The Progressive Collapse Challenge!

[damien pastaume]

"Damien, on the rare occasions when someone asks a question that hasn't been worn to rags, the discussion is polite and informative. When a notorious conspiracy liar recycles thoroughly debunked rubbish for the purpose of hearing himself talk, he deserves the derision he provokes."

Thanks for the civil reply. Obviously it's too early for me to know the bomb-throwers from the rationalists, but I shall stick around long enough to get an idea.

And anyone quoting Lon Chaney can't be all bad.............

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

The Department of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing already did this back in 2002, Swing Dangler: http://www.luxinzheng.net/publications/english_WTC.htm

 

[PhantomWolf]

Cl1mh4224rd, you know that Clinton bribed the Chinese before he left office though....

 

[CurtC]

Thanks for the civil reply. Obviously it's too early for me to know the bomb-throwers from the rationalists, but I shall stick around long enough to get an idea.

Hey, I like the cut of your jib. Welcome. Don't let the reaction to Swing Dangler's opening post throw you off. He's pretty well known here, and this thread is pretty ridiculous even by his standards. You can see it's ridiculous, right?

So just jump in and contribute to the conversations here, or start your own. I have to warn you that this group has pretty much heard it all before.

 

[maxpower1227]

Hey, I like the cut of your jib. Welcome. Don't let the reaction to Swing Dangler's opening post throw you off. He's pretty well known here, and this thread is pretty ridiculous even by his standards. You can see it's ridiculous, right?

So just jump in and contribute to the conversations here, or start your own. I have to warn you that this group has pretty much heard it all before.

What's a "jib"?


(Sorry... I had to.. what with the name and all)

 

[damien pastaume]

"Hey, I like the cut of your jib. Welcome. Don't let the reaction to Swing Dangler's opening post throw you off."

Thanks for the welcome, Curt.

"I have to warn you that this group has pretty much heard it all before."

I'll do my best to keep the stagnant material to a minimum.

 

[Arus808]

damien. we do have a quote feature. it allows you to also multi-quote many people.

and welcome to the fora

 

[Minadin]

It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "The Twilight Zone".

They should make that the sub-forum description.

 

[leftysergeant]

Why is it everybody I see use that mask as an avatar is a twoofer? I keep wanting to address Swing Dangler as Rumpl4skin.

I shall have nightmares tonight of an ubiquitous troll following me to put a high-tech communications cricket in my ear.

 

[DGM]

Well, well. After two pages of smugness, weak jokes and backslapping - a reply that actually addresses the original post.
Is this the usual level of debate here at the jref forum?

Hi welcome:
My reply to the OP was serious. I offered to except the challenge if the "truth" movement paid for it. This is a reasonable request and I am a builder.

 

[Swing Dangler]

Hey, Swing, maybe you can get a couple of your truther friends together:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/888646f96cf23b346.jpg[/qimg]

Nice one! They need more people for the facade. And I don't think they could withstand a sustained 100mph wind, but you never know.

Don't let the reaction to Swing Dangler's opening post throw you off. He's pretty well known here, and this thread is pretty ridiculous even by his standards. You can see it's ridiculous, right?

It might be considered ridiculous if you choose to use silly materials.
Scale the structure down using similar materials as used in the towers.

DGM-Hi welcome:
My reply to the OP was serious. I offered to except the challenge if the "truth" movement paid for it. This is a reasonable request and I am a builder.

Is there any chance of reducing the costs in order by scaling down the project down for the challenge?

Cl1mh4224rd The Department of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing already did this back in 2002, Swing Dangler: http://www.luxinzheng.net/publications/english_WTC.htm

I'm not an expert of course but did you see anything missing in your example you provided? Do you see a core in the graphic below?

Well, well. After two pages of smugness, weak jokes and backslapping - a reply that actually addresses the original post.
Is this the usual level of debate here at the jref forum?
Yesterday 08:42 PM

Pretty much, yeah.

Swingy here has just graduated from the Spooked911 School of Engineering, I see.

Including the relevant materials that were found in the towers could be used as well, of course.

Since the only outside force applied was Gravity, which results in the CoM moving directly down, the laws of physics tell us that the CoM of the Towers MUST remain in the footprint. In fact it would have been a violation of the laws of physics for it to have not done so. Thus not only is the Challenge incorrect when compared to the WTC, it is absurd when compared to the laws of physics as written by Newton over 200 years ago.

I agree with the physics part, but how does gravity force debris up and out instead of down?

and here-

 

[Pardalis]

I agree with the physics part, but how does gravity force debris up and out instead of down?

You can tell that from a still picture?

 

[defaultdotxbe]

It might be considered ridiculous if you choose to use silly materials.
Scale the structure down using similar materials as used in the towers.

Is there any chance of reducing the costs in order by scaling down the project down for the challenge?

i refer you to this post

For example. Scaling a material results in the properties of the material changing at different rates. For example, if you take a steel column, the values for resistance to elastic deformation and volume are not linear to each other and scale. This means that if we take a smaller beam that has been scaled in size, it is actually proportionally stronger in its resistance to elastic deformation than the larger one would be. To give it a proportional resistance, you have to make the beam smaller, which then reduces the mass of the beam. You could change this by using a different material that gives you both mass and resitance, but now you have other problems such as how the beam reacts to heat and so forth. When it comes to the engineering world, scaling really creates more problems that it solves. Once the scaling issues and absurd questions based on Hoffman's ignorance are removed, you basically have him asking for a structure like the WTC, and since there are numerous real peer reviewed papers discussing the reasons for the progressive failure, including one that one of the posters (Apollo 20) here collaborated on, whereas there is not one properly peer reviewed paper disputing a progressive collapse, there is little need for such a challenge to be answered.

 

[Dave Rogers]

It might be considered ridiculous if you choose to use silly materials.
Scale the structure down using similar materials as used in the towers.

Swing, do you know anything at all about arithmetic? Scale down a tower by half and you decrease the weight by a factor of eight but the strength of the supporting members by only a factor of four. Fracture energy per floor goes down by a factor of eight, gravitational potential energy down by a factor of sixteen. And, of course, if a half size structure with reduced strength columns collapsed, you'd be the first to cry foul because the columns weren't the correct scale cross-section.

Actually, I'd like to propose a similar challenge to the truth movement. Using demolition charges of any design you like, place enough explosive in a heavily used multi-storey public building to initiate a total collapse without anybody noticing. I'm not suggesting that you should actually set off the charges, you understand. Some radio controlled device that unfurles a flag saying "Bang!" [1] would probably give the general idea. You can use any amount of manpower you like, although for extra credit the job should be done by three people in four weeks as per Scenario 404. Compromising the security systems may be tricky, but as we all know the truth movement comprises 46% of the population of the USA, so nearly half of the security staff should be happy to help out.

Dave



[1] Sorry, I'd forgotten your speculations on the possible range of explosives used. If you prefer, you could unfurl a flag that says "bang!"

 

[Pardalis]

Sorry Swing, I don't see debris falling upwards, it's in your head

 

[Myriad]

Swing Dangler, try the following experiment:

1. Hold an empty (or full, if you prefer, it doesn't matter, but empty is easier to clean up) drinking glass two meters above a smooth hard level floor.

2. Drop it.

Questions for post-experiment analysis:

1. Was any force other than gravity acting on the glass?

2. Were any explosives involved?

3. Did the pieces of the glass land in a neat pile where the glass contacted the floor, or were some of them projected outward?

4. If any pieces were projected outward, what mysterious force caused this?

5. (Advanced): As best you can tell, how did the maximum outward velocity of the pieces compare with the downward velocity of the glass at impact? Did any of them move outward faster than the falling speed, and if so, how is that possible?

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[The Big Dog]

"but how does gravity force debris up and out instead of down?"

UP? Cripes. Do troofers even care what they write anymore?

 

[Tomblvd]

Interesting. In both of the pictures that SD posted, I see an "umbrella" of debris falling down the sides of the building. That would mean that debris is falling at the speed of gravity. It would also mean, that since the collapse of the building isn't at the same level as the debris, the building isn't falling at the same speed.

Another meme dead. Thanks Swing.

 

[Horatius]

"Damien, on the rare occasions when someone asks a question that hasn't been worn to rags, the discussion is polite and informative. When a notorious conspiracy liar recycles thoroughly debunked rubbish for the purpose of hearing himself talk, he deserves the derision he provokes."

Thanks for the civil reply. Obviously it's too early for me to know the bomb-throwers from the rationalists, but I shall stick around long enough to get an idea.

And anyone quoting Lon Chaney can't be all bad.............

I haven't posted in this thread yet, but I wanted to make sure you had noticed this:

It might be considered ridiculous if you choose to use silly materials.
Scale the structure down using similar materials as used in the towers.

Is there any chance of reducing the costs in order by scaling down the project down for the challenge?

If you look at Swing's post, it's clear he has read a lot of this thread - he quotes quite a few messages. But it's also clear, from his two lines above, that he has ignored (on purpose? Perhaps) the posts that deal with the main problems in this "challenge" in the most serious and thoughful manner - that being, the problems with scaling the structures such that the properties of the materials used is consistent with the full-scale buildings.

This is why we usually just goof on such inane challenges - we've seen this sort of behaviour before, and we know our most thoughtful respsonses will simply be ingnored. At some point, most people just get tired of putting in that effort, for no useful result. It used to be we'd kitten the hell out of a thread like this, but that is now frowned upon.

In any case, if you bring up a serious question that hasn't been beaten to death already, you'll find that a lot of people are still willing to discuss it reasonably. 9/11 topics are pretty much exhausted, but if you look at some of the other CTs we've discussed, you'll see some more serious posts.

 

[Belz...]

THE PROGRESSIVE COLLAPSE CHALLENGE

The challenge is in 5 parts, from the easiest to the most difficult.

All five require building a structure that will undergo top-down progressive total collapse -- i.e.: when disturbed near the top, it will collapse from the top down to the bottom, leaving no part standing. The disturbance can include mechanical force, such as projectile impacts, and fires, augmented with hydrocarbon fuels. Explosives and electromagnetic energy beams are not permitted.

Your structure can be made out of anything: straws, toothpicks, cards, dominoes, mud, vegetables, pancakes, etc.

The designers of the Twin Towers were able to meet all 5 challenges using steel and concrete.



CHALLENGE #1:

Build a structure with a vertical aspect ratio of at least 2 (twice as tall as it is wide) and induce it to undergo top-down total progressive collapse.

CHALLENGE #2:

Build a structure with a square footprint and a vertical aspect ratio of at least 6.5 (6.5 times as high as it is wide), and induce it to undergo top-down total progressive collapse.

CHALLENGE #3:

Build a structure as required by CHALLENGE #2 which, in the process of collapsing, will throw pieces outward in all directions such that at least 80% of the mass of the materials ends up lying outside of the footprint, but their center of mass lies inside the footprint.

CHALLENGE #4:

Build a structure as required by CHALLENGE #2 which is capable of remaining intact in 100 MPH cross wind.

CHALLENGE #5:

Build a structure that meets the requirements of both CHALLENGES #3 and #4.
Thanks to Mr. Hoffman for this challenge.

Will LEGO do ?