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i just met one of the original architects of the WTC

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posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 03:43 PM
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reply to post by Griff
 


does that take into consideration the action of the hat truss?



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 03:53 PM
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Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by Griff
 


I was talking about the physical possibility of transferring as much as 70% of all the loads through the core, but there's yet another ratio closer to 50/50 from NIST's numbers I guess.


You are on the right track. If we consider that the load in the core was probably 1.5 times that of a regular floor we get:

For simplicity, let's assume the regular floor had a load of 100 psf and the core a load of 150 psf. (NIST probably has the exact amounts calculated by Skilling et al. but for now, we can go with this)

Going by the areas:

Core is 11,608 SF add in the 12,418 SF from the floor area that the core would carry

Floor is 30,803 SF minus the 12,418 SF from the floor area that the core would carry

Plug our loads in and we get:

Core columns: (11,608 SF + 12,418 SF) x 150 psf = 3,603,900 pounds

Exterior columns: (30,803 SF - 12,418 SF) x 100 psf = 1,838,500 pounds

Total load would be 5,442,400 pounds

Core would be 66%

Exteriors would take 34%

Pretty close to what you calculated.

Fast calculation. Hope I didn't mess it up.



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 03:55 PM
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Originally posted by billybob
reply to post by Griff
 


does that take into consideration the action of the hat truss?


No. It does not.



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 05:14 PM
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reply to post by Griff
 


Found an error in my calculation. It should be:

Core columns: (11,608 SF x 150 psf) + (12,418 SF x 100 psf) = 2,983,000 pounds

Exterior columns: (30,803 SF - 12,418 SF) x 100 psf = 1,838,500 pounds

Total force would be 4,821,500 pounds

Core would be 62%

Exteriors would take 38%

Depending on how much the core loading was compared to the floor loading, we could possibly see a 70/30 split IMO.

Disclaimer: This is a very elementary way of computing this. We'd have to take each individual column (and how they are situated and what part of the truss they carry etc.) and calculate the loads from the real dead and live loads and then factor them into the above equations. But, this gives us a round about number.

Edit: Also, I used the word "load" when I should have said "force". Load (which is actually a pressure) is in psf (pounds per square foot) and is different than Force which is in pounds. Load equals force/area. Sorry if I've confussed anyone.


[edit on 12/2/2008 by Griff]



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 05:30 PM
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Originally posted by billybob
i just met one of the original architects of the WTC


A few questions. Where, when, how, and why? Just wondering how you got to ask him these questions. Not that I disbelieve you. I'm just curious.



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 06:27 PM
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Originally posted by Griff

Originally posted by billybob
i just met one of the original architects of the WTC


A few questions. Where, when, how, and why? Just wondering how you got to ask him these questions. Not that I disbelieve you. I'm just curious.


I think it's safe to say that BB talked to SOMEONE, so I wouldn't disbelieve him either.

But what the guy said - 4 core columns? telescoping? drive a spike through the ext columns?

Sounds to me like the guy is a fake, a liar, or nutty. Or perhaps a combo of all 3.


Also, did you ever do anything else with the woodstove thing? I haven't been here much lately - all the spyware and adware that ATS tries to load onto your computer had my anti spy/adware program lighting up like a Xmas tree every time I came here. Although it seems to be ok today.

ETA: I looked a little. WIKI - heat of combustion. Wood has 6000BTU/lb. So 40k BTU would need about 6.66lb of wood at 100%efficiency? Where were we with this problem? I can't even remember the thread any more....


[edit on 2-12-2008 by Seymour Butz]



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 07:11 PM
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Originally posted by Seymour Butz
Also, did you ever do anything else with the woodstove thing?

ETA: I looked a little. WIKI - heat of combustion. Wood has 6000BTU/lb. So 40k BTU would need about 6.66lb of wood at 100%efficiency? Where were we with this problem? I can't even remember the thread any more....



I haven't really thought about it since we were trying. I hit a roadblock that I couldn't get around (and actually just forgot about really). Maybe someone with more thermo experience can help out. I can't figure out how to correlate BTU directly into MWatts as listed by NIST. MWatts are a unit of energy (I believe off the top of my head) while BTU (British Thermal Units) are a thermal unit. I know a BTU equates into MWHr (MegaWattHour), but where does the hour come into play?

Or is it always BTU/Hr but just simplified into BTU? This is where I got stumped (edit: ha, no pun intended) because wood is listed as 6000BTU/lb and the stoves are listed as BTU/Hr. Are they the same units but just simplified? If so, then we can correlate them, but if not, the units don't make sense.

Even if we can correlate the BTUs into pounds of wood etc., we still run into the whole MWhr thing when it is listed in NISTs report as just MWatts. So, to be honest, I'm stumped.

[edit on 12/2/2008 by Griff]



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 09:16 PM
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reply to post by Griff
 


he is an artist, too. although he is 68 years old, and still a registered architect in Massachusetts, he has spent most of his life concentrating on art.

i met him here in toronto: metagallery.com...

he gave a three and a half hour presentation/lecture on his art. i went to lunch with him before that, because a friend of mine from rhode island knows him, and came up with him. i asked him questions about the WTC, and he actually prefaced his art lecture with the same tale.

you can probably find it online, somewhere, too.

i said floors 15 to 45 but it may have been 5 to 45.

he talked about the investigation, too, and remarked on how curious it was they never consulted emery and roth or himself about the collapse. you'd think going to the builders would make sense.

and, yes, he's a little 'kooky'. super fascinating guy. much of his art deals with inventions that can only exist in four dimensions or more. all klein bottles and mobius strips.

he has a blog, here: paul laffoley's blog

and, to the disbelievers, don't take every word so literally. i don't think he literally meant you could drive mountain climbing spikes into the perimeter columns. although, i bet you could through the aluminum cladding.



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 09:31 PM
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reply to post by billybob
 


Cool. Let us know if you remember anything more that he said. Too bad he didn't slip you the original documents.



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 09:37 PM
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here's paul saying it on radio

that's a link to him saying the same thing. the towers were designed with planned obsolescence in mind.

[edit on 2-12-2008 by billybob]



posted on Dec, 2 2008 @ 11:17 PM
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reply to post by TheRandom1
 




Originally posted by TheRandom1
Hmm... You don't know much about building demolition, if they plan to take it down, they will do it the fastest cheapest way possible, setting up charges and blowing it up in a controlled demolition,


Not according to Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org...


While controlled implosion is the method that the general public often thinks of when discussing demolition, it can be dangerous and is only used as a last resort when other methods are impractical or too costly.


But you are right about one thing. I don't know much about controlled demolitions, but then again, neither do you.


. . . they never take cranes and take it down piece by piece, not a building that big, it would take too much time and it would cost WAY too much. Think before you speak next time you say such nonsense.
-Lahara


You should practice what you preach.

Most people know that a building that big has never been taken down before. But in the era that the WTC was designed, that's exactly what they would have done, i.e., take it down with cranes.

(Personally, although I know that they can knock a building of the size of a WTC tower down with explosives, and in fact did so on 9/11, for the purposes of practical and safe building demolition, even today, I believe that at least half of the building would have been taken down by cranes in a real demolition, all things considered.)

You should remember that the alleged conversation between the architect and the construction guy would have taken place in the 1960's or possibly as late as 1971.

en.wikipedia.org...


The original World Trade Center was designed by Minoru Yamasaki in the early 1960s using an innovative tube-frame structural design for the twin 110-story towers. In gaining approval for the project, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to take over the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad which became the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH). Groundbreaking for the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966. The North Tower was completed in December 1970 and the South Tower was finished in July 1971.


At that time the world's tallest lawfully demolished building was brought down.

en.wikipedia.org...


The tallest lawfully-demolished building (of that era) was the 47-story Singer Building of New York City, which was built in 1908 and torn down in 1967-1968 to be replaced by One Liberty Plaza.


This building was not taken down in a controlled demolition using explosives. (It's demolition was being done as the construction of the World Trade Center began and was done in the normal way for the period.)

Note the way that Contolled Demolitions Inc. refer to their own efforts of the 1960's.

www.controlled-demolition.com...


As early as the 1960’s, Controlled Demolition Incorporated (CDI) was using precision explosive methods to bring problems associated with the demolition of tall, steel towers, down to controllable levels. The US Navy's plans for replacement of their Atlantic antenna array in Annapolis, Maryland called for the demolition of six (6), 600 foot tall towers, and one (1), 1,200 foot tall guyed tower.

Controlled Demolition Incorporated used bulk explosives to shear sections of supporting legs and anchor plates to permit the staged, controlled felling of the towers without risk to personnel or adjacent transmission operations to remain in use.


At that time explosives were regarded as an assist to the conventional methods of deconstruction of a building using wrecking balls, cranes, etc.

As of 1998 and until this time, in fact, according to the Contolled Demolition Inc. website. the tallest building ever imploded was the 439 foot tall Hudson Department Store building in Detroit.


CDI’s implosion of Hudson’s set three new records:

At 439 ft. tall Hudson’s is the tallest building ever imploded, eclipsing the record held by CDI since 1975 with the felling of the 361 ft. tall Mendez Caldiera Building in Sao Palo, Brazil.

At 439 ft. tall Hudson’s is the tallest structural steel building ever imploded, eclipsing the record CDI set in 1997 with the felling 344 sq. ft. tall #500 Wood Street Building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

At 2.2 Million square feet, Hudson’s is the largest single building ever imploded.



Here is a link describing the demolition from the Controlled Demolitions Inc. website.

www.controlled-demolition.com...

The description is worth a read because it goes into a fair amount of detail about the planning of such a controlled demolition. It's not simply about where to place the charges.

As of 2006 the second tallest building ever imploded was the LandMark Tower Building in Fort Worth, Texas, which was 380 feet tall (30 stories).

www.youtube.com...


LANDMARK TOWER (formerly Continental National Bank & The Texas Building) - 200 W. 7th St. - 1952; 1956/57 - Imploded March 18, 2006. At the time of demolition, it was the Second Tallest Building in the World to be Imploded by Controlled Demolition, Tallest Building in the State of Texas to Be Imploded, and the Tallest Building in the State of Texas to be Demolished. It was also the first time in Fort Worth's History that a former tallest building in the city was torn down. The Landmark Tower was 30 stories and 380 feet tall. At one time, it had the World Largest Digital Clock, Revolving Clock, and 4 Sided Sign. It also had one of the longest straight run fire escapes at 31 floors from the main roof to the ground.


Here is a description of the demolition of the tallest man made structure, the 1,202’-6” Omega radio tower in Buenos Aires, Argentina, ever brought down in a controlled demolition, again from the Controlled Demolition Inc. website.

www.controlled-demolition.com...=16&reqItemId=20030314111623

This shows that they can do a tall structure with precision. They undoubtedly have the expertise to have done the World Trade Center, but unfortunately if they did it they wouldn't be able to feature it on their world records page. That would be going too far, even for the Bushwhackers.


[edit on 2-12-2008 by ipsedixit]

[edit on 3-12-2008 by ipsedixit]



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 12:29 AM
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Originally posted by Griff
MWatts are a unit of energy (I believe off the top of my head) while BTU (British Thermal Units) are a thermal unit. I know a BTU equates into MWHr (MegaWattHour), but where does the hour come into play?


A watt is actually a unit of energy over time, so time is already taken into account. This confused the hell out of me, too. A watt is equal to a joule of energy per second. So 10kW is 10kJ every second, and if you run that much power for an hour, then you have 10kWh. A BTU is 1055 joules, and a BTU per second is 1055 watts. The next step is to define that amount of power exerted for an hour, which is 1.055kWh, but in the case of the BTUs I have no idea about those units.

I typed "btu per second hour" into Google and got this:


1 (btu per second) hour = 3 798 201.07 joules


And that happens to be 1 BTU (or 1055 Joules), multiplied by 60 (seconds in a minute), and then multiplied by 60 again (minutes in an hour) to get the equivalent amount of Joules (1055J x 60 x 60 = 3,798,000J). So if the Joules were divided back out over a period of 60 seconds times 60 minutes in an hour, you would have 1055 Joules per second for an hour, or 1055watt-hours, or 1.055kWh.

[edit on 3-12-2008 by bsbray11]



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 05:15 AM
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Originally posted by bsbray11
So 10kW is 10kJ every second, and if you run that much power for an hour, then you have 10kWh.


Thanks for trying to explain bsbray.

So, if NIST used 1.9 to 3.2 MWatts of energy for 30 minutes (1/2 hour), does that equate to 0.95 to 1.6 MWHr?

I'm still a little confused with these units.

Or better yet. Let me ask. What does 40,000 BTU/Hr equate to in MWatts?



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 01:59 PM
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Originally posted by Griff
So, if NIST used 1.9 to 3.2 MWatts of energy for 30 minutes (1/2 hour), does that equate to 0.95 to 1.6 MWHr?


If they used 1.9MW of power for 30 minutes, then thats 1.9MJ per second, x 60 to get to a minute's worth of that, x 30 more to get to 30 minutes, which is 6840 MJ total. Those can at least be converted to BTU, then divide by 3600 (60x60) and you have the equivalent steady BTU usage per second for that same period of time.

1 kWH = 3.6 MJ


Or better yet. Let me ask. What does 40,000 BTU/Hr equate to in MWatts?


I'm getting that that's 11.111... BTU a second. 11.111 BTU is 11.722 Joules, x 3600 is 42199.2 Watts or 42.2MW.

You might want to double check with someone else but I'm pretty sure that's right. The whole confusion is how they take the measure of time out and then add it back in. Watts take time into account, but Joules don't, and neither do BTU.



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 03:01 PM
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Originally posted by bsbray11
I'm getting that that's 11.111... BTU a second. 11.111 BTU is 11.722 Joules, x 3600 is 42199.2 Watts or 42.2MW.


Wouldn't that actually be 42.2 KW? And .0422 MW?

So, if one wood stove burning at 75% efficiency can produce .0422 MW then NIST used 1.9/.0442=43. 43 stoves worth in their test for the lower end? And 3.2/.0442=72. 72 stoves for the higher end?

Also, remember that an open air fire would only produce 5-10% efficiency of the burn.


While an open fire is a joy to watch, fireplaces are generally very inefficient - only around 5 - 10%.


www.greenlivingtips.com...

So, it would take about 7.5 to 15 times as much fuel for an open air fire to equal that of a wood stove.

That now becomes 332.5 to 645 for the lower end.

And 540 to 1080 for the higher end.

I'd say that's a lot of open air fires. Now each of these fires have an area of 1 SF (square foot).

The area of the test was 271.4 SF.

So, even the lower end of the open air fire would be more fire than the area would allow.

Now, can we put this to rest and conclude that NIST did in fact use a high energy output that would be hard for a real fire to accomplish? I think so.



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 03:18 PM
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i think it worthwhile to point out that the landmark tower took over twenty seconds to hit the ground after the first explosions.



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 03:27 PM
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Originally posted by Griff
Wouldn't that actually be 42.2 KW? And .0422 MW?


Yeah, that's what I was going for.



That now becomes 332.5 to 645 for the lower end.

And 540 to 1080 for the higher end.


Unrealistic, but someone brought up in that thread that this test was to calibrate/validate the computer simulations. They never actually tried to physically recreate what happened in the towers.



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 03:52 PM
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Originally posted by bsbray11
They never actually tried to physically recreate what happened in the towers.


Very true. I know this is one of the main reason why Dr. Quintiere has spoken up against NIST. I would think he should know what he is talking about.

Thanks for the info as I now have a little bit more of a handle on these conversions.



posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 04:07 PM
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Originally posted by billybob
i think it worthwhile to point out that the landmark tower took over twenty seconds to hit the ground after the first explosions.


Everyone knows the air in Texas is very buoyant. It will even support a lead weighted dummy with a lot of air in his head.

I don't want to derail a technical thread with the musings of an amateur, but I think if you had catastrophic failure on a few floors of a WTC tower you would have a result something like the one in the video below. I know the situation is not exactly the same, but I think it makes very clear what happens when you don't put enough explosives in the building. The piece falling off doesn't come apart, unlike the upper portions of the buildings on 9/11.

What was below the failure would be unscathed (more or less) and what was above the failure would fall off the building.




posted on Dec, 3 2008 @ 04:57 PM
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Originally posted by Griff

1-So, if one wood stove burning at 75% efficiency can produce .0422 MW then NIST used 1.9/.0442=43. 43 stoves worth in their test for the lower end? And 3.2/.0442=72. 72 stoves for the higher end?

2-Also, remember that an open air fire would only produce 5-10% efficiency of the burn.


While an open fire is a joy to watch, fireplaces are generally very inefficient - only around 5 - 10%.


3-Now, can we put this to rest and conclude that NIST did in fact use a high energy output that would be hard for a real fire to accomplish? I think so.


1- My head about asploded trying to follow you guys. Good work though. So in woodstoves, it really isn't anywhere near what the source was saying. Interesting.

2- I'm not sure, but I think those eff numbers are the amount of heat released into the room. With fireplaces, most of the heat is lost up the chimney. Woodstoves are more eff cuz of the fan blowing the air into the room etc. But here's where we'll be at issue - there's a difference in how much heat is being released into the room with a woodstove and how much heating of the box there is. I think that in this case, the issue is how much is available to heat the BOX that the fire is contained in. The floors/tower structure formed the box for the example, I believe. How do we figure this into the equation now?
In reality, ALL the heat is released into the building, minus the heat escaping into the surrounding atmosphere.

3- I don't think so. If we compare apples to apples, then bsbray's source is waaaaay off. 43/72 woodstoves is NOT 270.

Also, how do you reconcile your assertion of using an open air fire with the common assertion that the smoke from the towers indicates an air limitation on the fires? Personally, I agree with this, I see fires that have a limited air supply due to the fewer number of open windows, and the sheer distance involved for that air to get from the exterior to the available fuel. The pics one sees of the Madrid fire shows that most, if not all, of the windows were shattered. Plus, when you figure that the entire floor area at Madrid was about the size of the towers' cores, you expect that the fire has a good air supply.




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