How was WTC foundation failure achieved?

What doesn't make sense to me is that no airplane was crashed into the basement yet when the towers collapsed there was a total foundation failure otherwise the buildings wouldn't have collapsed in a 7 second freefall.

They DIDN'T fall in a 7 second freefall. And if the foundation failed they would have collapsed from the bottom down, NOT from the top.

But the foundation (shared by both towers and other complex buildings) was destroyed. Coincidentally, molten steel was pulled out of it.



As clean-up workers commented, the deeper parts produced steel that was potentially dangerous to the cranes, and could not be sprayed with water due to the amount of steam it created.

Also, the subways that run under the towers were destroyed for a good ways outside of the underground stations. It's been announced that more than a mile of the subway will have to be replaced, and photos show some interesting damage pretty far off from the complex for simple jet impacts, high-up fires, and falling steel.

[edit on 24-7-2006 by bsbray11]

Strange that the foundation would be destroyed after having the building fall on it. But that doesn't change the fact that the building DIDN'T fall in 7 seconds, and that if it had been destroyed FIRST the building would have fallen from the bottom and not the top.

Originally posted by bsbray11
But the foundation (shared by both towers and other complex buildings) was destroyed.

Please define what you mean by the term foundation here.

Are you talking about the individual caissons, the “bathtub,” or just the plaza levels and sub basements?

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Strange that the foundation would be destroyed after having the building fall on it. But that doesn't change the fact that the building DIDN'T fall in 7 seconds, and that if it had been destroyed FIRST the building would have fallen from the bottom and not the top.

Ok, so what? Read the thread title. The 7 second figure is relatively trivial, as is the sequence in which the explosives would have had to have been set off.

I think the author of this thread is wondering what actually happened to the foundation itself.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Please define what you mean by the term foundation here.

There was a lot of damage down there, for the subway, parking lots, etc., but what I'm more referring to when I say foundation, is the whole concrete structure below the Towers meant for supporting the weight of the buildings.

[edit on 24-7-2006 by bsbray11]

surely that amount of concrete and metal falling that quick, and that hard would of caused damage to the foundation?
Even the vibrations caused should of shaken it up?

being a massive skyscraper fell with all its weight DIRECTLY down onto its foundations doesnt make me wonder WHY the foundations were wrecked.
even the subway tunnels, would extreme vibration and shock of damaged them? would the pressure of gone scremaing through the tunnel when the tower fell ?

Point is the towers should hot have fallen all the way to the foundation to start with.

The damage was in the top portions of the buildings, floors approx 90 and up.

What caused the top to force the bottom to collapse in that way? 15 floors does not have more mass than 90 floors.

Theres was no resistance from undamaged floors as the building fell.
For this too happen there would have to be another force acting on it other than gravity.

surely the weight of all those floors, all that STRUCTURe coming STRAIGHT down in a burning heap would of been enough to collapse what ever remained at the bottom.
I wouldnt call the WTC a SOLID object.
It was hollow, buildings are by theory HOLLOW, there's just skeletal structure to them.
all that weight of debree, conrete steel would not of been HELD up with the hollow skeletal structure of a few lower floors.

that large extrenal piece still standing shows this, that internally the whole building collapsed right down the centre. to the bottom.
the vibration and weight of it all surely would of damaged the foundations, atleast what was left of them.

Im not one with agreeing to the 'offical story' of that day, but to say the foundation damages point to outside influences doesnt add up.

concrete cracks, steal bends and breaks. what happens when you put an entire skyscraper falling to the ground directly above ? it will destroy it.



[edit on 24-7-2006 by Agit8dChop]

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
being a massive skyscraper fell with all its weight DIRECTLY down onto its foundations

They didn't. Most of the steel went flying outwards around the complex for both Towers (landed outside of the footprints), and most of the concrete seems to have been turned to dust before reaching the ground.

even the subway tunnels, would extreme vibration and shock of damaged them? would the pressure of gone scremaing through the tunnel when the tower fell ?

How solid do you think these alternate explanations are?

Sure there would of been some sort of debree AROUND the footprint.
but... like... how many floors were in the WTC?
lets say... 90.

90 floors pancaking ontop of each other, 1 by 1 is a tremendous amount of weight.
gathering SPEED and WEIGHT as it crushes floor after floor after floor straight DOWN!

nothing would of been able to withstand the sheer amount of weight being forcde DOWN by gravity.

and it would of decimated the foundations.

But I would like to ask, the original poster. If It wasnt the collapse that hit the foundations, what do you believe caused the major destruction down there?

The WTC towers were 110 stories tall, only aprox 15 of those floors were damaged from approx floor 95 up. The exact floors are known, I just don't remember off the top of my head.

15 vs 95...do the math...

While you do consider that the concrete was turning to dust, so no mass, and the steel columns were being ejected outwards.

Where was the resistance from the floors that were undamaged?

As each floor pancake down there should have been ever more resistance as floors piled up on top of each other, and the collapse should have slowed and stopped before it completely collapsed to the ground. It didn't, the fall was the same speed all the way down till it stoped in it's own foundations.

There was no resistance because the concrete was being turned to dust as it fell, what caused that? How can concrete turning to dust cause still intact concrete to also turn to dust, and cause columns to fail. This is impossible without some force, other than gravity, to have occurred.

This is why buildings don't fall, without help, the way the WTC 1,2 & 7 did.

We also know that when WTC 2 fell the top portion started to topple, sideways inertia.
What caused this sideways inertia to suddenly become vertical AND caused the still intact lower floors to collapse? Also impossible without help, other than gravity.

Simple physics...A body in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by another force. What was this force? Not gravity, that force was already operating on the top portion of the building causing it to topple. Inertia can't suddenly change it's mind and decide to not move in the direction it was heading, without another force acting on it.

The lower 80 -90 floors, that were undamaged, had to have fallen independent of the top portion for the top ortion to have acted the way it did. How is this possible when there was no fires and no damage to these lower floors? Something else had to have caused the lower floors to fail.

Does this make sense?

[edit on 25/7/2006 by ANOK]

I disagree, I would say gathering momentum and weight would result in the floors one by one being LESS likely to hold the power and pressure being exherted DOWN!

as soon as all the weight ABOVE the floor in tat came crashing down ONTOP of it, it would simply go down with it.

I dont believe there was any rigging, explosives or anything in the WTC PRIOR to the planes hitting.

It would of been to suspicous, not only for the people installing them, but for the people entering the building.

I with you on this Anok.

As I've stated in another thread,

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Me..
What I believe now is that the building's core was "disconnected" at the base causing the 2.X spike on the seismograph. (I believe this was done using thermite or thermate) Of course a few seconds later the building started to collapse. Why did the building still stand a few seconds after the core was "disconnected"? because the weight was being transferred to the perimter collumns and structure which of course would take a few seconds... (Remember people talking about "creaking and groaning and crackling" right before the buildling fell? It's obvious that the perimter collumns and structure could not hold up the building so it collapsed from the center out. The core of the building was falling pulling the outside in.. The core and the exterior structure were in essence "fighting" with each other with the core falling and pulling the perimeter (which was trying to remain standing and rigid) in as it went. This would explain perfectly the free fall AND the complete and utter destruction, shredding and pulverization of the building and content materials.

As you can see, I believe that the core was knocked out from underneath the towers prior to the collapse. I don't know every detail of the construction of WTC 1 and 2 but one thing is for certain: WTC 1 and 2 consisted of 2 VERY destinctive and different construction elements (working in concert). 1st was the core system that consisted of 47 large, connected box collumns whose main duty was to take only the gravity load of the building. 2nd was the exterior collumns and 'steel latice' that was designed to handle 'all overturning forces', one being wind loads.

A good summary can be found here:

www.greatbuildings.com...

"The structural system, deriving from the I.B.M. Building in Seattle, is impressively simple. The 208-foot wide facade is, in effect, a prefabricated steel lattice, with columns on 39-inch centers acting as wind bracing to resist all overturning forces; the central core takes only the gravity loads of the building. A very light, economical structure results by keeping the wind bracing in the most efficient place, the outside surface of the building, thus not transferring the forces through the floor membrane to the core, as in most curtain-wall structures. Office spaces will have no interior columns. In the upper floors there is as much as 40,000 square feet of office space per floor. The floor construction is of prefabricated trussed steel, only 33 inches in depth, that spans the full 60 feet to the core, and also acts as a diaphragm to stiffen the outside wall against lateral buckling forces from wind-load pressures.

From what I understand, the perimter structure also had some load bearing capacity for gravity loads so keep that in mind.

Imagine if you will, only the core being 'disconnected' from the ground...what do you think would happen? Just like I've stated earlier, after watching the videos of the collapses repeatedly, it looks like to me that the 'core' literally fell inside the building pulling the exterior collumns and lattice 'inwards'. (Of course SOME of the material would eject outwards because of all the explosive failures with HUGE amounts of stored gravitational energy being expended) Now can you imagine what a shred fest this must have been..., the core falling within but being connected to the 'outer tube'?
This outer tube trying it's hardest to stay rigid and resist falling while the incredible weight of the core pulling it inward?? Hopefully you get where I'm going with this.. The building literally ripped itself apart because the core was literally knocked out from underneath it.

I'll leave it at that for now.





[edit on 25-7-2006 by TxSecret]

Originally posted by Agit8dChop

I disagree, I would say gathering momentum and weight would result in the floors one by one being LESS likely to hold the power and pressure being exherted DOWN!
as soon as all the weight ABOVE the floor in tat came crashing down ONTOP of it, it would simply go down with it.

You obviously don't understand this statement...

A body on motion stays in motion unless acted on by another force.

I'm having a hard time explaining it but I'll do my best....

If the top portion dropped on the bottom portion causing the bottom portion to collapse it would not have started to tilt, it would have just continued its downward motion (a body in motion etc...)
But it did tilt, which shows us the the bottom portion held the weight of the top portion.
Once the top started to tilt, most of it's weight was shifted toward the pivot point of the tilt (edge of the building).
So there would have been uneven pressure from the top portion on the bottom portion. It could not have inflicted enough even pressure on the bottom for it to collapse symmetrically.

What would normally happen is the corner of the building would crumble as the top portion continued it's topple (body on motion stays in motion), and it would have fell away from the bottom portion. But what happened is the top portion suddenly stopped tipping over but continued it's downward motion. The only way this could happen is if the bottom portion gave way independently of the top portion.

Once the top portion started to fall and then tilt it had already exerted all the pressure it was going to on the bottom portion, it could not have suddenly created more pressure.

The collapse should have been chaotic and unpredictable. It wasn't, it was symmetrical and predictable. Exactly the situation you want from a controlled demolition.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
Sure there would of been some sort of debree AROUND the footprint.
but... like... how many floors were in the WTC?
lets say... 90.

90 floors pancaking ontop of each other, 1 by 1 is a tremendous amount of weight.
gathering SPEED and WEIGHT as it crushes floor after floor after floor straight DOWN!

Again, most of it did not go straight down. Most of it fell over the side, for each floor. Watch a video. You'll see the debris spread out to encompass about 3x the space of the original towers in the air.

Additionally, crushed material is not very effective at similarly pulverizing more material. In fact, it should be physically impossible for a pulverized floor to similarly pulverize any other floor given those speeds, due to laws of thermodynamics.

We're talking whole floors becoming dissociated steel beams and concrete dust. Drop that on another floor and I promise you that nothing would happen. Most of it falls over the sides, and it's even more pathetic. It's like dropping a 50 pound rock onto the roof of a car, vs. dropping 50 pounds of gravel onto the roof of a car. Which would do more damage? The single rock, because all of its force is more easily directed downwards and is not deflected like gravel would be. At the WTC, with the crushed floors, you had the gravel.

Also, the collapse would at least slow, if not outright stop a few floors in, from the incredible amount of constant resistance being offered by the core and perimeter columns. They weren't set up floor by floor, but went all the way up the building, just as solid in one place as they were in any other. Falling onto hundreds of these thick columns we be far from a free-fall between each floor, and the columns became thicker and thicker all the way down.

Gravity is the weakest fundamental interaction in nature, by far. There's gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Gravity is what was pulling the building downwards. Electromagnetism is what was keeping solid mass from passing through other solid mass (and would have prevented the building from falling straight down onto itself). That force happens to be astronomically stronger than gravity. Drop a concrete slab onto other concrete slabs, and it will stop moving straight down as soon as it contacts the other slabs, even if it's been falling for hundreds of feet. Thus is the power of electromagnetism, compared to gravity.

[edit on 25-7-2006 by bsbray11]

Anok, you know HOW FAR would the center of mass of the upper part have to be shifted for it to fall apart the way you describe?
And don't you think the tilting would go only that far until the structure "holding" one of the corners (thus causing the tilting) would give away? The "body in motion" argument is empty as there was an external force being applied - the gravity. Ie once that part of structure would give up, the tilting stops as there isn't a cause anymore and pure, simple, right top-down gravity works.

Originally posted by bsbray11

Again, most of it did not go straight down. Most of it fell over the side, for each floor. Watch a video. You'll see the debris spread out to encompass about 3x the space of the original towers in the air.

Erm... How do you know it was the majority of the tower's mass? I won't guess so. Yup, there was a large deal of debris flying outside, but that doesn't mean it was most of the mass.

tuccy I'm gonna get in trouble for this but but it's worth it...

You're an idiot and a troll!

You don't have a clue what I just explained....NONE.

You are on ignore...Tired of this childish garbage. Your question has already been answered in my post above, you just refuse to see it....

Originally posted by tuccy
Erm... How do you know it was the majority of the tower's mass?

Because it landed. Not that hard.