Split Thread The Towers should not hve collapsed (split from Gravysites)

[e^n]

Granted, say 1/3 of that isn't actually Tower material but building 3-6. 1 million tons supported by the columns. 500'000 tons per tower. That's a factor of 15 times the central column's weights.

Did the core columns support 100% of the gravity loads?

 

[Quad4_72]

Will this insanity never end? Dabljuh, I am going to save you thousands of dollars in psychiatric evaluations and give you your diagnosis right now. Go to this website for your disorder:

http://www.schizophrenia.com/

That link has everything you need to help you overcome your dillusions. And its free information! Don't thank me now, just get better. Good luck and God speed.

 

[Brainster]

Oxygen-starved fires:

 

[stateofgrace]

Argument from Ignorance. The WTC wasn't a "Tube in Tube" Design. It had a ridiculously sturdy central core with the exterior holding only very little of the weight.

Really?

So what sort of design were they ?

 

[johnny karate]

Dabljuh, if what you are alleging is true (that the WTC towers couldn't have possibly collapsed under the conditions witnessed by thousands of people and outlined in exhaustive and unrefuted detail in the NIST report), then why hasn't this information been discerned and/or revealed by a single MSM outlet, investigative body, or law enforcement agency on the planet?

 

[MarkyX]

Why weren't bombs found in the debris?

 

[A W Smith]

nothing new here in the op. just profound blatent ignorance.

Dabljuh you bring nothing but bald faced assertions to the argument.. Do you fear math and engineering? why of course you do. Lets take your assertion that the perimeter colums caried little weight

Argument from Ignorance. The WTC wasn't a "Tube in Tube" Design. It had a ridiculously sturdy central core with the exterior holding only very little of the weight

The office space outside the core was supported by clear span trusses, Show us using this illustration how the exterior perimeter colums would hold very little of the weight. show your math.

Diagram (above): Structural system for typical floor

13 Load-bearing external wall
14 Bar joist 900mm deep
15 Secondary joist
16 Horizontal bracing
17 Core box column

 

[Myriad]

The WTC wasn't a "Tube in Tube" Design. It had a ridiculously sturdy central core with the exterior holding only very little of the weight.

This would be quite correct, if you were describing the structural engineering of a Christmas tree.

Otherwise, try again.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Mancman]

Instead of having a couple small fires on a couple floors that burn at low temperatures and not posing a threat to anything other than the color of the wallpapers, we pretend the entire building is in flames.

WTC 2 burned across 6 floors in 56 minutes, WTC 1 across 12 floors in 102 minutes. Considering the timeframe, that level of fire spread is unprecedented.

See, for example, WTC 1 over the course of the fire:

Floors 96, 97 and 98 are practically a total burnout. That's an 816ft fire front on 3 successive floors. Note there were also fires observed on floors 100, 101 and 104 not shown on this map. Presumably, there were internal fires on 102 and 103 as well, which would bring the spread to 14 floors.

So please don't patronise any of us with stupid claims of 'a couple small fires on a couple floors'. Pure garbage.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

You are a spectacularly ignorant dunce.

Normally I don't agree with that kind of response. But in this case there is little else that can be said. There isn't anything in the OP that is even worth dignifying with an answer because the OP has proven from the very first post that he is incapable of even the most basic reasoning or intelligence. And it certainly does not appear to simply be a language issue. Perhaps drug use?

 

[peteweaver]

I can't believe this thread still exists, much less is still stickied. Whoever believes that either of the WTC buildings came down because of "fire" is either utterly misinformed

Look in the mirror before pointing the finger my friend.

You display NO understanding of metallurgy whatsoever.

Whilst Steel melts at 1500 degrees C, it starts to weaken at 300 degrees C.
Fireproofing guidelines for steel:
http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/pr...s/strucfire/Quick Solutions/steel/default.htm

Easy to understand metallurgical information about steel:
http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/pr...es/strucfire/materialInFire/Steel/default.htm

Basically, the structural damage brought about by the plane strikes mechanically damaged the fireproofing, the fuel set fire to the office contents, and the heat from burning desks, chairs, PC's etc, further damaged the structure, affecting the steel at a molecular level to make it more Maleable, and more Ductile.
The trusses sagged, and the outer columns bowed inwards.
The convex face of the bowing columns, suffered tensile strain which it was never supposed to recieve, the concave face, on the other hand was in compression from the load bearing down on the upper side of the column.
This was more than those columns could take, a bending moment occured in the structure around the burning impact floors, and the upper block of those buildings, became a dynamic load falling like a piledriver onto floors which had never been designed to recieve a dynamic load.

Structural Damage + Fire brought the twin towers down.
Its the only explaination which fits the facts.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

Oxygen-starved fires:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9461http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_9777474df51e5bc73.jpg

something to keep in mind is that the volume of smoke seen coming from the area is equal to the amount of fresh air entering the area, that whole "air pressure" thing

 

[Mel Odious]

[snip]

The fireproofing was renewed during the 90ies in the aftermath of the unsuccessful 1993 bombing. Furthermore, no amount of fireproofing or lack thereof can change the fact that a steel skyscraper cannot implode due to a fire. Your argument is doubly invalid.

Any qualified structural engineer before 9/11 would have told you - and with good reason to - that steel buildings have never collapsed due to fire and never will. That certainly does not mean they do not suffer damage from fires, but they will not catastrophically implode ever. That's a physical impossibility.

[snip]

Steel structures undergo fireproofing because they can and do suffer damage from fires. A skyscraper has a lot of stuff in it. It's a catastrophe in itself if the slightest fire causes the entire thing to burn out with nothing but the metal/concrete skeleton still standing. Which is pretty much the worst that fire can do to a steel skyscraper. Normally built-in redundancy and the relative difficulty of uncontrolled fire to heat a steel structure to even near the point where it loses a significant amount of tensile strength make sure that no fire can ever hope to cause the central steel skeleton itself to fail catastrophically.

You believe that a large, uncontrolled fire cannot cause the collapse of a skyscraper.

You also seem to believe that this "fact" is obvious to every competent structural engineer in the world.

So you're saying that an "impossible" event happened not once, not twice, but three times on the same day (wtc1, wtc2, and wtc7), with thousands of dead and many more injured. And yet the structural engineering community - many of whom are watching the events unfold on live television - don't take to the streets screaming bloody murder.

I remind you once again of your own words:

Any qualified structural engineer before 9/11 would have told you - and with good reason to - that steel buildings have never collapsed due to fire and never will.

And yet on 9/11, and for nearly 7 years after, we don't hear anything like this from the structural engineering community. Not one word.

Explain that.

If you can.

(Edit: I know, Pete, it was structural damage plus fire; I was just trying to keep my post as simple as possible for our friend Dabljuh)

 

[Dabljuh]

Grizzly Bear:
"Progressive Collapse" of a well built Skyscraper due to Fire has not been observed before. Unless you're talking about controlled demolition. The term "Progressive Collapse" was coined to deceive away from the fact that this has never happened before and never will, to give the false impression that this is a common occurrence and a real danger to all buildings.

The Windsor Tower isn't built entirely different than the WTC Towers. According to your site, the Windsor Tower had a Core from
- Concrete
- Reinforced Concrete
- Steel I-beams

In addition, it had steel floor waffles and steel perimeter columns. That means, 3 all-steel elements. Of these three, only 1 has failed in the case of the Windsor Tower - the perimeter clumns. Two other steel elements didn't fail: the steel beams in the central core, and the floor waffles.

For the WTC, supposedly the core steel columns would have failed. However, the core steel columns of the Windsor Tower didn't fail. Neither did the perimeter columns of the WTC fail. Eventually they might have, there was buckling observed in a few places and all, but the fact remains that they DIDNT and that instead the steel core columns suddenly imploded.





Cl1mh4224rd, the fire supposedly caused the failure of the core structure after the damage to the periphery was caused by the physical impact of the plane. However, the core would have stood long after even the entire periphery had collapsed.



Kookbreaker, your failure to come up with even a single argument surprises me. You wrote so much and still - One would assume that by sheer random chance, there would be a worthwhile argument in your post. Read Grizzly Bear's post, he at least comes up with a counter argument (and not a bad one either, although far from sufficient)




gumboot, the core was the only part that collapsed catastrophically. The perimeter columns held up (despite observed buckling) and the floor slabs didn't 'pancake'. Which is why we really don't have to spend another second looking at anything but the core.




Pomeroo, the evidence for explosives is inexistent?
- Countless eyewittnesses accounts report for secondary
- and primary explosions
- Squibs
- Pyroclastic Surge
- Unusual power surges and construction works in the weeks before 9/11
- Thermate residue found in the debris

Even if we had none of these bits of evidence, we not only have no proof that the fire caused the complete collapse, we also do not have a conclusive theory that explains how fire could have caused a collapse like the one observed, with the core structures failing. However, we can have a conclusive theory on how explosives could have been used to bring an entire building like the WTC towers down, making CD a superior theory even in this hypothetical absence of all evidence other than the collapse itself.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not a valid theory that should be investigated with scrutiny.



e^n: The columns mainly carried the gravity load.



Johnny Karate, that's because you live in the US of A where the MSM are completely worthless and bribed billions by government agencies to influence their reporting.



MarkyX, The debris was not investigated for bombs, in fact, it was quickly moved out of the country in a move that was even criticised by mainstream media and and non-truther structural engineers. We have however Stephen E. Jones who claims to have found evidence of thermate combustion in a sample that was gathered from a piece of debris now located at a memorial site.



A W Smith, I can't calculate that from a floor plan like that. I'd need much more information. However, a few hints that the central columns carried the main load of the gravity are: Their strength compared to the perimeter columns, and again: The columns mainly carried the gravity load.



Myriad: Unfortunately the christmas tree, other trees and even Humans are quite sturdy critters for the exact reason that they have a backbone. So your argument is not just invalid, but extremely dumb too.



Mancman:
Here's a real fire - and only the perimeter columns failed, not the core columns (although, granted, many of the core columns were concrete)




Peteweaver, you show no understanding of basic physics. How much fire does it take to heat up steel to 300°C and how long does it take? Especially if the steel is a ginormous structure over 1500ft in length that can act like a giant heatsink. And even that's not the argument, the argument is that no amount of fire could have made the central column collapse purely due to its large amount of redundancy. Go back to school.



defaultdotxbe, not really... Smoke means the combustion runs incompletely because there isn't enough oxygen. A complete combustion produces H2O and CO2, the latter of which being invisible in air, and the former one becoming only visible as white steam once the gas cools down to sub-boiling point temperature. But volumetrically speaking, there is a larger volume of gas produced than is consumed, even if you ignore the higher temperature that the combustion causes.




MelOdious: You don't. Also, invocation of Argument ad populum number 100 in this thread. Lets have a celebration. That doesn't mean a thing. A bajillion people believes Homeopathy is more than just placebo. So is that reason for you to do the same?

 

[jhunter1163]

Any minute now I expect Dabljuh to start in about 3" rebar on 4' centers.

 

[Dabljuh]

Lets work on the much abused Argument ad Populum for a change. It basically goes like this:

"There's a bajillion structural engineers in the world, how would they all say agree with the non-CD theory if fire were so obviously impossible to bring the structure down"

First of all, you have to understand that this is doubly fallacious. First of all, you have no way to tell that all structural engineers of the world agree with any one theory. So what you're doing there is an argument ad silentio, "They all say nothing about CD so CD must obviously be wrong" and an argument ad populum "The unanimous support of the fire theory by the structural engineer community proves that CD is wrong"

First of all, if all the structural engineers in the world believed that the moon must be made out of helium ballons, because it doesn't fall down onto the earth, that doesn't make it true. That should be obvious. The number of people, qualified or not, adhering to a specific belief system does not say anything about the quality of the belief system. Only about its popularity.

Second of all, who are you to claim that structural engineers all over the world agree that it wasn't CD? Consider the following, what if the overwhelming majority of structural engineers would believe it was CD that brought the WTC down? Would you hear about it? If you're american, you wouldn't. Because no mainstream media outlet in the US would report about this. Instead, they convey the opposite, that only cooks and cranks could ever get the ******* insane idea that it had been CD.

So what if there's a structural engineer, lets call him Walther, finds that the fire theory is not credible and only CD could account for the collapse of the WTC. What would he do? Would he try to go to the MSM where he'd either be rejected outright, or tried to be made a fool of by agressive cutting techniques and being faced with something like 6 people who are going to insult him constantly and questioning his competence.

I doubt he would want that. And newly trained structural engineers at an uni are already trained with 'case study: WTC brought down by fire' ruling out all alternatives apodictically. And imagine a professor for structural engineering to teach his students that the WTC was "most likely brought down by CD" - He'd be out of a job by the end of the week, not because of his competence or lack thereof, but because of political pressure. Pretty much all professors who spoke out against the official reports found themselves targeted by groups specialiced on slander.

In the 70ies, the CIA was exposed when they had spent billions of dollars each year to influence what the mainstream media outlets in the US would report. They were not criticised because that's immoral and a waste of taxpayer money, but because the CIA may not operate within the borders of the US. Do you honestly believe that the government as a whole has stopped this practice since?

Oh yeah, wait, I'm a conspiracy nut and a kook and whatnot. That never happened. Right? Right??

If you're american, whatever the MSM's opinion on the WTC happenings was, you should - just to be on the safe side - assume the opposite and go from there. Critical thinking is the opposite of referring to the MSM when it comes to conspiracy theories.

The mainstream media in the rest of the world have less problems posting what you'd call conspiracy theories, even though they are still influenced by the CIA, but on a smaller scale. Pretty much everyone in the rest of the world at least has heard of the evidence suggesting the Towers were brought down by CD from their respective MSM.

 

[gumboot]

I didn't know someone could be so wrong. Only the core columns collapsed?

Wow.

 

[gumboot]

Lets work on the much abused Argument ad Populum for a change. It basically goes like this:

"There's a bajillion structural engineers in the world, how would they all say agree with the non-CD theory if fire were so obviously impossible to bring the structure down"

First of all, you have to understand that this is doubly fallacious. First of all, you have no way to tell that all structural engineers of the world agree with any one theory. So what you're doing there is an argument ad silentio, "They all say nothing about CD so CD must obviously be wrong" and an argument ad populum "The unanimous support of the fire theory by the structural engineer community proves that CD is wrong"

First of all, if all the structural engineers in the world believed that the moon must be made out of helium ballons, because it doesn't fall down onto the earth, that doesn't make it true. That should be obvious. The number of people, qualified or not, adhering to a specific belief system does not say anything about the quality of the belief system. Only about its popularity.

Second of all, who are you to claim that structural engineers all over the world agree that it wasn't CD? Consider the following, what if the overwhelming majority of structural engineers would believe it was CD that brought the WTC down? Would you hear about it? If you're american, you wouldn't. Because no mainstream media outlet in the US would report about this. Instead, they convey the opposite, that only cooks and cranks could ever get the ******* insane idea that it had been CD.

So what if there's a structural engineer, lets call him Walther, finds that the fire theory is not credible and only CD could account for the collapse of the WTC. What would he do? Would he try to go to the MSM where he'd either be rejected outright, or tried to be made a fool of by agressive cutting techniques and being faced with something like 6 people who are going to insult him constantly and questioning his competence.

I doubt he would want that. And newly trained structural engineers at an uni are already trained with 'case study: WTC brought down by fire' ruling out all alternatives apodictically. And imagine a professor for structural engineering to teach his students that the WTC was "most likely brought down by CD" - He'd be out of a job by the end of the week, not because of his competence or lack thereof, but because of political pressure. Pretty much all professors who spoke out against the official reports found themselves targeted by groups specialiced on slander.

In the 70ies, the CIA was exposed when they had spent billions of dollars each year to influence what the mainstream media outlets in the US would report. They were not criticised because that's immoral and a waste of taxpayer money, but because the CIA may not operate within the borders of the US. Do you honestly believe that the government as a whole has stopped this practice since?

Oh yeah, wait, I'm a conspiracy nut and a kook and whatnot. That never happened. Right? Right??

If you're american, whatever the MSM's opinion on the WTC happenings was, you should - just to be on the safe side - assume the opposite and go from there. Critical thinking is the opposite of referring to the MSM when it comes to conspiracy theories.

The mainstream media in the rest of the world have less problems posting what you'd call conspiracy theories, even though they are still influenced by the CIA, but on a smaller scale. Pretty much everyone in the rest of the world at least has heard of the evidence suggesting the Towers were brought down by CD from their respective MSM.

I hate to rain on your parade but I'm a non-American living in a non-American country with a particularly non-(and anti)American media, and I can confirm with absolute certainty that the non-American world is no more convinced by 9/11 Conspiracy Theories than the American world is.

 

[1337m4n]

I could really make Dabljuh squirm and dance here but I'm feeling kinda lazy right now. Maybe later today or tomorrow.

For now, Dabljuh, let me just ask you: Why were the alleged explosives not picked up by seismic detection equipment?

ETA: ...or audio recording devices, for that matter?

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Grizzly Bear:
"Progressive Collapse" of a well built Skyscraper due to Fire has not been observed before. Unless you're talking about controlled demolition.

Perhaps because nobody had ever considered flying a plane into one before. Your claim that not a single skyscraper has collapsed due to fire is about as good as me claiming no fire in a skyscraper has ever been ignited on 6 or 7 floors at the same time. Precedents are built on 1st-time events and events following.

The term "Progressive Collapse" was coined to deceive away from the fact that this has never happened before and never will,

Really?
L’Ambiance Plaza (1987) Case Study (construction was not complete)
Lian Yak building (1986) Article Standing Committee on Structural Safety
Ronan Point Apartments (1968) Article

to give the false impression that this is a common occurrence and a real danger to all buildings.

Red herring/Strawman: Don't pull this stuff out of your ****. Nobody has stated that progressive collapse happens frequently. Only under extreme circumstances does it happen. Do we set skyscrapers on fire every day? Do planes crash into skyscrapers every day, week, or year? Are buildings commonly so severely damaged? No...

Progressive collapse basics

The Windsor Tower isn't built entirely different than the WTC Towers. According to your site, the Windsor Tower had a Core from
- Concrete
- Reinforced Concrete
- Steel I-beams

Please tell me how this is similar to the world trade center. Reinforced Concrete uses rebar to add tensile strength to concrete construction. The steel itself is not structural.

Concrete in the world trade centers was confined primarily to the floor slabs.
By all standards the Windsor Tower is classified as concrete.

In addition, it had steel floor waffles

Steel floor assemblies are corrugated metal panels similar to these. The 'waffle slab' is concrete which you can read about here.

And for the record... the case study I linked you to says the following:

"The Windsor Tower or Torre Windsor (officially known as Edificio Windsor) was a 32-storey concrete building with a reinforced concrete central core. A typical floor was two-way spanning 280mm deep waffle slab supported by the concrete core, internal RC columns with additional 360mm deep steel I-beams and steel perimeter columns. Originally, the perimeter columns and internal steel beams were left unprotected in accordance with the Spanish building code at the time of construction

The building featured two heavily reinforced concrete transfer structures (technical floors) between the 2nd and 3rd Floors, and between the 16th and 17th Floors respectively. The original cladding system was fixed to the steel perimeter columns and the floor slabs. The perimeter columns were supported by the transfer structures at the 17th and 3rd Floor levels.

• Reinforced Concrete central core
• 280 mm deep waffle slab [supported by the concrete core]
• internal RC columns with additional 360mm deep steel I-beams
• Steel perimeter columns

Where does it say that it was constructed with steel waffles?

...and steel perimeter columns. That means, 3 all-steel elements. Of these three, only 1 has failed in the case of the Windsor Tower - the perimeter clumns. Two other steel elements didn't fail: the steel beams in the central core, and the floor waffles.

The perimeter columns were structural elements, The steel in reinforced concrete is intended solely for adding tensile strength to structural concrete, and the internal I-beams were structural but not primary elements..

For the WTC, supposedly the core steel columns would have failed. However, the core steel columns of the Windsor Tower didn't fail. Neither did the perimeter columns of the WTC fail.

Reinforced Concrete central core (Windsor Tower)

vs

47 columns made of a combination of wide flange and box sections, interconnected by conventional steel beams to support the core floors. (World Trade Center)

The only thing the two have in common is that they both carry primarily gravity loads.

Eventually they might have, there was buckling observed in a few places and all, but the fact remains that they DIDNT and that instead the steel core columns suddenly imploded.

Suddenly? To their credit, the sheer size of the towers, and the closely spaced columns did resist immediate collapse. However, the deflection of exterior columns and reports from helicopters circling the towers shortly before collapse that the towers were leaning were warning signs. And the collapse was nothing like an implosion, you don't get 16-acre-sized debis fields in implosions.

Cl1mh4224rd, the fire supposedly caused the failure of the core structure after the damage to the periphery was caused by the physical impact of the plane. However, the core would have stood long after even the entire periphery had collapsed.

And in fact, 40 stories of one, and 60 stories of the other remained standing for up to 30 seconds after the rest of the building collapsed.They too collapsed however because they lost their lateral bracing and were unable to support their own weigh at that point.

Pomeroo, the evidence for explosives is inexistent?
- Countless eyewittnesses accounts report for secondary
- and primary explosions
Between these two, I note the utter butchering that many CT sites go through with witness accounts. The mass confusion that day led to many of these. People initially thought that the 1st plane impact was a bomb, did that change the plane into a bomb? Other people described people hitting the ground as explosions, popping sounds which signaled structural failure high above, electrical short circuits. The behavior of the same people contradicts the use of secondary devices as well as lack of audio and seismic readings.

- Squibs We observe only 3 or 4 of these during the entire collapse. If they were explosives we would have seen far more than just a 'few'

- Pyroclastic Surge Irrelevant, there's really no difference in the dust cloud of a CD or a collapse initiated by structural failure. In the end... the building collapsed... I'm not sure what difference you'd be looking for to distinguish the two

- Unusual power surges and construction works in the weeks before 9/11

- Thermate residue found in the debris You mean the molybdemun spheres? This is common in steel milling, and from other sources. Further more the use of such incendiaries would have resulted in a spectacular fireworks display inside the towers visible from multiple places in Manhattan

My remarks in red

However, we can have a conclusive theory on how explosives could have been used to bring an entire building like the WTC towers down, making CD a superior theory even in this hypothetical absence of all evidence other than the collapse itself.

Much of what I've heard about the logistical strategies of getting these explosives in has to date been subject of incredible speculation. People have written articles on how they 'could have' or 'probably' exploited elevator systems to sneak such devices into the core elements. People have told me that with 'the right work crew' they 'could have' achieved the planting of all of these in the span of 4 days.

Could have, and probably don't agree with 'did'. I can only imagine how this plays in with the disagreement between multiple factions of the conspiracy theory over whether therm?te, explosives, or both were used.

e^n: The columns mainly carried the gravity load.

Ah, it seems you found the case study. That they did, however, the core failure was initially local, within the impact zones. The remainder failed when it lost the lateral bracing provided by the exterior load-bearing columns.

Mancman:
Here's a real fire - and only the perimeter columns failed, not the core columns (although, granted, many of the core columns were concrete)

Your were making some weird comparisons earlier in your post... Change of heart in how you see the structure whilst posting?

Peteweaver, you show no understanding of basic physics. How much fire does it take to heat up steel to 300°C and how long does it take?

Not very long when the box columns are hollow and as a result possess a small volume.

Especially if the steel is a ginormous structure over 1500ft in length that can act like a giant heatsink. And even that's not the argument, the argument is that no amount of fire could have made the central column collapse purely due to its large amount of redundancy. Go back to school.

The steel would have never needed to be globally heated, only locally to result in structural failure. And yet again, steel's redundancy is lost under thermal stresses. Wood retains it's load capacity far better than steel in fire.