http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=john_skilling_1
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), following its three-year investigation into the WTC collapses, will in 2005 state that it has been “unable to locate any evidence to indicate consideration of the extent of impact-induced structural damage or the size of a fire that could be created by thousands of gallons of jet fuel.” [National
The interesting thing about this is that after 11 years, the 911 truth Movement has also been unable to locate any evidence to indicate consideration of the extent of impact-induced structural damage or the size of a fire that could be created by thousands of gallons of jet fuel, other than second hand remarks by the engineers and newspaper article in which the study is mentioned.
Fact is that the structure DID indeed survive the impact of an aircraft somewhat comparable to a 707 at a speed of around 500 MPH. It probably could have withstood a multi-level fire caused by the spread of thousands of gallons of liquid acellerant as well.
what it failed to survive was having both of these insults happen consecutively with the initial impact also taking out sprinkler pressure and removing sugnificant amounts of fire insulation from the steel.
To expect that in 1964 anyone, or any team of engineers, could have produced a study taking into account and doing all the calculations in the FEA done by NIST is to expect miracles. To expect that such a study would be contained in a "three page" white paper is akin to believeing that "Star Trek" is a docuementary.
Even if a team of engineers came up with the basic parameters and work flow of what would be used nowadays in a computer FEA, and began the task of working out the effect of; impact on steel members and connection; the spread of the fire; the effect of heat on the steel;and taking into account the amount and distribution of fire insulation removal, and loss of fire suppression, then I daresay that they just might be finishing those calculations about now.
However, I do not doubt that they did a basic approximation on the effect of impact and on load redistributions. Perhaps even considering a large fire as a result. Did they consider passive and active fire suppression losses? They could not however, have considered the office furnishing having modern plastics and synthetics in the amount and type used 40 years later.
Can we agree that the towers could withstand an aircraft impact?
Yes of course we can, they did, both of them.
Can we agree that they were specifically and purposely designed to do so? No, because they were not, there is no evidence to support such a claim. In fact there is no evidence that any office structure anywhere was specifically and purposely designed to do so (at least before 2001).
Can we agree that the towers were designed to withstand multilevel, large area fires occuring within seconds due to widespread liquid acellerant? No, and again there is no evidence that they were purposely and specifically designed to do so. Perhaps it was later determined that such a fire would not harm the structure due to the combination of passive and active fire suppression utilised in the towers. Maybe.
Of course EVEN IF they had been specifically and purposely designed, in the 1960s, to withstand both the impact and fires expected of a high speed large airliner carrying a large load of jet fuel and in 2001 they succumbed to exacty that it only means that the orginal engineering was not up to the task and if a modern FEA finds that they could not, this simply points out that 21st century engineering has the benefit of 21st century computing technology with which to make a better determination on this subject than did those supbre engineers in the 1960s.
The similarity to the Titanic is astounding. Engineers declared her unsinkable. Turns out they did not consider the specifics of the collission that took her down. They may not have been able to foresee the effect of the cold water on the type of rivets she was built with. However, in hindsight and with the technology we have today we can see what went wrong.
