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Originally posted by Zaphod58
Natural gas lines? What? Last time I checked gas explodes when extreme heat is applied to it.
Originally posted by Hunting Veritas
Where was the extreme heat in the lobby???? There was a MASSIVE explosion in the lobby or below seconds BEFORE collapsing of the towers.
Even firefighters on the recent tapes reported explosions going off.
~Peace ~
Originally posted by LoneGunMan
Another point here Howard is the fact that if the floor did infact fail, it would have failed where it attached to the outer structure and the inner 36 inch thick beams. There were 47 of these going all the way up.
How does a floor collapsing (they do that quite often in a fire) take the rest of the building with it? [/quote
In conventional girder systems, the floor is largely independent of the structural frame. Those types of buildings achieve their wind bracing from either diagonal bracing or from stiffened, masonry core structures (like the Winsor towers, BTW). The WTC tower structure was different, it received it’s stiffness from a combination of the exterior walls and the interior floors. Without the interior floors to stiffen them, the exterior walls were prone to buckling. This is what happened.
The main structural columns in the middle would still bear the 30 to 40 floors above it.
No. The core area only supported about half of the building’s gravity loads. The rest were supported by the exterior columns. The two sets of columns were interconnected via the hat truss on the top of the building.
If I remember right they designed that building so the outer structure and floor can move from wind without the inner core moving as much.
That is impossible. If the outer structure and the floors moved while the core did not, the flors would buckle and break free from the core area. The whole building moved as a single unit.
The point is you could have multiple floors collapse while the building still holds its strength.
in a conventional box framed building, maybe. The WTC towers were a bundled tube style construction.
You said in an earlier post it was the inner core that failed, when that was proven to be impossible you shifted to this theory. Stop changing your story to fit your argument. We on the other hand have been consistant.
I don’t remember saying that it was just the core area. I believe that I said that it was a combination of all factors. The increasing loss of load bearing capability of the exterior walls due to the exterior buckling, plus the impact and fire damage to the floor slabs, and the exterior and core columns eventually reached a point where the entire structure became unstable and a global collapse ensued.
Originally posted by bsbray11
There is no way that the aluminum facade pieces could have buckled INWARD if the columns were not buckled also.
I'm sure a dislocated aluminum covering could move in any direction it was inclined to.
And I'm sure there were "buckled" columns near the impact-damaged regions for obvious reasons.
How could they have moved inward 4 feet if the column was just a few inches inside of it?
Originally posted by bsbray11
Even if that section did buckle, why would that cause a whole building to collapse?
That is because when it got worse, the building collapsed.
It certainly does not look like it was a very widespread occurance, if such columns actually are showing buckling.
If such minor incidents can cause whole, massive buildings to collapse, then I must say Howard, that structural engineers quite frankly blow enormously at their jobs and we should never build another skyscraper again for the sake of human life.
I don't think I've seen you comment on the fact that these collapses are not reproducible either. That means, in labs, or anywhere, no progressive collapse has ever been reproduced.
Even if that section did buckle, why would that cause a whole building to collapse?
Simple, because buckled columns are no longer supporting the loads that they were designed to support.
That is because when it got worse, the building collapsed.
I believe that they have been accurately reproduced by computer modeling.
Scale models don’t work very well, because you can never get the exact same strength to weight ratios as a real building, and as for a real building, the WTC towers were unique.
Originally posted by HowardRoark
They were reproduced by each other.
Originally posted by gimmefootball400
If the collapse of the Twin Towers was a normal collapse, you wouldn't have pieces of the building laying in their own footprint. In a normal collapse, you would have pieces of the building scattered over a large area for several city blocks. Even though the Windsor Tower in Spain was built differently, it was constructed with the same material like what was in the towers.
Originally posted by Shroomery
If you spread the weight to 4 walls and the center column, instead of just the center column, it would even be more magic for a progressive collapse to occur.
Because the fires would have to be as hot at the center, plus all four walls/corners.
And even IF that occured, the central column would still be there to slow it down, tip it over, anything but dissapearing into thin air.
Originally posted by Conspicuouz
so due to the failure, of let's say roughly in the radius of 10 floors, this total failure in support on those floors were enough to perfectly put the entire floors below it in a free-fall without any resistance what so ever?
is this correct? i'm no knowledgeable physicists but im not stupid either. if a few floors gave way, the supporting floors should somewhat slow or stop the collapse of the higher floors especially if they are a sufficient amount of floors below compared to the amount on top don't you think?
i need to get in contact with some building architects and constructors to get their take on the event provided with this information. if anyone already has some comments, please post. and please do not post any that comment on the official story but their own take on it. will be appreciated.
Wait a minute; I thought the fact that there were pieces of the building flying all over the place when it collapsed was supposed to be evidence that “explosives” were used. Now you are saying that it the collapse wasn't normal because pieces of the building didn’t fly all over the place.
Originally posted by HowardRoark
I’ll grant you that this falling mass was somewhat elastic, in that it could absorb some of the impact with the floors below, but, the overwhelming downward motion of the mass would have crushed everything in it’s path.
Originally posted by Hunting Veritas
Originally posted by Hector
The pilots at Otis had warnings of the hijacking BEFORE NORAD was notified. (See page 365, 368, 369 of The Terror Timeline) Boston Flight Controlled contacted Otis directly between 8:34 and 8:40 AM. They took off before CNN coverage of the story broke (8:48 AM) and headed directly toward NYC.
"NORAD claims the first fighters are scrambled before the first WTC hit." (8:46AM) page 376 The Terror Timeline.
I'm not sure where that info is from? Can you post a link.
"An F-15 departing from Otis can reach New York City in ten to twelve minutes, according to an Otis spokeswoman." Page 380 TTT
~Peace :Cool:~
Originally posted by Hunting Veritas
Originally posted by Zaphod58
Natural gas lines? What? Last time I checked gas explodes when extreme heat is applied to it.
Where was the extreme heat in the lobby???? There was a MASSIVE explosion in the lobby or below seconds BEFORE collapsing of the towers.
Even firefighters on the recent tapes reported explosions going off.
~Peace ~
Originally posted by Hector
The extreme heat in the lobby came from the explosion at WTC 6 at 9:03 AM which was next to tower WTC 1.
Jules Naudet saw two persons on fire (to his right) as he entered the lobby.
Originally posted by Shroomery
Originally posted by Hector
The extreme heat in the lobby came from the explosion at WTC 6 at 9:03 AM which was next to tower WTC 1.
Jules Naudet saw two persons on fire (to his right) as he entered the lobby.
Yeah from a neighbouring building... and we're the conspiracy theorists ?
Originally posted by bsbray11
The building to fall in some way other than straight down upon itself, ie, towards the missing columns, which would've provided the least resistance to gravity (like how a tree would fall with a big cut in its side). This would create a center of mass for the debris somewhere other than the footprint, as a huge chunk would've just fallen off sideways.
What you can't expect from a gravity-driven collapse:
Shards of the steel columns being shot out to unprecedented distances from the collapsing building, while the building itself falls right down onto its footprint, taking out everything below on its way down.