i just met one of the original architects of the WTC, page 2

reply to post by Griff

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

Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by Griff

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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.

Originally posted by billybob
reply to post by Griff

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

No. It does not.

reply to post by Griff

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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]

reply to post by Griff

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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.

reply to post by billybob

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

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]

reply to post by TheRandom1

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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]

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.

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.

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