markings could be positively placed. This was in most cases iirc, painted numbers.

WTC7 was different in that its structural members lacked such identifiers so I am at a loss as to how NIST could locate and test steel from the vicinity of column 79 on the 12/13th floor.

I appreciate that you aren't blowing me off like a crazy truther. I am completely independent and simply call BS as I see it. I simply am disappointed in NIST... their presentation, protocol, secrecy, and ultimately their conclusion which is a silly model which they made up "evidence" to support without providing a single piece of steel to support it in any way.

Ok maybe they couldn't identify the steel... maybe.. very very very hard to believe. We identify the steel sections in surveys all the time in old buildings without prints or markings. How any 14WF720s with 2 2" plates welded to the flanges would there be in the tower? I am going to call BS on that and you Mr JDH are making excuses for NIST much as my beloved Ozzie is doing.

Why can't you see a snow job when it's smack in your face?

I never said the NIST scenario is impossible. I said it is a long reach and not explained... and no NISTians including Butz can or will explain it... except to them it's "plausible". If Mr Butz is an engineer he won't be engineering any of our projects.

My thurst is to cut throught the BS and bluster. AE and truthers take the cake for that. NIST is on my radar for it too.

But seeing the BS I felt I needed an explanation / mechanism which is a better match. The failure was BELOW floor 13 and was not a single column. PERIOD. And once I looked for myself below when the plans were made available a few years ago... it all came into focus... It was somewhere in those transfer structures. That WOULD match the observables to a T and even the Jennings Hess "explosion" fits in there.

No I don't have proof nor evidence and in that sense TTF is not different than girder walk off which NIST has none... only their made up simulations... But a transfer structure failure is understandable and makes much much more sense. It also makes it very odd that NIST stated that nothing below 8 interested them and was investigated.

If this doesn't put you off the NIST column 79 story nothing will. That is what characterizes a NISTian... or a JREF... stubborn support of non credible bunk.

Ozzie is contorting himself in logic trying to avoid the what is in plain sight. Dog only knows why he feels he needs to defend this jerks. And I don't like to call anyone a jerk. But they've earned for their stupid classification for blowing the twins and then 7

Guys at home on the PCs (911 Free forum guys) figured out most of the twins... I got even more of it can call it Top Drop or sink holing of the core... They called out the Bazant rubbish for what it was... another made up model not real world passed off to explain how it might have happened. Who the eff cares about how it MIGHT have happened. We want to know how it DID happen.

ROOSD is no rocket science. It really very very basic and understandable but you do need to know who those towers were bolted together like an erector set.

Why didn't NIST identify ROOSD? I called them stupid or deceitful. Maybe it was an honest mistake. $16,000,000 down the crapper. How do slackers on the PCs do it and NIST can't? Why defend their incompetence?

 

[JSanderO]

So why bring them up in the context of fire temps? They are the experts in THAT field are they not? Yet no discussion on that front much less objection to the fire Sim?

I only mention this because attending was part of my education leading to my conclusion that NIST was either incompetent or deceiving us. Both not good. I fear the latter and that's really troubling.

 

[DGM]

I only mention this because attending was part of my education leading to my conclusion that NIST was either incompetent or deceiving us. Both not good. I fear the latter and that's really troubling.

You came away with that from one of Quintierre's lectures?

I've seen him also and I have no idea how you got that from him.

 

[JSanderO]

You came away with that from one of Quintierre's lectures?

I've seen him also and I have no idea how you got that from him.

It wasn't his lecture... it was a Symposium on NIST 9/11 accident disaster report. There were several presenters. I think I threw the program out.

 

[DGM]

It wasn't his lecture... it was a Symposium on NIST 9/11 accident disaster report. There were several presenters. I think I threw the program out.

I'd be interested to hear who else was there. It's no secret Quintierre wanted to spend more time working with fire progression and thought NIST (management) was too conservative.

I'd be interested in who exactly came up with the NTSB claim. Quintierre was one that wanted to keep it all in house.

 

[JSanderO]

I'd be interested to hear who else was there. It's no secret Quintierre wanted to spend more time working with fire progression and though NIST was too conservative.

I'd be interested in who exactly came up with the NTSB claim. Quintierre was one that wanted to keep it all in house.

I think Professor Glenn Corbet who is in fire science. It was Quintierre who relayed how he came to logger heads with NIST who seemed to be dead ending his efforts to conduct the fire investigation. I believe he said he brought the NTSB to NIST who he said offered NTSB resources. procedures etc. for conducting accident investigations... which to him seemed to be correct as they are known for their excellent accident reports... and NIST told them go away. I think that led to his leaving NIST.

There was also a discussion of the major fires in the US and how they were investigated and so forth. And a presentation about egress from burning buildings.

Wayne Coste of AE911T set up a table (completely inappropriate) to push their CDs... There were no more than 50 people max there. Another 9/11 event where I got a parking ticket.

My take away is that the "fire science community" did not think highly of NIST's work with regard to their investigation and evidence management. (I'm not impressed with their engineering analysis... it was probably worse!)

It was at Jon Jay College of Criminal Justice.

http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/academics/1712.php

http://johnjayresearch.org/crcers/about-3/

 

[DGM]

I think Professor Glenn Corbet who is in fire science. It was Quintierre who relayed how he came to logger heads with NIST who seemed to be dead ending his efforts to conduct the fire investigation. I believe he said he brought the NTSB to NIST who he said offered NTSB resources. procedures etc. for conducting accident investigations... which to him seemed to be correct as they are known for their excellent accident reports... and NIST told them go away. I think that led to his leaving NIST.

That makes sense that it was Corbet and not Quintierre. NIST did not tell them to "go away". They did use them for some aspects (where their expertise was relevant). I also heard this claim used against the FBI and it's why I asked.

There was also a discussion of the major fires in the US and how they were investigated and so forth. And a presentation about egress from burning buildings.

I would hope so. I can't see much disagrement with NIST here.

Wayne Coste of AE911T set up a table (completely inappropriate) to push their CDs... There were no more than 50 people max there. Another 9/11 event where I got a parking ticket.

At the same event? Seems odd. (not the parking ticket)

My take away is that the "fire science community" did not think highly of NIST's work with regard to their investigation and evidence management. (I'm not impressed with their engineering analysis... it was probably worse!)

I really haven't seen this as a whole. I know they're not thrilled with "open office design" but that's butting heads with economics more than engineering. NIST can't bite too hard on the hand that feeds them (developers). If you take every concern to mandate, no one could ever afford to build.

 

[JSanderO]

To return to the discussion of single column failure referencing specific example of col 79.

What is are the known knowns? the "evidence"
What are the known unknowns?
What are the things we don't know the don't know?

If column 79 floor 13 buckles... typical web and flange crippling...the effective length shortens it cannot support service loads and the come done... all 27 floors of columns and probably the floor areas connected to and supported by framing into that column on all those floors would collapse down probably breaking free at least partially.

So how do you buckle a single column on the 13th floor of a building from fire? Hell if I know.

The NIST scenario as I understand is that once the girder comes off the floor on the girder and the beam drops with the column.. shear studs or not. Well that's a maybe to a probably. The slab itself is a composite membrane. If it has mesh or rebar it may not come crashing down. Are we convinced it will?

But lets say it did.. would it crash down and take out the floor below it? Maybe yes maybe no.. probably not resoundingly yes if yes at all. We saw portions of slabs broken off in 1WTC and they didn't drop right down taking all the slabs sections out below. I'd say the 1wtc slab behavior is evidence that a single slab fall won't continue and likely it's fall is arrested.

Dead end. How do we get the column to buckle? How do we strip all the floors below off leaving the column with bracing? And how to we know a column with an SR ratio of 65 which is within the normal range less than 150 by a wide margin to buckle from euler forces? It won't buckle... will it?

By the way it's as hard to get this scenario to work as it is to get JREFians to tackle the problem. What's with that? are we not real men and no straw men as Ozzie likes to call my arguments.

Do we have to go back to how columns buckle?

 

[JSanderO]

"In practice, buckling is characterized by a sudden failure of a structural member subjected to high compressive stress, where the actual compressive stress at the point of failure is less than the ultimate compressive stresses that the material is capable of withstanding. Mathematical analysis of buckling often makes use of an axial load eccentricity that introduces a secondary bending moment, which is not a part of the primary applied forces to which the member is subjected. As an applied load is increased on a member, such as column, it will ultimately become large enough to cause the member to become unstable and is said to have buckled. Further load will cause significant and somewhat unpredictable deformations, possibly leading to complete loss of the member's load-carrying capacity. If the deformations that follow buckling are not catastrophic the member will continue to carry the load that caused it to buckle. If the buckled member is part of a larger assemblage of components such as a building, any load applied to the structure beyond that which caused the member to buckle will be redistributed within the structure."

OK...

It looks like column 79 did not buckle at floor 13. So what happened to column 79?

It fell along with a whole bunch of those around it It got yanked very hard laterally like kicking the leg out from under a table. Or in this case a stack of columns. Kick out one at the bottom and all the ones on top of it fall.

Why didn't NIST produce any evidence of one column 79 buckled? You know why? It didn't. Look at its dimensions: the flanges were 4.9" thick and the web 3".

Column 79 did not buckle. Ozzie are you listening.

What's the evidence you want to out in play?

Oh and by the way... those mother columns at the twin towers which DID fall from Euler buckling.. you remember them called "the Spire"... they stood for 14 seconds AFTER the collapse teetering around as the joints of the column to column connections were sheared through.

14 seconds and then they fell.

 

[JSanderO]

I really haven't seen this as a whole. I know they're not thrilled with "open office design" but that's butting heads with economics more than engineering. NIST can't bite too hard on the hand that feeds them (developers). If you take every concern to mandate, no one could ever afford to build.

You are not getting my drift...

The thrust off the presenters I listened to was:

NIST did a bad job
NIST refused to take NTSB help and literally sent them away
The history of fire investigations was intended to show how they were improving as well as fire safety and this was no improvement at all
Quintierre relayed the bit about NIST and the NTSB. I am certain it was him.

 

[DGM]

Dead end. How do we get the column to buckle? How do we strip all the floors below off leaving the column with bracing? And how to we know a column with an SR ratio of 65 which is within the normal range less than 150 by a wide margin to buckle from euler forces? It won't buckle... will it?

You just jumped ahead dismissing what NIST claims happened.

Tell us why these floors can't fail and cascade leaving the column unsupported over the required length. That's what you need to do to dismiss their claim.

 

[DGM]

You are not getting my drift...

The thrust off the presenters I listened to was:

NIST did a bad job
NIST refused to take NTSB help and literally sent them away
The history of fire investigations was intended to show how they were improving as well as fire safety and this was no improvement at all
Quintierre relayed the bit about NIST and the NTSB. I am certain it was him.

What expertise could NTSB offer that they didn't already have?

Most of the recommendations NIST made were in reaction to improving fire safety and egress. Remember protecting the core? You can't say there was no improvements.

I mean no disrespect but this sounds like you only listened to some sour grapes and interpreted them to mean more than they did.

 

[JSanderO]

back on topic. The reason that no one on this forum (NIST defenders) has attempted to explain the "failure" of column 79 (floor 13 scenario) is because no one can explain it... other than it dropped down because it lost its coupling to the foundation.

And we all know that has nothing to do with girder walk of or Euler buckling.

Don't tell me I have no evidence of what column 79 failure was. There was only one explanation and NO heavy HVAC equipment could not buckle column 79. You can bank on that too.

So the Kabuki goes on. Gerry and his band of truthers have their hair on fire about a puny web stiffener... and the NISTians run away because they can't get basic engineering concepts to explain NIST's tale.

I am not impressed and I am very disappointed by Ozzie one of my heroes.

Butz... give it your best shot. and there's always Beach...

 

[JSanderO]

What expertise could NTSB offer that they didn't already have?

Most of the recommendations NIST made were in reaction to improving fire safety and egress. Remember protecting the core? You can't say there was no improvements.

I mean no disrespect but this sounds like you only listened to some sour grapes and interpreted them to mean more than they did.

Stop it... that's nonsense. I reported what I thought I heard. It was several yrs ago... Contact the Center they may have transcripts. This was not about the recommendations but the investigation. capice?

 

[DGM]

I am not impressed and I am very disappointed by Ozzie one of my heroes.

.

You should read his posts a few times and actually respond in kind.

I hate to say it but, I still see some of the reason you joined AE in the first place.

(I think it's funny how you call people NISTians that disagree with you).