Discussion of contents of NIST Letter of Rejection

I have decided to create this thread as a place to discuss the statements made by NIST in their letter of response to a request by some of the families of the 911 victims to release more information and to incorporate or make modifications to their analysis.

You may read NIST's letter here: www.911proof.com...

I would first like to list the problematic and concerning statements made by NIST in this letter:

First and most concerning, the report stated that the less severe damage models for the WTC impact/fire

did not meet two key observables: (1) no aircraft debris was calculated to exit the side opposite to impact and most of the debris was stopped prior to reaching this side, in contradiction to what was observed in photographs and videos of the impact event (see Section 7.10), and (2) the fire-structural and collapse initiation analyses of the damaged towers (NIST NCSTAR 1-6) indicated that the towers would not have collapsed had the less severe damage results been used.

The request of the families was basically that you can't not publish model results simply because the impact/fire damage alone didn't result in collapse....so please publish the less severe damage models. NIST's response to this was that the above quote from the report...

...should have read, "The less severe damage case did not meet a key observable: no aircraft debris was calculated to exit the side opposite to impact and most of the debris was stopped prior to reaching that side, in contradiction to what was observed in photographs and videos of the impact event (see Section 7.10). NIST has issued an erratum to correct this error...

So they removed their reasoning because their reasoning was challenged. This critical statement of the model selection process will be removed from the report.

Let's review what is left. NIST states that the other reason the less severe damage model was not published is because the debris did not exit the opposite side of the building and therefore did not create visible external damage in agreement with photographic and video evidence of the day, but in the first paragraph of response A they state:

In the less severe damage case, while the damage to the exterior wall impacted by aircraft was in reasonable agreement with observable data, namely photographic evidence, agreement with other key observables was not achieved, in particular the shifting of building contents due to the aircraft impact.

Of course, immediately one sees an issue with this statement because no one knows of photographic or video evidence of the shifting of contents in the buildings. One is left to assume that NIST has no idea what that shifting was and therefore this is not a valid reason for rejection of the model, OR NIST has photographic and video evidence that has not been revealed to the public. Of course, one can also assume that if NIST is being honest in this statement then the greater damage model MET this content shift of which they have knowledge and since numerous eye witness accounts and first responder transmissions and depositions result in evidence of 20 foot marble slabs blown off the lobby level walls of WTC 1 and collapses in the sublevel of the building, we are left to assume these events did, in fact, occur in the more severe damage model. Right?

But they go on to say:

While none of the damage scenarios resulted in landing gear debris exiting the opposite face of the WTC 1 model, NIST documents in NCSTAR 1-2, chapter 7, the uncertainties in the configuration of the building interor on the floors of impact that could influence the modeling results and also documents the aspects of the model construction that also influence the model results.

These statements are problematic to NIST in regards to the reason given for rejecting the request to publish the lesser damage model. First, if none of the models matched the video and photographic evidence they are reporting to be the benchmark for validation, then the reason given for rejecting the lesser damage model, that of not meeting this same evidence, can't discretely be applied to rejecting that model relative to the other models. In addition, if NIST is going to confess they don't even know the configuration of the building interior, how can they claim to have sufficient knowledge of the shifting of contents in the building to the point they can use it as a criteria for rejecting the lesser damage model?

In response E of this letter NIST responds to the families' request that the models be re-ran at the maximum temperature of 250 C (around 650 F) due to the fact NIST states in their report they found no evidence that any of the recovered core columns experienced temperatures in excess of 250 C. They reject the request to re-run the model at this lower temperature based on the disingenuous argument that just because they didn't find core columns that had experienced higher temperatures doesn't mean there weren't core columns that exceeded 250 C; that and the small number of specimens they tested was too small to be representative of the core column population.

Well, this point has been a point I have hammered on for 2 years now.

1. NIST if you didn't do enough specimen gathering and specimen testing then you robbed the US taxpayer...because you didn't do your job. Give us back our money and turn your engineering licenses in.

2. NIST if you state you did not find evidence of core columns being exposed to temperatures in excess of 250 C then you should not model with higher temperatures you have no test data to support. And you CAN'T reject the request to model at the temperature limit your data DOES support!

The last section of this letter has to do with the families' claim that NIST violated the Data Quality Act and the OMB/NIST Information Quality Standards because the NIST did not look at additional factors other than the plane impact and fire to fully investigate the possible scenarios leading to collapse.

I could regurgitate their bureaucratic backside-covering response, but it really doesn't matter at this point because they already admitted in the report they rejected any damage models in which the impact and the fire didn't result in the collapse of the building - but hurry and go read it in the report because as noted above, they are going to remove that statement now.

This thread will be dedicated to the discussion of the importance of the contents of this letter and the implications it could have going forward. In addition, if anyone has further points they would like to make about certain statements in the letter not covered in this post - feel free.

This thread will not be allowed to be derailed to another topic and I will make sure Springer stays involved to prevent that. You have been duly warned.

[edit on 11-2-2007 by Valhall]

An excellent post!

Do you have a link to the NIST document in question on the NIST site (pre editing for this)?? I think we need to get copies before they alter it, purely for the record.

Here is the link to the final reports by NIST.

wtc.nist.gov...

I would assume the deletion has already been made since that was updated on the 5th of October and the letter is stamped September 27th.

[edit on 11-2-2007 by Valhall]

[OFF TOPIC]

To give a heads up, this thread will remain on topic and any urge/s contrary to such should be taken to U2U. If not please report off topic conduct to me ASAP and, I will, maintain the forum standard of "Zero Tolerance" for such posts.

Thank you for reading my intermission, please carry one.

reply to post by Valhall


Thank you for starting this thread Val

I also want to post an link from the family members response to the recent NIST response to the original family members letter.

It also contains many of the valid points that Val has brought up in the OP and several more points of concern about the NIST report.

www.911proof.com...

And the NIST response to the first request from the family members.

www.911proof.com...







[edit on 2-11-2007 by etshrtslr]

Thank you for the show of support in this. I can't express how important I personally believe this letter is. NIST has shown their flagrant disregard for the importance of what they were tasked with.

I look foward to reading the posts concerning this letter.

Great post. Theres no doubt they only publish what seems fit to deliver a false image. The truth on this matter will come out, my guess within the next 2 years.

[edit on 2-11-2007 by VveaponS2K]

Originally posted by Valhall
Thank you for the show of support in this. I can't express how important I personally believe this letter is. NIST has shown their flagrant disregard for the importance of what they were tasked with.

I look foward to reading the posts concerning this letter.

Valhall I think Flagrant disregard is a understatement ...I think this letter from Nist is another perfect example of at most conspiracy with the Bush administration and at the least a case of criminal negligence on NISTs investigation into the event.

Originally posted by Stillresearchn911
... and at the least a case of criminal negligence on NISTs investigation into the event.

I agree.

reply to post by Valhall



I can't believe they are actually able to get away with this.

I am unable to find the quote right now, but I like when they ask NIST if we will be receiving our money back. If they knew before hand that the UL fire tests weren't going to be beneficial, then why did they use that money to hire UL for the tests to begin with?

I can supply evidence of this in the letter when I find it.

reply to post by Griff


Good point, Griff. That's one area of the letter I didn't touch on, the fact they ramble their way through obliquely admitting they ran a bunch of tests that had no relative value to the real event they were modeling.





[edit on 11-3-2007 by Valhall]

If you guys get tired of simply agreeing with each other and would like a discussion of the issues I would be more than happy to bring up points. However I fear that like before, bringing up any disagreement will result in being accused of derailment. So it's up to you. There are some logical answers to these issues, but they are not worth bringing up if it's just going to lead to accusations of derailment and getting banned. I won't comment any further on that either for the same reasons.

snoopy,

If you will center on the content of the letter and any information you have to bring to explaining or defending that content, then I very much would like to hear what you have to say.

Thanks!

That's a gray area Val because the topic is more so about your reasons for the letter and the actions o NIST being wrong. Not unlike the previous thread, who's fault is really that of the OP which was faulty to begin with. This is a legitimate and reasonable OP.

In answer to one of the issues brought up as a problem with NIST procedure is based on collecting steel that didn't exceed the high temperatures. This was done on purpose. They intentionally searched for steel that wasn't heat damaged. Heat contaminates the steel in what they were looking for , which was things like compression failure, weld separation, buckling, etc. For heated steel, there would be no way to know if the steel was heated before the collapse or after the collapse.

It's a common misconception that the steel was collected for the purpose of checking temperature. So that moves to another part of your complaint which is that they shouldn't have any business making a model with such temperatures if they cannot predict them. But they could. They could conclude that the steel had exceeded that 250 degrees because parts were seen to be glowing before the collapse, as per NCSTAR1-7. And there isn't really much debate that fires could get steel to this temperature.

Originally posted by snoopy
They could conclude that the steel had exceeded that 250 degrees because parts were seen to be glowing before the collapse, as per NCSTAR1-7. And there isn't really much debate that fires could get steel to this temperature.

Maybe you should look at more of the NIST reports.

wtc.nist.gov...

1) No WTC-7 steel was recovered or analyzed.

2) No unprocessed, intact floor trusses were recovered or analyzed.

3) No testing for explosives (or sulfidation or other residue of any kind) was performed.

4) Only 12 total core columns were recovered from WTC-1 & WTC-2 combined.

5) Of the recovered core pieces, none showed exposure to temperatures in excess of 250 C.

6) Of 170 examined areas on the perimeter column panels, only three showed exposure to temperatures in excess of 250 C and for one of these three forensic evidence indicated that the high temperature exposure occurred AFTER the collapse.

7) No recovered steel showed any evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 C for any significant time.

Good comments, snoopy. But I think Ultima also brings an excellent list of points where NIST failed to perform their duty adequately.

Concerning the modeling with temperatures in excess of what the data showed. I did make one mis-statement in my OP that I wish I had caught and corrected prior to my edit time running out, so I will clarify my statement here in response to your comments.

I stated:

"NIST if you state you did not find evidence of core columns being exposed to temperatures in excess of 250 C then you should not model with higher temperatures you have no test data to support. And you CAN'T reject the request to model at the temperature limit your data DOES support!"

The first part of that statement I would like to restate as follows:

...you should not model with higher temperatures you have no test data to support UNLESS you also publish the model ran at the temperature your data DOES support, ...etc.

It's fine that they ran fire models to try to predict any higher temperatures, and it's fine they published models using those modeled higher temperatures. But it is unacceptable from an engineering standpoint for them to publish the extropolated models, that have no empirical data to support them, without also publishing models ran at the temperature limit their data does support. Good engineering standards would have them publish both models and then have them explain why they believe the higher temperature models might be more realistic of what happened in the real event.

But they didn't do that. They published ONLY the higher temperature models which are based on no REAL data, only extrapolated modeled data. And now they refuse to publish the models at the temperature their real data actually supports.

That's not acceptable.

[edit on 11-3-2007 by Valhall]

I have Ultima on Ignore so I can't see his comments I will assume his comments are about them not analyzing the global collapse though) . But again, there is data on the temperatures. It's based on the interviews and testimony as well as visuals. This is really all they can go on because to my knowledge it would be impossible to know from the steel itself if it was damaged by fire before the collapse or after the collapse. And temperatures from the fires can easily cause the steel to weaken. No testing of the actual steel is needed to determine that. Sure it was a big argument on this forum once, but that was in regards to such fires not being capable of melting the steel. In this case we are only talking about weakening steel. An event that is known to happen and easily with the fires present. And from the colors of the columns and supports reported it could be determined that temperatures were even beyond 650 degrees. The point though being that it's not just some guess, it is based on actual evidence.

I don't think they could do what you want no matter what. They could have collected fire damaged steel columns, but how could they ever conclude that damage was specifically from the fires pre-collapse and not from the fires that burned for months afterwards?


EDIT: I think it's NCSTAR1-3 that covers this part, but I'll have to check at some point.

[edit on 3-11-2007 by snoopy]

I think Snoopy put me on ignore because he is afriad to debate with me.

Well, there are a number of issues I have with your reasoning.

1. They could not see the core columns, so there is no video/photo evidence they can even claim to use for estimating temperature on them.

2. They state themselves what pieces of steel they tested that they suspect were heated in the debris pile.

3. They didn't bother to get enough samples of the core columns. There's no getting around this.

4. The debris pile began to be removed almost immediately. The elements at the lower portion of the debris pile would have been what was being subjected to very high temperatures. (People were walking around on the debris pile, the whole thing was not at intense heats.)

5. You state it is not just some guess it is based on actual evidence. No, the temperatures used in the models published in the report are not based on evidence. If they were based on evidence they would have been capped at 250 C.

6. The weakening of the steel - the decrease in the yield strength at 250 C (650 F) is less than 20% of its original yield strength. With the design safety factors employed, that decrease isn't going to make a column fail.

The point here is - NIST stated the maximum temperature they found the core columns to be subjected to, so they cannot only publish an inflated model based solely on computer ran simulations, they have to also publish the model in agreement with the only data they bothered to gather.

How many more times is it going to take NIST changing reports before people realize that it took more then the planes and fires to bring down the towers?


[edit on 3-11-2007 by ULTIMA1]