Why Should the WTC Towers Suffer Complete Collapse?

If the following is a true picture of an impact hole in WTC 1, then a fairly accurate visual analysis can be made of what potential floor damage was done on only that side of the building:

www.geocities.com...

Yet, there was no sign of collapse until both towers began to molecularly disintegrate as shown to us by media broadcasters.

Please do note how clean cut and vertical so much of the two exterior steel frames are in the picture. No actual indications of anything impacting from the outside in. None.

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Originally posted by Richard Gizinu

If you care to counter the sources of iron, go right ahead.

i explained the iron already. Flyash contains iron in those exact %age. There's nothing interesting about it. Concrete has flyash. Drywall sometimes has flyash. Like I said, the list goes on.

I also stated that the office fires burned for 50 and 100 minutes. Your question about incinerating in 15 seconds is therefore a foolish one. You're asking a question about something that wasn't stated by me. Therefore you're constructing a strawman. I don't deal with people that do that. If you want to ask logical questions that come from my statements however, go ahead.

So today's flavor is flyash, last week it was a big building crushing the stuff to particulate. Now you drag out a strawman, but you offer whatever suits your argument du jour. You talk tough about logic but offer none, and you came here to argue and derail, we had a nice merry-go-round about welds in which you ended up attacking Griff for speculating about a position you initially held, and now you're on to this. Sound and fury, and that's pretty much it. Haven't seen one sole link to support any of your dismissive claims, and you know, I don't care who you deal with, you came to this thread straight from signing up on this site, so it seems you want to be here pretty bad, but you're quite free to leave it too.

Also, you're asking a question of removing drywall, concrete, etc from the analysis. And then you ask "look at the iron". When you remove those other materials, you also remove some iron with each one. So again, your question is an ill informed and foolish one.

The USGS analyzed the fireproofing, it's on the chart. There's trace of iron. How much iron is in drywall? Show me a figure. Post a link. And what about all the other metals on that list? Why does USGS cite building furnishings, copper pipes and wire, computer components, etc. as the sources? They're also ill-informed and foolish?

Originally posted by bsbray11
[
Oh, so you want to go back to this? You want to look at the footprints of the towers again and tell me that most of the towers are still there, sitting in a pile at the bottom?

Then I intend on putting you on ignore, because your whole reason for posting here is arrogant. You're not as smart as you think you must be.

Well, therein lies a problem. There are so many CT theories that it's impossible to keep each one of "you" separate. I have no idea what your specific ideas are, so I have no way of proceeding.

Maybe, but I know my limitations. Ignore should be the way to go then. I wouldn't you to get your neurotransmitters all off kilter by responding to my posts.

Originally posted by Richard Gizinu
Well, therein lies a problem. There are so many CT theories that it's impossible to keep each one of "you" separate.

You just called me a liar for saying that most of the mass in the towers was sent outside of the footprints (something you can actually SEE in photographs -- this is ridiculous), [SNIP]




*Moderator edit* - Please review this thread Dealing with 9/11 Madness and note that off topic comments, or personal attacks are not tolerated.

[edit on 27-1-2008 by dbates]

Originally posted by Richard Gizinu
Well, therein lies a problem. There are so many CT theories that it's impossible to keep each one of "you" separate. I have no idea what your specific ideas are, so I have no way of proceeding.

Well sry bud but therein lies your problem. It's not our fault you want to concentrate on nothing but knocking down hypotheses, that you think you can easily refute, instead of debating the real issue of global collapse. You're scared to discus the real evidence, like the impossibility of a global collapse of 3 buildings, one of which was a different design, without *at least* showing some kind of resistance.

But oh well, what was that about welds?...

[edit on 27/1/2008 by ANOK]

Folks, lets all discuss the issues, and not each other. It's not hard to tell the difference, issues are never addressed with a pronoun.

There are good points being made on both sides, and I don't want this thread to get bogged down in minor name calling like some middle school playground, because then I can't hear the music over the crowd noise.

Besides, issues are are where you show the worth of your different positions.

Well since the grade-school epithets are flying fast and furious here, why don't we now do some grade-school math to put things into perspective?

WTC 1 was 110 stories and 1368' tall.

Standard floor-to-floor height was 13' 4'.

The plane impacted at floors 94-98; I hope we can all agree that the middle floor is 96.

Collapse time is cited between 11 secs. (NIST) and 16 secs. A reasonable analysis here cites 15 sec. for total collapse from the antenna starting to drop and 12 sec. for collapse from the level of the 94th floor. Let's be generous and add 1.5 sec. and call it 13.5 sec.

So:

96 fl. x 13.25' = 1280'

1280' / 13.5 sec. = 94.8 ft/sec

94.8 ft/sec / 13.33 ft/floor = 7.1 floors/sec

That obviously means the equivalent of a 7 story building was being destroyed every second. That is faster than it takes to type "every second." In fact, the speed of the collapse is 64.6 mph. (1280'/13.5 sec x 60 sec/1 min = 5688.9'/min x 60 min/1 hr = 341,333'/hr / 5280'/mile = 64.6 mph)

That is roughly 1/4 of the terminal velocity of a dense, compact body, and if WTC 1 was driving down an interstate, it would have had received a speeding ticket. (And if it talked up, it probably would have been tasered, but that's another story.)


[edit on 28-1-2008 by gottago]

Here it would have been breath-tested as well

We use SI (MKS) units here so:
If a solid mass had fallen freely from 1280' (390m) it would hit the ground in 8.9 secs at a terminal velocity of 87m/s (~195mph)
The average speed of a freefall is 43.8m/sec as opposed to the measured 28.8m/sec so resistance is apparent there. My observation of the collapses shows they accelerated only to the point where the resistance and momentum reached equilibrium and the rest of the collapse went at a relatively constant speed from then on or at least with a greatly retarded acceleration rate. The collapse could only accelerate to that terminal speed with the aid of the upper building section acting as a pile driver until it was broken up.

I can only go by observation (what else is there)

One or two videos of the event showed an interesting phenomenom through gaps in the dust/smoke cloud that possibly explains the acceleration reducing to a relatively steady collapse velocity. There appeared to be a 'bathtub' effect (for want of a better name) going on with the outer walls containing a relatively constant quantity of material, therefore constant mass of material driving the collapse. At a height of 3-5 floors above the collapse front the excess material was spilling over the edge of the outer walls tearing the sections off keeping the contained mass fairly constant.

No doubt a controversial observation and I'm happy to be proven wrong.
It's just what it looked like to me after all and please - these are my own thoughts in my own words and not influenced by any published reports.
[/disclaimer off]

None for some basic high school physics.

Arriving at equilibrium would imply conservation of energy. That means pause to break free every support, on every floor, when dropping. That never happened, or the timing would have been in minutes not 10 seconds or less. If people wish to use any number up to 16 no problem.

Conservation of energy would have allowed nowhere near 16 seconds. Conservation of energy would have prevented molecular disintegration which did take place. That was self-evident as the buildings were disintegrating before our eyes.

Did our eyes lie? Or did some people see something altogether different than the rest of us in the international community? The dropping of the twin towers was televised all over the world.

[edit on 28-1-2008 by OrionStars]

reply to post by OrionStars


Edit to previous post. The first word should be Now not None.

Hmmm silence......

How much mass was in that dynamic 'bathtub'?

Just using round figures and assuming it was 3 floors high on average:
The building makeup was 60% steel at 8000kg/m^3, 40% concrete at 2400kg/m^3 and I'll use a round figure of 10% of the overall for miscellaneous material like drywall and furnishings etc at ~1000kg/m^3. It all works out to about 5000kg/m^3 as a compacted mass so allowing for 50% aeration it comes to ~2500kg/m^3 of a seething, grinding mass travelling at about 30m/sec.

The building dimensions of ~60m x 60m and the average 3 floor height of ~12m gives a 'bathtub' volume of ~43000m^3 with the above density of 2500kg/m^3 indicates a possible overall dynamic mass in the vicinity of 100,000,000kg or 100,000 tons.

Was any floor of either building capable of arresting 100,000 tons moving at 30m/sec?
It would be like a brick falling through tight sheets of paper and no quantum mechanics or molecular disintegration are required.

The 100,000 ton figure actually fits the observation of 80% of material landing outside the walls considering the overall building initial mass of ~500,000 tons.

What momentum and velocity speed from weight and mass is needed, when buildings are disintegrated in front of everyone's eyes? Weight and mass only matters for those calculating the electromagnetic energy needed to disintegrate buildings the size of the twin towers.

If I don't get torn to pieces by an angry mob first I also have some conventional ideas about those impressive ejections of heavy chunks of building matter - for later though

reply to post by Pilgrum


I agree.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
For putting it into words I could not.

reply to post by WraothAscendant
Thanks for the support
Still dusting off the asbestos armor though

Part 3
About the energetic ejection of heavy material over impressive distances:
I must stress that this is all just my opinion so please don't assume I'm trying to make myself out to be an expert in these things.

It all comes back to the 'bathtub' again and all the chaotic activity taking place inside it involving very large to very small sections of steel tumbling around and taking part in the impact zone.

Applying some of the laws proposed by Mr Newton, namely the conservation of momentum and transfer of kinetic energy through an elastic material like structural steel:
Imagine a massive section of core column moving downward at 30m/sec and, to be realistic, have it at an angle of less than 90 degrees (let's say 45 degrees) when it impacts a solid part of the lower intact core at the impact zone violently with a resultant velocity vector through its length of 15m/sec. If that massive piece of steel has a mass of m and at the instant it strikes there is another less massive piece of material in intimate contact with the opposite end, say having a mass of m/10, consider how the kinetic shock is transferred remembering that the masses are constant.

With a little math it appears that the velocity component of transferred momentum is proportional to the square root of the ratio of the masses so in this example sqrt(m1/m2) is 3.16 which implies the smaller mass m2 could be shot out (under perfect conditions) at 3.16 x 15 = 47m/sec (if the larger piece came to a complete standstill). Things could become truly ballistic as the mass ratio increases and it's simply an example of random events taking place in a chaotic environment.

There's a simple way to demonstrate this principle:
Take a basketball and a tennis ball and drop them so that the tennis ball is sitting directly on top of the basketball when it hits the ground.

Just my observations



[edit on 29/1/2008 by Pilgrum]

[edit on 29/1/2008 by Pilgrum]

reply to post by Pilgrum


Pilgrim,

First off thanks for a post free of attitude and condescension as its driving argument. I think you were met with silence because most on this thread are now applying salve after getting burned from hotheadedness. You post thoughtfully and explain you ideas rationally and ground them with calculations we can all examine. It is a refreshing change from those who load their initial posts with scorn, and then complain of ill treatment in rebuttal. So thanks.

The 'dynamic bathtub' theory is quite interesting and I see exactly what you describe in my mind's eye. But I don't see compelling evidence for it when examining the debris field of the site.

Here is a very high res. military recon photo of the site. I haven't been able to identify when it was taken, but judging by the progress in clean-up on West street, I would say in January '02. The plaza area has yet to be dealt with and it documents the debris patterns of core and perimeter columns.


The north tower core columns fall in two main fields, to the south and west. The south tower core falls diagonally northwest toward the north tower across the center of the plaza.

This has nothing to do with your theory, but is a curious coincidence that the major debris from both towers fall toward each other, minimizing damage to surrounding buildings.

In relation to the bathtub, you can see that core sections have their greatest concentrations to the immediate south of the north tower, outside its footprint, and to the north and northwest of the south tower.

The amount of debris and core columns inside the footprints is not at all what I would expect if the perimeter walls were acting in this bathtub manner and cradling the core columns to drive the collapses. You'd expect to find two mounds over the footprints, but the photos show no such accumulation.

In fact the northeastern half of the north tower's footprint is pretty much a divot--there's less mass there than outside to the south and east. Same for the southwest part of the south tower's footprint. most of the columns are outside the footprints in the plaza.

Also, you have the obliteration of the lower cores into the sub-basements. There is one concrete reinforced stub remaining from the north tower, but the south tower core is actually another divot. In your bathtub theory the core sections would topple and collect in a ring on the floors, the weak link, and drive them down, with the perimeter walls acting as the "tub."

You would expect the end result to be two mounds with core stubs rising above them, since they were by far the strongest parts of the buildings. The last 20 or so stories were built to carry 80+% of the buildings above. Instead you find divots, and most of the core columns are splayed out in the plaza, outside the footprints. So, the great majority of the core members fell outside the area of the cores, yet the lower cores are also obliterated. In sum, the theory, though elegant, doesn't match the evidence.

[edit on 29-1-2008 by gottago]

If a core support is cut at 45 degrees, it willnot be impacting other core supports or the bottom of what was once an intact core support. At 45 degrees, the top will be sliding off the bottom and not return to its original position. It will be the floors being hit not center core supports. Double steel central core units, in both towers, had to have both steel supports symmetrically cut, in order to begin to free fall or even topple, without heavy duty floor-by-floor conservation of energy taking place.

Kabam.......Kabam........Kabam......................... Pancake effect and highly potential toppling instead.