93 white paper and the WTC

alexg

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An article at 911 reasearch http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html states that:

"A white paper released on February 3, 1964 states that the Towers could have withstood impacts of jetliners travelling 600 mph -- a speed greater than the impact speed of either jetliner used on 9/11/01."

This does not appear to be sourced or even attributed to anyone in particular, if I am reading correctly. Does anyone know anyhting about it?


Thanks.
 
The issue is covered in brief here: http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showpost.php?p=2051048&postcount=1294

And in question 1 of NIST's FAQ: http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

Calculations may have been done of a 600 mph strike, but they were incomplete and were not a design requirement. Of course, the buildings did survive high-speed airliner impacts. No indication is given that calculations of the effects of the subsequent fires or destruction of fire resistant materials was attempted. Leslie Robertson explicitly says that no such calculations were made.
 
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Gravy said:
The issue is covered in brief here: http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showpost.php?p=2051048&postcount=1294

And in question 1 of NIST's FAQ: http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

Calculations may have been done of a 600 mph strike, but they were incomplete and were not a design requirement. Of course, the buildings did survive high-speed airliner impacts. No indication is given that calculations of the effects of the subsequent fires or destruction of fire resistant materials was attempted. Leslie Robertson explicitly says that no such calculations were made.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I think what all the CTers fail to see, is that if you take ONLY the impact of the airliners on 9/11, NIST states, as do other experts, that the buildings likely would have survived. The severing of the columns alone would not have been sufficient. In fact, it seems the critical factor was the removal of the fireproofing and then the exposure to the fires that lead to the collapse some 50+ minutes after the initial impact.

Jet impact + Fires = No collapse

Jet impact + removal of fireproofing + No Fires = No collapse

Fires alone = no collapse

Jet impact + removal of fireproofing + fires = eventual (50-70m later) collapse

TAM:)
 
What our CT friends tend to do is dissect each event at the towers into separate events and debate them one at a time.

Example:
"The fire alone could not have caused the buildings to collapse"
"The impact alone could not have caused the buildings to collapse"
Would both come from the same person in the same argument.

But they never attempt to connect the several attributing factors. 9/11 Mysteries does this a lot.

At one point they state that the jet fuel played no role in the building collapsing. The funny thing is that earlier in the movie they say something like "Imagine building expressly for aircraft impact without considering the burning fuel". Contradiction +1
 
T.A.M. said:
Jet impact + Fires = No collapse

Jet impact + removal of fireproofing + No Fires = No collapse

Fires alone = no collapse

Jet impact + removal of fireproofing + fires = eventual (50-70m later) collapse
Click to expand...


Bear in mind that both Edinburgh University and Ove Arup have suggested that fire alones may have led to collapse, given sufficient intensity.
 
It's important to note that nobody actually has any paperwork on a 600 mph analysis. All that exists is a memo stating that a 600 mph analysis had been done.

600 mph is about the maximum speed a 707 was capable of going and was faster than a DC-8 could have gone. And that's at altitude. At the very low altitudes and heavier air of the WTC, sustained speeds of 600 mph would pull any plane apart - certainly a 707.

There is also no reason to think that anybody in 1964 was worried about a plane hitting the WTC at full speed. The only comperable situation had been a plane, lost in the fog, slowly circling down and looking for an airport. The only enemy we had in 1964 who could attack us was the USSR and they had missiles and long-range bombers - there is no evidence anybody ever believed the Russians would fly planes into targets when they had perfectly good atomic bombs if it came to that.

And, as has been stated, any study of a plane impact in 1964 would be woefully inadequate by today's standards. The fastest computer on the planet had about the same processing power as a $900 desktop today. And even today, our best computers cannot model all the forces at work. All they could do back then is guess how much of the support structure would be knocked out and then try to predict if the building could support the redistributed load. Fuel and fires were way beyond their capabilities.

All in all, there is no sane reason why anyone would try to model a 600 mph crash back then. The most likely scenerio is that the 600 mph figure was misreported. Otherwise, let someone come forward with the actual analysis - not a memo saying an analysis had been done - and let's see what it did and did not account for.
 
Leslie E. Robertson said:
"The twin towers of the World Trade Center were designed to resist safely the impacting by the largest aircraft of that time...the intercontinental version of the Boeing 707. In no small measure because of the high level of competence of the men and women of LERA, each of the towers resisted the impact of an aircraft larger than the 707. Yes, fire brought down the towers, but the structural integrity created by the engineers of LERA allowed perhaps thousands of persons to evacuate the buildings prior to the fire-induced collapse." http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/WTC/LesRobertson.html


Leslie E. Robertson said: on being hit by a commercial jet -
" It appears that about 25,000 people safely exited the buildings, almost all of them from below the impact floors; almost everyone above the impact floors perished, either from the impact and fire or from the subsequent collapse. The structures of the buildings were heroic in some ways but less so in others. The buildings survived the impact of the Boeing 767 aircraft, an impact very much greater than had been contemplated in our design (a slow-flying Boeing 707 lost in the fog and seeking a landing field). Therefore, the robustness of the towers was exemplary. At the same time, the fires raging in the inner reaches of the buildings undermined their strength. In time, the unimaginable happened . . . wounded by the impact of the aircraft and bleeding from the fires, both of the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed."

http://www.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/CGOZ-58NLCB?OpenDocument

I do not doubt the towers could handle the impact; they did.

Robertson is the designer; the others are not.
 
einsteen said:
The plane might be full of fuel, they forgot it... just a minor mistake.
Click to expand...
Perhaps it's not quite that simple.

"The two towers were the first structures outside of the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airliner, the Boeing 707. It was assumed that the jetliner would be lost in the fog, seeking to land at JFK or at Newark. To the best of our knowledge, little was known about the effects of a fire from such an aircraft, and no designs were prepared for that circumstance. Indeed, at that time, no fireproofing systems were available to control the effects of such fires." –Leslie Robertson

http://www.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/CGOZ-58NLCB?OpenDocument
Click to expand...
 
Architect said:
Bear in mind that both Edinburgh University and Ove Arup have suggested that fire alones may have led to collapse, given sufficient intensity.
Click to expand...

1. Thanks
2. Got Links?
3. I revise my original statement to say, that NIST has suggested it would take all 3 components to cause collapse, others have suggested even just the fire, but this obviously is open to more debate.

TAM
 
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