Bombs in the Building: World Trade Center 'Conspiracy Theory' is a Conspiracy Fact

Originally posted by billybob
150 psf? jeez, a couple secretaries could've knocked those buildings down!

maybe it's psi, lol?

Tell you what, go learn something about building construction and how floors are designed to hold loads, then come back then we will talk.

FYI the floor in your house is most likely rated at around 40 psf.

Horse dookey, regardless of the PSF, construction grade steel and concrete doesn't simultaneously vanish into a freefalling mushroom of pulverized dust and debris. Why don't you learn something about feasibility, then try to tell us some mumbo jumbo about PSF.

They are correct in what they are saying though, it didn't have enough initial acceleration to really cause a great enough force to take out the rest of the floors and if anything, the building SHOULD have indeed fell a lot slower then it did due to the resistance experienced by each floor.

Not to mention how if the building was more or less more weak on one side, and fall over due to that weakened state, it would tip over (the top half above the weakened area). I noticed one of the WTC buildings(upper half) was doing this, that alone would of caused the mass to go in a different vector direction than STRAIGHT down. And that alone would of alleviated enough mass to not cause a large enough force with the given amount of acceleration to take out the rest of the floors.

The rate at which is fell and the fact that it came straight down is always what's being questioned because it seems too perfect for such a "random" hit.

Originally posted by ADVISOR
When I saw the towers calapsing, it was too perfect. They fell exactly the way a controlled implosion would have. I can't find the article, but I'm sure someone here has an idea.


Found the article;

www.justiceforwoody.org...

[Edited on 9-5-2003 by ADVISOR]

Too perfect?

Let me ask you something.

Have you ever witnessed the collapse of skyscrappers before?

Have you ever witnessed what happens to such skyscrappers when they are hit by aircraft in such a manner as the twin towers were hit?

I am pretty sure the anwsers to those questions are no, but I rather find it strange that you would claim "they fell too perfectly"....

Are you one of those people who believes the buildings should have collapsed to the side?

i have seen people post pictures of 10-15 floor buildings which have partially fallen to the side of another building, mind you none of those buildings recieved the damage that the WTC got, not to mention their structural designs are completly different, but still those people believe those pictures are enough evidence to claim that 110+ steelframe skyscrappers should have fallen the exact same way...

Does anyone know what "Deny Ignorance" means?.... It doesn't mean "Deny the truth"...

[edit on 28-4-2006 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Skibum

Tell you what, go learn something about building construction and how floors are designed to hold loads, then come back then we will talk.

FYI the floor in your house is most likely rated at around 40 psf.

trust me, it is not the first, and it is not going to be the last time that bb makes such claims and laughs about real science....

It's his way, as well as some other people's way, to "deny the truth...i mean ignorance"....

Originally posted by HoonieSkoba
www.prisonplanet.com...


I'll admit that I didn't read the whole thing, but the following statement jumped out at me as odd:

"Eighty-one nations are represented among the World Trade Center?s dead - Israel is not one of these nations even though approximately 1200 of its citizens worked there."

hmmm...I found a September 11th Victims site that lists deaths by nationality. Nowhere near 81 nations represented (less than 40) and 2 Israeli citizens WERE included.

www.september11victims.com...


If I could find this hole in his article in 5 minutes of web surfing, I'm
skeptical about anything he has to say.

(BTW, I emailed him this finding - I'll let you know if he responds)

[edit on 9/24/2004 by HoonieSkoba]

Alex Jones is a hoaxer, and he seems to be now in bed with enemies of the U.S. such as castro and Chavez.....and he claims he will find the truth from these people...

There are many inconsistencies in his "theories" all of them..

First, there were several reports from Fema, not just one, and several "real"
structural engineers have come up more or less with the same conclusion, there were no bombs in the wtc.

Really, you have most of the proponents of these theories who don't know what they are saying, making claims such as "pressure waves are only caused by bombs" and other utterly nonsense, yet when you point to those inconsistencies you are immediately labelled as a spook....

I guess according to the members who make such claims, government agents are the only intelligent people in the planet...

Originally posted by Masisoar
They are correct in what they are saying though, it didn't have enough initial acceleration to really cause a great enough force to take out the rest of the floors and if anything, the building SHOULD have indeed fell a lot slower then it did due to the resistance experienced by each floor.

WTC1 was hit about 12-16 floors (or so) above where WTC2 was hit, this was the reason why WTC2, the tower that was hit second, fell first, because there was more weight being exerted in the weakened columns, not to mention that both buildings were on fire from the jet fuel from the planes. The explosions from the planes also produced shockwaves which do considerate damage also to structures.

As WTC2 was collapsing it caused an earthquake, a small one at that, but still an earthquake, as well as pressure waves which cause more damage to WTC1 and other structures in the area.

Originally posted by Masisoar
Not to mention how if the building was more or less more weak on one side, and fall over due to that weakened state, it would tip over (the top half above the weakened area).

it would not, people don't seem to grasp that skyscrappers are not going to fall to the side like trees do...

We saw as one of the buildings began falling to the side because there were too many columns in that side that were weakened, as the top part of the building collapsed on the rest of the floors below, and since the floors below were not weakened on one side by any planes hitting them, the rest of the floors collapsed "straight down, causing a buckling effect , look it up if you dont understand it, it has been discussed many times.

Originally posted by Masisoar
The rate at which is fell and the fact that it came straight down is always what's being questioned because it seems too perfect for such a "random" hit.

AS more and more debris was being added to the fallen mass of debris, it made it easier for the floors below to collapse faster, because you are exponentially adding tons and tons of weight, since the resistance in the floors below didn't change much, but since as each floor collapsed more weight was being added, the collapse went faster and faster, up to a point.

[edit on 28-4-2006 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Muaddib


it would not, people don't seem to grasp that skyscrappers are not going to fall to the side like trees do...

We saw as one of the buildings began falling to the side because there were too many columns in that side that were weakened, as the top part of the building collapsed on the rest of the floors below, and since the floors below were not weakened on one side by any planes hitting them, the rest of the floors collapsed "straight down, causing a buckling effect , look it up if you dont understand it, it has been discussed many times.

[edit on 28-4-2006 by Muaddib]

I'm well aware of the buckling effect, I'm not expecting it to fall as a tree does, but it still plays a part and how the building fell. I just don't understand how the building could of simulataneously gave out on all sides, causing it to fall directly in its footsteps. I know professor Jones and others tried explaining the physics behind it - do we just dismiss that as mumbo jumbo? And on what grounds?

It would of helped the commission and the other organizations a great deal if they actually had a chance to look through all the excess debris as well.. but too bad it had to catch the first flight over seas for scrap.

According to this link:

Nova on 911

there was high grade steel used in the WTC complex, what kind of temperature is required to seriously affect this kind of steel?

from the link above:

""As sturdy as these towers would be, Robertson and Skilling knew they would still be flexible in high winds. Indeed, they designed them to be so. But they realized the swaying effect, especially in strong gusts, might bother tenants high in the building. So they fashioned yet another innovation, a state-of-the-art damping system.""

I'm not clear on how this damping system affects the collapse of the towers either since it refers to sideways motion eg. the initial airplane impact.

other interesting comments found on the above page:

""Yamasaki, the architect, must have been stung by such comments. He saw his creation in a completely different light. In his book Architects on Architecture, the author Paul Heyer quotes Yamasaki as saying, "World trade means world peace, and consequently the World Trade Center buildings in New York ... had a bigger purpose than just to provide room for tenants. The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace.""

To answer Deny's question: Typical 1080 steel, the most common carbon steel, Hardness (Rockwell C Test) starts to decline at approximately 200 degrees (F) and is (approximately) half by 1100 degrees(Foundations of Material Science and Engineering, Smith, William). Considering that these planes were carrying a full load jet fuel, temperatures were easily in excess of this. AND more importantly eutectoid 1080 steel ceases to be steel above 1350 degrees (F) (even if it werent eutectoid steel this temperature would only be slightly higher). Instead the steel becomes aunstenite, which is very unstable state which would be exponentially weaker than steel at any temperature. So after the intial explosion (of the plane, sorry no bombs) blew the fire proofing off of the structural beams, this steel was heated to an unstable, weak phase, and coupled with massive amounts of structural elements missing, a cataclismic collapse ensued. Once the tremendous weight of the upper floors began to drop, MASSIVE amount of kinetic and potential energy were transferred into the lower floors, snapping the steel like so many twigs. As for the "explosions" as it came down, this is either caused by the tremdous pressure of the air trapped in between floors being expelled, or its caused by the structural steel snapping (and flying) as said kinetic and potential energy is translated into shear and torsional stress. ALL structures will take the shortest route to lower energy levels, meaning a building will come straight down, unless there are large translational forces (earthquake, hurricane), or there is enough structure left in the right place (producing a moment about a point) to deflect the energy in a horizontal direction.

Furthermore, I believe these building came so perfectly straight down is a simple matter of their design. They were built with the core within a tube design. So this is not your typical erector set design. Once the plane peirced the "tube" of structural steel all of the wreckage and fuel went to the inner core where the fire then would have been at its hottest. The "tube" was very good at redirecting the the outer load to the rest of itself in a uniform enough manner despite the gaping hole. After the fire austentized the inner steel core enough, the inner core collapsed with the tube keeping the moment minimal. Once the core began to fall, it pulled the "tube, and the rest of the stucture down with it, providing your "perfect" fall.



[edit on 29-4-2006 by AHCivilE]

[edit on 29-4-2006 by AHCivilE]

Originally posted by Skibum

Originally posted by billybob
150 psf? jeez, a couple secretaries could've knocked those buildings down!

maybe it's psi, lol?

Tell you what, go learn something about building construction and how floors are designed to hold loads, then come back then we will talk.

FYI the floor in your house is most likely rated at around 40 psf.

my point is, the towers were over-engineered, according to one of the design team engineers, as much as 2000%(!!!), as far as load bearing standards go(i believe this was the perimeter he was talking about, if memory serves).

i realise that's the floors(150), and not the perimeter, but what people have to FEEL, is the STRENGTH of STEEL. never mind the concrete.
think of string on a tennis racket(similiar to the 'millipede' floor truss system employed at the towers). or how much a guitar string will STRETCH before it BREAKS, and how many strings you can sever on a tennis racket before it loses it's 'bounce', and the fact that these were the HUGEST STEEL SKYSCRAPERS IN THE WORLD, and MOSTLY AS GOOD AS NEW.

and, OH NO!! the 'floors' were not all the same. although the tower looks symmetrical on the outside, it is structurally tapered, like a tree, as far as MASS and strength go. (it is important to remember, that no matter how hard you throw a nerf ball at a tank, the tank doesn't budge.)
why then, does the collapse progress at a steady rate?
the mechanical floors were MUCH stronger than the typical floor system, and yet there was ZERO difference in the rate of collapse as it progressed through these stages.

it is physics that proves there is a huge lie, and it is the repeated stating of the obvious that pushes the hundredth monkey into action.

i realise that's the floors(150), and not the perimeter, but what people have to FEEL, is the STRENGTH of STEEL. never mind the concrete.

Its not just the concrete that is rated at 150 psf, its the concrete, floor pan and trusses as a system.

my point is, the towers were over-engineered, according to one of the design team engineers, as much as 2000%

2000% you say, care to share where you came by that?

think of string on a tennis racket(similiar to the 'millipede' floor truss system employed at the towers). or how much a guitar string will STRETCH before it BREAKS, and how many strings you can sever on a tennis racket before it loses it's 'bounce'

I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

and, OH NO!! the 'floors' were not all the same. although the tower looks symmetrical on the outside, it is structurally tapered,

Which would what, increase the point load on the lower floors causing them to collapse easier?

(it is important to remember, that no matter how hard you throw a nerf ball at a tank, the tank doesn't budge.)

Nerf ball at a tank, interesting comparison.

Wrong, but interesting.

I think tank vs tank would be more appropriate, maybe even throwing a tank at a car.

mechanical floors were MUCH stronger than the typical floor system, and yet there was ZERO difference in the rate of collapse as it progressed through these stages.

I'm not even sure how you can tell if it does or not, are there high speed recordings of the collapses. The difference would be what, an extremely small fraction of a second, I'm not even sure if you could tell the difference with a regular speed recording.








[edit on 29/4/06 by Skibum]

BillyBob,
I am guessing you have never been trained in structural analysis and are not familiar with the design of the world trade centers.

Above ground level, there was almost no concrete (unless you are counting a few planter around). It does not matter at all what these floors were rated for. Each floor was independent of the others, hanging off of the structural elements, the inner steel frame and the outer tube. Guitar strings and tennis rackets are ridiculous examples. Guitar strings are made up of many strands of interlaced metal and are hollow, giving alot of stretch room. Massive steel supports have very little compressibility. And while there was alot of redundancy, allowing the buildings to survive tremedous damage. I dont know wher you got the 2000% number from, but i doubt this very much, as a safety factor of 6 is usually considered overkill for static loads, but i will take you at your word so lets talk kinetic energy (Without even thinking about the fact that the structure's loads were).
IF THE top structure were moving at even 7 meters per second(which its resonable to assume faster because gravity's accelleration is 9.1 meters/second) when it hit intact stuctural support (leaving out that it didnt have enough surface area to stop it from shearing everything into a mess) it would have had 2450% percent increase in kinetic energy (KE=.5*m*V^2).

Now just so you drop this whole ridiculous psf thing. Taking your number (150), and the average weight of steel in a skyscraper per square foot of floor space (~40psf) (Why buildings stand up, Salvadori, Mario)

45psf*(20 stories above failure point(I know there were more))=900psf > 150psf
Need I say more... And thats taking that load to be static.... Dyamic loads cause alot more problems because of their exponential nature.

Originally posted by denythestatusquo
According to this link:

Nova on 911

Deny have you brought this up in another thread, i posted a message 12 hours ago regarding what you are showing, it appears to have vanished into thin air.

I am not trying to tout "conspiracy" with I'm saying but it seems unreasonable.

The fact that they sold enough of the structural left overs from the collapse for scrap overseas, before a thorough investigation of everything in the building could be made, shows a huge lack of interest in wanting to know how they fell and why. It's because of this that things are made so debatable, they could of kept the left over metal and building structure in separate hanger and try to piece back together the original buildings, trying to figure out the cause. Is this not what they do for downed airplanes?

This only serves to shoot themselves in the foot for the sake of trying to downplay any conspiracy.

Originally posted by AHCivilE
BillyBob,
I am guessing you have never been trained in structural analysis and are not familiar with the design of the world trade centers.

you'd be half right. i have no formal training in structural engineering. i did well in drafting and design in high school, if that counts for anything. i did some physics in college, too. newtonian style. i got 98%, and the 2% error was carelessness.
i am very familiar with the struture, at this point.
208 perimeter columns, each three stories in height, and staggered in a 'weave', so in fact 'one floor' does not exist, unless you are talking about one acre's worth of floor pans, and treating them as a unit, even though they were seperate pieces. 47 core columns, of which some, perhaps eight, were box columns welded all the way to the top(fillet weld, i think), making them essentially single 1000ft.+ beams. the box columns were HOLLOW(and guitar strings are not, and the skinny strings aren't even wound). the perimeter columns were also hollow, and held together with four bolts. the floor pans were bolted onto seats which were welded to the perimeter, and held with two bolts(1-5/8 inch thick, maybe, my head's full) and 'rubber' viscoelastic dampers which acted as shock absorbers to minimize the sway of the towers, as the designers didn't want people getting 'seasick'.
there were two skylobbies, and underneath the skylobbies, there were mechanical floors, which used a much heavier duty structure, including aggregate concrete.
the top of the building was capped with a hat truss.
the core was designed to take predominantly vertical loading, and the perimeter took both vertical and lateral loads.

i really do not think my tennis racket and guitar string analogy is that out to lunch. the design was described as a 'milipede' or a 'mosquito net' by some of the design team. the idea i'm trying to impart is that the floors trusses were more like a stack of trampolines, than they were like a rigid steel box. and were also more likely to fail LOCALLY than AS A UNIT.

i do agree with government apologists that the truss seats and bolts are the weakest link oncew things start to move.

Originally posted by AHCivilE
Above ground level, there was almost no concrete (unless you are counting a few planter around). It does not matter at all what these floors were rated for. Each floor was independent of the others, hanging off of the structural elements, the inner steel frame and the outer tube. Guitar strings and tennis rackets are ridiculous examples. Guitar strings are made up of many strands of interlaced metal and are hollow, giving alot of stretch room.

i agree. independent of the others. however, once again, i think the tennis racket and guitar string is not that far off. the trusses had a fair amount of 'play' in them.

Originally posted by AHCivilE
Massive steel supports have very little compressibility. And while there was alot of redundancy, allowing the buildings to survive tremedous damage.
IF THE top structure were moving at even 7 meters per second(which its resonable to assume faster because gravity's accelleration is 9.1 meters/second) when it hit intact stuctural support (leaving out that it didnt have enough surface area to stop it from shearing everything into a mess) it would have had 2450% percent increase in kinetic energy (KE=.5*m*V^2).


45psf*(20 stories above failure point(I know there were more))=900psf > 150psf
Need I say more... And thats taking that load to be static.... Dyamic loads cause alot more problems because of their exponential nature.

well, the whole problem with this, is that i don't think a speed of seven meters per second can be reached without SIMULTANEOUSLY yanking out ALL support from 'one floor' (12ft-ish). steel tends to deform before it 'snaps', which should be a GRADUAL acceleration, if there is REALLY a gravity driven event going on.
and yet even NIST admits that the buildings essentially go into freefall at collapse initiation.
there is no visible 'stutter' as the building collapses. this is not possible if things are TRULY 'pancaking'.

at the base of the tower, the box columns were like three feet across or something, and TAPERED as they went up the building. the strength of the building was tapered, strong at bottom, weaker and less massive up top.

do you work for NIST's public relations dept.? ah_t, is that you?
you're not the first structural engineer to 'weigh in' on this argument. however, not all of the others agree with you.
transfer of momentum alone would cause the building to take much longer than 12 seconds to fall.

the buildings were blown.

I'm not a structural or civil engineer, but I'll have a crack.

Originally posted by AHCivilE
Above ground level, there was almost no concrete (unless you are counting a few planter around).

That's not true. Every single floor was a 4 - 8" concrete slab (perhaps reinforced, I'll have to find the video again) poured over a steel pan and resting on doubled trusses running both N-S and E-W. This formed a composite unit by way of studs on the steel pan and the top of the truss chords being set in the concrete, not to mention the connections billybob mentioned above. There was oodles of concrete in each building (I think I saw an estimate at 90,000 tons), and most of it was turned to flour

Originally posted by The Links

Originally posted by denythestatusquo
According to this link:

Nova on 911

Deny have you brought this up in another thread, i posted a message 12 hours ago regarding what you are showing, it appears to have vanished into thin air.

Not unusual, my posts disappear from this site all the time. I gave up complaining about it frankly. How much does this happen to you?

It's usually down to user error, hitting 'New Topic' instead of 'Reply' for instance.
You'd need to post something worth 'covering up' for it to be an issue anyway.

[edit on 29-4-2006 by AgentSmith]

Originally posted by AHCivilE

Furthermore, I believe these building came so perfectly straight down is a simple matter of their design. They were built with the core within a tube design. So this is not your typical erector set design. Once the plane peirced the "tube" of structural steel all of the wreckage and fuel went to the inner core where the fire then would have been at its hottest. The "tube" was very good at redirecting the the outer load to the rest of itself in a uniform enough manner despite the gaping hole. After the fire austentized the inner steel core enough, the inner core collapsed with the tube keeping the moment minimal. Once the core began to fall, it pulled the "tube, and the rest of the stucture down with it, providing your "perfect" fall.



[edit on 29-4-2006 by AHCivilE]

[edit on 29-4-2006 by AHCivilE]

What's your experience with structural engineering in how things fall due to certain causes?