Fire Could Easily Have Been Cause of WTC Collapse

Originally posted by JIMC5499

Originally posted by Valhall
Long story short - comparing this incident to the WTC fires is comparing apples to oranges. I'll post more later.

I never tried to compair them. My intent is to show that a steel beam can be heated to failure by fire. It is that simple. If a gasoline fire can cause that huge beam to distort that badly then it is entirely possible that the fires in the WTC towers could have caused the failure of beams that were overloaded because of damages sustained by the aircraft impacts.

Okay, then please, if you may, PLEASE, explain the weakening of the 80 floors plus BELOW the fires and PLEASE explain how they could have fallen down into their footprints so cleanly at FREE FALL.

This is all we are trying to get from all of the supporters of the 'official' story. It simply cannot be explained. The floors below WERE NOT DAMAGED. The structure gets STRONGER the further down you go not weaker. The first tower to collapse was collapsing at AN ANGLE and then straightened when the UNDAMAGED portion of the building gave way so easily.

The second tower to get hit was hit on the corner. It was nearly missed. That's how bad the hit was. The majority of the fuel blew up in the impact and shot out of the side of the building in a ball of fire.

Just give a straight answer and explanation to the above questions and the other statements made about how the buildings, in no way, could have fallen at free fall. Yet they did.

Originally posted by whylistentome


Okay, then please, if you may, PLEASE, explain the weakening of the 80 floors plus BELOW the fires and PLEASE explain how they could have fallen down into their footprints so cleanly at FREE FALL.

They didn't fall at free fall.

Originally posted by kriegott
In the 70's one of the towers was on fire over the period of a weekend. a very intense fire. much more devastating then the fires of 9/11. Firefighters were actually reporting on their radios that alot of the fires were almost extinguished just about the time the true terrorists detonated the bombs inside.

I'd say that the bridge could hav been burned by the fire... but if you say that the true terrorists inside detonated the bomb that's their problem. Theoretically they could potentially have been blown up anyways... the fire didnt cause the building to collapse. The plane (1)hit the center of the WTC and (2)caused a firey reaction. It doesnt necessarily have to do with a fire that caused it to collapse, that could have been part of what made it collapse but in a whole the plane made that happen.

Originally posted by JIMC5499

Originally posted by Valhall
Long story short - comparing this incident to the WTC fires is comparing apples to oranges. I'll post more later.

I never tried to compair them. My intent is to show that a steel beam can be heated to failure by fire. It is that simple. If a gasoline fire can cause that huge beam to distort that badly then it is entirely possible that the fires in the WTC towers could have caused the failure of beams that were overloaded because of damages sustained by the aircraft impacts.

your intent was obviously to compare them. you're still doing it.

steel tested showed signs of being exposed to 250°C for three specimens(out of more than two hundred), and 650°C for one. that one beam must have been pretty weak. one beam.

the computer simulation of the fires, showed that the cores never got that hot, not more than 250°C.

the debris pile was hottest right immediately following the collapse. it then cooled over the next THREE MONTHS, with molten metal and temperatures over 1000°C being measured and observed.

no fire at the top of the building explains the collapse, and then this UNDEGROUND FURNACE.

say griff, valhall...? what do think of the idea that a cooling piece of steel can exert (signifigant enough) force by contracting? keeping in mind that the trusses are the thinnest, and most heat exposed areas. i can't come to terms with the idea that the trusses first sag from heat, and then cooling cause them to become strong enough to pull apart both the perimeter and the core.
that IS the NIST's explanation for 'collapse initiation'.

i think of that being similiar to pulling in rebar with guitar strings by heating and then cooling the strings. there is simply not enough material in the thin trusses to 'hurt' the massive vertical columns, in my opinion.

Originally posted by whylistentome
Okay, then please, if you may, PLEASE, explain the weakening of the 80 floors plus BELOW the fires and PLEASE explain how they could have fallen down into their footprints so cleanly at FREE FALL.

This is all we are trying to get from all of the supporters of the 'official' story. It simply cannot be explained. The floors below WERE NOT DAMAGED. The structure gets STRONGER the further down you go not weaker. The first tower to collapse was collapsing at AN ANGLE and then straightened when the UNDAMAGED portion of the building gave way so easily.

The second tower to get hit was hit on the corner. It was nearly missed. That's how bad the hit was. The majority of the fuel blew up in the impact and shot out of the side of the building in a ball of fire.

Just give a straight answer and explanation to the above questions and the other statements made about how the buildings, in no way, could have fallen at free fall. Yet they did.

One last time. Once the section of the tower above the impact area started moving it's Kinetic Energy was enough to overload the structure below it. As a result that structure failed and added its mass to the falling debris. As each floor collapsed it added to the overload of the floor below. Stop thinking of a building as a solid object, it isn't. A building is an interconnected series of structures. The whole building didn't fail at once, it was a combined series of failures. Yes the structure became stronger the closer you got to the ground, but the falling debris picked up energy and mass as they fell as well. There it is plain and simple.

Here's my 2 cents.

I believe there was more that meets the eye. I believe there was sloppy communication and intelligence from the federal and state government/law enforcement. I believe that the official 9/11 Story book is flawed to some extent.

Other than that, remember those in the past and build for a better tomorrow.

Originally posted by Valhall

Originally posted by whylistentome


Okay, then please, if you may, PLEASE, explain the weakening of the 80 floors plus BELOW the fires and PLEASE explain how they could have fallen down into their footprints so cleanly at FREE FALL.

They didn't fall at free fall.

?

And how do you know this? Have you done the math?

Distance = .5 x gravity x time squared (gravity is 10m/s^2 or 30 ft/s^2)

Okay, how tall were the towers? 110 stories? Roughly 1400 feet?

Let's figure for time.

At 1 second of time an object in free fall will have travelled 10 meters or 30 feet. Free falling objects will fall in a state of "ACCELERATION". (Kind of funny how this happens when there is supposedly a ton of STRONG UNDAMAGED STEEL SUPPORT BELOW THE DAMAGED PORTIONS!). This means that as the object falls it gains 10 m per second (30 ft/s). After 2 seconds we are at 20 m/s or 60 ft/s. It took the towers just under 10 seconds to completely collapse.

After 10 seconds we are looking at a speed of 300 feet per second.

Okay, back to the height of the towers at roughly 1400 feet. Add up all of the footages from 1 second on and we come up with the number of 1650 feet.

So, it's not exactly FREE FALL but it's pretty damn close for a sound structure with a TON of resistence built into the sound support in the UNDAMAGED parts of the building.

If the building were to have COLLAPSED due to structural failure at the points in question and then pancaked down it would have met resistence and would have taken more than a minute to completely fall.


[EDIT] Actually, I should point out that gravity is more like 9.8 m/s instead of 10 but I just wanted to round it up. That makes the number of 1650 closer to 1400. The speed at 10 seconds is actually 294 feet per second and the collapse time for one building was just over 9 seconds and the other just over 10.


[edit on 8-11-2006 by whylistentome]

Originally posted by billybob
say griff, valhall...? what do think of the idea that a cooling piece of steel can exert (signifigant enough) force by contracting? keeping in mind that the trusses are the thinnest, and most heat exposed areas. i can't come to terms with the idea that the trusses first sag from heat, and then cooling cause them to become strong enough to pull apart both the perimeter and the core.
that IS the NIST's explanation for 'collapse initiation'.

I believe if anything, the supports would have failed first. I haven't done any calculations but that's what I think at this moment.

Course, I could be wrong.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
One last time. Once the section of the tower above the impact area started moving it's Kinetic Energy was enough to overload the structure below it. As a result that structure failed and added its mass to the falling debris. As each floor collapsed it added to the overload of the floor below. Stop thinking of a building as a solid object, it isn't. A building is an interconnected series of structures. The whole building didn't fail at once, it was a combined series of failures. Yes the structure became stronger the closer you got to the ground, but the falling debris picked up energy and mass as they fell as well. There it is plain and simple.

Even proven by your story, steel deforms when it reaches failure in compression. Only in tension will it snap. So, in the case of the WTC, it wouldn't have snapped the steel columns so that you get a sudden free fall of the cap onto the rest of the building creating the huge kinetic energy you describe. It should have been a more gradual failure of the cap. Still producing kinetic energy but not the same kinetic energy that you want people to believe from a free falling structure.

In other words the cap wouldn't have just suddenly fallen from 12.5 feet onto the floor below it. It would have gradually buckled its way down to the floor below it. The only way to have it free fall is to sever the columns at once.

Edit: It's been a long day and I'm not sure if I'm making any sense. I guess they could have buckled all at once but I still don't believe it would have been a free fall onto the lower floor. Course, as always, I could be wrong.

[edit on 11/8/2006 by Griff]

Originally posted by whylistentome

?

And how do you know this? Have you done the math?

Yes I have. Repetitively. Feel free to search the board and find the various locations. WTC 1 and WTC 2 fell at approximately 1/3 the accleration due to gravity.



[edit on 11-8-2006 by Valhall]

The heck with it. These guys explain it better than I ever could.

Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation

Originally posted by Valhall
WTC 1 and WTC 2 fell at approximately 1/3 the accleration due to gravity.

Valhall, do you feel this is an acceptable velocity? Also, the collapse wave appears to have a constant velocity and not acceleration/deceleration. Do you feel this to be acceptable also? Just asking what your thoughts are.

Jimmy, did you notice the mass of falling debris falling to the side as it collapsed? The upper half of the building that was jack hammering everything below was obviously meeting a TON of resistance if it was able to turn concrete into dust and flinging steel beams hundreds of feet outwards in all directions, yet with so much resistance by, what I imagine to be the structural integrity of the building, you still have complete obliteration of not just one, but both towers.

I don't get it.

I mean, hey, if I'm wrong, I'm not afraid to admit it but I'd love to hear arguments otherwise...

Originally posted by JIMC5499
The heck with it. These guys explain it better than I ever could.

Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation

lol, okay.



What about these guys?

www.nist.gov...

Weren't they charged with falling through with successfully investigating every aspect of why the Towers collapsed, we shouldn't need other opinions from other people to provide what happened.

Originally posted by Masisoar
lol, okay.

What about these guys?

www.nist.gov...

Weren't they charged with falling through with successfully investigating every aspect of why the Towers collapsed, we shouldn't need other opinions from other people to provide what happened.

Now here's where I'll agree with you. Have you read the entire NIST report? Don't. If they could bottle that they would put the sleeping pill industry out of business. I don't have to tell anyone that NIST is a government agency. That report was so busy trying to be non-political and politically correct that they didn't accomplish anything.

I could beleive it if the top 13-15 floors had fallen from a Magnificent height onto the Floors below the fire.

It's all reletive, it would be Nearly akin to dropping a Bowling ball straight down onto a Wine bottle from 1-2 inches (reletive to the area damaged on the trade center)
I could do that 1000 times and not once would the bottle even crack.

To pulverize the wine bottle, you would have to drop it at least 5 feet if not more to destroy the fragile glass completly.

that analogy far outweighs the top of the trade centre as a bowling ball is probly 50 times more heavy than the bottle its self. reletive to the top and bottom parts of the WTC.

Pick appart the way I've compared the above, as I'm shure some of you will.
but you see what I'm saying, the top floors of the WTC would have to been droped from thousands of feet onto the bottom for that type of destruction.


That only happens in Cartoons

I'm so upset. Because what I'm about to post I COMPLETELY posted about 2 hours ago. I've even searched my "user posts" to see if I accidentally posted it to the wrong thread, but I didn't. It's got me scratching my wee li'l head.

Okay - I have not had the opportunity to speak with the Officer of the Birmingham fire department yet, but I'm going to attempt to reach him again tomorrow. I'm going to share what I know so far.

I spoke today with ALDOT Chief Engineer Don Vaughn about the 2002 incident and these are the notes I took:

1. Neither the collision impact nor the subsequent explosion were believed to have caused significant damage to, or contributed to the failure of, the bridge. In Mr. Vaughn's words "the girders had not even shifted on the caps".

2. It cannot be ascertained why the fuel in the cargo tank (9000 gallons of gasoline) exploded because, as Mr. Vaughn described it, "there was nothing left of the truck" to inspect. So it is assumed that the cargo tank was compromised during impact, the vapors were ignited, and an FAE occurred.

3. The position of the truck after impact and explosion was such that the ignited tank of gas was positioned directly under the bridge. So think of it as the world's largest bunsen burner on wheels under the bridge.

4. The temperature is estimated to have reached 2000 F. With a contained reservoir of gasoline, the "trap" the bridge was causing for a localized, contained, and stationary fire, and with the added fuel of the asphalt road surface on top of the bridge, the fire became so intense that the concrete surrounding the steel girders "balled up" and burst off the girders, exposing them.

5. (Here is the part that I want further verification and details about from the Officer of Birmingham F.D.) - The Fire Department did NOT put out the fire. They let it either burn itself completely out, or burn down to a point that it was considered extinguishable and then put it out. As stated above, the fire burned long enough that the truck was completely gone. Until I speak with the B.F.D. the unknowns on this are: how long the fire raged until the F.D. attempted to put it out, how long they attempted to put it out, and then how long it raged after they gave up until it either burned itself out, or they were able to attack it again and extinguish it.

One of the areas that I think might be causing confusion about this incident and leading to the idea we can some how use it comparatively against the situation in the towers is this picture:

www.tfhrc.gov...

(from this site www.tfhrc.gov...)

Please note the caption states "View of I-65 and I-59 minutes after the crash took place."

Well, not only is that caption wrong, it's WAY wrong. That picture was taken after:

the collision,
the explosion,
the fire initiation,
the unknown amount of time before the initial attempts to extinguish,
the unknown amount of time to try to extinguish,
the unknown amount of time for the fire to either burn itself out, or become extinguishable,
and the unknown amount of time that the bridge took to become "cool enough" that the fire department abandoned it and people were allowed to get close to.

I'm guessing this picture was taken the next day.

Please note the extremely small pile of debris on the roadway under the bridge that used to be "the truck" - evidence that the fire was allowed to burn an entire 18 wheeler to nothing.

Now this picture:

www.tfhrc.gov...

at least is closer to when the collision happened, although (until I talk to the BFD Officer) we can't claim to be "minutes after the collision", but at least it was closer to the actual time of the crash.

I will attempt the BFD officer again. Also, tomorrow I will be calling the ALDOT employee who is over the "bridge inspection program". I was given his contact information by Mr. Vaughn, but he was out on vacation today.

I'll report back when I have more!

[edit on 11-8-2006 by Valhall]

Good work Valhall Really.

I mean it, really good work. When you complete your monumentous task, I will award you a Way Above Top Secret Award for your attempt to successfully debunk a proposed theory that would support that it was possible for the fires in the World Trade Center to "EASILY" cause the World Trade Center collapses.

PWN.

Still strange that there are these pictures of people standing in the gaps of the WTC where the planes entered, waving.
And their hairs where not set on fire with all this hot melting top class steel around them.
I find this strange to say the least.
things normaly go on fire when they are even close to melting steel right ?

True, but not close to melting steel, just their structural integrity.

None the less, the people in the impact zone really DO reveal temperature ranges of the fires. And these fires were NOT concentrated specifically on all the trusses/columns. It wasnt anything controlled, so you can count on your "max temp ranges" to not be so hopeful to bring down the buildings.


For the win.