Szamboti's Missing Jolt paper

[Dave Rogers]

Can I just, yet again, point out the fatal flaw in the whole "missing jolt" theory? The only situation in which force amplification is needed to break the lower structure is the case of a simultaneous end-on impact of the upper block columns on the lower block columns. A strike of a single column on a single column will result in a massive overload on that single column, which will then very rapidly fail. Since the upper blocks of both buildings rotated as they fell, it's geometrically impossible for all the impacts to have been column-on-column, and it's vanishingly unlikely for a significant proportion of the impacts to be simultaneous. At any instant only a small fraction of the lower structure would therefore be in contact with the upper, so a deceleration very much smaller even than 3g will suffice to cause collapse.

Tony Szamboti's entire theory is predicated on simultaneous impact. We know simultaneous impact cannot have occurred.

Dave

 

[Bananaman]

Dave:

Tony Szamboti's entire theory is predicated on simultaneous impact.

Tony's entire theory is predicated on being bonkers from where I'm standing. But don't tell Chill I said. My inbox is nearly overflowing from mod messages, and I've been lovely for 24 hours as well. Cor, how does one write glutinously gushing posts and still end up with mods telling you to behave yourself. It's beyond me.

Bananaman (Mr Nice.)

 

[ozeco41]

The core column in particular weren't designed to deal with lateral loads. The perimeter columns dealt with 100% of lateral load requirements for the building. The core columns dealt only with gravity loads.

Take care that you do not misapply the data/information there.

The loads on the columns were axial - even if resisting a lateral load on the building. In a building subject to lateral loads the columns on the side where the load comes from would undergo tension whist the columns on the opposite side would see increased compression.

And the claims that the outer columns were designed to take the lateral loads and the core wasn't need to be read in the proper context of the structural element involved.

Don't read the claim as if the designers "intended" or "caused" the lateral loads to go to the outer columns. They had no choice - that is where the bending monments caused by the lateral forces would be resisted.

 

[GlennB]

Tony Szamboti's entire theory is predicated on simultaneous impact. We know simultaneous impact cannot have occurred.

Dave

Indeed. Has he ever acknowledged even reading this critical fact, let alone accepting it?

 

[A W Smith]

Take care that you do not misapply the data/information there.

The loads on the columns were axial - even if resisting a lateral load on the building. In a building subject to lateral loads the columns on the side where the load comes from would undergo tension whist the columns on the opposite side would see increased compression.

And the claims that the outer columns were designed to take the lateral loads and the core wasn't need to be read in the proper context of the structural element involved.

Don't read the claim as if the designers "intended" or "caused" the lateral loads to go to the outer columns. They had no choice - that is where the bending monments caused by the lateral forces would be resisted.

Do not forget that the wind load was also dampened by the Viscoelastic dampers attached to the lower chord of every floor truss. Im wondering if some are calculating wind loads and assigning all that capacity to the exterior columns.

 

[boloboffin]

It's only an hour until Szamboti's bedtime, so I wanted to make sure this thread was up at the top.

Hm. A gain of only 0.01 f/s, and yet the measured dip in acceleration is only down 75%. It seems to my untrained eye that 25% of g is still acceleration, and yet during this time period, the measured increase in velocity is only 0.01 f/s. Doesn't that seem odd to you, Szamboti?

 

[Tony Szamboti]

A challenge to you, Mr. Szamboti: Go back and measure the roofline of each frame of the Sauret video between 1.6667 s and 1.8334 s. You said in your paper that you had only measured every five frames. This is four frames more - not that onerous a task.

It is at that point that the roofline increases in velocity from 39.59 f/s to 39.60 f/s. That is a velocity gain of 0.01 f/s, not a heck of a lot, and it corresponds to the 75% dip in acceleration from g.

After all, your own calculations say... Oh, let me just quote:



The impulse duration would have been 113 milliseconds, and yet you took measurements every 167 milliseconds. Wouldn't you be more likely to catch a 113 millisecond impulse by having measured every 3 frames, or at least having gone through every frame of this crucial time period?

A friendly wager is in order here. If you don't find a period of deceleration between 1.6667 s and 1.8334 s, I will use the image of your choice as an avatar here for a month (within JREF protocol, of course). However, if you do find a period of deceleration, you must wear the avatar of my choice for a week.

You will do us the favor of showing your work.

I wasn't the person who did the actual measurements. Two others did. Measuring every five frames is about the best resolution you can get so every three frames isn't viable.

I have mentioned to you previously that it is not possible to see the impulse itself only the effects of it which are a velocity drop.

What would you expect to see even if you could measure reliably every millisecond? This is possible with a high speed camera but unfortunately we don't have high speed video of the towers coming down.

The lower acceleration does not provide for an impulse. The upper block was just gaining velocity a little more slowly during that time frame due to resistance which was a little greater than experienced in the preceding part of the fall. It was not giving up any of it's earlier gained kinetic energy.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Can I just, yet again, point out the fatal flaw in the whole "missing jolt" theory? The only situation in which force amplification is needed to break the lower structure is the case of a simultaneous end-on impact of the upper block columns on the lower block columns. A strike of a single column on a single column will result in a massive overload on that single column, which will then very rapidly fail. Since the upper blocks of both buildings rotated as they fell, it's geometrically impossible for all the impacts to have been column-on-column, and it's vanishingly unlikely for a significant proportion of the impacts to be simultaneous. At any instant only a small fraction of the lower structure would therefore be in contact with the upper, so a deceleration very much smaller even than 3g will suffice to cause collapse.

Tony Szamboti's entire theory is predicated on simultaneous impact. We know simultaneous impact cannot have occurred.

Dave

Yes Dave, we know you think it is entirely possible that the connected tower columns just completely severed and fell far from the other steel below them and just pushed everything to the side all the way down.

 

[R.Mackey]

Hey, maybe you can help me... did anyone see a strawman run in here?

 

[boloboffin]

I wasn't the person who did the actual measurements. Two others did. Measuring every five frames is about the best resolution you can get so every three frames isn't viable.

I have mentioned to you previously that it is not possible to see the impulse itself only the effects of it which are a velocity drop.

What would you expect to see even if you could measure reliably every millisecond? This is possible with high speed camera but unfortunately we don't have high speed video of the towers coming down.

My goodness. The sentence "Measuring every five frames is about the best resolution you can get so every three frames isn't viable" sounds like something you could have typed last night. It took 24 hours to come up with that?

Regardless, how do you match up 25% of g with a 0.01 f/s gain in velocity?

 

[Tony Szamboti]

It's only an hour until Szamboti's bedtime, so I wanted to make sure this thread was up at the top.

Hm. A gain of only 0.01 f/s, and yet the measured dip in acceleration is only down 75%. It seems to my untrained eye that 25% of g is still acceleration, and yet during this time period, the measured increase in velocity is only 0.01 f/s. Doesn't that seem odd to you, Szamboti?

I actually took a nap after coming home from work tonight so I didn't get started here until late. Thanks for making sure I saw this though.

I didn't know that the acceleration curves were with the velocity curves I sent Scott to put up at the DU forum and after seeing they were should have cautioned you that the acceleration curves are not as accurate as the velocity curves as they are based on velocity differences which have already been differentiated from actually measured distance vs. time data. The acceleration data found in this way can really only be used reliably for general trend not the minute correlation you are trying to use it for.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

My goodness. The sentence "Measuring every five frames is about the best resolution you can get so every three frames isn't viable" sounds like something you could have typed last night. It took 24 hours to come up with that?

Regardless, how do you match up 25% of g with a 0.01 f/s gain in velocity?

I have to work for a living there chief. It didn't take me 24 hours to come up with anything.

I think you are barking up a bad tree here as the acceleration data does not have the resolution you are trying to give it.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Hey, maybe you can help me... did anyone see a strawman run in here?

Funny, I thought a lot of people here think of you as their lion!

 

[boloboffin]

I actually took a nap after coming home from work tonight so I didn't get started here until late. Thanks for making sure I saw this though.

I didn't know that the acceleration curves were with the velocity curves I sent Scott to put up at the DU forum and after seeing they were should have cautioned you that the acceleration curves are not as accurate as the velocity curves as they are based on velocity differences which have already been differentiated from actually measured distance vs. time data. The acceleration data found in this way can really only be used reliably for general trend not the minute correlation you are trying to use it for.

Well, it seems to me that you have a problem. You are claiming a whole lot of things that you're now saying your measurements and charts aren't accurate enough to actually show.

But the velocity measures are good and accurate, right? So that 0.01 gain in velocity over that .06 is something that you will stand by, right?

It seems to me with all of these sudden problems with your measurements and your graphs, a claim of no deceleration at all is riding on 0.02 f/s difference. Is your measuring accurate enough to maintain that categorical statement?

ETA: Oh, past Tony's bedtime. And he took a nap today! Oh, well.

Very strange. The absolute precision necessary to suss out 0.1 f/s velocity change in .6 seconds, and yet he can't measure every 3 frames or every frame in that interval. Amazing.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Can I just, yet again, point out the fatal flaw in the whole "missing jolt" theory? The only situation in which force amplification is needed to break the lower structure is the case of a simultaneous end-on impact of the upper block columns on the lower block columns. A strike of a single column on a single column will result in a massive overload on that single column, which will then very rapidly fail. Since the upper blocks of both buildings rotated as they fell, it's geometrically impossible for all the impacts to have been column-on-column, and it's vanishingly unlikely for a significant proportion of the impacts to be simultaneous. At any instant only a small fraction of the lower structure would therefore be in contact with the upper, so a deceleration very much smaller even than 3g will suffice to cause collapse.

Tony Szamboti's entire theory is predicated on simultaneous impact. We know simultaneous impact cannot have occurred.

Dave

What is really vanishingly unlikely is for the scenario you propose to have even the slightest chance of bringing the building down. Dr. Bazant even admitted as much. Read the Addendum to the Bazant and Zhou paper where he discusses the situation you are proposing, saying it would not be fatal.

http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/405.pdf

 

[GlennB]

What is really vanishingly unlikely is for the scenario you propose to have even the slightest chance of bringing the building down. Dr. Bazant even admitted as much. Read the Addendum to the Bazant and Zhou paper where he discusses the situation you are proposing, saying it would not be fatal.

http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/405.pdf

Are you referring to the addendum comment :

"Instead of one powerful jolt, this could lead to a series of many
small vertical impacts, none of them fatal." ?

If so, please note it's immediately preceded by

".....But if the upper part had the height of only 3 stories, then this ratio would be about 5. In that case, the upper part would be slender enough to act essentially as a flexible horizontal plate in which different column groups of the upper part could move down separately at different times."

and relates purely to the consideration of a higher plane impact and thus a much smaller falling upper section.

(My bolding.)​

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Are you referring to the addendum comment :

"Instead of one powerful jolt, this could lead to a series of many
small vertical impacts, none of them fatal." ?

If so, please note it's immediately preceded by

".....But if the upper part had the height of only 3 stories, then this ratio would be about 5. In that case, the upper part would be slender enough to act essentially as a flexible horizontal plate in which different column groups of the upper part could move down separately at different times."

and relates purely to the consideration of a higher plane impact and thus a much smaller falling upper section.

(My bolding.)​

Yes, I am referring to this section. It essentially discusses the series of separate smaller jolts believed by Dave Rogers and others to be possible to occur even with a thicker and thus stiffer upper block. Bazant clearly pours cold water on that notion and then admits a series of smaller jolts, which could be possible with a thinner more flexible upper block, would be non-fatal.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Hey, maybe you can help me... did anyone see a strawman run in here?

Ryan, I watched your Hardfire Physics of 911 presentations, and while I thought you did a very good job of explaining the physics of the aircraft impacts and how to build an accurate model of the towers and get similarity of various parameters in the model with appropriate scaling factors, I had a couple of questions/comments about peripheral things which weren't addressed.

1. How would one be able to build an accurate scale model of the towers if all pertinent information on the structure is not publicly available? For one, the NIST has not released the wall thicknesses and yield strength of the perimeter columns at various locations on the towers. They have also not released the central core horizontal beam sizes, grades, and their locations in the towers.

2. I have seen you say here that the above information is available publicly, if one knows where to look. As this presumes you know where to find this information, would you be so kind as to share that with the rest of us?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Yes Dave, we know you think it is entirely possible that the connected tower columns just completely severed and fell far from the other steel below them and just pushed everything to the side all the way down.

Stop lying, Tony. That's a deliberate misrepresentation of what I said, and you know it. Perhaps you'd lile to draw a sketch showing how it's possible for all the columns of a rotated upper block to impact axially and simultaneously on the columns of the lower block - or, in fact, for all the columns of a rotated upper block to strike the columns of the lower block at all. It's a geometrical impossibility.

If you've got a genuine argument, why do you have to behave like this?

Yes, I am referring to this section. It essentially discusses the series of separate smaller jolts believed by Dave Rogers and others to be possible to occur even with a thicker and thus stiffer upper block. Bazant clearly pours cold water on that notion and then admits a series of smaller jolts, which could be possible with a thinner more flexible upper block, would be non-fatal.

And like this. Look at what Bazant actually says.

In that case, the upper part would be slender enough to act essentially as a flexible horizontal plate in which different column groups of the upper part could move down separately at different times. Instead of one powerful jolt, this could lead to a series of many small vertical impacts, none of them fatal.

​

Bazant is referring to a scenario in which the upper block is not rigid, so the load amplified in the collisions is not the full weight of the upper block. That's completely different to the case of a rigid upper block, striking different parts of the structure at different times, which Bazant clearly is not discussing here; the key point is in bold text, showing that Bazant is discussion the case where the full weight of the upper block is not available to overload the lower columns in any single impact.​

Why can't you discuss this without lying?​

Dave​

 

[WildCat]

If you've got a genuine argument, why do you have to behave like this?

Tony knows his argument is complete nonsense. This is why his papers only appear in Jones's sham "journal" and no actual journal would publish it.

Tony does it because he likes to be a hero to the stupid and the deluded and the mentally ill who make up the bulk of the truth movement.