Fire Could Easily Have Been Cause of WTC Collapse

Originally posted by jaamaan
Still strange that there are these pictures of people standing in the gaps of the WTC where the planes entered, waving.
And their hairs where not set on fire with all this hot melting top class steel around them.
I find this strange to say the least.
things normaly go on fire when they are even close to melting steel right ?

And I also find it VERY strange that the fire chief that made it to the fires was SO CONFIDENT that he could put it out with ONLY TWO LINES! People, everyone talks about the experts yet they ignore the EXPERTS THAT WERE THERE! It's very unfortunate that whoever 'pulled' that tower heard his transmission because it was only seconds after he made that statement that the tower collapsed. I know, just coincidence. It was just coincidence that the chief also had assumed that the fire wasn't as bad as all of the other experts not present claim that it was.

He was only on the lowest fire floor.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
He was only on the lowest fire floor.

Wasn't it LoneGunMen that states this doesn't matter? He is a fireman. Something to that extent.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
He was only on the lowest fire floor.

Huh? We talking about the same chief? There are more than one chief. I will have to get his name so we can clear it up. However, this chief was on the 72nd floor of the first tower to fall. The powers that be were forced to release the recordings of this transmission to the public. He was on site at the point of the blaze and was confident he could, in his own words, 'knock it down with two lines...'. Does this sound like a raging inferno that supposedly melted steel supports?

Okay, I had to re-read the post. The lowest fire floor is a good point however, he still evaluated the situation and was confident he could knock it down. At what floor did that second plane hit? Remember, the plane 'clipped' the corner of the building, it did not impact directly into the center as the first plane did. There was less damage done by this impact as the majority of the fueled fireball shot out of the adjacent side of the building.



[edit on 9-11-2006 by whylistentome]

hey, it's 9-11-2006.

howard's endless staircase has been replaced with a double ouroubourus mobius strip.

you're so transparent, howard. why don't you use something like st. george and the dragon, instead, and give yourself an false air of nobility, instead of admitting in symbols that you love circular arguments and endless loops.

like i said, the fire in the core never got anywhere near steel weakening temperatures. and that's the computer generated 'infernos'. the actual fires were simply not that hot for very long. if they were, they would be emitting light, and you would be able to see them from the outside(like you CAN see them, when they are actually there in some pictures of FLARE-UPS).

for those interested, greening has a new paper as of nov. 5th at 911myths. he argues gravity could crush the concrete to those sizes without much problem (while insisting 600 tons of high explosives would be needed,set into predrilled holes to achieve the same thing(with zero assistance from gravity)).
he is the king of the false assumption, that guy. i, sir bill nye of newtonia, am going to have him arrested and thrown in the deepest dungeon in the kingdom of good science.

Originally posted by BigTrain
Seems to me that these CT people want to believe that the Twin Towers were invincible. Planes at 500 mph couldnt destroy them, fires couldnt destroy them.

All Jim was trying to do was show you how fire affects steel.

And a few months ago I posted thread on how much a 300 degree F fire can warp a column and how much just a minor 3 inch midspan warping can reduce the columns carrying capacity. If you guys actually did some structural analysis all your doubts would be cleared.

Train

Thats amazing, only 300 degrees can warp a column!!! i mean wow, i cant believe of all the office fires in highrises were rebuilt without reinstalling all these Warped columns!!! especially when most fires are hotter than 300 degrees! I bet all the columns at the WTC and in WTC7 probably "warped" at the exact time, seems how there wasnt a single fire there under 300 degrees. Wait a second, i think i figured out how all 3 towers collapsed straight down....it was at least 300 degrees of fire. The Windsor building proably suffered from one of those sub temperature fires, from Link using the Freeze Wand on it......

Originally posted by Pedro Sanchez
Thats amazing, only 300 degrees can warp a column!!! i mean wow, i cant believe of all the office fires in highrises were rebuilt without reinstalling all these Warped columns!!!

I take it that you actually meant to say: “ i cant believe of all the office fires in high-rises were rebuilt without repairing all these warped columns.”

How do you know that they weren’t?

A lot depends on the type of fireproofing used.

Originally posted by HowardRoark

Originally posted by Pedro Sanchez
Thats amazing, only 300 degrees can warp a column!!! i mean wow, i cant believe of all the office fires in highrises were rebuilt without reinstalling all these Warped columns!!!

I take it that you actually meant to say: “ i cant believe of all the office fires in high-rises were rebuilt without repairing all these warped columns.”

How do you know that they weren’t?

A lot depends on the type of fireproofing used.

You're right, repaired.....what i was implying is that the picture that this thread is about shows severely warped metal and if that happened to any collumns as someone pointout 300 degrees can warp metal, then the fires in high rises that we've SEEN ablaze must have had warped metal....if it was anything like what this topic is about....FIRE WARPING METAL TO CAUSE FAILURE, then any steel slightly resembling the bridge would need to be replaced. I was just poking fun. But you were able to sucessfully analyze my sarcastic comments and point out my discrepancies...for which i award you the WATS...

Im kidding, i voted valhal for his research on this threads topic.

Hey Val, im a student journalist, and i just want to say, you do it like the 5 media conglomerates should. way to go.

There's a difference between having "applied heat" to steel and having an office fire affecting steel. Neither World Trade Center 1 or 2 were completely engulfed enough or had enough applied heat globally to cause the steel to be compromised.

Did these office fires kill the inner core too at the same time.

It should be noted that the NIST report states that they estimate fire in a given area burned for 20 minutes before spreading to a new location.

I think the steel used on the WTC was of much better quality than used on must normal structures like this bridge.

I think that explaines why the bridge warped much easier

Also, bridges don't have any fire protection. I know the official story is that the fire protection was knocked off. If you believe that, I'll sell you a bridge in Brooklyn. I can see some fire protection being knocked off but not all. It does come off pretty easily but not THAT easy.

There is an assumption by the author and others that the failure of the beam in the bridge photograph was as a result of the loss of strength of the steel in the beam to such an extent that the existing load could no longer be carried, and the weakened beam failed under load.
This is not the case.
The cause of the distortion of the beam in the bridge photograph was thermal expansion. By constraining the beam ends and thus not allowing the thermal expansion to take place, the beam would very quickly build internal failure level stresses. This would happen if the beam was subject to relatively low temperature rises, and the strength of the beam would remain relatively unchanged.
When examining the WTC with this in mind we can tell that some sagging of the floors may have taken place, since their thermal expansion would be constrained by the core and perimeter columns. The columns, by contrast, would have the ability to expand upwards when subject to heat.
Gordon.

Nice post GordonRoss. Actually, I hadn't thought of the expansion. Good job.

Originally posted by whylistentome

Originally posted by Zhenyghi
One of the revolutionary features of the WTC was that the outer walls were load-bearing. This allowed for the large, open areas in certain areas inside.

When the jets crashed into to WTC, it disrupted the structural integrity of the building. Additional, secondary supports were inside the building around the elevator shafts, which were melted, or at least weakened by the fire from the jet-fuel from the planes.

With the loss of both of these means of support, plus all the weight of people, furniture, equipment, paper, etc., is there any surprise that the WTC fell?

Dear God dude. Seriously, think about it please! I hate statements like this.

First, the out walls were load bearing. Yes. So was the massive inner core. Look at the damage from the planes and where the second one hit. The damage was not enough to disrupt the buildings to the point of collapse.

Even if it were, let's just say that was the case, tell me how 20 to 30 stories of building can cause 80 to 90 stories of UNDAMAGED STEEL AND SUPPORT to collapse at ZERO RESISTENCE!!! Not possible my friend. Basic science. They fell at free fall meaning there was no resistence BELOW the top 20 to 30 stories of 110 story buildings. If the top 20 to 30 floors (I keep saying that because the two planes hit a different locations) fell then they would have simply collapsed down to the point of resistence or simply fallen off to the streets below. NEVER would they have brought down the STRONGEST part of the UNDAMAGED portion of the buildings.

I hate this argument and it just shows one of two things. A) You are paid to say this in order to try and keep the disinformation going or B) You have yet to understand the basic laws of physics.

I am not insulting you here friend. I'm simply trying to get you to see the facts outside of the facts. A building with 80 to 90 stories of undamaged structure will not collapse just from weight. They DEFINITELY would not collapse at the rate in which they did.

What are your engineering credentials that would lend weight to statements like -
"then they would have simply collapsed down to the point of resistence or simply fallen off to the streets below. NEVER would they have brought down the STRONGEST part of the UNDAMAGED portion of the buildings."

I've heard from many structural engineers that clearly explained the process in a thouroughly beleivable and understandable manner.

The problem with all the WTC conspiracy believers is that they try to debunk basic engineering and physics to prove their case. The skeptics simply point out that it wasn't impossible for the bldgs. to collapse due to impact and fire damage.

[edit on 11/10/2006 by darkbluesky]

You shouldn't talk about "basic engineering". Pick up a structural engineering textbook some time and thumb through it. You know what you're going to see? A lot of statics, columns at different angles, their sines, cosines, etc., and in different configurations.

Nowhere will you find anything on how to analyze a dynamic environment like a collapsing building. This isn't something a structural engineer would have expertise on. All the theoretical collapse models that have been presented are speculative and have not been backed up by any actual mathematics or testing or modeling or anything else, especially from structural engineers, because, again, this isn't their relevant field.

[edit on 10-11-2006 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by gordonross
The cause of the distortion of the beam in the bridge photograph was thermal expansion. By constraining the beam ends and thus not allowing the thermal expansion to take place, the beam would very quickly build internal failure level stresses. This would happen if the beam was subject to relatively low temperature rises, and the strength of the beam would remain relatively unchanged.
When examining the WTC with this in mind we can tell that some sagging of the floors may have taken place, since their thermal expansion would be constrained by the core and perimeter columns. The columns, by contrast, would have the ability to expand upwards when subject to heat.
Gordon.

Except that a bridge is designed to allow for thermal expansion. Ever see those metal plates that go across the width of a bridge? Those are called expansion joints. Guess what their purpose is?

A bridge isn't a building, as I have been told here several times. While there is an allowance for some expansion due to temperature variations, it isn't that great. When you have a column already in compression, any thermal expansion increases the strain on that column. If you have a column near it's failure point this expansion can be enough to push it past that point.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Nowhere will you find anything on how to analyze a dynamic environment like a collapsing building. This isn't something a structural engineer would have expertise on. All the theoretical collapse models that have been presented are speculative and have not been backed up by any actual mathematics or testing or modeling or anything else, especially from structural engineers, because, again, this isn't their relevant field.

Actually Structural Dynamics is in it's infancy.

A few months ago I designed a hopper and stand assembly for the company I work for. I used Finite Element Software to help with the design, including dynamic drop testing. The hopper was to hold 5000 lbs of material. We generally operate on a 3:1 safety margin. For those who don't know a safety margin is a built in over design. If you have a rope rated to hold 300 lbs a 3:1 margin will never put more than 100 lbs on the rope. We built my hopper and stand and then loaded the hopper to 15000 lbs. and let it sit for a week. We measured for deflection and found none. We then ran several hundred cycles of loading the hopper to 15000 lbs. and then unloading it, to see if that had any effect. Again we found nothing. The hopper was then bolted to a pallet and shipped to the worksite for installation. While a large forklift was moving the hopper to it's final location the hydraulics on the forklift failed and the hopper fell about 6 ft. It wasn't a freefall drop and the hopper landed upright. Problem is that the legs of the stand bent and the hopper ruptured. All of the computer analysis and our load testing proved that the hopper could handle the static loads required of it, but yet that short fall overloaded the structure and the hopper was EMPTY at the time.

The point that I am trying to make is that the events of 9-11 had never happened before. Never had a building been subjected to the forces that were applied to the WTC towers that day. The buildings were designed to withstand what the designers believed to be the worst case scenario, based off of the information that they had at the time. The information that they had, though was only their best guess. The fires may have caused the collapse or they may not. I believe that the fires contributed to the collapse, but wind loads could have helped as well or any combination of things.

There are hundreds of possibilities, but I do not nor will I ever believe that explosive charges had anything to do with the collapses. I believe this for one simple reason. I don't think that anyone had the knowledge to do it. The amount of research and engineering required to implode the towers would be impossible to keep secret. I don't believe that had the towers lived out their useful lives and a company like CDI was hired to implode them that it could happen like it did on 9-11.

Originally posted by JIMC5499

Originally posted by gordonross
The cause of the distortion of the beam in the bridge photograph was thermal expansion.

Except that a bridge is designed to allow for thermal expansion. Ever see those metal plates that go across the width of a bridge? Those are called expansion joints. Guess what their purpose is?

guess what temperature range they are designed to accomodate.
red herring man.

Does this issue still stand to even be contested against the information Valhall's provided and the conclusions we've made? Not sure why we're still arguing this, I believe we should let it die. JimC tried