If the towers were demoed, how the explosives were set up?

Originally posted by Jack Tripper
Hoffman is not a professor of physics and I have not even seen that quote from him so please source it.

Hoffman is not a proffesor, and he never says anything about how much explosives would be needed.

Using Hoffman's numbers for the extra energy required would mean over 500 tons of PETN.

So maybe both sides have problems with Hoffman's paper.

911research.wtc7.net...

Maybe Hoffman is wrong and no additional energy was needed to form the dust cloud.


On Profesors of Physics.

Why do Jones credentials give him automatic authority?

Should we assume that all Professors are right about this?

If you want to keep using that as proof of Jones paper then perhaps you find Eagers take of equal value.

www.tms.org...

A basic engineering assessment of the design of the World Trade Center dispels many of the myths about its collapse. First, the perimeter tube design of the towers protected them from failing upon impact. The outer columns were engineered to stiffen the towers in heavy wind, and they protected the inner core, which held the gravity load. Removal of some of the outer columns alone could not bring the building down. Furthermore, because of the stiffness of the perimeter design, it was impossible for the aircraft impact to topple the building.

However, the building was not able to withstand the intense heat of the jet fuel fire. While it was impossible for the fuel-rich, diffuse-flame fire to burn at a temperature high enough to melt the steel, its quick ignition and intense heat caused the steel to lose at least half its strength and to deform, causing buckling or crippling. This weakening and deformation caused a few floors to fall, while the weight of the stories above them crushed the floors below, initiating a domino collapse.

Eager is also a Professor, do you automatically believe him too?

Originally posted by Jack Tripper

To suggest that we haven't given Dr. Jones' paper scrutiny is an incorrect and unfounded claim. To "debunk" it would mean we don't agree with it and have proven it incorrect as we did with Greenings work. NOBODY has done this with Dr. Jones' work as far as I know because it is not based on falsified or incorrect data.

Correction, nobody has done this with Jones work, because there is no data.

As soon as Jones actually supplies some data, I'm sure someone will. All Jones has offered is opinion and speculation. Much like his "calculations" that come up with 2 tons of explosives.

The Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, built in 1963 as the Tally Ho, about a 18 story structure, 1100 rooms "was leveled in a matter of seconds with … 600 pounds of gelatin-based dynamite." (p. 75) Date: April 27, 1998, 7:30 pm. Contractors: LVI Environmental Services and CDI (Controlled Demolition, Inc.)

Helen Liss w/ the Loizeaux Family of Controlled Demolition, Inc., Demolition; The Art of Demolishing, Dismantling, Imploding & Razing; Black Dog & Leventhal. New York.



Scaling to the size of a tower gives roughly 4,000 pounds.

Scaling to the size of a tower?

Did he do this in a scientific way, or did he just do quick multiplication and basically pull a number out of his behind.

Let's see if I can duplicate the calculating powers of a Professor of physics.



18 stories took 600 lbs.

110 stories of WTC took how many pounds?


110/18=6.11

600*6.11=3666 lbs of explosives!

Nearly 4000 lbs!!



Obviously Jones did not do much calculating at all. The fact that he pushes that kind of crap as "according to my calculations" should make anyone skeptical of anything else he has to say until he has some data to back up his speculation and opinion.


Controlled Demolition is a science and each job is different. Such simplistic reasoning is like saying a 10:1 scale toy car has 5 parts so the real car has 50 parts. It is misleading and inaccurate.

The same is true of the Kingdome comparison. The Kingdome was a 250ft tall reinforced concrete stadium with a 25,000 ton roof. It is disingenuos to compare that to the steel construction and 110 stories of the WTC. In fact it makes no sense to say that more explosives were needed to blow up the kingdome.

In the kingdome, once they got the roof going down it was pretty much all over.

Using the amount of concrete to compare the two is just as bad.

Likewise, the Seattle Kingdome of over 120,000 tons of concrete (more than either Tower) was felled using 4,700 pounds of explosives:

Comparing the concrete amount does not accurately portray the demolition required. Controlled Demolitions Inc. does much more than ask how much concrete there is and then look at a chart.

If your going to base it off of one statistic you might as well say following is correct.

250 ft took 4700 lbs of explosives.

1368 ft took 25709 lbs of explosives.


Strange tactics for a so-called truth movement.

[edit on 8-2-2006 by LeftBehind]

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Eager is also a Professor

Of materials engineering. He's also totally outdated; even NIST has contradicted Eager.

Originally posted by loam
I must have touched a nerve, given my post merited 4 responses in a row from Howard.

A nerve? not hardly. It's just easier to repsond to a long rambling post such as yours by breaking it down into managble chunks.

Originally posted by loam

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Yes, they were commercial buildings. Very high end commercial buildings, and as such, I suspect that their internal security was probably better then most typical military installations, (no, not NORAD HQ, obviously, but your typical military base populated by typical military personnel and their families, yeah)

You "suspect" based on what? Sell your unsubstantiated dribble elsewhere. Your assertions are nothing more than pure fiction...and I dare say intentional disinformation.

The opposite is true... Even today, owners and property managers walk a fine line between providing enough security and too much security. Yes, I said too much security! The law cuts both ways in this regard. There has been a long standing concern in the commercial property industry that providing any security that exceeds industry practice, or beyond common areas into any tenant leasehold, places the owner or manager into potential legal jeopardy as a quasi-guarantor of the safety and security of tenants should anything go wrong.

I have had over 15 years experience working, designing and managing construction jobs in larg buildings, and commercial high rises. I have the experience to back up what I am talking about. Where is your "knowlege" coming from?

Originally posted by loam
Moreover, the mere five minutes of research it took me, proves to my satisfaction that little was really done with regard to pre-911 WTC security.

Oh, you spend five minutes on google and that makes you an expert.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Obviously you have never worked for a financial sector firm dealing with securities and investments. Or even a large Insurance company dealing with personal data and financial instruments.

You have no idea who you are dealing with. :shk:

That is the problem with message boards, isn't it? You never really know who you are talking to... Suffice it to say that I am VERY CONFIDENT my experience and personal knowledge are sufficient to address such issues.

B.S. I call it like I see it pall.

Originally posted by loam
In fact, it's my view that your comments demonstrate how very little you actually know or understand about the specific business entities you describe. Moreover, you also obviously know even less about how commercial realty functions in this country.

I know exactly how commercial realty functions. I also understand how seriously financially related companies take internal security. It is a headache that I have to deal with on a regular basis, going well before 9/11.

Originally posted by loam
What exactly was your point. btw? ...that by virtue of the presence of such financial or insurance companies within the WTC that the buildings were somehow more secure? ...and beyond that of your average run of the mill military instillation? (

I so needed to be entertained...

)

Yes. Prior to 9/11 it was fairly easy to obtain access to most military bases and government facilities. I've had much more difficulty trying to schedule access to insurance company offices.

Originally posted by loamSurprise! Security of the actual leasehold space was the responsibility of the tenants????

Who would have thought that???

Is'nt that what I've been saying? For instance let's say you want to get into an office to fix a plumbing riser. First you have to deal with the building security, then you have to deal with the building engineers, because no work goes on with out their knowledge and approval, then you If you wanted to get access to do work in, let's say Marsh and Mclenan's offices, you had to deal with their internal security, then you had to deal with the office manager, then you had to deal with the department head for that area.

Originally posted by loam
...but then you say:

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Moreover, I fail to understand how what you assert limits the owners, managers, or a series of tenants in the short term from doing what the hell they please to the physical space. The issue is one of access. In my long years of leasing Class "A" commercial properties, I have never once had an owner or manager review my daily activities within the physical space of the leasehold during the tenancy.

I never said that they dealt with the day to day internal activities, but if you are in a highrise space, don't expect that you can do one bit of internal construction work without the the building manager's OK. If that was not the case for you, then I can say that you were poorly served. If a tenant were to make an internal modification to his space without approval, it could potentially affect the entire building.

This is an issue of liability management, and if your experience did not include that, then you were ripped off. Furthermore high rise buildings are different from strip malls and low rise properties. In a high rise, any thing going wrong with an electrical or a plumbing system has the potential to affect every other tenant, and not just you.

Originally posted by loam
Were all packages and freight brought into the building by tenants searched? I think not. We don't even do that now in a post-911 environment.

Are you sure of that? How do you know what types of security arrangements are in place in large potential targets? Do you have any specific data or facts here or are you just basing this on your opinions?


Based upon my experience, knowledge and opinion.

What accounts for your fabrication?

does this experience include the WTC or are you somewhere else. Unless you are a former tenant of that building, then you can't really speak with authority, can you?

Originally posted by loam
Let's consider some math...

Again, the article identifies the following:

- 45,000 tenant/employees

- welcomes 5,000 visitors a day

- 800 trucks every day

- More than 100,000 people shop at its mall complex each day

- a total of 450 security personel.

Were all 450 of the security staff dedicated to the function of ferreting out what was coming into the building? How vigilant do you think they really were with the 45,000 workers and the 800 trucks a day who visited?

How many of these went to which parts of the buildings? Remember we are talking about the contention that these explosives were somehow delivered and installed in the high-rise portions, not in the mall. Do you have any idea of the requierments for scheduling freight elevator time in a building like the WTC towers? Do you think you can just walk up, push a button and use the freights to deliver your "4,000 lbs of explosives" or whatever the quantity-de-jour" is.

Originally posted by loam
The unadulterated truth of the matter is that the building was a sieve. Unless you were unaffiliated with any owner, manager or tenant, you really had a blank check to move in and out of the space with whatever your heart desired.

That is your opinion. Based on my experience in large high-rise buildings, I see it differently.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Your office equipment is of course yours to control. The building supplies access to the base system. However, you may not penetrate core walls to access these systems yourself.

Nor will you be allowed to do any construction that is covered under building codes without securing the necessary permits.

In addition, with the presence of asbestos in the building, you will also be restricted from accessing the ceiling plenums.

Well, it was nice of you to identify what tenant's shouldn't do, but what does any of that have to do with their actual ability to do otherwise???

Are you suggesting that people who would "pull" or otherwise attack the towers (for whatever reason) would have been frustrated from such purposes merely because the items you mention may be found in a commercial property lease???

I'm impressed...


I'm stating a fact of life in how things are done in a large building. I don't care how long you've been a tenant somewhere, you really don't understand how things work in a facility like the WTC.

Originally posted by loam

Originally posted by HowardRoark
And yes, your carpenters, electricians and painters had better be union.

Got a problem with that?

If it is your political opinion, then no. But if you are stating as fact that unionized contractors were exclusively required, then that would be a lie.

Really, Howard. Championing labor issues now??? So out of your element...

What, are you a B.A. for the Local 608?


Please explain to me, how a bogus construction crew could conduct work in that building without the unions knowing about it?

Originally posted by loam

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Wrong. That is not how large commercial buildings operate.

Well, if I must play your juvenile agenda laden game...

*in my best five-year-old voice*

NO, YOU"RE WRONG!

I think I have made the case that you have no clue what you are talking about on this matter.

Like I said, I have 15 years, (a bit more than that, actually) experience in designing, managing, and co-ordinating construction projects in large commercial high rise buildings. I know very well what is involved.

Originally posted by loam

Originally posted by HowardRoark
From a liability standpoint alone, no property manager would ever allow a contractor unfettered access to a building with out knowing exactly who they are and what they are doing.

Again, WRONG! ...on two fronts... legal and factual...

Happens every day...all day long...

Originally posted by HowardRoark
No building engineer would ever allow a contractor access to building chases and structural systems with out knowing what they were up to.

*yawn* Same answer as above.

Maybe in the slums that you call Class A, but not with my clients, it doesn't.

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by HowardRoark
You keep making this claim. Please refer to following drawing.

And you keep posting that drawing!

Those things can move in more than one direction Howard -- and the facades moving outward above the "buckled" columns give the impression that the lower columns are buckled inwards. That's why I cut out the facades located above the "buckled" columns in those images. This goes back to the same crap: NIST is not offering an honest look at the columns, and the "buckling" there is of the facades and is NOT of 10 inches or some other b.s. figure of the actual steel columns!

Edited for grammar and stuff.

[edit on 8-2-2006 by bsbray11]

OK, please explain to me how the facade can move independently of the steel columns.

The aluminum panels are attached directly to the columns. Furthermore, if you look at the pictures, you can see that each of the panels was only 12.5 feet long. You can see the expansion joints at each floor level. Expansion joints would have been necessary because aluminum and steel have different coefficients of expansion. Each individual panel would have been attached directly to the steel column behind it.

Therefore if the facade was indeed moving outward, as you claim, then the steel columns behind them were moving outward also.

HowardRoark:



Good. We now have both our responses out there....

I'm willing to let my statements ride and have any readers decide which version they believe...

OPTION 1: The WTC's security (pre-911 ) was predominantly directed against "external" threats and not against owners, managers, tenants or sponsored individuals. Because of this "status", their activities were only superficially monitored and could have easily provided the necessary access discussed in this thread.

OPTION 2: The WTC's security (pre-911) was better than most typical military installations. Everyone knew exactly what everyone else was doing, and as such made it an impossibility to provide the necessary access discussed in this thread.



[edit on 9-2-2006 by loam]

Originally posted by loam
HowardRoark:

Good. We now have both our responses out there....

I'm willing to let my statements ride and have any readers decide which version they believe...

OPTION 1: The WTC's security (pre-911 ) was predominantly directed against "external" threats and not against owners, managers, tenants or sponsored individuals. Because of this "status", their activities were only superficially monitored and could have easily provided the necessary access discussed in this thread.

OPTION 2: The WTC's security (pre-911) was better than most typical military installations. Everyone knew exactly what everyone else was doing, and as such made it an impossibility to provide the necessary access discussed in this thread.







[edit on 9-2-2006 by loam]

Fair enough.



It's either 10,385 really small angels or one really fat one that can do the pinhead dance.

Option 3: Combination of 1 and 2. Security was setup primarily against external threats, with internal security measures in place to monitor the buildings. Neither perfect, but neither totally ignored. Internal security not totally geared to prevent access, but monitored so that anything REALLY out of the ordinary would be noticed.

The primary threats WERE external, so the higher priority would have been outside security, but they also wouldn't have wanted to totally ignore internal security as well, due to the fact that so many inside jobs had also been pulled off involving airlines, robberies, etc.

Zaphod58

I appreciate your comments, but my point has all along been that internally oriented security would have almost exclusively been focused upon common areas shared among tenants or the public.

Nothing would have prevented a series of tenants from doing almost anything they wanted in their own spaces.

This is the only issue I address.

The title of the thread explores "how" explosives might have been set up. I address the first issue of access.

With regard to the technical aspects concerning what kind of explosives or how much were required, I have no position.

In fact, I'd like to see this aspect discussed more. How much access was required???? Could you rent four or five offices to do the job? ...or would you need twenty?


[edit on 9-2-2006 by loam]

Until we get more than a WAG on how much explosive you would need to demo the building, it's completely impossible to answer that question. Any kind of number as far as amount of explosive I've seen so far is just that. A WAG. NO ONE KNOWS how much it would take, because a building of this size was NEVER demoed. So until someone sits down and figures it out (and you can't just say a building this size needed X amount, the WTC is Y times bigger, so it needs Z amount to demo it), you CAN'T say you would need access to 4 offices, or 5 offices, ot 10 offices. My PERSONAL opinion is that they would have needed more than 4,000 pounds, and would have needed extensive access to the building.

And how do you KNOW that they only watched common areas? I've seen buildings that watch common areas, and I know people that have been in buildings where they went into a broom closet next to their office,and 5 minutes later a security guard was on the phone with them wanting to know what they were doing in there. How do we KNOW what kind of security the WTC was, unless someone who was there comes forward and can say beyond a doubt that it was type A, type B, or type C.

[edit on 2/9/2006 by Zaphod58]

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Until we get more than a WAG on how much explosive you would need to demo the building, it's completely impossible to answer that question. Any kind of number as far as amount of explosive I've seen so far is just that. A WAG. NO ONE KNOWS how much it would take, because a building of this size was NEVER demoed. So until someone sits down and figures it out (and you can't just say a building this size needed X amount, the WTC is Y times bigger, so it needs Z amount to demo it), you CAN'T say you would need access to 4 offices, or 5 offices, ot 10 offices.

Thanks, Zaph. That makes sense...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
My PERSONAL opinion is that they would have needed more than 4,000 pounds, and would have needed extensive access to the building.

Wouldn't the answer be dependent upon the type of explosive device used?

Originally posted by Zaphod58
And how do you KNOW that they only watched common areas? I've seen buildings that watch common areas, and I know people that have been in buildings where they went into a broom closet next to their office,and 5 minutes later a security guard was on the phone with them wanting to know what they were doing in there.

Zaph, I know the commercial property industry fairly well. As stupid as this sounds, the larger the property, the less control you have over it. Even in a post-911 world, commercial buildings in this country are only marginally secure. It is very atypical for owners or managers to provide security beyond the common space. Remember, a tenancy is a transaction in real property that gives the tenant dominion and control over the leasehold. Most tenants would not tolerate "foreign" security of the actual leased space in their possession. They want the managers and owners to protect the common areas. Tenants want to protect their own assets with their own security. Moreover, owners and property managers do NOT want the liability associated with providing such "tenant-space" security. It would make them targets of every Tom, Dick and Harry Tenant who claimed a missing fax machine. Despite what others have implied in this thread, the real world for the most part doesn't work that way....and certainly not pre-911.

Remember, owners and property managers are not in the "business" of security...they are in the business of leasing property. There is a business/client relationship there... There is competition.... They are a business with a P&L that drives their decision making...

The only secure commercial property, is one predominantly occupied by its owner. Otherwise, pre-911, I can promise that building imposed security of a tenant's actual leased space would not have been a selling feature.

This is true even today!

Originally posted by Zaphod58
How do we KNOW what kind of security the WTC was, unless someone who was there comes forward and can say beyond a doubt that it was type A, type B, or type C.

The article I originally posted paints the picture perfectly. Moreover, I'd accept anyone from a substantially sized building with multiple tenants, and who has actual responsibility for the leasehold property, to weigh in.

I think that would be interesting.


[edit on 9-2-2006 by loam]

It would depend on the type, but to require less, you need more power. More power means more noticable. If you're going to try to do it without people noticing you're gonna have to use less powerful explosives, which means more of them.

Edit: Time? why would you need less explosives depending on time? Corrected to read TYPE instead.

[edit on 2/9/2006 by Zaphod58]

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Until we get more than a WAG on how much explosive you would need to demo the building, it's completely impossible to answer that question. Any kind of number as far as amount of explosive I've seen so far is just that. A WAG. NO ONE KNOWS how much it would take, because a building of this size was NEVER demoed. So until someone sits down and figures it out (and you can't just say a building this size needed X amount, the WTC is Y times bigger, so it needs Z amount to demo it), you CAN'T say you would need access to 4 offices, or 5 offices, ot 10 offices.

I don't think anyone is ever going to be able to figure out how much explosive material was planted, unless somebody from the inside spills.

We don't even know how much each floor weighed. Hell, we don't even know how much either building weighed! The information is still locked up, and the absolute best we can do here is poor estimates.

Zaphod58 is just trying to find an angle with which to dismiss professor Jones' estimation. But clearly there would be a number that is accurate.

Let's say Jones was off by 100%.

That would mean that it would take 20 trips of 10 men.

Let's say he was off by 200%.

Now it would be 30 trips of 10 men or else 10 trips of 20 men.

No matter how you look at it.........when considering the state of security as outlined so beautifully and eloquently by LOAM.......

It is 100% feasible that the explosives could have been disseminated.

Even if the powerdown claims are proven to be a hoax.


[edit on 9-2-2006 by Jack Tripper]

And no matter how Jack looks at it, it's STILL a WAG on ANYBODY'S part. As was pointed out, demo crews don't say "Well we used X amount on this building, and this building is Y amount bigger, so we need Z amount." You have to take into account the construction type, the materials inside the building, and a ton of other factors.

Suuuuure Zaphod.

Unless you come to the table with how many explosives it would take then you have nothing.

If you don't trust Professor Jones' numbers then how about an explosive expert?

The Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende, the leading conservative paper in the country, published an interview with the explosives expert Bent Lund, who pointed out that fire alone could not have caused the collapse of the twin towers. He estimated that about a ton of explosives must have exploded inside the buildings in order to bring them down in this way. (Berlingske Tidende, September 12, 2001; Wisnewski 138; quoted in www.reopen911.org...)

So according to the explosives expert it would only take 10 trips of 5 people!

Professor Jones DOUBLED his estimate!

I have a question and please don't get me wrong as I have no dog in this hunt.
Would it not be possible they used the slurrey explosives that are used in quarrying. They are stable and can be poured into any type opening. They require a fuse to ignite and have a long life.
I know they don't usually use this type explosive in controlled demos but this event wasn't your usual situation.
Just a question on my mind. Don't ask me to take any side in this cause my minds not made up.

I've come across speculation in the past that the spray-on fireproofing upgrade in the WTC Towers could have been used as an opportunity to apply the kind of explosives you're talking about to support columns, which had just recently become publicly available (or at least some form of it -- I can't remember the specifics). I don't see why it couldn't have happened, especially if there would be a need to destroy trusses or lesser beams connecting various major columns together. The bigger columns, I think, would've had to have been blown by something else for the buildings to have fallen in the manner that they did.