Ozzie,
I have always thought that the understanding of the collapses of those buildings would HAVE to involve the nature and perhaps details of the particular structures. How could it not? It's like trying to figure out the Challenger explosions and discussing the amount of fuel on board and whether it could blow up the rocket without looking at the construction and the engineering and the environment etc. The Mr B's stuff seems to conceptualize the towers as physics problems NOT buildings...not THOSE buildings. IN a few words this is not helpful.
When I mention issues such as "liability" or that the deign "participated" in its own "demise" this is not intended strictly as a legal case... though I suppose it could be. That is to say... IF the designs determined how they fell, the speed, the time they remained standing, the fact that it was total and so on one should probably evaluate the MERITS of the design... and even compare them to other approaches. We KNOW that the plane strikes are way out of spec... and maybe ANY building would be a goner. I don't know how to determine this... but it IS a fair question to ask.
And you know I raised the single column to global collapse question on this forum. If not all buildings WILL go global with a single column failure is it safe to say that the ones that DO are "inferior" designs? ... At least for some reasons.
My hunch is that SOME designs are "better" ie more survivable than others. Does that make the less survivable "flawed engineering"? Maybe and maybe not. It's a legitimate question to ask and I think it was at the core of concern for many people post 9/11. Can the building I work and or live in completely collapse in 10 seconds after a say some structural damage and uncontrolled fires burning for 1 hr. Or does it take 7hrs? Or maybe it can't completely collapse? Sure this is a life safety issue. Limit cases are not very helpful.
I think NIST made a feeble attempt to identify a mechanism to explain the collapses. I think they probably got it wrong. I have mentioned some of the reason I suspect they did. I can't ascribe malfeasance to anyone. I tend to think it more "incompetence" or some sort of "institutional" culture which prevents people from thinking rationally.
A case in point...
What would happen to most tall buildings struck by a large plane with almost no fuel on a very high floor? Would it collapse on impact? Would it stand but severely damage for X minutes, or hours or maybe not collapse? Can we understand the building performance and isn't it related to the engineering design?
I suspect... "surviving" the impact is not as much of an engineering feat as many seem to think it was. It's remarkable perhaps on the face... but when one looks at the NATURE of tall frames of high rises... it seems like most would be severely damaged and no collapse from the IMPACT.
And so we are told it is FIRE that ultimately destroyed the twins and essentially was the culprit for 1WTC. Fire was in different places (elevation) and led to global collapse. But it is claimed (by NIST) to have worked on DIFFERENT nodes/parts of the STRUCTURE... one was a girder walk off column buckling and the other has some sort of floor truss failure AND not a girder walk off. Seems to me this is about STRUCTURE and engineering DESIGN. Fires are not smart enough to know where to go to destroy a building.
++++
At least ROOSD looks AT THE STRUCTURE as a means to explain the global collapse we saw. Evening Greening with his latest aluminum explosion fantasy ignores the structure assuming huge explosions locally. The NIST 7wtc explanation is really a very specific "CD -like" single column take out to completely destroy a building. Sounds like demolition companies need to study that one to save a lot of money rigging entire arrays of columns on multiple floors for their projects.
++++
Admittedly this has been some discussion that mass can only drop when the normal axial load paths are not working as designed. I suspect Mr B et all did not see that one., though they completely understand it I suppose. So the real question is how do you get all that mass... threshold and over the entire footprint in the twins to lose axial coupling? And how why did not the 7WTC single column failure not be a collapse of just the NE corner?
Do you think those questions have been answered?
I have always thought that the understanding of the collapses of those buildings would HAVE to involve the nature and perhaps details of the particular structures. How could it not? It's like trying to figure out the Challenger explosions and discussing the amount of fuel on board and whether it could blow up the rocket without looking at the construction and the engineering and the environment etc. The Mr B's stuff seems to conceptualize the towers as physics problems NOT buildings...not THOSE buildings. IN a few words this is not helpful.
When I mention issues such as "liability" or that the deign "participated" in its own "demise" this is not intended strictly as a legal case... though I suppose it could be. That is to say... IF the designs determined how they fell, the speed, the time they remained standing, the fact that it was total and so on one should probably evaluate the MERITS of the design... and even compare them to other approaches. We KNOW that the plane strikes are way out of spec... and maybe ANY building would be a goner. I don't know how to determine this... but it IS a fair question to ask.
And you know I raised the single column to global collapse question on this forum. If not all buildings WILL go global with a single column failure is it safe to say that the ones that DO are "inferior" designs? ... At least for some reasons.
My hunch is that SOME designs are "better" ie more survivable than others. Does that make the less survivable "flawed engineering"? Maybe and maybe not. It's a legitimate question to ask and I think it was at the core of concern for many people post 9/11. Can the building I work and or live in completely collapse in 10 seconds after a say some structural damage and uncontrolled fires burning for 1 hr. Or does it take 7hrs? Or maybe it can't completely collapse? Sure this is a life safety issue. Limit cases are not very helpful.
I think NIST made a feeble attempt to identify a mechanism to explain the collapses. I think they probably got it wrong. I have mentioned some of the reason I suspect they did. I can't ascribe malfeasance to anyone. I tend to think it more "incompetence" or some sort of "institutional" culture which prevents people from thinking rationally.
A case in point...
What would happen to most tall buildings struck by a large plane with almost no fuel on a very high floor? Would it collapse on impact? Would it stand but severely damage for X minutes, or hours or maybe not collapse? Can we understand the building performance and isn't it related to the engineering design?
I suspect... "surviving" the impact is not as much of an engineering feat as many seem to think it was. It's remarkable perhaps on the face... but when one looks at the NATURE of tall frames of high rises... it seems like most would be severely damaged and no collapse from the IMPACT.
And so we are told it is FIRE that ultimately destroyed the twins and essentially was the culprit for 1WTC. Fire was in different places (elevation) and led to global collapse. But it is claimed (by NIST) to have worked on DIFFERENT nodes/parts of the STRUCTURE... one was a girder walk off column buckling and the other has some sort of floor truss failure AND not a girder walk off. Seems to me this is about STRUCTURE and engineering DESIGN. Fires are not smart enough to know where to go to destroy a building.
++++
At least ROOSD looks AT THE STRUCTURE as a means to explain the global collapse we saw. Evening Greening with his latest aluminum explosion fantasy ignores the structure assuming huge explosions locally. The NIST 7wtc explanation is really a very specific "CD -like" single column take out to completely destroy a building. Sounds like demolition companies need to study that one to save a lot of money rigging entire arrays of columns on multiple floors for their projects.
++++
Admittedly this has been some discussion that mass can only drop when the normal axial load paths are not working as designed. I suspect Mr B et all did not see that one., though they completely understand it I suppose. So the real question is how do you get all that mass... threshold and over the entire footprint in the twins to lose axial coupling? And how why did not the 7WTC single column failure not be a collapse of just the NE corner?
Do you think those questions have been answered?
