Professional engineer Jon Cole cuts steel columns with thermate, debunks Nat Geo & unexpectedly repr

reply to post by pteridine


thanks! interesting thing to ignore, then, but i can see why people would. i was also under the impression that "nanothermite", which they labelled as a possibility, was extremely sensitive, and could go off to something as simple as static electricity. is t here any truth to that?

i'd also appreciate a reply by someone who supports the theory to this and my original question.

I appreciate you posting this video. It's the first good evidence I've seen which convinces me that there might be more to investigate with 9/11.

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by WilliamRikeronaSegway

 

One of the arguments against thermite is the inability to time the effects of multiple charges.

Thermate or super thermate, then should be ignored? no matter, WRS has basically asked about a way to DEMOLITION for any building. As far as I know, both thermite and thermate need an induced temperature of 450 degrees C at the top end. That would mean a dedicated and accurate detonator for whatever was used. Perhaps like this,

www.docstoc.com...

Heck, maybe magnesium and thermite mixtures would do the job, the world's your oyster.

Originally posted by smurfy

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by WilliamRikeronaSegway

 

One of the arguments against thermite is the inability to time the effects of multiple charges.

Thermate or super thermate, then should be ignored? no matter, WRS has basically asked about a way to DEMOLITION for any building. As far as I know, both thermite and thermate need an induced temperature of 450 degrees C at the top end. That would mean a dedicated and accurate detonator for whatever was used. Perhaps like this,

Heck, maybe magnesium and thermite mixtures would do the job, the world's your oyster.

Setting them off is not the problem; having them work fast enough is. Thermates and super thermates are still too slow to time multiple shots until they are tuned to explosive velocities. At the point their deflagration velocities are approaching those of explosives, they would produce shock waves and the sound of explosions.
The initiation temperature is easily reached by a number of mixtures; the patent you referenced tries to formalize the common oxidizer-fuel combinations that have been used in the past. I used mainly barium peroxide and pigment grade powdered aluminum and never had a thermite charge fail to ignite.

Originally posted by WilliamRikeronaSegway
reply to post by pteridine

 

thanks! interesting thing to ignore, then, but i can see why people would. i was also under the impression that "nanothermite", which they labelled as a possibility, was extremely sensitive, and could go off to something as simple as static electricity. is t here any truth to that?

i'd also appreciate a reply by someone who supports the theory to this and my original question.

The sol-gel materials can be made to be sensitive. The red chips of Jones paper were not anything like those materials and self extinguished after ignition.

Originally posted by -PLB-
I don't know what there is left to explain. I already explained how a rigid truss only has a vertical force on the columns.

Not when they are attached like this:



Can you see the difference, that the truss attaches to the sides of the columns, instead of the columns being directly underneath like they would have to be in order to take the load purely as a vertical force?

I already explained that when the truss starts behaving like a catenary the force starts having a horizontal component.

Just like the trusses exert a horizontal force on the perimeter columns since they are bolted right onto the SIDE of them, NOT sitting ON TOP of them. When you understand the difference you'll understand how the inertia is different between the simple column-and-beam you are thinking of, and the actual WTC configuration.

If you do not even understand these simple concepts, there is no way on earth you would be able to make sense of any of the physics involved.

Ironic, and still you can't show why sagging would effectively make the trusses any heavier for the perimeter columns.

In that image I see maybe 10 sections of the core columns outside the footprint of the how many, couple of hundred?

You stopped counting too soon then because I'm seeing more than 30 multi-floor lengths, visible on the surface of that photo. I stopped at 30. Maybe you just don't know what a core column looks like, or can't tell it apart from a perimeter column, or don't know their relative numbers before they were thrown everywhere. There were hundreds of perimeter columns on every floor but just under 50 core columns. You should be seeing about 5 perimeter columns for every section of core column. I can always just go through and circle the core columns so even a preschooler could figure it out if it's that big of a deal for you.

You nowhere explain how you go from 10 to almost all.

It's not my problem if you don't know how to count. You only make this hard on yourself.

Yeah, and how many times have I asked to see the specific quote for that in his paper?

Are you too lazy to open the pdf again?

Why are you discussing the contents of Bazants work if you don't even know what is in it?

You're the one who still doesn't know what's in it.

I asked for you to show where it says anywhere in the paper, that they assumed 0% of the mass accumulated. Here's what you gave me:

So, even under the most optimistic assumptions by far, the plasti deformation can dissipate only a small part of the kinetic energy acquired by the upper part of building.

This says he assumed 0% of the mass accumulated where?

The kinetic energy of the top part of the tower impacting the floor below was found to be about 8.4
larger than the plastic energy absorption capability of the underlying story, and con- siderably higher than that if fracturing were taken into account
Bažant and Zhou 2002a. This fact, along with the fact that during the progressive collapse of underlying stories Figs. 1
d and 2 the loss of gravitational potential per story is much greater than the energy dissipated per story, was sufficient for Bažant and Zhou
2002a to conclude, purely on energy grounds, that the tower was doomed once the top part of the tower dropped through the height of one story
or even 0.5 m. It was also observed that this conclusion made any calculations of the dynamics of progres- sive collapse after the first single-story drop of upper part super- fluous.

This says he assumed 0% of the mass accumulated where?

The most idiotic thing about this, is that if 0% of the mass was assumed to contribute to the collapse, no mass would be falling and nothing would be "collapsing."

Like I said, you make all your own problems. First you show you can't count columns past 10 and then you show you can't read a paper and have trouble with making stuff up that exists nowhere in the text.

And do you want to take this to the debate forums or not?

I don't know what the debate forums are, and I don't see anything to debate really. What do want to debate about?

Whether or not the Bazant paper proves anything about the WTC "collapses."

Originally posted by bsbray11
Not when they are attached like this:

Ironic, and still you can't show why sagging would effectively make the trusses any heavier for the perimeter columns.

Do you really think you are making a point here, or are just beyond admitting you are wrong? If you have a rigid truss you can't pull the perimeter column inward, because there is a rigid truss in the way. This is just, wow, to me. And then the "make the trusses any heavier" part, are you making this stuff up as you write?

You stopped counting too soon then because I'm seeing more than 30 multi-floor lengths, visible on the surface of that photo. I stopped at 30. Maybe you just don't know what a core column looks like, or can't tell it apart from a perimeter column, or don't know their relative numbers before they were thrown everywhere. There were hundreds of perimeter columns on every floor but just under 50 core columns. You should be seeing about 5 perimeter columns for every section of core column. I can always just go through and circle the core columns so even a preschooler could figure it out if it's that big of a deal for you.

I have to admit that I thought that everything right of the standing perimeter wall was inside the footprint, but it was not. One could argue that there is still perimeter wall standing because it was pushed out by the debris that fell inside the footprint, although that is a bit speculative.

Anyway, most of the core you see there is just outside the footprint. In no way you have even made it slightly apparent those could not have moved there after the collapse. Images like these show a big pile in the center of the footprint. It does in no way look mysterious to me how a huge chaotic pile could spread out like that in a pure gravitational driven natural collapse.

Anyway, since you aren't making a point anyhow, Its useless to continue this non issue.

You're the one who still doesn't know what's in it.

I asked for you to show where it says anywhere in the paper, that they assumed 0% of the mass accumulated. Here's what you gave me:

This says he assumed 0% of the mass accumulated where?

This says he assumed 0% of the mass accumulated where?

The most idiotic thing about this, is that if 0% of the mass was assumed to contribute to the collapse, no mass would be falling and nothing would be "collapsing."

Like I said, you make all your own problems. First you show you can't count columns past 10 and then you show you can't read a paper and have trouble with making stuff up that exists nowhere in the text.

The only mass they assume is that of the top section. That is what they mean with words like "the upper part of building" and "the top part of the tower". But I guess when you believe that the top section would magically disappear, disintegrate or eject, that would indeed not suffice for you. If you stop believing in magic, it will make more sense.

Whether or not the Bazant paper proves anything about the WTC "collapses."

How do you imagine that debate? You: the top section magically disappeared. Me: No it didn't. You: Yes it did. etc? First try to make a coherent argument why it is wrong. Your whole debris ejecting delusion isn't such an argument.

reply to post by -PLB-

Quote by PLB,
"The only mass they assume is that of the top section. That is what they mean with words like "the upper part of building" and "the top part of the tower". But I guess when you believe that the top section would magically disappear, disintegrate or eject, that would indeed not suffice for you."

Are you still going with with the idea that the top section of the towers brought down the rest of the buildings? How so then? bearing in mid that (1) you have been shown repeatedly pictures of both "upper portions" falling away from the lower sections, and mass ejection of columns up to 600 feet.. that is a known truth, and has to be so in the case of WTC1 to do any kind of damage at all to WTC7. (NIST kind of skipped that "anomaly") result, confused reporters. (2) Assuming then that WTC1's Upper portion did fall down completely on the lower section in a piledriver action, how was this achieved? did the upper portion stay in suspended animation while a sliver of floors did a "magic trick" akin to what you mock about, and disappear so the the rest of the upper section could come thumping down onto the lower section like a hammer, and talking about the hammer upper section, it would have no more force than a pin hammer hitting a six-inch nail anyway, did you ever try that? (3) The bendy bits, even allowing for the columns to soften and buckle, they are still resisting a force and conserving the downward energy, that makes for an impossible piledriver effect. See what NIST says about the bendy bits, [the softening of the steel meant that it only had 10% of its strength at room temperature] (I put that in brackets as it is as I recall them saying) What's that supposed to mean in NIST speak, that the steel LOST 90% of its strength uniformly and universally round the structure and then went crummmph onto the structure below? It didn't, couldn't happen like that, there are too many conflicts.

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by ANOK

 

We are getting nowhere Anok. The outer columns provided lateral support via the floors. Without those components, the core is unstable off vertical.
Read up on the WTC #1 and #2 building design and you may discover this.

How can you keep making this claim? You have NO idea if the core could stand by itself. You have nothing to support this claim.

Yes the outer columns provided the lateral support. It does not mean the core would necessarily be unstable by itself, that is just an ignorant assumption. The core by itself with floors attached would be unstable thus the addition of an outer columns system.

But ONCE AGAIN because you seem slow on the take up, IT DOESN'T MATTER if the core was UNSTABLE, what we observe is not consistent with an unstable column collapsing due to failure somewhere along its length. Until you understand that YOU will never get anywhere.

How can anyone take what you say seriously when you tried to claim the columns were not rigid objects?

If you want to 'get somewhere' quit making things up that have no basis in fact or reality.

Originally posted by ANOK

How can anyone take what you say seriously when you tried to claim the columns were not rigid objects?

If you want to 'get somewhere' quit making things up that have no basis in fact or reality.

Take a look at the video again and note how long pieces of steel flex. How can anyone take you seriously when you claim that the core is rigid and would fall like a tree. If you want to 'get somewhere' quit making things up that have no basis in fact or reality.

Originally posted by smurfy
How so then?

It was pulled down by gravity.

Originally posted by -PLB-

Originally posted by bsbray11
Not when they are attached like this:

Do you really think you are making a point here, or are just beyond admitting you are wrong?

I take that to mean "I don't understand the difference." Alright. Look at the image I posted. The truss isn't sitting on top of the column like the beam is in the image Nutter posted. Neither is it wrapped around the column or anything like that, to be naturally shifting all its weight straight down. It's attached to the side of the column where there is no column beneath the truss, only a truss seat that is also attached to the side of the column, and dampers and things like that. There is a difference because you can't naturally translate all the weight purely vertically when the column isn't even vertically underneath the truss. It has to be translated horizontally and put some amount of torque and inertia onto the column, and the building was obviously designed for this if you look at the spandrel plates and how the building was built to resist hurricane-force winds.

If you have a rigid truss you can't pull the perimeter column inward, because there is a rigid truss in the way.

You are basically saying the only reason the perimeter columns wouldn't buckle under normal conditions is because the trusses are pushing them back out. That is a complete misrepresentation of what was stabilizing the perimeter columns from horizontal loads in either direction and only continues to show that you have no idea what you're actually saying. The trusses played a role in translating horizontal loads, but the perimeter columns wouldn't automatically buckle without them. NIST did a model during the early stages of their investigation that showed 5 floors of trusses being gutted between the core and perimeter structure without any significant deflection.

I have to admit that I thought that everything right of the standing perimeter wall was inside the footprint, but it was not.

Once again you automatically assumed something because of your pre-conceived beliefs that was actually wrong and led to you making other mistakes in counting the columns. If you had posted and told me where you thought the footprints were in advance, you would probably already too much pride wrapped up in the argument to even admit the footprints weren't where you originally thought. I'm glad you actually took the time to look at hard data on your own and come to an unbiased conclusion based on that data alone.

One could argue that there is still perimeter wall standing because it was pushed out by the debris that fell inside the footprint, although that is a bit speculative.

Unless you're saying it was ripped from its connections into the floor, a bunch of stuff rushed underneath it, and then it was set back in place, I don't think the perimeter walls still standing is very relevant besides to help illustrate that the ground-level structure was intact.

Anyway, most of the core you see there is just outside the footprint. In no way you have even made it slightly apparent those could not have moved there after the collapse.

It's a common sense experience with large, heavy physical objects, especially large, heavy physical objects that are laying in a very uneven and pit-filled pile of other large, heavy physical debris, that leads me to believe these columns weren't hitting the ground and then "somehow" traveling 50 or 100 more feet. You don't like the terms "rolling" or "bouncing" all that distance but you haven't helped shed any light on all as to what is going through your head when you imagine these columns hitting the ground and then going so much farther sideways through this huge field of other columns.

The only mass they assume is that of the top section.

The kinetic energy of the top part of the tower impacting the floor below was found to be about 8.4
larger than the plastic energy absorption capability of the underlying story, and con- siderably higher than that if fracturing were taken into account
Bažant and Zhou 2002a. This fact, along with the fact that during the progressive collapse of underlying stories Figs. 1
d and 2 the loss of gravitational potential per story is much greater than the energy dissipated per story, was sufficient for Bažant and Zhou
2002a to conclude, purely on energy grounds, that the tower was doomed once the top part of the tower dropped through the height of one story
or even 0.5 m

First, I don't see in there that they say they aren't re-adding mass back, because they don't show the equations they're using here. I have only seen equations that have variables that include for some percentage of mass from each floor to be added back in. If you have seen something else then you haven't showed me where they are illustrating this in their work, or even saying this was their methodology anywhere else.

Also notice they say the kinetic energy of the top part falling onto the first floor below (which was already based on fallacious math as Gordon Ross showed, since that "jolt" would instantly be dissipated also onto the floors below too) would have "considerably higher" ratio of kinetic energy to the proposed energetic absorption of a single floor if fracturing were neglected. This is right before saying that the energy dissipation was less than the loss in gravitational energy for moving that distance, which is their main point. Fracturing dissipates energy.

Sending out large debris in the dust cloud also dissipates energy, more energy that Bazant was not counting when he said the energy dissipation was less than the loss in gravitational potential energy. In fact there is literally a whole list of factual, well-documented events associated with the collapses that would require energy (any physical action requires energy) that Bazant didn't include, that Jim Hoffman and others have created to compensate Bazant's more selective list of energy sinks.

That is what they mean with words like "the upper part of building" and "the top part of the tower". But I guess when you believe that the top section would magically disappear, disintegrate or eject, that would indeed not suffice for you. If you stop believing in magic, it will make more sense.

You could describe anything you don't understand as magic, but it's not impressive.

All you have to do is watch WTC1 begin "collapsing" to see that what you just described is nonsense. The top part of WTC1 sinks flat down onto the first floor of block below like an accordion before that lower block even begins to start exploding in all directions. Wash the crap out of your eyes and ears and watch what these other people here have been showing you too. Anyone with two eyeballs and a functioning brain can see that the top part of WTC1 sinks straight down onto the first floor of the block below like an accordion without that floor giving the way Bazant claims.

Whether or not the Bazant paper proves anything about the WTC "collapses."

How do you imagine that debate? You: the top section magically disappeared. Me: No it didn't. You: Yes it did. etc? First try to make a coherent argument why it is wrong. Your whole debris ejecting delusion isn't such an argument.

If you're so confident I don't have an argument then all you have to say is, "Yes, let's u2u a moderator and see if they'll allow our debate on Bazant's paper." The only crap I see about magic is in your posts as you whine about not understanding how photographs show you what reality looks like.

We debate it like this: Pick something specific you think the Bazant papers prove. Any one of the papers Bazant authored, or any one else. Just pick a paper, and pick a specific thing you think it proves.

Then I have to cast reasonable doubt on the methodology or data used to reach your conclusion. Something like, if the paper in question assumes variables in its math that are not consistent with reality.

I'll u2u a moderator later today and let him know we're interested in doing this. Alright? Alright. Good.

Originally posted by ANOK
For that to happen the columns would have to be broken up in short sections, 4" thick HSS columns won't just collapse like that.

The core columns were not designed to stand on their own. Secondly, the splice plates is what failed, not the columns themselves.

Originally posted by ANOK

Another explanation is that is not steel at all, they had concrete cores, and the spire is the corner of a rebar reinforced concrete wall.

You think the WTC had a concrete core? Wow!! Amazing!! Have proof of this concrete core? The construction pictures and the blueprints do not show this.

Maybe you can?

Thanks.

^^^ Will be ignored.

Originally posted by bsbray11

Actually Bazant's model assumed 50-95% of the mass stayed within the footprints during the entire "collapse." If that doesn't prove to you that Bazant's model is out of touch with reality, then that just means we know that you're also out of touch with reality.

So you think more than 50-95% was outside of the exterior walls during the collapse? Show your math.

I'll wait.

Originally posted by FDNY343

Originally posted by bsbray11

Actually Bazant's model assumed 50-95% of the mass stayed within the footprints during the entire "collapse." If that doesn't prove to you that Bazant's model is out of touch with reality, then that just means we know that you're also out of touch with reality.

So you think more than 50-95% was outside of the exterior walls during the collapse? Show your math.

I'll wait.

Originally posted by FDNY343
Did you forget that most of 1&2 WTC was spread around the 16 acre site?

I'm glad I pointed this out in that other thread for you, where you admitted most of the debris was NOT in the footprint.

Another "physics expert" who thinks the floors crushed themselves, and then magically jumped out of the footprint after they finished collapsing.

At what point did the floors stop crushing, and eject out of the footprint? Did they wait until the collapse was complete? If they did then what caused them to eject out of the footprint, and why the same thing didn't happen when the floors were impacting themselves? I hope you realise that crushing floors takes energy, when one floor impacts another then energy from momentum is lost due to resistance, and this effect increases as more floors stack up, causing the collapse to slow and eventually stop with a pile of floors in the footprint of the building. For that stack of floors to then continue to be destroyed and ejected would take more energy than was available from gravity alone.

You don't need maths, please, using known physics such as 'Newtons laws of motion' explain to the world how what you claim is possible.

csep10.phys.utk.edu...

Originally posted by FDNY343
The core columns were not designed to stand on their own. Secondly, the splice plates is what failed, not the columns themselves.

Hmmmm another claim with no evidence, yes this will be ignored.

Well if the columns had not failed they would not have collapsed, QED.

You think the WTC had a concrete core? Wow!! Amazing!! Have proof of this concrete core? The construction pictures and the blueprints do not show this.

It was just a suggestion to explain the spire. I didn't claim the core was concrete, I said maybe it would explain the spire if it was, learn to comprehend.

Here is a good pic of the footprint of one of the towers...Proves there was not much debris was in the footprint and the concrete claim IS arguable.

reply to post by ANOK


From: www.greatbuildings.com...

"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."

Originally posted by bsbray11
I take ... winds.

That force you are talking about is negligible like I already pointed out and has absolutely nothing to do with sagging trusses.

You are basically saying ... deflection.

That is not what I am basically saying, but that is what your delusional mind makes of it.

Once again you automatically assumed ... that data alone.

It wasn't really relevant, so I didn't put much time in it. It still isn't relevant, as there is both a very good explanation for those columns being there and you do not have a point anyhow.

It's a common sense experience ... to believe ... other columns.

Your believes are not really interesting, especially when you aren't even making a point.

First, ... sinks.

A long list of pretty much neglectable energy sinks (which are mostly addressed) in no way make up for the non-existing energy sink of all columns buckling which we know didn't happed, but was added as energy sink in the model. As for you not understanding that mass didn't need to accrete in order to proof that gravity only would be enough, that was already obvious. But your lack of understanding isn't really an argument.

All you have ... Bazant claims.

So what is your point exactly? That Bazants model does not describe actual events? Should I start using "Duh" every time you come to this realization?

If you're so confident .. interested in doing this. Alright? Alright. Good.

If you think the conclusions in Bazants paper are wrong, just write why. If you can only do that during a debate, then thats your problem.

Originally posted by FDNY343
So you think more than 50-95% was outside of the exterior walls during the collapse?

If "collapse" means the exterior walls of a given floor are still standing then sure, why not.

Show your math. I'll wait.

I'm glad you waited because in the mean time I got to see some concerts near DC.

Find pictures of Ground Zero. Find where the towers used to stand in them. Then the reality check is all up to you. You either see 50-95% of either building in a massive heap, or you don't.