Debate! What debate?

[rwguinn]

<<Snip to humor:>
Mine already is depressing because of all the cleaning up I have to do.
Some one should have told me not to do this.

Now, CC:
Would you have actually taken action on our advice not to do this?
I mean--ook at your first name...

 

[Stankeye]

.....
One Cter actually called me the Crazy Caveman from Jerf, and told me to ask Nova about the sulfide even sent me a link to this program.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/caves/about.html

Now that Idea is Major Woo, that bacteria could have been responsible for the sulfides.
....

Why?

Biological Corrosion does produce sulfides. Not that I am saying this is the case here, but to dismiss it as "Major Woo" seems strange. While this persons analogy to rock bacteria is strange it still does not mean the WTC did not have any biological corrosion.

Earlier Phantom Wolf had some great questions regarding corrosion on the WTC that no one answered. Corrosion produces all kinds of interesting reactions and the fact that the WTC had such dissimilar metals also begs the question of how much was going on. While I doubt biological corrosion played any significant part in the overall corrosion of the WTC, one can't call it Woo.

Here's a good general article on corrosion. http://www.key-to-metals.com/Article13.htm

I'm curious if there were any corrosion engineers involved with NIST or if any have looked at any of this information.

 

[Gravy]

I read them.

Which elevator caused the basement damage in the North Tower? It is a simple question.

If you read them, you didn't understand them. Here's a hint: where was Felipe David standing when he was burned by a fireball on the B-1 level?

 

[Gravy]

Corrosion produces all kinds of interesting reactions and the fact that the WTC had such dissimilar metals also begs the question of how much was going on.

To "beg the question" means to use circular reasoning, which is what you are doing here. Please be specific about these "dissimilar metals" in the WTC and how you think they interacted. Thanks.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

Why?

Biological Corrosion does produce sulfides. Not that I am saying this is the case here, but to dismiss it as "Major Woo" seems strange. While this persons analogy to rock bacteria is strange it still does not mean the WTC did not have any biological corrosion.

Earlier Phantom Wolf had some great questions regarding corrosion on the WTC that no one answered. Corrosion produces all kinds of interesting reactions and the fact that the WTC had such dissimilar metals also begs the question of how much was going on. While I doubt biological corrosion played any significant part in the overall corrosion of the WTC, one can't call it Woo.

Here's a good general article on corrosion. http://www.key-to-metals.com/Article13.htm

I'm curious if there were any corrosion engineers involved with NIST or if any have looked at any of this information.

NO NIST looked at it then dismissed it, but the corrosion is well known as SO2 attack, and gypsum can store SO2. There are several sources of SO2 in the buildings, and one of those just happens to be bacterial , Bacteria and fungus actually eat diesel fuel and emit SO2.

 

[Stankeye]

To "beg the question" means to use circular reasoning, which is what you are doing here. Please be specific about these "dissimilar metals" in the WTC and how you think they interacted. Thanks.

My point wasn't to "beg the question" but to address the many variables that would exist within the WTC. It appears people are looking for the source of the iron spheres and I was just stating things that are already well proven scientific facts.

Anytime two dissimilar metals come into contact with each other you have the potential for corrosion. One will act as an anode and one will act as a cathode. My experience comes from the marine oil field, as pipelines and platforms tend to corrode very quickly in the ocean environment. You can protect both pipelines and platforms by using Aluminum as anodes, they will sacrifice their mass to save the steel.

I have no idea what the WTC designers used to protect the steel but when they put the aluminum on the outside of the steel this may have been their objective.

Phantom Wolf seemed to have more knowledge of the corrosion that the towers were experiencing based on his post Herethat none of the heavy hitters responded to.

I think he's on to something. This may even satisfy the "cover-up" crowd as if they had bigger issues with corrosion then they let on then the structure will have been weaker than originally thought. (Just pure speculation mind you)

Anyways it seems that Greening has questions, I personally don't, I just think that Phantom Wolf had some good points that went unoticed/ unanswered.

 

[Gravy]

I don't know what you mean about Phantom Wolf's post.

I understand what galvanic corrosion is.

The steel columns beneath the aluminum cladding were covered with thermal protection, as fire protection and to minimize expansion from heating by the sun.

The towers underwent regular inspections, both routine and when needed because of renovations. They weren't corroding away.

 

[Stankeye]

I don't know what you mean about Phantom Wolf's post.

I understand what galvanic corrosion is.

The steel columns beneath the aluminum cladding were covered with thermal protection, as fire protection and to minimize expansion from heating by the sun.

The towers underwent regular inspections, both routine and when needed because of renovations. They weren't corroding away.

I linked his post in my response to you.

Here it is again http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2500273&postcount=613

The pertinent quote is this though.

"With maintenance reports indicating that indeed they were having rust problems, could this be a possible source of the sphericals?"

Again I don't have any data other than that quote, and Greenings search for the "sphericals" made it seem like a good place to look but there was no answer. I was just following it up.

 

[Gravy]

Yes, I had read his post, but thank you for clarifying what you meant. The spherical iron particles Greening referred to were apparently created by heat, and according to the sources I quoted were an expected result of such fires.

 

[Newtons Bit]

All structural steel rusts. By the time you get it to the construction site, it's already rusted, unless you're the engineer of record and you specified architectually exposed structural steel in the job spec and the shop fabricators spent all that time sand blasting and properly painting the steel. AESS is expensssssive.

After 30 years, I can imagine the rust being pretty bad in some places, not enough to actually be damaging to the structural.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Since it's a line in my post, I should clarify. During the inspections of the fireproofing in the core, it was discovered that there was surface rusting on the core columns that was causing the fireproofing to be easily dislodged. This is not really unexpected in older buildings (heck I know of one building where the rebar inside the concrete started to rust, now that WAS a problem.) I don't think that the amount of rust that was noted during the inspections was sufficent to weaken the structure, but it may be signicant enough to be a potential source of Iron Oxide in the dust.

 

[metamars]

Calculation utilizing Calladine and English support Ross

Back of the envelope calc using Calladine and English, supporting the plausibility of the Ross paper


What follows is a rough application of their results to a contrived variation of the Gordon Ross scenario (which, in turn, is based on Bazant Zhou), to see if his results are plausible.

Calladine and English state that the effects of Kinetic Energy scale linearly with volume. I assume constant density, and thus calculate mass ratios.* CE's experiment furthermore shows non-catastrophic bending for a Type II device in the case of a drop from .72 h, with a weight that is 41x the weight of the impacted device.

NEU-FONZE has recently stated in a physorg thread that the weight of the columns constitute about 6% of the weight of a floor (near an impact region.)

In the Bazant Zhou scenario, m(14 storeys) impacts a floor. The weight ratio, compared to CE, are:

(14x / 6%) / 71x = 3.28

Thus, we have roughly 3.28x the mass ratio tested in the CE {.72h-41x} scenario.

Furthermore, in BZ's scenario, the free fall is through a height of h, not .72h. Since gravitational potential energy is linear with height, and since no impedance is assumed for the inital free fall through height h, we have 4.56x the relative kinetic energy available in CE's experiment.


Now, we don't know how much more of an impact the device in question in CE could have withstood before failing. But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that it absorbed the maximum amount possible. (In other words, with an infinitessimal amount more energy of impact, it would have failed completely).


(If this were true and if the columns of the impacted floor were fixed at the bottom of the storey, then there would have been failure of the topmost impacted storey columns.

However, while a fixed lower end matches matches the CE scenario very well, it does not match reality very well. There is no "magic wall" between column splices that fixes them in vertically in space, until such time as a collapse descends to their level.)


From Gordon Ross' paper, we see that in the time it takes for the topmost impacted floor columns to undergo their 3% shortening phase ( = .013 seconds; call this t0 ), the impact force would be felt by 16 storeys.


Now, assume that energy dissipation effects for the first t0/2 seconds are entirely confined to the topmost impacted storey. Also, assume that energy dissipation effects ala CE are entirely applicable to the next 8 storeys for the next t0/2 seconds (when the topmost storey will still be carrying it's load effectively). Finally, assume that the CE energy dissipation effects will be equally "spread" over these 8 storeys.

With these assumptions, we see that energy dissipation per storey, for these 8 storeys, is roughly

4.27x / 8 = 53% of the energy necessary for a non-catastrophic buckling.

IOW, Ross' conclusion of an arrested collapse are sustained.


(In this calc, I've ignored the energy dissipation "lost" by the topmost, impacted storey in the .2% elastic compression phase, as well as the energy lost by the topmost impacted storey during the first half of it's 3% shortening phase.)


The Calladine and English paper is not exactly applicable to the BZ/Gordon Ross scenario, because the geometries of the CE Type II apparatus is not an I-Beam or box column. Some of the references I posted recently may allow us to make a similar computation for at least box columns.


* From CE:

For the sake of definiteness, suppose that we have (1) a prototype structure and (2) an accurate scale model of it, made from the same material and with every linear dimension equal to beta (beta < 1) times the mass of the prototype. Let the prototype be designed to withstand an impact from a moving rigid mass having kinetic energy Omega and velocity V0. What kinetic energy and velocity should be used in testing the scale model, in order that the final deformed configuration of the model should be an exact small-scale representation of the prototype?

The kinetic energy is easily dealt with. It should be equl to (beta^^3)(Omega), so that the energy input per unit volume of material is equal to both prototype and model...

I do not actually consider the dimensions involved, but note that for equal density, a volume ratio will exactly equal a mass ratio. Although, in the WTC collapses, the top was not solid metal, in terms of figuring out whether catastrophic buckling would occur, it seems to me that assuming it is cannot affect results much.

 

[Gravy]

That's a lot of assumptions, the biggest, IMO, being that the upper mass is falling squarely on the lower.

 

[beachnut]

Back of the envelope calc using Calladine and English, supporting the plausibility of the Ross paper


What follows is a rough application of their results to a contrived variation of the Gordon Ross scenario (which, in turn, is based on Bazant Zhou), to see if his results are plausible.

Calladine and English state that the effects of Kinetic Energy scale linearly with volume. I assume constant density, and thus calculate mass ratios.* CE's experiment furthermore shows non-catastrophic bending for a Type II device in the case of a drop from .72 h, with a weight that is 41x the weight of the impacted device.

NEU-FONZE has recently stated in a physorg thread that the weight of the columns constitute about 6% of the weight of a floor (near an impact region.)

In the Bazant Zhou scenario, m(14 storeys) impacts a floor. The weight ratio, compared to CE, are:

(14x / 6%) / 71x = 3.28

Thus, we have roughly 3.28x the mass ratio tested in the CE {.72h-41x} scenario.

Furthermore, in BZ's scenario, the free fall is through a height of h, not .72h. Since gravitational potential energy is linear with height, and since no impedance is assumed for the inital free fall through height h, we have 4.56x the relative kinetic energy available in CE's experiment.


Now, we don't know how much more of an impact the device in question in CE could have withstood before failing. But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that it absorbed the maximum amount possible. (In other words, with an infinitessimal amount more energy of impact, it would have failed completely).


(If this were true and if the columns of the impacted floor were fixed at the bottom of the storey, then there would have been failure of the topmost impacted storey columns.

However, while a fixed lower end matches matches the CE scenario very well, it does not match reality very well. There is no "magic wall" between column splices that fixes them in vertically in space, until such time as a collapse descends to their level.)


From Gordon Ross' paper, we see that in the time it takes for the topmost impacted floor columns to undergo their 3% shortening phase ( = .013 seconds; call this t0 ), the impact force would be felt by 16 storeys.


Now, assume that energy dissipation effects for the first t0/2 seconds are entirely confined to the topmost impacted storey. Also, assume that energy dissipation effects ala CE are entirely applicable to the next 8 storeys for the next t0/2 seconds (when the topmost storey will still be carrying it's load effectively). Finally, assume that the CE energy dissipation effects will be equally "spread" over these 8 storeys.

With these assumptions, we see that energy dissipation per storey, for these 8 storeys, is roughly

4.27x / 8 = 53% of the energy necessary for a non-catastrophic buckling.

IOW, Ross' conclusion of an arrested collapse are sustained.


(In this calc, I've ignored the energy dissipation "lost" by the topmost, impacted storey in the .2% elastic compression phase, as well as the energy lost by the topmost impacted storey during the first half of it's 3% shortening phase.)


The Calladine and English paper is not exactly applicable to the BZ/Gordon Ross scenario, because the geometries of the CE Type II apparatus is not an I-Beam or box column. Some of the references I posted recently may allow us to make a similar computation for at least box columns.


* From CE:

I do not actually consider the dimensions involved, but note that for equal density, a volume ratio will exactly equal a mass ratio. Although, in the WTC collapses, the top was not solid metal, in terms of figuring out whether catastrophic buckling would occur, it seems to me that assuming it is cannot affect results much.

So what is the lay person conclusion?

I used Ross work and my own and found him to be wrong about the energy not being enough to start global collapse, just using a napkin and physics. I am confirmed by 9/11 with the global collapse of WTC1 and 2.

I love physics and napkins, and pens. I bet lots of money has been made using napkins.

I think anyone with some simple calculations can discover Ross was wrong by about as much he said he was short on energy, the amount was actually that much over.

So what is your conclusion? Is Ross correct, yet the towers collapsed so he is wrong? Or what?

 

[Apollo20]

Yes, GR is obviously wrong on that one

 

[beachnut]

Yes, GR is obviously wrong on that one

Using Ross's work it seemed too easy to find alternate calculations to prove his theory wrong. And when you use his numbers and look at the small amount of energy he says is missing to start global collapse, it was easy to see just 10 or 20 percent changes would negate his conclusion.

Why do the Scholars for truth mislead others when they present no viable work to support CTs about 9/11? I doubt TS1234 understands anything about Ross's paper.

 

[metamars]

So what is the lay person conclusion?

I used Ross work and my own and found him to be wrong about the energy not being enough to start global collapse, just using a napkin and physics. I am confirmed by 9/11 with the global collapse of WTC1 and 2.

I love physics and napkins, and pens. I bet lots of money has been made using napkins.

I think anyone with some simple calculations can discover Ross was wrong by about as much he said he was short on energy, the amount was actually that much over.

So what is your conclusion? Is Ross correct, yet the towers collapsed so he is wrong? Or what?

My conclusion is that the Ross results are plausible, as I clearly stated. If you read my other posts on this thread, I've also made it crystal clear that I am ultimately trying to get qualified individuals to apply Calladine and English corrections to BZ, primarily, and Greening and Ross secondarily. Their works will doubtless be superior to my post.

The Gordon Ross scenario follows from the Bazant Zhou scenario, which assumes symmetry (and thus an axial strike amongst all the columns). If you say that any paper that assumes an axial strike must ultimately be discounted, I would not disagree.

The question is, though, when will NIST admit so much?

 

[R.Mackey]

Calladine and English state that the effects of Kinetic Energy scale linearly with volume. I assume constant density, and thus calculate mass ratios.* CE's experiment furthermore shows non-catastrophic bending for a Type II device in the case of a drop from .72 h, with a weight that is 41x the weight of the impacted device.

Just to point out the very, very obvious, while the effects of kinetic energy may scale with volume, the properties of a column do not.

I still haven't read the paper, but you cannot assume the upper and lower pieces are homogenous solids. This will eliminate the lateral strain energy contribution, which is the very heart of the NIST hypothesis for collapse initiation, and thus a major component of sustained collapse.

 

[gumboot]

That's a lot of assumptions, the biggest, IMO, being that the upper mass is falling squarely on the lower.

Which is not just an assumption, of course, but false, as the upper portion can be observed twisting in both collapses. If the columns are not aligned, the only thing between the massive columns and the ground is 70-odd (WTC2) or 90-odd (WTC1) light weight floor trusses.

-Gumboot

 

[metamars]

Yes, GR is obviously wrong on that one

In light of Calladine and English, do you still believe his main conclusion incorrect - viz., that collapse would have been arrested?

Please don't answer this unless you read Calladine and English. And please don't say something like "well, it wasn't really symmetric". We all know that. The Ross paper, like BZ, assumes symmetry.

I am not here to debate the merits/demerits of Ross' paper. Even your paper is not my main interest.

However, speaking of your paper, do you still stand by your figure for E1? Again, unless you familiarize yourself with CE, I'm not particularly interested in your response.