The science of why it had to be controlled demolition, in laymen's terms

reply to post by dbates

"At about 800 degrees Fahrenheit structural steel starts to lose its strength; at 1,500 degrees F, all bets are off"

-Eduardo Kausel, M.I.T. professor of civil and environmental engineering

I keep seeing the word temperature but not the words thermal energy when discussing heat. It takes time to heat using thermal energy produced by a heat source. The more efficient and pure the source the more thermal energy to heat to a desired temperature. Temperature alone does not determine heat. The source of the heat does by the amount of the thermal energy it is capable of producing.

Kerosene (jet fuel) is not known for it high efficiency thermal energy because it does not contain that capability. Burning kerosene is too busy producing useless dense black smoke, from being heavily carbon based, to efficiently build high thermal heat even flames directly applied to an object. In this case, commercial building structrual steel being the subject.

In order to heat an object to a required temperature with the most thermal energy providing the heat, it takes both temperature and thermal energy concentration on an object. The less thermal energy on the object, the cooler the fire. Because the flame is using more energy to burn off impurities (producing useless poisonious smoke) than heating an object.

I don't see the professor explaining that scientific fact. Of course, the Bush administration ignored it also when using the report done by an MIT professor, whose sole job in teaching is material handling - not structural engineering, not aircraft expertise, not demolitions expertise - but material handling.

Understanding that heat requires both temperature and thermal energy, do people still believe the "official" version can be correct, when one building only stood for 56 minutes and the other for 1 hour and 42 minutes? At least, those are the times I have seen reported.

Please keep in mind that WTC 1 had a much worse fire in 1975, which started in the BF Goodrich office on the 11th floor, and burned for at least three hours. The firemen described it as a blowtorch type fire. Please compare the flame on a blowtorch for thermal energy to the vast reduction of thermal energy produced by kerosene. There was no structural damage done, and that fire did reach several upper and lower floors and the center core beams.



[edit on 14-12-2007 by OrionStars]

Originally posted by dbates
Dropping one floor onto another would be asking it to double it's load from 3.2 million to 6.4 million pounds.

How does this happen?

There's a problem with arm-chair debunkers, and that's that they don't think about what they're saying, or else they wouldn't say anything at all. All of the information required to do the REAL MATH is de facto classified, locked up with the structural documentation by Rudy Giuliani's office immediately after the attacks.

How many floors were in the top sections that initially leaned and fell?
Multiply that by 3.2 million and you'll see the magnitude of the weight the floors below were asked to hold.

No you won't. And I'll explain why. The "top sections that initially leaned and fell" raises some very interesting issues. If the top floors are rotating outwards as a unit, then this would have to be happening from the core structure failing and leaning, agreed? A single face of perimeter columns tilting, for example, isn't enough to explain the observation of WTC2's tilt (WTC1 didn't really have a tilt).

All of the floors were strung between the core and perimeter columns on top of a number of trusses spanning from one side to the other. Each of these trusses was independently attached to the perimeter on one side, and eventually the core on the other. Each would have to independently fail for an entire floor to fail. Each would have to independently fail at virtually the exact same instant for a floor to fall together as a single unit. The conditions required to obtain this kind of system are very specific, given the leading theories of the floor connections failing due to deformation from heat. Everything would have to happen within such a narrow frame of time, it would be such an astronomical coincidence to set this kind of thing into motion, let alone maintain it, that I can't believe it's even plausible as an explanation.

But putting all of that aside, when those top floors lean, they are shifting loads from one side of the building to another. This should NOT result in even pancaking. It will "pull" and stretch the far side of the building, and compress and buckle the perimeter columns being leaned into. If this tilting is occurring around the core structure as a fulcrum, then this is NOT AT ALL a problem of multiple floors falling down as a big mass unit onto the single next floor below. The people that came up with that theory (FEMA) did not consider for a second the angular momentum WTC2 gained and then somehow lost as all the floors below started popping out symmetrically. If you try to apply loads within that mode of thinking, what you're saying is basically going to be completely irrelevant to the physics behind the very features you're describing (tilting).

That doesn't even include the kenetic energy released by 3.2 million pounds moving 10 feet or so.

Be careful, because KE defined from PE assumes a free-fall (an acceleration of 9.8m/s^2), and would give you a figure for a LOT more energy than would have actually been practically available. You will not get a free-fall whatsoever when you have to deal with the moments of inertia of all of the structure below, which is still intact. At first you could only have deformations, buckling, bending, etc. How do you go from this, to suddenly free-falling? The trusses were each connected on both sides to columns, remember.

[edit on 14-12-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by OrionStars


I'm quite happy to see your evidence of this. As there are hundreds of photos and videos of the tilting and collapses, show us some that show the 23 degree tilt being that much for a full 15 minutes.

Below is a witness accounting of when the top of the South Tower lost complete support on one side. Which would definitely begin creating a very large rift by lean, from tearing apart from 3 other external support walls as one floor dropped onto another. The time indicates at least 15 minutes before collapse time the top of the South Tower had already begun to lean.

I'm not interested in "a witness's account" since there were many thousands of witnesses both there and watching on TV, and there are numerous pictures and videos. Since WTC 1 was hit earlier, both towers were under continual video coverage until they collapsed.

So, it should not be difficult for you to post a link to any video that shows the top section of WTC 2 leaning 23 degrees for a full 15 minutes.

Please post a link. Thanks.

Cheers.

Originally posted by OrionStars

[It's settled. Look at the video I provided. Use the timing of the video or count the seconds with a stop watch. This is a settled question. WTC 2 took around 14 seconds before collapse ended.

How is it settled? Because you say it is? I repeatedly received a different result doing the same and never hit 10 seconds. I used several video sites on the Internet to test it. It may be settled for you but it isn't settled for others. Unless you can prove beyond any reasonable doubt it was 14 - no more and no less - it is not settled.

I've given you the video link several times now which demonstrates it. Obviously, it's not because I "say" it's 14 seconds.

Here is the video again:

youtube.com...

Study it carefully and get back to us with your refutation. If you don't think it's around 14 seconds, please demonstrate it to us. Thanks.

Cheers.

Why do I keep seeing the scenario of a section dropping onto the lower section causing the lower section to crumble to pieces? The sections themselves were of different sizes and produced the same result...

Rephrase it to "The severely heat damaged and weakened upper section dropped slightly to cause the still intact, although slightly compromised, lower floors to shuck themselves into oblivion." and you might have me sold on this bogus situation.

The situation would be more representative of a water balloon dropping onto a pillar of ice. The water balloon would surely not crush the pillar of ice, right? I'll even let the water balloon be chilled and the top of the ice have a blowtorch put to it. You can even drill holes in the ice to represent floor spacing.

[edit on 12/14/2007 by Spoodily]

reply to post by CaptainObvious


Yes, I have watched WTC 7 collapse more than a few times. The time of collapse was less than 7 seconds (6.5 has been timed by quite a number of people including myself), which would include all top floors as well. It initially gave way in the center area of the roof, fell into itself, and landed in its own footprint. I haven't seen a video yet that states differently.

WTC 7 is the smoking gun that wreaks of controlled implosion. It has not helped the "official" version bureaucrats, including Rudolph Giuliani, that Larry Silverstein told the public that he and the NYFD agreed to pull WTC 7. Pull is the demolition trade slang for bringing a building down by controlled demolitions.

www.prisonplanet.com...

^It's funny that the de-bunkers think the penthouse collapsing is some kind of proof it wasn't a CD?

Actually the penthouse is a classic CD 'kink', take out the central columns first and the outer walls will then fall inwards, which is what they do with large buildings. It could not be more obvious that 7 was a controlled 'pull'...

Who cares if it was 10 or 14 seconds? What a useless waste of time argument.
You really think 4 seconds makes any difference?

reply to post by ANOK


And there lies the problem.

A building collapses perfectly, symmetrically into it's own footprint, a collapse which requires the entire underpinning structure to fail at precisely the right time on every floor.

This is not natural behaviour. Nor seen before this day. The fact people are ready to argue about it's investigation is astonishing.

Originally posted by jthomas

I'm not interested in "a witness's account" since there were many thousands of witnesses both there and watching on TV, and there are numerous pictures and videos. Since WTC 1 was hit earlier, both towers were under continual video coverage until they collapsed.

So, it should not be difficult for you to post a link to any video that shows the top section of WTC 2 leaning 23 degrees for a full 15 minutes.

It is a good thing this forum isn't a court of law. It appears you would be ready to dismiss any witness accounting which didn't conform to your pre-conceived notions. There are no videos with film running at least 15 full minutes from time of initial rift to collapse. However, if you locate any, please do let us know.

What I had to do is called research investigation and use of witness testimony for the time of the start of the rift. I then found photos (not time stamped) and videos (also not time stamped and certainly not 15 minutes or more in length) of the rift prior to collapse at 9:59 am. Subtracting 9:59 from 9:36 is 23 minutes from when the initial rift was felt and heard, by at least one witness inside the South Tower on the 106th floor. For the record, I have stated at least 15 minutes, not 15 minutes, in the posts I made prior to this one.

I measured rift and arrived at 23 degrees at the rift more often than not. The angle of any camera can throw off accurate measurement from less to 1 degree to any other number above less than one degree. I needed photos or videos with straight in shots or as least angled as possible. It took a great deal of time to locate what I did find.

If you note the witness gave the time for when the South Tower top section began to rift. Plus, provided a fairly accurate description of what was happening with the collapse on one side and the sound of bending steel as the rift was occurring.

Please post a link. Thanks.

You keep requesting validation from others and have yet to provide the validation for your counterpoints I ask of you yesterday:

Do you have the validation that two buildings completely inhaled two commercial aircraft, and that any potential impact aircraft debris (anything once in or attached to any aircraft), including fuel, exited out some unstated other wall(s) of each tower?

Are you able to validate that commercial airliner debris was lying on the outside the towers, but not on the same side as the entry impact holes in each building?

Are you able to validate the commercial airliner debris location, which type, and how much debris in those locations?

Is the entire 9/11 event on which you use your hypothesis limited to opinions? If not limited to your opinions, exactly what can you scientifically validate?

The answers available to my questions should be self-evident: "The following is my validation.", or, "No, I can't validate. All I have is hypothesis." Hypotheses are always limited to opinion and no validation. Nothing becomes theory until hypothesis can be proved.

Originally posted by adjay
reply to post by ANOK

 

This is not natural behaviour. Nor seen before this day. The fact people are ready to argue about it's investigation is astonishing.

Actually, Adjay, what happened to the WTC 1, 2, and 7 has been unnaturally and quite legally seen, in part, many times before in metropolitan areas. Every time controlled demolition is done, when the buildings are meant to fall in their own footprints, the basic same effect is easily seen. The difference is in legal controlled demolitions, the bulidings are stripped of everything that presents a safety and/or environmental hazard (asbestos fireproofing, windows, any other glass, furniture, etc.). Far less debris and far less dust. Plus, anything of value, such as copper plumbing lines, can be sold as scrap.

Originally posted by OrionStars

I'm not interested in "a witness's account" since there were many thousands of witnesses both there and watching on TV, and there are numerous pictures and videos. Since WTC 1 was hit earlier, both towers were under continual video coverage until they collapsed.

So, it should not be difficult for you to post a link to any video that shows the top section of WTC 2 leaning 23 degrees for a full 15 minutes.

It is a good thing this forum isn't a court of law.

I certainly agree with that.

It appears you would be ready to dismiss any witness accounting which didn't conform to your pre-conceived notions. There are no videos with film running at least 15 full minutes from time of initial rift to collapse.

We are talking specifically about your claim the top of WTC 2 leaning a full 23 degrees for a period of 15 minutes before the collapse initiation, remember?

However, if you locate any, please do let us know.

That's what I'm asking you. Get back to us when you have those videos, will you?

Cheers.

Originally posted by adjay
reply to post by ANOK

 

And there lies the problem.

A building collapses perfectly, symmetrically into it's own footprint, a collapse which requires the entire underpinning structure to fail at precisely the right time on every floor.

This is not natural behaviour. Nor seen before this day. The fact people are ready to argue about it's investigation is astonishing.

You might want to read this paper carefully and refute it:

static.scribd.com...

Cheers.

Originally posted by jthomas

We are talking specifically about your claim the top of WTC 2 leaning a full 23 degrees for a period of 15 minutes before the collapse initiation, remember?

Since I have found no accounts that the top floor of the South Tower rifted any further than the original 106th floor South Tower witness report at 9:36 am, which is at least 15 minutes prior to collapse, I will state, for what I believe is the 3rd time, one wall of the top lean was resting on one wall of the balance of the intact building, while still attached to the balance of the bent but intact center core for at least 15 minutes. Thus, 23 degree rift was what I and others were able to measure on what we could locate for non-time stamped and dated photos and videos of the lean.

That's what I'm asking you. Get back to us when you have those videos, will you?

Perhaps, you could tell me which part of my statements, that no time stamped and dated 23 minute videos showing the initial rift causing the South Tower lean seem to be available anywhere, were not clear to you? If it was all clear, why do you persist in requesting something you were told, at least twice in a same prior post, did not appear to be available. Meanwhile, you continue to ignore my request for your validation related to your hypothesis of aircraft impacts.

Do you often engage in red herring arguments to avoid presenting validation for your points and counterpoints? If not, why are you doing it above?

Originally posted by OrionStars

Originally posted by jthomas

We are talking specifically about your claim the top of WTC 2 leaning a full 23 degrees for a period of 15 minutes before the collapse initiation, remember?

Since I have found no accounts that the top floor of the South Tower rifted any further than the original 106th floor South Tower witness report at 9:36 am, which is at least 15 minutes prior to collapse, I will state, for what I believe is the 3rd time, one wall of the top lean was resting on one wall of the balance of the intact building, while still attached to the balance of the bent but intact center core for at least 15 minutes. Thus, 23 degree rift was what I and others were able to measure on what we could locate for non-time stamped and dated photos and videos of the lean.

All you have to do is demonstrate that the top portion of WTC 2 was leaning 23 degrees for around 15 minutes instead of tilting seconds before global collapse as all the pictures and videos show.

It's a straight forward, simple request.

Cheers.

^Yeah it's obvious from vids that the tilt lasted only seconds and the idea that the inner core columns were 'bending' with the top is just silly. If they did bend it wasn't from the heat of office fire.

More likely the columns were severed at the sky lobby at a 45 degree angle and the top shifted slightly to one side and started tilting cause there was a slight delay before the rest of the 'cutting charges' (or whatever) were detonated.

It's obvious the building collapses from under the top, only way the tops angular momentum could have been changed so drastically.

The one thing many people seem to forget is that the steel structure is a MESH. It is all interconnected for maximum support with minimal materials. The design of the WTC was revolutionary in this, as it enabled a very large building to be made, yet contain open and functional interiors (which could not be obtained with more conventional steel construction methods).

The "leaning" of the upper portion is easily explainable when you consider that fact. The tensile strength of the steel was capable of keeping the upper portion from completely falling off, and to counter its rotation sufficiently to keep it near-vertical through the collapse.

If you would like, I have been messing around with the PhysX SDK, and I could use it to create a virtual model of the WTC and run some nice, animated physics simulations with flashing lights and cool sound effects (and my own personal commentary). I would even turn the sourcecode over to you so you could scour it for reasons to discredit it.

It wouldn't be perfect - but it would demonstrate the idea of a meshed structure. I could even try and simulate floors through a plane that shatters into particles and then flows like particles should - to re-enact the entire thing.

Again - if you're looking for anything beyond approximations and physics concepts to 'debunk' your version of the theory, then you will be sorely disappointed. Without reconstructing the WTC and flying planes into them - you will not get the amount of realism you are looking for.

We aren't going to do that. Plain and simple.

There are so many forces at play within the WTC collapse that you can beat any issue to death. Earlier, I mentioned that the force of the collapse would cause the metal supports to resonate at a frequency and bust-up any connected material. This is like if you hit a boulder with a metal bat.... it hurts your hands. A lot of energy is displaced into the supports when they or their connecting bolts snap - it must go somewhere. So, it vibrates the metal. This shockwave is sent through the structure at speeds that far surpass the speed of sound through air, and it is reflected back up the structure after hitting the base.

I think the problem, here, is that people are forgetting physics in their physics-talk. This isn't a toothpick fort. The scale is hardly one we can comprehend. It will behave somewhat differently than your toothpick forts at home, which have the advantage of having a very close surface area-to-weight ratio. Example; your aluminum tripod chair that you take to your child's football game can support more mass relative to its size than if you were to make one four times its size. You cannot get around this - aside from using materials that are stronger for their weight.

Weight and size scale differently. And when you start trying to compare the masses involved in a desktop model compared to the full-scale deal.... the differences are astounding. You have the acceleration of mass, for one. In a scale model, you cannot replicate both the static mass of the structure AND the force that the structure would collapse with - since, in real life, the average ceiling height is somewhere in the neighborhood of three meters; and in your scale model, it might be three centimeters. The rate of the attraction of mater (gravity) is still the same despite the scale of your model, even if you somehow managed to get relative structural strain to the correct scale. And since the force of an object has an exponential relationship to its velocity - this is very important. Since the difference between a thirty-ton slab of concrete falling three meters versus thirty grams falling three centimeters are completely different .... you end up with something that is effectively impossible to replicate with a scale model, or even a composite of scale models.

You can use models to demonstrate concepts - which is what I did, there (basing off of my own experience with scale models and placing that experience into hypothetical scenarios).

Everything becomes even more complex when you start adding in the fact that the structure was bracket-bolted together. So, the strength of the brackets, the bolts, etc - everything comes into question. And, quite frankly, no computer in the world presently has the capability to simulate this in its entirety. Even the most powerful supercomputers in the world lack the memory necessary to perform the physics calculations on each bolt, hole, beam, and floor in the building, and the airplane(s) that hit them. It's just not possible.

And, no, buildings are not pre-wired, pre-charged, etc at construction. Ever. The reason for this is that, 1) electronic (or wireless) detonation is not used; and 2) the percussion tube that is used does have a "shelf life" and would be unreliable after just sitting there for a few decades.

Each demolition company has its own way of engineering a controlled demolition. They pre-cut supports, place charges, etc, all according to their own demolition theories. There is no 'set standard' way of using explosives for demolition. It's all a case-by-case process.

My goodness.....

Originally posted by OrionStars

Had part of the center core not been holding the leaning portion to keep it from falling, and had the lean begun to peel from the portion of the core holding it, gravity would most probably have pulled the leaning top floors toward the ground prior to the entire balance of the building being pulled. If the bent but intact center core beams had given way at the rift, which way would the leaning section have gone? Over the edge and to the ground? Or would it have fallen inside to close the rift? The way it would have fallen is indicative of on which side of the lean the majority of mass and weight existed. Gravity would have taken over to pull it to the outside (toward the ground) or inside (closing the rift).

This may help you:

forums.randi.org...

Originally posted by jthomas

All you have to do is demonstrate that the top portion of WTC 2 was leaning 23 degrees for around 15 minutes instead of tilting seconds before global collapse as all the pictures and videos show.

It's a straight forward, simple request.

Cheers.

I will ask this once again. What part of - there do not seem to be any videos available 15 to 23 minutes long showing the south tower lean starting at 9:36 am - isn't clear to you yet? Why don't you explain how anyone can show you anything that isn't available? I, for one, would enjoy knowing how someone accomplishes that impossible feat.

If you persist in being obnoxious with the same repeated question, which has been sufficiently and civilly answered the same way at least 3 times, do not expect another same response for your same harrassing question.

Originally posted by jthomas
You might want to read this paper carefully and refute it:

static.scribd.com...

I might just do that if you explain why it's even applicable. Posting someone else's paper and saying "refute that" isn't really adding much to the discussion in this thread. If you have a point to make about a part of a paper, feel free to, but ask yourself the object of linking to other peoples work and asking people to debunk it without saying anything else.

Originally posted by jthomas
This may help you:

forums.randi.org...

The top of the south tower was leaning to the outside not leaning toward the inside, as appears on the website link you provided. It wasn't even either twin tower. Someone drew little boxes, and then pointed the lean in the complete opposite direction. How is someone's version of what did not happen on 9/11 supposed to help me?