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Layman's terms please! Tower collapse issue

Minadin said:
1. There aren't any building professionals who will agree with your opinion here. This is one of those things even lay-people can look at and see that you're completely wrong about.



2. When you use words like "disintegrate" or "destroyed" and etc, it seems that you're using the break-up of the structure to completely discount the mass of the upper portion. The mass doesn't go away for being smaller pieces. Does a 10-ton block of ice weigh more than 10 tons of ice cubes?



3. You persist with this idiocy despite all available data to the contrary. Structural steel has lost 40% of its strength at 500°C. And that's not even taking into account the changes in the modulus of elasticity or thermal expansion.



4. Well, I think it's pretty stupid as comparisons go. How do the other properties of the two materials compare? They're pretty darn dissimilar as materials go.



5.Yet, in another thread here on this very forum, less than a month ago, you said:



6. So, your position has changed? It's good to see that you can learn, but you might want to apply this to other areas when your ideas are shown to be in error as well.




7. Only fools who haven't read the NIST report, or even the FAQ, believe that what you've described above is actually what the NIST states as the cause for collapse initiation.
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1. Wrong.
2. Wrong.
3. Wrong.
4. Not really - the upper block has uniform density 0.18 and water has 1 - so the upper block is pretty light!
5. Right.
6. Wrong.
7. Your opinion is noted.
 
Heiwa said:
Haven't I heard it before? Like parrots. Some kinds can be trained to imitate human speech. But also a person who repeats, without understanding what others say. Why am I wrong? Give an example!
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I have never read NIST no do I plan on doing so. I do not parrot anything. Some of us have real engineering knowledge. Steel weakens with heat and then buckles. Live with it.
 
Heiwa said:
I have last year written a paper about WTC1 for children that I copied Nist of course and then Nist changed opinion and suggested that 6-11 floors dropped down and caused global collapse. My paper has then been noted at JREF and there we are. No need to call anyone at Nist or contributing to Nist a fool. They are just working for the government.
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Yes I just got my government check today. It's called Social Security. Only took 44 years to get it.
 
Wolrab said:
For the hell of it, if the upper block had the density of wool, wouldn't the lower portion also? Wouldn't the towers still collapse? It seems to be just switching one constant for another.
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Evidently, you have got it - but what happens when you drop a bale of wool on another bale of wool? Collapse? Or a little bounce? Layman's terms, please.
 
Heiwa said:
1. Wrong.
2. Wrong.
3. Wrong.
4. Not really - the upper block has uniform density 0.18 and water has 1 - so the upper block is pretty light!
5. Right.
6. Wrong.
7. Your opinion is noted.
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1. I've yet to converse with any who do, certainly none of the ones here fit the category, and the only person anywhere who even comes close is Richard Gage, who flaunts his credentials around while parroting the work of other, unqualified people, without adding anything himself.

2. Well, then, what's your purpose in using those words? You hand-wave and say it's very light and ask us to forget about the mass.

3. All I can say is, the government of Canada disagrees with you:

1253247d5986e17ee8.gif


As do 9-11 conspiracy websites:

1253247d5986e412ff.gif


And, that's a pretty damning consensus against your claim. You can say I'm "wrong" all you want, but that doesn't change the facts. I don't think you can claim either of these sources is controlled by the USG.

4. The overall "density" is completely irrelevant here, and everyone else can see that. It also doesn't make it lightweight.

5. (and 6) These weren't separate points - I don't see how you can say that one is correct and the other not. You actually did say what's in the above quote and admitted it again by agreeing with it here, but in this thread you say that you know why they use concrete. How has your position not changed? Or, are you simply disagreeing that changing your false assumptions when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary is a good idea?

7. Thanks for noting my opinion. Check out the NIST FAQ and see for yourself.
 
Heiwa said:
Evidently, you have got it - but what happens when you drop a bale of wool on another bale of wool? Collapse? Or a little bounce? Layman's terms, please.
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What does this have to do with a steel framed building? Density? Bales of wool? Is some one smoking something here?
 
Heiwa said:
Evidently, you have got it - but what happens when you drop a bale of wool on another bale of wool? Collapse? Or a little bounce? Layman's terms, please.
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I don't have it anymore thanks to penicillin. So now the towers are bales of wool? Doesn't compressed wool have a different density than non-compressed wool? That would throw your calculations off. What about the baling wire? Does that add structural integrity? Is wool fireproof? Now I'm all confused.
 
Minadin said:
1. I've yet to converse with any who do, certainly none of the ones here fit the category, and the only person anywhere who even comes close is Richard Gage, who flaunts his credentials around while parroting the work of other, unqualified people, without adding anything himself.


4. The overall "density" is completely irrelevant here, and everyone else can see that. It also doesn't make it lightweight.



7. Thanks for noting my opinion.
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Thanks for the diagrams - I linked to similar ones in my article! Evidently the yield stress is reduced due to heat, as I point out in my article, but as the stresses in WTC1 at ambient temperature were <20-30% of yield, heating to 500°C does not cause buckling or ruptures. This is also the conclusion of British authorities (In the UK they may actually build with stresses up to 60% yield, it appears!).

The 'uniform density' is a term introduced by Bazant/Seffen to enable them to describe their phenomenoms about shock waves and crush-fronts in structures in mathematcial terms in support of Nist. As no 'uniform density' exists their analysises are of no value. I was curious to find out what the 'uniform density' could be that causes shock waves and crush-fronts and got the result 0.18, i.e. like wool or cotton. Don't blame me for that.

Does anybody at JREF believe that a mass of uniform density 0.18, that collides with something, causes global collapse of something?

Comments made in a polite manner I often reply to. Comments suggesting me to be a lier or worse I normally ignore, as they generally contain no info of any value.
 
Heiwa said:
So you say the Mr Seffen of Cambridge university is not sane?

http://heiwaco.tripod.com/Seffen4.GIF

It is the basic assumption of Seffen that the upper block does not disappear. If it disappears, there will be no impact, no 30x local 'overload' and no global collapse. Obvious, n'est pas?
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Tell me Heiwa, are you serious about this?

Seffen does not imply that it stayed a solid block. He also does not imply that it disappears.

I'll use layman's terms, here:

Take an emty beer-can (this is not meant to be a simulation of WTC collapse, it is a demonstration of semantics).

You now have a beer-can structure.

Now, put it on the ground and stomp it till it is flat.

Do you have a beer-can structure any longer? (Hint: The correct answer is "no".)

Has the beer-can disappeared? (Hint: The correct answer is "no"; it is just not a beer-can structure any longer).

So, Heiwa, the upper block broke down, but it did not disappear. It just turned into so many tons of junk.

But, you already knew this, right?

Hans
 
Heiwa said:
Does anybody at JREF believe that a mass of uniform density 0.18, that collides with something, causes global collapse of something?
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We are talking about something that weighs over 30,000 tons. It is a structure strong enough to carry its own weight with sufficient margin for extra loads, dynamic loads, etc.

Yes, I think that that an integral structure weighing 30.000+ tons can cause destruction upon impact.

Heiwa, do you think that something with a density of 0.0013 and no integral structure at all can destroy a building on impact at high speed?

If your answer is no, then good luck if you are ever in a hurricane.

Hans
 
Ah, I see Heiwa is practicing the ancient truther art of arguing an untenable position--against people who know what they are talking about--to infinity. Well, he isn't quite the master who could engineer the 10 story hole thread so brilliantly, but definitely Heiwa would make Chris proud.

Bravo, Heiwa!
 
MRC_Hans said:
Tell me Heiwa, are you serious about this?

Seffen does not imply that it stayed a solid block. He also does not imply that it disappears.
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I am serious and Seffen implies that the upper block is rigid during the complete collapse. It is this rigid upper block that drives the gravity collapse via the beta L section on top of the crush zone according Seffen so he can write his mathematical equations (read rubbish). Read Seffens paper. Link is in my paper.

I wonder why a serious university lecturer does a thing like that!

Heiwa
 
MRC_Hans said:
We are talking about something that weighs over 30,000 tons. It is a structure strong enough to carry its own weight with sufficient margin for extra loads, dynamic loads, etc.

Yes, I think that that an integral structure weighing 30.000+ tons can cause destruction upon impact.

Heiwa, do you think that something with a density of 0.0013 and no integral structure at all can destroy a building on impact at high speed?

If your answer is no, then good luck if you are ever in a hurricane.

Hans
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We are talking about something with a 4 000 m² base, 47 metres high, volume 190 000 m3 most of which is air. It, if it weighs 33 000 tons, can only apply a uniform vertical pressure of 0.85 bar (or 8.5 ton/m²) on the structure below, which is very small. Actually most of the load is applied on the walls and the core, which are very low stressed initially ... and stressed the same after the load has been shifted down.

The only 'extra' vertical load is the assumed impact load due to 'free fall', but there is no free fall. So the assumption by various experts of a free fall load is erroneous. Only fits a conspiray theory.

Re horizontal loads, eg moving air, wind, with uniform density 0.0013 (and unknown mass) it can of course apply a pressure on the side of the structure but no real impact of any kind. Answer is yes.

Heiwa
 
Heiwa:

You have to accept that treating the upper block of WTC 1 as a rigid mass is just an approximation; but I would say it's not a bad approximation. The upper block did NOT immediately disintegrate as you claim. On the contrary, all the columns and floor slabs in the upper block remained more or less interconnected for the first half of the collapse. Thus the upper block moved as a single unit and acted as a single mass of ~ 33,000 tonnes on the structure below. Thus you are incorrect when you argue that the upper section simply broke into a million pieces, and that these pieces mostly by-passed the structure below as they fell............., Heiwa, this is NOT what happened!
 
What on earth would have caused the top block to disintigrate into a million pieces right off the bat anyway?
 
People....... hate to be the one to point this out.

Seffen's work is of no consequence.

Personally I'd be ashamed to quote him as reference.
 
Heiwa said:
Does anybody at JREF believe that a mass of uniform density 0.18, that collides with something, causes global collapse of something?
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Just out of interest, Heiwa, what would you expect for the density of a cargo ship carrying five cranes? Considering the hull alone it had better be a lot less than 1, otherwise it'll quickly become a cargo submarine. Include the cranes themselves, which have a lot of volume and not much mass, and I'd be surprised if you get an average density much over 0.2. Look at the picture.

http://www.tradership.co.uk/News.cfm?URLID=9

Because a couple of weeks ago in Felixstowe this cargo ship collided with a container crane, causing a global collapse not only of that crane but of the crane next to it. Mind you, those were steel structures, so you can't compare them to the WTC towers, which were, errr....

Funny thing, density. The main thing about it is that it's a different property to weight, or to momentum, or to potential energy, or to structural rigidity, or anything else that's actually relevant to the situation you're describing. And you, of all people, should understand that. Ships are a classic case of structures that require high structural strength at low average density. If you honestly believe that, because an object is no more dense on average than a bale of wool, that it is therefore no more rigid and no more resilient than a bale of wool, then I fear for the safety of anyone who sails on a ship you designed. And if a ship you designed collides with a ship you didn't design, I know which one I want to be on.

What you're doing, Heiwa, is looking through the physical parameters of the WTC towers until you find one that looks small, and then implying that because that one parameter is small, the towers themselves were small. It would be reprehensibly dishonest if it weren't so transparently fraudulent as to be laughable.

Dave
 
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