The Progressive Collapse Challenge

LeftBehind,

It'd be nice if you could get over that PSU simulation, as it has absolutely no resemblance to the collapses at the WTC on 9/11, not to mention failing to complete the challenge.

Originally posted by LeftBehind

You still expect us to do this on our own time and resources?

I don't expect you will ever be able to do it, because the gravity theory is bs.

Weren't you the one to post something about a man who has spent four years trying to model a progressive collapse and has never been able to get it to work?

While, on one hand, you keep posting that one simulation as if it's the holy grail, you simultaneously see this as some uber-complicated, super hi-tech challenge that would, according to you, require computer modelling that is conveniently out of reach by modern computer technology. I see it as trying to prove faulty physics.

It would similarly be hard to prove that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Know why?

Thanks, QuietSoul.

This guy had no agenda and gave his honest opinions on the matter, which is of course respectable.

I found particularly interesting his remarks on protective coverings being used to prevent shrapnel from the charges from flying about, and how the charges make such cleans cuts to the steel columns they take out, "as though cut with a knife."



His remark,

The sound of metal cutting shaped charges is incredibly loud and difficult to conceal.

reminds me of Wall Street Journal editor John Bussey's witness testimony:

“I heard this metallic roar, looked up and saw what I thought was just a peculiar site of individual floors, one after the other exploding outward."

Of course, any collapse would produce a lot of noise, however. Also, this directly contradicts Howard's assertion of quiet collapses at the WTC.

[edit on 29-8-2005 by bsbray11]

Awesome! Thanks QuietSoul. I'd vote you Way Above but I have already done so this month.

I've laid the response and questions out in Q&A format to make it a little easier to read:

=======================================================
Q: Is it possible to do a demolition wirelessly?
A: Wireless? Yes, There are detonating cord and radio systems for initiating explosives.


Q: How do they know if all the charges go off or not?
A: Detonators (electric caps ) can be checked in advance with a specially built galvanometer. Modern initiating systems are very reliable....Sometimes, a cap will work but fail to detonate an explosive charge. Sometimes, a mangled charge (minus detonator) will get dug up in the rubble..


Q: What happens if a charge fails to go off and the buildings falls anyway?
[No answer]


Q: Would it be possible to rig up a building so that the sounds of the explosives going off would not be noticed from a few blocks away?
A: The sound of metal cutting shaped charges is incredibly loud and difficult to conceal.


Q: How would you place a cutting charge on a box column if you only had access to one face of that column?
A: Access to each side of a box column is needed....there are outrageous exceptions.


Q: If you put a cutting charge on one face of a 12 inch box column that was strong enough to sever that column, how far would the shrapnel fly?
A: Most shaped charges are made of Metal (usually copper) tube that is pressed to look like this ^ . They have a core of explosive that detonates at a velocity of about 5 miles per second. The backside of these charges can send bits of metal shrapnel that can be found buried in solid steel hundreds of feet away. So, some kind of protection (cover ) is often needed..There is one brand of charge that does not have a metal backside....but it uses more explosive (more expense, more noise, more concussion)


Q: What does a steel beem look like after it has been cut by an explosive charge.
A: Linear shaped charges work by sending a pencil-lead thin, focussed beam of metal particles (moving at about 10 times the speed of a rifle bullet) through a steel target. The cut is as neat and clean as though cut with a knife....much neater than a cutting torch.


Q: What is the long term stability of the explosives used in demolition projects?
A: The explosives used in shaped charges are stable for years.


Q: "Removing the bottom 25 feet or so". How does that explain your theory that damage to UPPER floors caused the building to collapse like a controlled demo?
A: Upper and lower segments of similar material are both diminished at the point of contact,


Q: Have you ever worked with C4 or military-grade explosives before? How do they differ from conventional demolition explosives?
A: C-4 is made with RDX ..The same stuff that's preferred in linear shaped charges..Only linear shaped charges would be considered for demo of a big steel building by an expert.
Once again, there are outrageous exceptions.


Q: Imagine for a moment that the WTC towers were indeed brought down with explosives, what kind of explosive would you surmise it was done with?
[No answer]


Q: If you severed 10% or less of the support columns near the top of a steel frame building whose core had a load-bearing redundancy of 500-600%, would the building then collapse down to the ground?
A: ! 0% No


Q: If you severed some exterior columns and core columns on only one side of a building such that the building collapsed, will the building collapse tilt to one side or will it fall straight down in a symmetrical collapse. Will the entire floor where the columns were severed collapse symmetrically and simultaneously, the unbroken columns included?
A: One explanation does not fit all structures..This one is bigger than anything anyone has actually experienced, so I can't say how it should have looked.


Q: Conventional controlled demolition works by severing a building's supports and then letting gravity do the rest, correct? In your experience in the industry, have you ever seen a steel frame building completely collapse, all its support columns severed, all of its concrete exploded into fine powder and spread into a giant dust cloud several kilometers in width, and 80% all of its exterior columns being blasted outside of the building's footprint, just under gravity alone with no explosives to help it?
[No answer]


Q: If molten steel was found in the basement of a collapsed building where the foundation was, what technology or explosive could possibly cause this? Would the presence of molten steel be unusual for a building that collapsed under gravity alone?
A: Can't explain the molten steel.


Q: Have you ever seen the footage of WTC7's collapse? Does this look like a conventional controlled demolition to you or not?
A: I saw the footage. Yes ,, It looked like conventional explosive demolition. I saw a TV documentary about this event, the building's internal structure, the video of the collapse,and the points of structural failure. Personally, I was satisfied with its explanations.....But who can know for sure?


Q: WTC7 exhibited a perfectly symmetrical collapse supposedly because of relatively small fires on a couple of levels. How do you summise this occured? Do you think in the future setting buildings on fire could be a cheaper method of demolishing buildings than the current method of using explosives?
[No answer]


Q: If you were contracted to demolish the WTC towers but had to make it look like it collapsed by itself from the top down, how would you do it?
[No answer]
======================================================

[edit on 2005-8-29 by wecomeinpeace]

Originally posted by bsbray11
Thanks, QuietSoul.

This guy had no agenda and gave his honest opinions on the matter, which is of course respectable.

I found particularly interesting his remarks on protective coverings being used to prevent shrapnel from the charges from flying about, and how the charges make such cleans cuts to the steel columns they take out, "as though cut with a knife."

Q: How would you place a cutting charge on a box column if you only had access to one face of that column?
A: Access to each side of a box column is needed....there are outrageous exceptions.

I'm sure you are going to claim that this is one of those "outrageous exceptions," won't you?

BTW, I thought I already pointed out to you that you are looking at pieces of the aluminum covers, not the steel exterior columns.

Originally posted by bsbray11
His remark,

The sound of metal cutting shaped charges is incredibly loud and difficult to conceal.

reminds me of Wall Street Journal editor John Bussey's witness testimony:

“I heard this metallic roar, looked up and saw what I thought was just a peculiar site of individual floors, one after the other exploding outward."

Of course, any collapse would produce a lot of noise, however. Also, this directly contradicts Howard's assertion of quiet collapses at the WTC.

[edit on 29-8-2005 by bsbray11]

His remark about the sound of a cutting charge is perfectly in line with my contention that there were no cutting charges. The demo expert is not talking about a "metallic roar." he is talking about very loud, very sharp reports.

The "metallic roar" was just the sound of the building collapsing. I never said that the collapse would be silent. with all of the professional and amateur cameras pointed at the towers when the collapsed, how come not one of them recorded the "sound of metal cutting shaped charges (which) is incredibly loud and difficult to conceal?"

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Q: How would you place a cutting charge on a box column if you only had access to one face of that column?
A: Access to each side of a box column is needed....there are outrageous exceptions.

I'm sure you are going to claim that this is one of those "outrageous exceptions," won't you?

I'm not aware of any evidence that would suggest they only had access to one side. Closing sections of the WTC towers off for days at a time would certainly allow those "engineers" a lot of time to fix the columns up on whatever sides they chose, unless you think the core columns were sealed up with some black magic for all eternity to never ever be accessed again but from one side. So your argument really isn't an issue.

BTW, I thought I already pointed out to you that you are looking at pieces of the aluminum covers, not the steel exterior columns.

Actually, that was WCIP, and he responded that those are not all aluminum pieces, pointing out in further graphics where the steel shards were. The aluminum coverings were pretty thin; not so much for the actual columns.

His remark about the sound of a cutting charge is perfectly in line with my contention that there were no cutting charges. The demo expert is not talking about a "metallic roar." he is talking about very loud, very sharp reports.

Roar:

"To make or produce a loud noise or din: The engines roared."

www.answers.com...&r=67

Fortunately, a dictionary quickly confirmed my gut feelings that "roars" are not exactly quiet.

The "metallic roar" was just the sound of the building collapsing. I never said that the collapse would be silent. with all of the professional and amateur cameras pointed at the towers when the collapsed, how come not one of them recorded the "sound of metal cutting shaped charges (which) is incredibly loud and difficult to conceal?"

The sounds of the building collapsing were recorded. I don't know whether you'd like us to believe it should've destroyed the cameras' mics from its brute volume, or what, but they're available. Whether or not they were loud enough on film is a totally different issue that involves the quality of the mics used, how the sounds from live feeds were mixed in the case of major media, the distances away from the collapse, etc., and knowing you, Howard, you would be one of the last to take such issues into a unbiased examination. I doubt that you'd get much information trying to figure out something like that, anyway, though. It's another argument that I find rather weak. Witnesses certainly reported it, and not as anything quiet or low-volumed. That it would stick out in their memories at all, amongst all the trauma of the event, is telling.

[edit on 29-8-2005 by bsbray11]

The sound of charges going off in a building demo is a short sharp bang, not a loud continuous roar, like the WTC coming down was. Every demo I've ever seen and heard has been "BANG BANG BANG" as the individual floor charges went off. The WTC was a continuous loud roar, with no bangs that could be heard. Yes, this is less than scientific, but deal with it, it's been a long week. I'm on day 8 without a day off, and probably have just over another week to go without one.

Q: Is it possible to do a demolition wirelessly?
A: Wireless? Yes, There are detonating cord and radio systems for initiating explosives.

This is what we've been saying all along, whilst the debunkers consistently claim that the towers couldn't have been demolished because the "wires" would have been cut or melted when the planes crashed into the buildings. Remember folks, we're talking about the U.S. government/military/intelligence community here, with access to the most advanced military and explosives technology in the entire world - stuff that won't hit industry for 10 - 20 years.

Q: Would it be possible to rig up a building so that the sounds of the explosives going off would not be noticed from a few blocks away?
A: The sound of metal cutting shaped charges is incredibly loud and difficult to conceal.

Who ever claimed that the demolitions were quiet? Witnesses close to the collapse said it was the loudest thing they've ever heard. All those charges going of milliseconds apart would combine into one, great metallic roar, indistinguishable from each other by the human ear, as was observed by witnesses. And if you watch the following video (visit the link, right click and save target/link where directed), quite close to collapse of WTC2, you can hear the roar as it comes down. Once the collapse gets 2/3rds of the way down the building, the camera's microphone is overloaded by the sheer volume of the noise and registers solid distortion.

uploadhut.com...

Q: How would you place a cutting charge on a box column if you only had access to one face of that column?
A: Access to each side of a box column is needed....there are outrageous exceptions.

Again, we're talking about the forefront of whatever technology is available here. The fact that he has stated there ARE exceptions means it is possible even for conventional demolition crews.



Lots of elevator shafts, HVAC shafts and service areas around those columns (red dots).

Q: If you put a cutting charge on one face of a 12 inch box column that was strong enough to sever that column, how far would the shrapnel fly?
A: Most shaped charges are made of Metal (usually copper) tube that is pressed to look like this ^ . They have a core of explosive that detonates at a velocity of about 5 miles per second. The backside of these charges can send bits of metal shrapnel that can be found buried in solid steel hundreds of feet away. So, some kind of protection (cover ) is often needed..There is one brand of charge that does not have a metal backside....but it uses more explosive (more expense, more noise, more concussion)

Again, he states the technology exists to do it without even having to access all sides of the column, and this is just what's available to a conventional industry demo crew guy.

Q: What does a steel beam look like after it has been cut by an explosive charge.
A: Linear shaped charges work by sending a pencil-lead thin, focussed beam of metal particles (moving at about 10 times the speed of a rifle bullet) through a steel target. The cut is as neat and clean as though cut with a knife....much neater than a cutting torch.

Do we need to pull out pics for this one.

Q: What is the long term stability of the explosives used in demolition projects?
A: The explosives used in shaped charges are stable for years.

Which means they could have placed charges over as long a period as they wanted, except maybe for the bomb-sniffing dogs, which were removed from the building earlier.

Q: "Removing the bottom 25 feet or so". How does that explain your theory that damage to UPPER floors caused the building to collapse like a controlled demo?
A: Upper and lower segments of similar material are both diminished at the point of contact,

Which, if I understand it correctly, confirms our assertion that the caps were disintegrated by halfway down the collapse and could not destroy the entire building down to the ground.

Q: If you severed 10% or less of the support columns near the top of a steel frame building whose core had a load-bearing redundancy of 500-600%, would the building then collapse down to the ground?
A: !0% No

It's peanut butter jelly time!! Ohhhhhhh yeah!

Q: If you severed some exterior columns and core columns on only one side of a building such that the building collapsed, will the building collapse tilt to one side or will it fall straight down in a symmetrical collapse. Will the entire floor where the columns were severed collapse symmetrically and simultaneously, the unbroken columns included?

One explanation does not fit all structures..This one is bigger than anything anyone has actually experienced, so I can't say how it should have looked.

Neither can NIST. They can only guess and make up "zipper" and "pancake" theories.

Q: Conventional controlled demolition works by severing a building's supports and then letting gravity do the rest, correct? In your experience in the industry, have you ever seen a steel frame building completely collapse, all its support columns severed, all of its concrete exploded into fine powder and spread into a giant dust cloud several kilometers in width, and 80% all of its exterior columns being blasted outside of the building's footprint, just under gravity alone with no explosives to help it?

[No answer]

I'll take that as a 'no'.

Q: If molten steel was found in the basement of a collapsed building where the foundation was, what technology or explosive could possibly cause this? Would the presence of molten steel be unusual for a building that collapsed under gravity alone?
A: Can't explain the molten steel.

Neither can we, but we have a few ideas.

Q: Have you ever seen the footage of WTC7's collapse? Does this look like a conventional controlled demolition to you or not?
A: I saw the footage. Yes ,, It looked like conventional explosive demolition. I saw a TV documentary about this event, the building's internal structure, the video of the collapse,and the points of structural failure. Personally, I was satisfied with its explanations.....But who can know for sure?

Straight from the expert horse's mouth. "It looked like conventional explosive demolition." Then after watching the professional propaganda whitewash on the idiot-box, he says, "But who can know for sure?"

Q: WTC7 exhibited a perfectly symmetrical collapse supposedly because of relatively small fires on a couple of levels. How do you surmise this occurred? Do you think in the future setting buildings on fire could be a cheaper method of demolishing buildings than the current method of using explosives?

[No answer]

Again, I'll take that as a 'no', fires cannot collapse steel buildings.

Q: If you were contracted to demolish the WTC towers but had to make it look like it collapsed by itself from the top down, how would you do it?

[No answer]

Maybe he should ask the CIA or FEMA. Seems they have it down good enough to fool the masses, and indeed many here.

[edit on 2005-8-30 by wecomeinpeace]

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The sound of charges going off in a building demo is a short sharp bang, not a loud continuous roar, like the WTC coming down was. Every demo I've ever seen and heard has been "BANG BANG BANG" as the individual floor charges went off. The WTC was a continuous loud roar, with no bangs that could be heard. Yes, this is less than scientific, but deal with it, it's been a long week. I'm on day 8 without a day off, and probably have just over another week to go without one.

You mean like this:

"...and then all of a sudden it started like... it sounded like gunfire... you know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang and then all of a sudden three big explosions."

www.whatreallyhappened.com...

And this:

"I was about five blocks away when I heard explosions... three thuds and turned around to see the building that we just got out of... tip over and fall in on itself."

www.whatreallyhappened.com...

Source:
www.whatreallyhappened.com...

Here's a video montage of witnesses and media describing secondary explosions, explosions going up the stairs, three explosions before the buildings came down, explosions well after the planes struck, etc etc. You won't see any of this in mainstream media or NIST/FEMA/Discovery Channel whitewashing publications or programs. This information has disappeared in what Orwell called a "memory hole". Remember what Winston Smith's occupation was? Erasing and editing past news publications and books that didn't conform with the party's latest version of the truth. If you control the past, you control the future.

www.mypetgoat.tv...

Oceania is at war with terrorism. Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with terrorism.




[edit on 2005-8-30 by wecomeinpeace]

I want to include a bit more information .

To demolish a structure like the WTC professionally would require hundreds, probably thousands, of shaped charges. Each must be set a very precise, measured distance from their target....(within a few centimeters). Each charge would require it's own separate, properly delayed (timed) detonator. There would be wires, bundles of wires, all over the place. (non electric ?, then det -cord, bundles of it, all over the place. If one or two of those wires or charges is broken or disturbed, the entire shot could be ruined.

Advance preparation for the charges is required...Metal must be exposed....excess trimmed with a cutting torch, Etc. Conventional charges (dynamite) would be needed to kick cut steel beams out of the way.

There is no way such an event could be set up unnoticed.

Well I think that says it all, undoubedly though there will be people saying he can't be trusted, as he is going with the official story.
Of course if he said anything to the contrary, I'm sure he would be..

Nice research there mate! It's good to get an opinon of an independant expert.



[edit on 30-8-2005 by AgentSmith]

Originally posted by QuietSoul

I want to include a bit more information .

To demolish a structure like the WTC professionally would require hundreds, probably thousands, of shaped charges. Each must be set a very precise, measured distance from their target....(within a few centimeters). Each charge would require it's own separate, properly delayed (timed) detonator. There would be wires, bundles of wires, all over the place. (non electric ?, then det -cord, bundles of it, all over the place. If one or two of those wires or charges is broken or disturbed, the entire shot could be ruined.

Advance preparation for the charges is required...Metal must be exposed....excess trimmed with a cutting torch, Etc. Conventional charges (dynamite) would be needed to kick cut steel beams out of the way.

There is no way such an event could be set up unnoticed.

...by conventional methods.

Basically, he's saying that he doesn't think the WTC collapses were demolitions because people would've seen messes of wire, etc.

He's confirmed several points of the case against the government already, and of course there's the reports of sections of the WTC being closed off for days at a time leading up to the collapses, which would've given the conspirators time to prepare themselves and set all this up. Yet, for him, those collapses couldn't have been demos, not because of a lack of similarity with a demo, but because people would've seen the wires..

In retrospect, we should've asked him what the squibs were.

The charges would have had to have been right on the steel. Don't you think SOMEONE would have noticed that a chunk of wall was cut out, and replaced during that time the buildings were closed? Or noticed SOMETHING suspicious?

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The charges would have had to have been right on the steel. Don't you think SOMEONE would have noticed that a chunk of wall was cut out, and replaced during that time the buildings were closed? Or noticed SOMETHING suspicious?

Well, their excuse was that they were upgrading the "cable" somehow or another, so I doubt any work within the drywall would really seem that suspicious to your average WTC employee. Let alone would you ever think that they were putting some sort of explosives in there.

Maybe they really WERE just doing an upgrade on the building. It's been known to happen from time to time.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Maybe they really WERE just doing an upgrade on the building. It's been known to happen from time to time.

Maybe.

I'm not trying to prove to you what they were really doing (not possible anyway), but the point is that if they need an opportunity to take the time out to set up the charges, this would've been the perfect opportunity.

Not with those measures.

For the first time in history a powerdown (so no cameras, id systems, yadda ya)
Unaccessable floors.. so you could do anything here really.

I don't think placing explosions would be a real problem.. to a government with a 'slight bias' towards the military and with all the money in the world.

They had the time, the money, and the means to make that happen.
They could've been planting charges for over a year.. who knows.
For all we know the official plans for the WTC somehow allowed to place charges quickly, and out of sight.

Personally I would be surprised if you could not place them unnoticable in a building that big. Even if they need precise placing.

I have a problem with this whole power-down issue.

First of all it is fairly common for power and computer upgrades to take place in buildings like this.

But my biggest problem is with the contradiction inherent in the following two statements.

"Forbes, who was hired by Fiduciary in 1999"

and

"Forbes stated that Fiduciary Trust was one of the WTC’s first occupants after it was erected, and that a “power-down” had never been initiated prior to this occasion."

So, in other words, this guy who had only worked there for three years, knows all about every single detail of the operations of the building for the past 30 years.

Frankly, I think there is a bit of an exaggeration going on here.

I would like to see some back up to this information. maybe one of the engineers that survived the attack would know something about it.

What exactly would be proven, Howard, if such things were usual?

They would still have had the perfect opportunity to rig the building. In fact, if it were common, it would just be that much easier for them.

I'm still trying to understand how they would have gotten the chapeed charges all around the exterior box columns. They would have had to take off the aluminum covers to access the outside of the columns.