Debate: How did the WTC buildings collapse?

[MacGyver1968]

Moderator note: It appears that a debate on this topic was started without clear agreement as to the debate format. Readers are warned that the resulting debate does not really fit the format of the Formal Debates forum. It is retained here for those who are interested, although the discussion thread is closed.

[thread=90058]Proposal thread[/thread]. [thread=90071]Debate thread[/thread]. [thread=90070]Discussion thread[/thread]

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Scott and I have agreed to the rules. He has graciously given me the floor first. I will use this opportunity to repost my position given in the proposal thread.

(MacGyver stands behind the podium)

How did the WTC towers collapse? It's because of this:

(MacGyver produces a standard wooden meter stick from behind the podium, much like this)

No..I don't think a meter stick brought down the twin towers, but I would like to use it as example of what happens to a long, light-weight structure when under compression, with no external support.

(Macgyver then holds the meter stick at both ends and pushes inward..causing the meter stick to bow in the center)

It bows! Light weight structures, like this meter stick perform very poorly under compression...BUT! (points one finger in the air dramatically)

(Macgyver holds meterstick vertically)

If you add horizontal supports, in tension, evenly along its length, to this flimsy vertical member, that prevent it from bowing, the compression strength of the member greatly increases...and the meter stick can hold much more weight.


I would like to propose that the collapse of the twin towers was initially caused by failure of the light weight floor joists, who's job it was to prevent the perimeter columns from bowing under load, (like our meter stick).


I would like to submit this stock photo (arrows added my me) of a WTC floor joist and it's connection to the perimeter columns as Reference picture #1.

We can clearly see in the photograph, the delicate construction of each individual joist. The joist is made up of a top rail (indicated by the blue arrow) and the bottom rail (pink arrow). These two rails were supported and kept rigid, by a long steel rod, bent in a continuous "M" shape, and welded at the top and bottom (green arrow). It is my opinion that this steel rod was the first component to fail in the system.

The steel structure was protected by blown on fire-proofing. These metal rods presented a small diameter, and little surface area for that type of blown on insulation to stick to. When the massive plane struck the perimeter columns and shattered, many of these key floor joists were damaged or destroyed in the initial impact. Others had their fireproofing stripped from them by high-speed, flying debris.

Thousands of gallons of jet fuel instantly ignited a fire across many floors. These small diameter rods were exposed to temperatures that allowed them to soften to begin to lose their strength. When the rods began to fail, it allowed the top and bottom rail to sag in their center, pulling on the connections at the perimeter wall (yellow arrows) Eventually, the joist would sag enough to cause the connections to the wall to fail, causing the joist to fall to the next floor. When enough of these joists became dislodged, it allowed the perimeter columns to bow (like our meter stick) and fail. These columns were already under more than their designed load, due to the massive hole in the side of the building. The perimeter columns initially were successful in transferring the load around the hole, immediately after the impact...but with a lack of horizontal support to keep them from buckling, they failed.

At that point gravity took over.

And that is what I believe caused the twin towers to collapse.

Thank you.

Scott, you can either respond to this, or present your own position on "Why the WTC buildings collapsed".

 

[scott3x]

Scott and I have agreed to the rules. He has graciously given me the floor first. I will use this opportunity to repost my position given in the proposal thread.

(MacGyver stands behind the podium)

Lol

How did the WTC towers collapse? It's because of this:

(MacGyver produces a standard wooden meter stick from behind the podium, much like this)

No..I don't think a meter stick brought down the twin towers, but I would like to use it as example of what happens to a long, light-weight structure when under compression, with no external support.

(Macgyver then holds the meter stick at both ends and pushes inward..causing the meter stick to bow in the center)

It bows! Light weight structures, like this meter stick perform very poorly under compression...BUT! (points one finger in the air dramatically)

(Macgyver holds meterstick vertically)

If you add horizontal supports, in tension, evenly along its length, to this flimsy vertical member, that prevent it from bowing, the compression strength of the member greatly increases...and the meter stick can hold much more weight.


I would like to propose that the collapse of the twin towers was initially caused by failure of the light weight floor joists, who's job it was to prevent the perimeter columns from bowing under load, (like our meter stick).


I would like to submit this stock photo (arrows added my me) of a WTC floor joist and it's connection to the perimeter columns as Reference picture #1.

We can clearly see in the photograph, the delicate construction of each individual joist. The joist is made up of a top rail (indicated by the blue arrow) and the bottom rail (pink arrow). These two rails were supported and kept rigid, by a long steel rod, bent in a continuous "M" shape, and welded at the top and bottom (green arrow). It is my opinion that this steel rod was the first component to fail in the system.

The steel structure was protected by blown on fire-proofing. These metal rods presented a small diameter, and little surface area for that type of blown on insulation to stick to. When the massive plane struck the perimeter columns and shattered, many of these key floor joists were damaged or destroyed in the initial impact. Others had their fireproofing stripped from them by high-speed, flying debris.

Do you have any actual evidence that the plane did anything of the sort? So far, all I've seen is that a bit of the fireproofing was taken off at the plane's entrance; the columns themselves were sheared as well. I have seen no evidence that would suggest that any more fireproofing was taken off. I know that NIST has attempted to make it -appear- as if it was likely, but I have heard from Kevin Ryan and others that it was unlikely to impossible that this was in fact the case. I have also heard from many experts, such as Kevin Ryan, as well as Tony Szamboti, that tests were done with steel with essentially no fireproofing (according to Kevin Ryan) and no fireproofing at all (according to Tony Szamboti). In the first case, the steel didn't collapse. In the second, NIST claimed that it wasn't a legitimate test and never reported the results.

Thousands of gallons of jet fuel instantly ignited a fire across many floors.

In the Journal of 9/11 studies, a thoughtful, if anonymous writer, wrote the following in a letter to the aforementioned site titled Non-animated Visualization Aids to Assist in Understanding the Demolitions of the World Trade Center Twin Towers:

NIST has divided the jet fuel that arrived at the buildings into three categories.
• that which was burned up immediately in the initial fireballs (20% of total)
• that which remained on the impacted floors (50% of jet fuel remaining after fireballs)
• that which "flowed away, presumably down" (50% of jet fuel remaining after fireballs)...

The 929 cubic feet volume of jet fuel that remained in the WTC 1 and 793 cubic feet in WTC 2 are inconsequential amounts relative to the size of the buildings and could not have caused the demolition of these immense buildings through either fire or structural damage.

This contention is made even more unbelievable, as NIST assumes that half of that jet fuel "flowed away" from the impact floors and did not contribute to the fires that initiated the building collapses. We are asked to believe that 2,966 gallons of jet fuel, essentially kerosene, caused the collapse of the South Tower.

Let's assume that NIST is wrong- that no jet fuel actually went down the elevator shafts and that the full 100% of jet fuel remaining stayed right where it was. This would mean that the impact floors in the south tower had 5.932 gallons, or about 900 cubic feet to work with. A single standard 10'x10' office cubicle filled to 9 feet could house that amount of jet fuel. Approximately 300 such cubicles plus walkways and amenities could have been contained on each of the 110 floors (40,000 square feet) of each Twin Tower.

Here is a picture of a pool that has enough room for 1,017 cubic feet:

These small diameter rods were exposed to temperatures that allowed them to soften to begin to lose their strength. When the rods began to fail, it allowed the top and bottom rail to sag in their center, pulling on the connections at the perimeter wall (yellow arrows) Eventually, the joist would sag enough to cause the connections to the wall to fail, causing the joist to fall to the next floor.

Do you have any evidence to support the claim that the joists would "sag enough to cause the connections to the wall to fail, causing the joist to fall to the next floor"?

When enough of these joists became dislodged, it allowed the perimeter columns to bow (like our meter stick) and fail. These columns were already under more than their designed load, due to the massive hole in the side of the building.

The buildings were designed to well beyond their designed parameters; it was designed to sustain very strong winds. It wasn't windy at all on 9/11.

Scott, you can either respond to this, or present your own position on "Why the WTC buildings collapsed".

Well as you can see, I've chosen to respond to your post. In a very real way, however, I have already made a fairly persuasive case that the buildings were taken down by controlled demolition, on my web site; the starter page for it is here:
http://scott3x.tripod.com/wtc/index.html

 

[leopold]

In the Journal of 9/11 studies, a thoughtful, if anonymous writer had this to say in his letter to this site concerning the jet fuel:

this is exactly why i didn't accept your challenge scott.

 

[scott3x]

this is exactly why i didn't accept your challenge scott.

:bugeye: For someone who purports to be such a stickler for rules, I'm surprised that you're responding to me in this thread, which MacGyver has stated would like to be between him and me alone and which you know full well. Anyway, I have responded to your point in the discussion sister thread here.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Lol




Do you have any actual evidence that the plane did anything of the sort? So far, all I've seen is that a bit of the fireproofing was taken off at the plane's entrance; the columns themselves were sheared as well. I have seen no evidence that would suggest that any more fireproofing was taken off. I know that NIST has attempted to make it -appear- as if it was likely, but I have heard from Kevin Ryan and others that it was unlikely to impossible that this was in fact the case. I have also heard from many experts, such as Kevin Ryan, as well as Tony Szamboti, that tests were done with steel with essentially no fireproofing (according to Kevin Ryan) and no fireproofing at all (according to Tony Szamboti). In the first case, the steel didn't collapse. In the second, NIST claimed that it wasn't a legitimate test and never reported the results.

I won't get into number games with you Scott, you know that's not my style. You seem to be telling me you don't believe the fireproofing was damaged because people at a 9/11 site told you that. I will ask you to look at reference photo #1 and give me YOUR opinion on the rod pointed to by the green arrow. Does a structure like that look like it could hold onto blow-on foam fireproofing very well? Especially getting hit with small bits of plane traveling several hundred miles an hour? It's round shape provide the least about of surface area to cling to. The rod is made of one long continuous piece, not even all off it would need to be exposed as heat would conduct down a thin rod like that very well.

In the Journal of 9/11 studies, a thoughtful, if anonymous writer had this to say in his letter to this site concerning the jet fuel:


Let's assume that NIST is wrong- that no jet fuel actually went down the elevator shafts and that the full 100% of jet fuel remaining stayed right where it was. This would mean that the impact floors in the south tower had 5.932 gallons, or about 900 cubic feet to work with. A single standard 10'x10' office cubicle filled to 9 feet could house that amount of jet fuel. Approximately 300 such cubicles plus walkways and amenities could have been contained on each of the 110 floors (40,000 square feet) of each Twin Tower.

Here is a picture of a pool that has enough room for 1,017 cubic feet:

I'm really not quite sure what point you are trying to make with this. An anonymous source really doesn't scream credibility. "This would mean that the impact floors in the south tower had 5.932 gallons, or about 900 cubic feet to work with" What does it mean the tower had 5.932 gallons? In relation to what? I assume the author means 5 thousand 9 hundred gallons, and not 5 point 9 gallons...as 5932 gallons = 793 cubic feet...that's kinda close to 900...And had 900 cubic feet of what to work with, and what is it working? Then I believe your source proposes that all the fuel in a 767 could be contained in a 10 x 10 x 9 cubical....A fully fueled 767 holds 24,000 gallons of fuel..That obviously isn't true..Please clarify this point..what does the swimming pool represent? The fuel only started the fire..fully engulfing several of the floors. It was the furniture and paper, computers, and whatever else that was flammable that continued to burn.

Do you have any evidence to support the claim that the joists would "sag enough to cause the connections to the wall to fail, causing the joist to fall to the next floor"?

I believe that was the findings of the NIST report. I believe those were also the findings of Popular Mechanics.

But I don't believe it because they told me so. I believe it, because when I look at the system I see it as the weakest link the system, and most likely to fail first.

The buildings were designed to well beyond their designed parameters; it was designed to sustain very strong winds. It wasn't windy at all on 9/11.

True, they were designed with a margin of safety for wind sheering. They were not, however, designed to have this done to them:

All of the load that all of those sheared off perimeter columns used to hold up is being transferred successfully around the hole. That means that the nearest intact columns adjacent to the hole would be experience many times their design load capacity. I think it's a miracle the buildings stayed standing after the initial hit. It's a tribute to it's design.

Well as you can see, I've chosen to respond to your post. In a very real way, however, I have already made a fairly persuasive case that the buildings were taken down by controlled demolition, on my web site; the starter page for it is here:
http://scott3x.tripod.com/wtc/index.html

Spam..spam..spam

 

[scott3x]

Fireproofing widely dislodged?

This is the first part of my response to MacGyver's post 5 in this thread.

Do you have any actual evidence that the plane did anything of the sort? So far, all I've seen is that a bit of the fireproofing was taken off at the plane's entrance; the columns themselves were sheared as well. I have seen no evidence that would suggest that any more fireproofing was taken off. I know that NIST has attempted to make it -appear- as if it was likely, but I have heard from Kevin Ryan and others that it was unlikely to impossible that this was in fact the case. I have also heard from many experts, such as Kevin Ryan, as well as Tony Szamboti, that tests were done with steel with essentially no fireproofing (according to Kevin Ryan) and no fireproofing at all (according to Tony Szamboti). In the first case, the steel didn't collapse. In the second, NIST claimed that it wasn't a legitimate test and never reported the results.

I won't get into number games with you Scott, you know that's not my style.

What numbers game are we talking about here?

You seem to be telling me you don't believe the fireproofing was damaged because people at a 9/11 site told you that.

They did more then 'tell me that'. They provided evidence for their claims. Here's an excerpt from 9/11 Research's article, "Review of 'A New Standard For Deception: The NIST WTC Report' A Presentation by Kevin Ryan":
3. Fireproofing widely dislodged?

The idea that fireproofing was removed from most of the structural steel surfaces of the impact zones is essential to NIST's theory. NIST sought to "prove" that the plane crashes could do this by shooting shotguns at surfaces coated with spray-on foam insulation. Contrary to the popular notion that the jolts of the plane crashes could knocked off large amounts of spray-on insulation from steel not directly in the line of fire, the tests showed that it took being sprayed with shotgun pellets to remove the insulation. In addition to the fact that there is no evidence that a crashing Boeing 757 could have been transformed into the equivalent of the thousands of shotgun blasts it would take to blast the 6,000 square meters of surface area of structural steel in the fire areas, Ryan makes another argument based on the available energy.

* NIST says 2500 MJ of kinetic energy from plane that hit WTC1
o Calculations show that all this energy was consumed in crushing aircraft and breaking columns and floors *
o Shotgun tests found that 1 MJ per sq meter was needed to dislodge fireproofing
o For the areas in question, intact floors and columns had 6000 sq meters of surface area
* Calculations by Tomasz Wierzbicki of MIT

 

[MacGyver1968]

I am referring to a very specific piece of structure. The steel rod that connected the top to the bottom rail of the floor joist. This is the object I proposed failed. I know your not a structural engineer, but I ask you to look at this rod, indicated by the green arrow in reference picture 1, and give YOUR opinion on that's structures ability to hold on to fireproofing. Not very much surface area for fireproofing to hold on two.

* NIST says 2500 MJ of kinetic energy from plane that hit WTC1
o Calculations show that all this energy was consumed in crushing aircraft and breaking columns and floors *

Obviously all of the energy was not consumed, as a giant fireball of exploding fuel, pieces of the plane, and body parts were ejected out back side of the building...obviously there was plenty of energy left over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Qu6eyyr4c

Here is a video showing the 2nd plane striking the building. Notice how far material is ejected from the building and with such great energy. Notice that after the initial fireball clears our view. The several floors are fully engulfed in flame from one end to another...after only 5-10 seconds after the plane hit, whole floors were ablaze.

This video makes my jaw drop everytime I see it. It really shows the amount of energy released. Pieces of material are ejected so far, they look like they hit the darker building to the far right. I think that's quite sufficient energy to tear the light weight, foam installation off of a round 1" rod.

 

[scott3x]

Jet fuel and the intensity of the Twin tower fires

This is the 2nd part of my response to MacGyver's post 5 in this thread.

Thousands of gallons of jet fuel instantly ignited a fire across many floors.

In the Journal of 9/11 studies, a thoughtful, if anonymous writer, wrote the following in a letter to the aforementioned site titled Non-animated Visualization Aids to Assist in Understanding the Demolitions of the World Trade Center Twin Towers:

NIST has divided the jet fuel that arrived at the buildings into three categories.
• that which was burned up immediately in the initial fireballs (20% of total)
• that which remained on the impacted floors (50% of jet fuel remaining after fireballs)
• that which "flowed away, presumably down" (50% of jet fuel remaining after fireballs)...

The 929 cubic feet volume of jet fuel that remained in the WTC 1 and 793 cubic feet in WTC 2 are inconsequential amounts relative to the size of the buildings and could not have caused the demolition of these immense buildings through either fire or structural damage.

This contention is made even more unbelievable, as NIST assumes that half of that jet fuel "flowed away" from the impact floors and did not contribute to the fires that initiated the building collapses. We are asked to believe that 2,966 gallons of jet fuel, essentially kerosene, caused the collapse of the South Tower.

Let's assume that NIST is wrong- that no jet fuel actually went down the elevator shafts and that the full 100% of jet fuel remaining stayed right where it was. This would mean that the impact floors in the south tower had 5.932 gallons, or about 900 cubic feet to work with. A single standard 10'x10' office cubicle filled to 9 feet could house that amount of jet fuel. Approximately 300 such cubicles plus walkways and amenities could have been contained on each of the 110 floors (40,000 square feet) of each Twin Tower.

Here is a picture of a pool that has enough room for 1,017 cubic feet:

I'm really not quite sure what point you are trying to make with this. An anonymous source really doesn't scream credibility.

You and I are relatively anonymous here and yet here we are debating. There are many reasons for an author to be anonymous in regards to contentions regarding 9/11. Perhaps he works in a job that he might be fired from, as Kevin Ryan was when he spoke up. Or perhaps he's a university professor, such as Steven Jones, and doesn't want to be suspended from his work. I really think that instead of focusing on the fact that he's anonymous, you should focus on his -arguments-, which have passed the muster of the peer reviewed 9/11 Journal of 9/11 studies site.

"This would mean that the impact floors in the south tower had 5.932 gallons, or about 900 cubic feet to work with" What does it mean the tower had 5.932 gallons? In relation to what? I assume the author means 5 thousand 9 hundred gallons, and not 5 point 9 gallons...as 5932 gallons = 793 cubic feet...that's kinda close to 900... And had 900 cubic feet of what to work with, and what is it working?

The author actually said 5,932 gallons; I'm the one who messed up . The author claims he is taking his information directly from NIST, btw. The author -did- mess up a bit in regards to the 900 cubic feet bit. You see, he states that NIST claims that the -South- Tower had 929 cubic feet. The North Tower only had 793. Feel free to review his numbers yourself in the aforementioned article. The relevant data is on page 3. His entire paper is only 5 pages long, unlike NIST's 10,000 tin rat pages (or TNRAT- They'll Never Read All That).

Then I believe your source proposes that all the fuel in a 767 could be contained in a 10 x 10 x 9 cubical....A fully fueled 767 holds 24,000 gallons of fuel..

Yes, a -fully fueled- 767 holds 24,000 gallons of fuel. The 767s that hit the twin towers definitely shouldn't have been fully fueled, if we're to believe that they were the planes the official story claims them to be, at any rate. The aforementioned article clarifies the issue:

Just How Much Jet Fuel Entered Each of the Twin Towers?

In nine instances, NIST's Final Report qualitatively refers to "fuel-laden" airplanes as if to emphasize the airplanes were carrying a tremendous amount of fuel. However, NIST's detailed quantative report, Computer Simulation of the Fires, reveals that on impact with the Towers, Flight 11 and Flight 175 were respectively carrying only approximately 36% and 31% of full fuel capacity.

The NIST reports offer varying estimates of the amount of jet fuel that was on the airplanes. One passage states that on impact Flight 11 "likely contained about 10,000 gallons of Jet A fuel (66,700 pounds)". Another passage states that Flight 175 contained "about 9,100 gal (62,000 lb)". However, these relatively qualitative descriptions are contradicted by NIST in more detailed quantitative information described below.

Similarly, varying qualitative estimates are provided of the jet fuel that remained inside each of the Twin Towers immediately after the initial fireballs burned off. The Final Report states in a few places "well over half of the jet fuel remained in the building, unburned in the initial fires. The Reconstruction of the Fires report provides an estimate to Flight 11 which impacted the North Tower of "about two thirds of the jet fuel remained inside the building to burn later." The Reconstruction of the Fires report does not provide a simple statement of how much jet fuel remained in the South Tower. The Final Report states, "As in WTC 1, less than 15 percent of the jet fuel burned in the spray cloud inside the building. Roughly 10 percent to 25 percent was consumed in the fireballs outside the building. Thus, well over half of the jet fuel remained after the initial fireball."

This paper relies on the jet fuel estimates that are provided in NIST's detailed quantitative report, NCSTAR 1-5F Computer Simulation of the Fires. In that report, jet fuel estimates are provided for each of the impact floors, accurate to the gallon! It states:

"Tables 5-3 and 5-4 present the predicted fuel distributions from the impact analysis. Of the total amount of fuel distributed to each floor, only 40 percent was used in the simulations. The reasoning behind this estimate followed that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) study (McAllister 2002). It has been estimated by various forms of analysis (Zalosh 1995; Baum and Rehm 2002) that roughly 20 percent of the jet fuel was consumed in the fireballs that were observed outside of the buildings within seconds of impact. The authors of the FEMA report suggested that half of the fuel not consumed in the fireballs could have flowed away, presumably down the elevator shafts and stairwells based on eyewitness accounts [scott3x's note: this is actually questionable, given that the official story -needs- there to have been jet fuel leaking down those elevator shafts in order to provide a weak cover story for the explosions before collapse initiation and I consider it likely that some officials may have influenced what witnesses have reported]. Some additional discussion of the fireballs may be found in NIST NCSTAR 1-5A.

The jet fuel consumption estimate put forth by the FEMA team was used in the model because (1) no evidence or analysis emerged that significantly altered the FEMA estimate and (2) the simulations were insensitive to both the amount and distribution of the jet fuel. Sensitivity studies showed that the amount of fuel spilled in the simulation only influenced the results of the first few minutes; the long term behaviour of the simulated fires was unaffected" [Bold added for emphasis by author.]

The fuel only started the fire..fully engulfing several of the floors.

The fires weren't as extensive as NIST may like us to believe. There are many photographs of people still alive within the impact site and large spaces where there were no flames visibile at all. However, there is certainly evidence that things -besides- the fires were working, as Gordon Ross makes clear in his videos; incendiaries had already begun working on taking down the building even before the collapse initiation- this was the true cause of the infamous molten metal pouring down from the south tower just a minute or so before its collapse.

It was the furniture and paper, computers, and whatever else that was flammable that continued to burn.

There is a fair amount of evidence demonstrating that the office fires stood no chance of bringing down the buildings. 9/11 Research deals with this canard effectively in its article, The Fires' Severity - How Intense and Extensive Were the Twin Towers' Fires?

 

[scott3x]

The strength of the Twin Towers

This is the 3rd and final part of my response to MacGyver's post 5 in this thread.

Do you have any evidence to support the claim that the joists would "sag enough to cause the connections to the wall to fail, causing the joist to fall to the next floor"?

I believe that was the findings of the NIST report. I believe those were also the findings of Popular Mechanics.

If memory serves, Popular Mechanics was essentially being advised by someone from NIST; NIST is the one who did the government study at any rate.

But I don't believe it because they told me so. I believe it, because when I look at the system I see it as the weakest link the system, and most likely to fail first.

I work in the same way. I fully admit that I don't understand -everything- I've read (I believe you and me both don't understand things when it comes to mathematical equations, for instance), but I believe I understand enough to know that it had to be a controlled demolition.

The buildings were designed to well beyond their designed parameters; it was designed to sustain very strong winds. It wasn't windy at all on 9/11.

True, they were designed with a margin of safety for wind sheering. They were not, however, designed to have this done to them:

All of the load that all of those sheared off perimeter columns used to hold up is being transferred successfully around the hole. That means that the nearest intact columns adjacent to the hole would be experiencing many times their design load capacity. I think it's a miracle the buildings stayed standing after the initial hit. It's a tribute to its design.

Tony Szamboti, who I believe you've seen a few times in pseudoscience, professes to be a mechanical engineer, and I, for one, believe him. He has written several peer reviewed papers over at the Journal for 9/11 studies concerning the WTC collapses. I'd already marginally covered some of what he brought up, but I think he does it better ;-)...
Macgyver makes the claim that the perimeter columns would have been beyond their design load due to the aircraft impact hole. He obviously doesn't realize they had a minimum factor of safety of 5:00 to 1 for gravity loads only, due to their also having to take high wind and seismic loads and there was little wind and definitely no earthquakes on Sept. 11, 2001.

Here are points made in the 1964 white paper that was occassionally quoted by John Skilling, the chief engineer on the Twin Tower design.

Design Claims
Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson White Paper
A white paper on the structure of the Twin Towers carried out by the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson contained eleven numbered points, including:

The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707-DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.

--City in the Sky, p 131
Glanz and Lipton summarize the findings of the white paper:

The Vierendeel trusses would be so effective, according to the engineers' calculations, that all the columns on one side of a tower could be cut, as well as the two corners and several columns on the adjacent sides, and the tower would still be strong enough to withstand a 100-mile-per-hour wind.
--City in the Sky, p 133

Well as you can see, I've chosen to respond to your post. In a very real way, however, I have already made a fairly persuasive case that the buildings were taken down by controlled demolition, on my web site; the starter page for it is here:
http://scott3x.tripod.com/wtc/index.html

Spam..spam..spam

That's not spam- I put up every page on that site. It took me quite a while to put together all the arguments against the official story regarding the WTC collapses and for the controlled demolition theory contained on that site. It incorporates many arguments made by official story supporters; I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few counters to some of yours . It's certainly not complete, but I think it's quite a good work in progress.

 

[scott3x]

The fireproofing of the Twin Towers


This post is in response to MacGyver's post 7 in this thread.

I am referring to a very specific piece of structure. The steel rod that connected the top to the bottom rail of the floor joist. This is the object I proposed failed. I know you're not a structural engineer, but I ask you to look at this rod, indicated by the green arrow in reference picture 1, and give YOUR opinion on that's structures ability to hold on to fireproofing. Not very much surface area for fireproofing to hold on two.

In all honesty MacGyver, I don't know the answer. Like you said, I'm not a structural engineer. Or a mechanical one, for that matter. Tony Szamboti -is- a mechanical engineer, however and he has stated in the past that he certainly knows a fair amount concerning structural engineering as well; Astaneh, one of the official WTC investigators, was also a mechanical engineer. I will attempt to get Tony's view on the subject.

Update- Tony gave me some pointers, saying that NIST itself had already discredited the joist theory of failure and then I started thinking- I believe joists and trusses are the same thing. If -that's- the case, I've already dealt with this argument; or perhaps more accurately, Steven Jones has. In his paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?", he admits he agrees with some of NIST's Final Report:

I agree with some of the NIST report; for example:

Both WTC 1 and WTC 2 were stable after the aircraft impact, standing for 102 min and 56 min, respectively. The global analyses with structural impact damage showed that both towers had considerable reserve capacity. This was confirmed by analysis of the post-impact vibration of WTC 2… where the damaged tower oscillated at a period nearly equal to the first mode period calculated for the undamaged structure. (NIST, 2005, p. 144; emphasis added.)

At any given location, the duration of [air, not steel] temperatures near 1,000oC was about 15 min to 20 min. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were near 500oC or below.” (NIST, 2005, p. 127, emphasis added.)

NIST contracted with Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. to conduct tests to obtain information on the fire endurance of trusses like those in the WTC towers… All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing.” (NIST, 2005, p. 140, emphasis added.)

* NIST says 2500 MJ of kinetic energy from plane that hit WTC1
o Calculations show that all this energy was consumed in crushing aircraft and breaking columns and floors *

Obviously all of the energy was not consumed, as a giant fireball of exploding fuel, pieces of the plane, and body parts were ejected out back side of the building...obviously there was plenty of energy left over.

I will have to look into this. The other points still stand, however.

Update: Tony gave me some information for this point:
There were some aircraft parts ejected out of the opposite side of the building in both towers. However, these were landing gear and engine parts, the wings never got to the core columns in either case. Even if the entire 16.5 foot diameter fuselage went completely through the entire building it would have only punched a 20 foot diameter hole through it. That is what engineer Frank Mancini meant when he was discussing the analogy of a pencil punching a hole through a storm door screen in his January 2001 interview shown in 911 Mysteries. It really does nothing to the structure of the screen. The buildings were 209 feet on a side and the core was 137 x 87 feet. It was an intense grid. The real point is there weren't enough columns damaged. That is why the NIST has to say it was ultimately just fire that took them down and they need to take off all of the fireproofing to get the steel to higher temperatures. Their problem is that they have no physical evidence to back their theory.

An additional problem for MacGuyver here is that the aircraft was pitched down at a 10 degree angle when it hit the building at the 95th and 96th floors in WTC 1, yet the failure initiated on the side of the building opposite the aircraft impact at the 98th floor. The NIST studies show there was very little debris that made it all the way to the south side of the building and much of the little that did was somewhat lower than the 98th floor. The velocity of the debris was also significantly slowed by the time it reached the south side of the building and NIST's own tests showed it was unlikely to be able to strip the fireproofing at that point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Qu6eyyr4c

Here is a video showing the 2nd plane striking the building. Notice how far material is ejected from the building and with such great energy.

Doesn't look like a whole lot of material made it out...

Notice that after the initial fireball clears our view. The several floors are fully engulfed in flame from one end to another...after only 5-10 seconds after the plane hit, whole floors were ablaze.

Yes, but a lot of the fire died down shortly thereafter. The irony in terms of the official story is that many of the fires were dying out when the collapses occurred.

This video makes my jaw drop everytime I see it. It really shows the amount of energy released. Pieces of material are ejected so far, they look like they hit the darker building to the far right. I think that's quite sufficient energy to tear the light weight, foam installation off of a round 1" rod.

We can think all we want; however, there should be -evidence- that it tore off not just -1- round 1" rod, but all of them. As you may know, some students at Purdue University made a short animation concerning the WTC collapse. Kevin Ryan, in an open letter to Purdue University President France Córdova, wrote a few things about it. As a general rule, he was critical. -However-, on one point, he agreed:
In one important way this new animation does reflect reality, although in doing so it negates the official stance taken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In their September 2005 report, NIST presented their “collapse initiation sequence”, and explained how they felt the loss of fireproofing was the key to the destruction of the towers. NIST suggested that the fireproofing loss occurred as a result of aircraft debris, in the form of shotgun-like blasts, scraping the fireproofing off of thousands of square meters of surface area.[2] But from Purdue’s new animation, we can clearly see that the aircraft that impacted the WTC tower could not have been instantly transformed into thousands of tiny pellets in the form of shotgun blasts. The animation more realistically displays the large fragments of debris from the fuselage clattering around in the skeletal framework of the tower. For this reason we must thank Purdue for this visualization that negates NIST’s primary explanation.

 

[MacGyver1968]

You and I are relatively anonymous here and yet here we are debating. There are many reasons for an author to be anonymous in regards to contentions regarding 9/11. Perhaps he works in a job that he might be fired from, as Kevin Ryan was when he spoke up. Or perhaps he's a university professor, such as Steven Jones, and doesn't want to be suspended from his work. I really think that instead of focusing on the fact that he's anonymous, you should focus on his -arguments-, which have passed the muster of the peer reviewed 9/11 Journal of 9/11 studies site.

An anonymous post is understandable. Using an anonymous post as a source in a formal debate is what I was just to point out. If we don't know who he is..how can we trust his data?

The author actually said 5,932 gallons; I'm the one who messed up . The author claims he is taking his information directly from NIST, btw. The author -did- mess up a bit in regards to the 900 cubic feet bit. You see, he states that NIST claims that the -South- Tower had 929 cubic feet. The North Tower only had 793. Feel free to review his numbers yourself in the aforementioned article. The relevant data is on page 3. His entire paper is only 5 pages long, unlike NIST's 10,000 tin rat pages (or TNRAT- They'll Never Read All That).

Yes, a -fully fueled- 767 holds 24,000 gallons of fuel. The 767s that hit the twin towers definitely shouldn't have been fully fueled, if we're to believe that they were the planes the official story claims them to be, at any rate. The aforementioned article clarifies the issue:

The maximum fuel capacity for the 767 is just shy of 24,000 gallons. It has a maximum range of 6,590 nautical miles or 12,220 km. (thats 7583 "regular folk" miles) that it can travel on that amount of fuel.
According to the manufactures website:

http://en.boeing-me.com/ViewContent.do?id=2404

It's approximately 2700 miles from Washington DC to LA. We all know that the airlines are cheap bastards, and are only going to put enough fuel in the tank to make the journey, plus a small margin for safety in case the plane has to divert. That's approximately 35% of the distance of the max range. So I will accept your number of 6000 gallons as the amount of fuel the planes were carrying. It falls close enough to my rough calculations.

The total amount of fuel in gallons is not really relevant to my argument.

Again by looking this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Qu6eyyr4c..it is quite clear there was plenty of fuel to start the fires. Huge fireballs completely envelope the interior of the building and billow from every side of the building. Fires are clearly seen all across the building only moments after the initial impact.

The fires weren't as extensive as NIST may like us to believe. There are many photographs of people still alive within the impact site and large spaces where there were no flames visibile at all. However, there is certainly evidence that things -besides- the fires were working, as Gordon Ross makes clear in his videos; incendiaries had already begun working on taking down the building even before the collapse initiation- this was the true cause of the infamous molten metal pouring down from the south tower just a minute or so before its collapse.

Please reference the above video..the fires look like they're pretty involved to me. As for your video. It is quite clear something molten is pouring out of the corner of building. If you will notice there is a raging fire right above it that might also account for it. But we're not talking about incendiary devices right now. We are supposed to talking about the heating of floor joists. Which you don't want directly address.

There is a fair amount of evidence demonstrating that the office fires stood no chance of bringing down the buildings. 9/11 Research deals with this canard effectively in its article, The Fires' Severity - How Intense and Extensive Were the Twin Towers' Fires?

This was no office fire. Office fires generally start in a single place in the building and spread. At the WTC..the entire building was engulfed in flames. This simultaneously set off fire across the whole building, all at the same time. That doesn't happen in office fires.

 

[scott3x]

This post is in response to the 1st part of MacGyver's post 11 in this thread

You and I are relatively anonymous here and yet here we are debating. There are many reasons for an author to be anonymous in regards to contentions regarding 9/11. Perhaps he works in a job that he might be fired from, as Kevin Ryan was when he spoke up. Or perhaps he's a university professor, such as Steven Jones, and doesn't want to be suspended from his work. I really think that instead of focusing on the fact that he's anonymous, you should focus on his -arguments-, which have passed the muster of the peer reviewed 9/11 Journal of 9/11 studies site.

An anonymous post is understandable. Using an anonymous post as a source in a formal debate is what I was just to point out. If we don't know who he is..how can we trust his data?

Well, he says his data comes from NIST's reports. Clearly, the thing to do is to check the actual reports he mentions. I just checked some of the stuff he/she quoted regarding NIST's NCSTAR 1-5F: Computer Simulation of the Fires in the World Trade Center. It checks out, although he slightly economized the space a bit in terms of Tables 5-3 and 5-4 (he put them side by side, whereas NIST's report has one below the other). I found out by searching for some key words in the quoted material; the particular page that contains Tables 5-3 and 5-4 is 90.

The author actually said 5,932 gallons; I'm the one who messed up . The author claims he is taking his information directly from NIST, btw. The author -did- mess up a bit in regards to the 900 cubic feet bit. You see, he states that NIST claims that the -South- Tower had 929 cubic feet. The North Tower only had 793. Feel free to review his numbers yourself in the aforementioned article. The relevant data is on page 3. His entire paper is only 5 pages long, unlike NIST's 10,000 tin rat pages (or TNRAT- They'll Never Read All That).

Yes, a -fully fueled- 767 holds 24,000 gallons of fuel. The 767s that hit the twin towers definitely shouldn't have been fully fueled, if we're to believe that they were the planes the official story claims them to be, at any rate. The aforementioned article clarifies the issue:

The maximum fuel capacity for the 767 is just shy of 24,000 gallons. It has a maximum range of 6,590 nautical miles or 12,220 km. (thats 7583 "regular folk" miles) that it can travel on that amount of fuel.
According to the manufactures website:

http://en.boeing-me.com/ViewContent.do?id=2404

It's approximately 2700 miles from Washington DC to LA. We all know that the airlines are cheap bastards, and are only going to put enough fuel in the tank to make the journey, plus a small margin for safety in case the plane has to divert. That's approximately 35% of the distance of the max range. So I will accept your number of 6000 gallons as the amount of fuel the planes were carrying. It falls close enough to my rough calculations.

The total amount of fuel in gallons is not really relevant to my argument.

Yes, it's precisely the fact that they don't want to be carrying extra fuel (that would, in turn, mean that more fuel is needed to make the trip). However, only putting in 5,932 gallons would probably have been suicidal or close to it. NIST believes that even the plane that hit the South Tower had 7415 gallons on impact- however, they also estimate that 20 percent of the jet fuel burned off in the fireball, leaving only 5932 gallons after that brief event.

Anyway, makes sense that the amount of fuel shouldn't be relevant to your argument- As the author mentioned before (and as I have now confirmed from NIST's report itself, it's also on page 90 of NIST's NCSTAR 1-5F):

The jet fuel consumption estimate put forth by the FEMA team was used in the model because (1) no evidence or analysis emerged that significantly altered the FEMA estimate and (2) the simulations were insensitive to both the amount and distribution of the jet fuel. Sensitivity studies showed that the amount of fuel spilled in the simulation only influenced the results of the first few minutes; the long term behaviour of the simulated fires was unaffected.​

[Bold added for emphasis]

Again by looking at this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Qu6eyyr4c..it is quite clear there was plenty of fuel to start the fires. Huge fireballs completely envelope the interior of the building and billow from every side of the building. Fires are clearly seen all across the building only moments after the initial impact.

Yes, but the irony is that the fires soon become much less and, other then what looks to be thermite induced burning (the infamous molten metal), they are at their lowest point just before collapse initiation. I think it's also important to point out that the fires are only on a few floors and they really don't have a lot of time to weaken the strong twin towers. Contrast this to the amount of time they had to work on the much weaker Windsor tower in Madrid; and even then it only produced a gradual collapse, with elements of the upper perimeter collapsing over hours, not in a matter of seconds. 9/11 Research has an excellent article comparing the 2 fires here.

 

[scott3x]

This post is in response to the 2nd and final part of MacGyver's post 11 in this thread

The fires weren't as extensive as NIST may like us to believe. There are many photographs of people still alive within the impact site and large spaces where there were no flames visibile at all. However, there is certainly evidence that things -besides- the fires were working, as Gordon Ross makes clear in his videos; incendiaries had already begun working on taking down the building even before the collapse initiation- this was the true cause of the infamous molten metal pouring down from the south tower just a minute or so before its collapse.

Please reference the above video..the fires look like they're pretty involved to me. As for your video. It is quite clear something molten is pouring out of the corner of building. If you will notice there is a raging fire right above it that might also account for it.

Heat travels upwards- I strongly suspect that the molten metal was causing the raging fire above it, not the reverse.

But we're not talking about incendiary devices right now.

You may not want to address the issue, but I'm certainly bringing it up .

We are supposed to talking about the heating of floor joists. Which you don't want to directly address.

I believe it was Tony who said that joists are made of wood; what you're thinking of are the floor joints, which put together form the trusses. NIST has discredited the idea that the trusses were to blame for the collapse of the twin towers, as I have mentioned previously.

There is a fair amount of evidence demonstrating that the office fires stood no chance of bringing down the buildings. 9/11 Research deals with this canard effectively in its article, The Fires' Severity - How Intense and Extensive Were the Twin Towers' Fires?

This was no office fire. Office fires generally start in a single place in the building and spread. At the WTC..the entire building was engulfed in flames. This simultaneously set off fire across the whole building, all at the same time. That doesn't happen in office fires.

It created a few fires, yes, localized to a few floors. However, there's lots of evidence that there's no way that those fires could have brought down the buildings.

 

[MacGyver1968]

This post is in response to the 1st part of MacGyver's post 11 in this thread



Well, he says his data comes from NIST's reports. Clearly, the thing to do is to check the actual reports he mentions.

Well I say fairies fly out of my butt. It has the same credibility as his anonymous contribution and is NOT a creditable source. If you need an example of a creditable source, note my post above...when I needed data about the 767...I posted a link to Boeing's official site, the actual manufacture of the plane. listing the exact data I was referencing. The link has nothing to do with 9/11 and is an impartial source. You should try to use the same.

I've worked a 12 hour day, and am too tired to try to respond to each of your irrelant arguments.

This part of the debate was you overcoming my proposition in the OP. You have already admitted that you lack the knowledge to comment on my position that the floor joists were responsible for the collapse. You seem to think presenting an argument means posting links to other materiral...you are clearly in the wrong subforum.

I ask the moderators close this debate before it's stank ruins the reputation of the whole subforum, and move this debate to pseudoscience.

Thank you,

Mitch

(edit) I think it's funny...out of all the people on sciforums..only the board "stoner" who is known more for telling one liners, than dispensing scientific knowledge, was willing to debate you. I probably rank in the bottom 10 percentile for "overall science knowledge" for this whole board...and even I can put out questions that make you want to confer with your advisers.

You brought your first string, and Sciforums brought the waterboy...and even the waterboy didn't think it was a fair fight.

Let's go back to Pseudoscience, Scott...that's where this belongs.

 

[scott3x]

Well, he says his data comes from NIST's reports. Clearly, the thing to do is to check the actual reports he mentions. I just checked some of the stuff he/she quoted regarding NIST's NCSTAR 1-5F: Computer Simulation of the Fires in the World Trade Center. It checks out, although he slightly economized the space a bit in terms of Tables 5-3 and 5-4 (he put them side by side, whereas NIST's report has one below the other). I found out by searching for some key words in the quoted material; the particular page that contains Tables 5-3 and 5-4 is 90.

Well I say fairies fly out of my butt. It has the same credibility as his anonymous contribution and is NOT a creditable source.

You know, I actually agree with you to some extent there. NIST's reports, the backbone of the official story regarding the WTC building collapses, really isn't a credible source in many ways. Time and again it has been shown that their reports have serious flaws. -However-, I think that they do have some good points. Apparently so do some people in the truth movement, such as this anonymous other and others (Headspin for instance, who has referred to some of their data in the past).

If you need an example of a creditable source, note my post above...when I needed data about the 767...I posted a link to Boeing's official site, the actual manufacturer of the plane. listing the exact data I was referencing. The link has nothing to do with 9/11 and is an impartial source. You should try to use the same.

I think I do a fairly good job of it. I certainly wouldn't say that NIST is impartial as a whole in regards to the WTC collapses. However, some of their data isn't really contested much by anyone.

I've worked a 12 hour day, and am too tired to try to respond to each of your irrelevant arguments.

Well that's certainly a convenient way of 'dealing' with them. I would hope that you would find time to do so later, but I won't hold my breath...

This part of the debate was you overcoming my proposition in the OP. You have already admitted that you lack the knowledge to comment on my position that the floor joists were responsible for the collapse.

I didn't understand as much when you brought that up initially. I've since updated that post. Here is the gist of the update; from what I understand, the joists formed the trusses.
If -that's- the case, I've already dealt with this argument; or perhaps more accurately, Steven Jones has. In his paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?", he admits he agrees with some of NIST's Final Report:
I agree with some of the NIST report; for example:

Both WTC 1 and WTC 2 were stable after the aircraft impact, standing for 102 min and 56 min, respectively. The global analyses with structural impact damage showed that both towers had considerable reserve capacity. This was confirmed by analysis of the post-impact vibration of WTC 2… where the damaged tower oscillated at a period nearly equal to the first mode period calculated for the undamaged structure. (NIST, 2005, p. 144; emphasis added.)

At any given location, the duration of [air, not steel] temperatures near 1,000oC was about 15 min to 20 min. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were near 500oC or below.” (NIST, 2005, p. 127, emphasis added.)

NIST contracted with Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. to conduct tests to obtain information on the fire endurance of trusses like those in the WTC towers… All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing.” (NIST, 2005, p. 140, emphasis added.)

You seem to think presenting an argument means posting links to other material...you are clearly in the wrong subforum.

You can't post videos to this forum as far as I know. I also don't see what the problem is in presenting linked material if the material is fairly length- why repost something that's already been posted somewhere else?

I ask the moderators close this debate before it's stank ruins the reputation of the whole subforum, and move this debate to pseudoscience.

I thought I presented many good points; not really sure why you don't think so, but to each their own I suppose. If you want this debate to end, all you have to do is not respond for a week, after which I agree that it should indeed be closed.

(edit) I think it's funny...out of all the people on sciforums..only the board "stoner" who is known more for telling one liners, than dispensing scientific knowledge, was willing to debate you. I probably rank in the bottom 10 percentile for "overall science knowledge" for this whole board...and even I can put out questions that make you want to confer with your advisers.

They just didn't teach us about Joists in high school (or in the computer courses I took in college). However, it's nothing that a little wikipedia and a little more research couldn't fix.

You brought your first string, and Sciforums brought the waterboy...and even the waterboy didn't think it was a fair fight.

Let's go back to Pseudoscience, Scott...that's where this belongs.

Well, like I said, you can simply not respond here and just post in sciforums; this thread should close within a week of neither of us responding to the other's posts.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Well, like I said, you can simply not respond here and just post in sciforums; this thread should close within a week of neither of us responding to the other's posts.

Agreed. See you in pseudoscience.

But don't feel too bad Scott. You did score one point. I had always heard the planes were "fully fueled for a cross country flight" and assumed that meant they had a full fuel load. I didn't realize that a 767 has a max range of 7500 mi. and could cross the US 3 times without refueling...so at least I learned something from this clusterfuck that is nothing like a formal debate.

This thread is officially dead.

 

[scott3x]

Well, like I said, you can simply not respond here and just post in sciforums; this thread should close within a week of neither of us responding to the other's posts.

Agreed. See you in pseudoscience.

But don't feel too bad Scott. You did score one point. I had always heard the planes were "fully fueled for a cross country flight" and assumed that meant they had a full fuel load. I didn't realize that a 767 has a max range of 7500 mi. and could cross the US 3 times without refueling...so at least I learned something from this clusterfuck that is nothing like a formal debate.

This thread is officially dead.

Well, technically it's not quite dead yet; we're still writing in it and so, as long as the rule of it not closing for a week is respected, it still has alteast a week left . I think you missed a lot of good points of mine by the way.