NIST Source for Trumpman Paper

Just for reference, I found a source for Wayne Trumpman's safety factor of 5 for the perimeter columns on 9/11. He claimed he got his info from a NIST presentation, but didn't cite his information further.

This is from an early NIST presentation:

After reaching the yield strength, structural steel components continue to have significant reserve capacity, thus allowing for load redistribution to other components that are still in the elastic range.

On September 11, the towers were subjected to in-service live loads, which are considered to be approximately 25 percent of the design live loads.

On September 11, the wind loads were minimal, thus allowing significantly more reserve capacity for the exterior walls (demand on exterior columns was about 1/5 their capacity).

wtc.nist.gov...


That means the yield strength was 5 times greater than the actual applied load on these columns on 9/11, not considering load redistributions after impact. On a typical day, or on 9/11 specifically, the perimeter columns had a generalized reserve strength ratio of 5.

I'm assuming they're talking gravity loads. Apparently the lateral loads (or lack thereof) affect the capacity for gravity loads? Griff, if you're reading this, does that make sense? I guess it works the same way as any other deflection or buckling causing losses in vertical load-bearing capabilities but I could be wrong.


With a safety factor of 2, both towers could've taken over an additional two 767 impacts each on the same 4- or 5-story ranges without compromising the perimeter structures' abilities to function, ignoring the core structure. The core was probably not as redundant, imo.


Here's Trumpman's paper:

911research.wtc7.net...

[edit on 20-7-2007 by bsbray11]

It is puzzling me more and more, why there is so little response to this kind of thesis, build on common sense, mixed with an overload of reasonable scientific thinking.

This above mentioned paper, which is still in its 'prior to peer-review' stage, is one of the more sophisticated pieces of 'anti official theory' jewelry in the crown of the 9/11 truth.

I found this excerpt of the above, to be one of the more convincing arguments for a start :

Floor 97 contained about 33,603 cubic meters of air at the moment of collapse. That is a factor of almost 2.5 times the normal volume of air inside floor 97. This finding corroborates the work of another researcher who measured the entire cloud volume created by the WTC 1 collapse, not just of a single floor as I am doing. In his research he estimated the building cloud volume expanded over 3.4 times. Considering analysis of the entire building introduces more error than analyzing the first floor of collapse, his estimates are credible. It begs the question: Where is all this air volume coming from?

Let us pause for a moment. This is simply a phenomenal amount of air volume. To visualize, a floor of the WTC is about 1/3 of a city block. As one researcher put it, you don't need a wall of degrees to be an expert in common sense. Could a gravity collapse somehow explain this? Science says no way. There is no phenomenon in a natural gravity collapse that can account for this large volume of air. It is artificially produced. What phenomenon can produce this amount of air?

It may be argued that air pressure inside the building was higher because of fire. The WTC 1 generally had an open-floor plan. There was a large crash hole. Many windows were broken. This is like a big bag of air with holes in it. If pressure built up in the building where is it going to go? It will follow the path of least resistance and go out the holes. Substantial pressure would not be able to build up.

It may be argued that the additional air volume was created by the core collapsing first. Take two paper plates and push them together. There is only so much air between those plates, it doesn't mater if you push the plates in the middle. There has to be another force, such as intense heat to expand the air to the volume documented.

In my opinion the far most suited candidate for the form of planted explosives used in the demolition of WTC 2 , then WTC 1 and then hours later of WTC 7, are CIA-METC-Explosives, or in other words, thermobaric gaseous explosions.

When placed every three floors, there where the bolted connections were situated in all the perimeter columns, it would decimate this writer's calculated amounts of HMX or RDX high explosives by at least a factor of ten or more.

METC explosions do have a cumulative effect on each other, when detonated in a rapid timely sequence, and also have a strange effect inside square buildings.
The four corners will enhance the explosive force up to 2 or 3 times.

METC explosives can also be "shaped charged", as crazy as that sounds for a gaseous device. So they can slice core columns if that effect was wanted.
See my thread about thermobaric devices.
It has been moved around a bit, it should be placed in this specific 9/11 conspiracies forum, in my opinion.

On September 11, the towers were subjected to in-service live loads, which are considered to be approximately 25 percent of the design live loads.

That means that on 9/11 there were only 25% of the people.

Live load means load from people and equipment and such.

Dead load is the load from the actual structural members themselves.

On September 11, the wind loads were minimal, thus allowing significantly more reserve capacity for the exterior walls (demand on exterior columns was about 1/5 their capacity).

Wind load is lateral while dead load is vertical. I'll get into it more in a sec.

That means the yield strength was 5 times greater than the actual applied load on these columns on 9/11, not considering load redistributions after impact. On a typical day, or on 9/11 specifically, the perimeter columns had a generalized reserve strength ratio of 5.

Correct. But, I believe what it is saying is that the safety factor for wind load was 5.

I'm assuming they're talking gravity loads. Apparently the lateral loads (or lack thereof) affect the capacity for gravity loads? Griff, if you're reading this, does that make sense? I guess it works the same way as any other deflection or buckling causing losses in vertical load-bearing capabilities but I could be wrong.

Yes and no. Without the lateral load, the eccentricity (offset from the center (centroid)) would be less. Imagine them swaying. Thus, when the dead loads (and live) are more central to the column, then there are less moments (same as torque) in the columns. I would say then that yes with less wind load to account for, there would be more strength for dead and live load. But, there would never be added strength. The ultimate load bearing capacity would always be the same. The load bearing would just fluctuate between dead and wind loads. I hope I'm making sense.

Imagine a beam that has a uniform load on it. Now imagine the same beam being loaded at the ends. That is essentially what the outer columns were, just vertical instead of horizontal.

When using vectors, there are horizontal components and vertical components (also components in the z axis) that make up the load. Dead load (and live) are the loads in the vertical direction. Wind loads are the horizontal component. So, yes they are related to whole design capability.

Hope I made sense and it helps.