Professional engineer Jon Cole cuts steel columns with thermate, debunks Nat Geo & unexpectedly repr

reply to post by plube


In your own source, look at the velocity. After 8 seconds it is 78.4m/s. Do you think that means it has fallen 8sx78.4m/s=627.2m?

reply to post by -PLB-


no not at all....it is still undergoing acceleration...remembering we are talking about it being in a vacuum....did you not see what i typed....but you are saying that in your achieving 90m/s under freefall conditions...not in a vacuum your implying this in realworld senario....that is assuming the said object is just going to keep accelerating...and yes i know exactly what my example was stating....it is stating velocity due to acceleration as instantaneous velocity which take me right back to the point of manipulating the numbers and taking the measured velocity of the time it took for the building to collapse and turning it into the instantaneous velocity of the acceleration of the mass before it impacts onto the lower structure.
like i said to you before....you only agrue semantics....now did or did not the building fall in approx 10s traveling a distance of approx 300m simple...just answer the question which was asked.....and don't try to through off the question with a bunch of crud.
We are not talking instantaneous velocity here.

reply to post by plube


You still don't seem to grasp it. The subject was the velocity at which the debris hits the ground. This is the instantaneous velocity, not the average velocity which you calculated. The average velocity isn't really useful for anything. Again, this is not semantics, but a fundamental insight required to understand the subject.

Originally posted by pteridine
I see you are still avoiding explanation. What happens when the paint-on thermite explodes? Aside from the fact that it won't even burn completely, much less explode, why would an explosive version leave a thin layer on a target beam any more than the deflagrative version? How do you propose that a layer of red paint between the explosion and the target would survive while the target beam was destroyed?

None of the material they were looking at has been proven to be paint, and otherwise you're asking questions that have to be answered by an actual investigation, and not by me. You want to say it's impossible to achieve something, but you can't prove the negative. So instead you ask a million questions about how it could possibly be done when we're not even in agreement about what the substance even is in the first place.

Jones' fantasy breaks down at many levels when the details must be explained.

And the NIST report doesn't? But the difference is, the NIST report was the result of an official, multi-million dollar investigation, that ultimately proved nothing. These papers likes Jones' and Harrit's are nothing but preliminary findings on a subject that has been sorely neglected in any investigation since day 1. You keep wanting to say it's just paint chips but videos posted elsewhere for you went into great detail of the differences between those chips and paint.

Originally posted by FDNY343
You want to know why nobody bothered to investigate that further?

It's simple really.

MANY many things go "BOOM" in a fire! I can name a few if you would like. There are at least a dozen.

That's not a reason to refuse to investigate. That's a reason to investigation. There could be at least a dozen things, so... what was causing all of them? "It could have been at least a dozen things" is the kind of non-answer I would expect from someone with a clue. We're not just talking about stuff near the fires either, we're talking on various floors, in the basements, below the 9th floor in the North half of WTC7.

You're right, nobody really knows EXACTLY what they [the explosions] were. However, here is how the scientific process works.

Someone hears a boom.

Now, what might have caused the boom?
Here's a small list.

HVAC equipment including condensors and compressors.
Large oil-filled motors (Elevators and HAVC equipment)
Industrial cleaning supplies
CRT type monitors and TVs.
UPS equipment
Electrical transformers

Can we rule these out?

Let's see... blowing up randomly in the underground basement levels (according to various basement testimonies), the blast traveling up the elevator shafts (according to NYPD Lt. William Walsh's testimony), and then causing ceiling tiles to be blown off of the lobby roof, and lobby windows to be shattered, and people with all of their skin burned off laying outside of the WTC1 lobby, who had not fallen to their deaths. And that's just one event that various evidence shows.

Yes, that would rule all but the most bizarrely unlikely coincidences, or a bomb. There would have been no damage from the aircraft impacts in the basements to cause anything to explode anyway, and if you think any damage did spread from all that way then I'll be anxiously (or not) waiting to see what evidence convinces you of that.

What type of UPS equipment explodes and destroyed a steel and concrete door, like stationary engineer Mike Pecoraro described? What kind of engine explosion would do it, either? Electrical transformer explosions require drastic current overloading that isn't checked by breakers and spew sparks.

So, we will add explosives into the mix.

Can we rule them out?

Yes. No large booms heard at the same time by hundreds of people, all over lower Manhattan, and most likely, even into Hoboken.

How do you know they weren't heard by hundreds of people at the same time? Did you interview everyone that was there? You have literally scores of witnesses who say there were explosions already, and it would be really reaching to pretend that every single person who heard them would have their little anecdote on the internet so that they're all already accounted for. Even the large number that already exist, you totally dismiss out-of-hand by saying it must have been something else, based on no evidence at all.

No residue found by the hundreds of dogs that were there, that were trained to detect them.
No physical evidence of an explosive

Both of these are erroneous. No one looked for explosive residues. Dogs are only trained to detect certain kinds of common explosives. Scientists have already turned up suspicious substances that can't be verified as any kind of known building material, but I'm sure you have your reasons for dismissing all of that too.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Hmmmmmm. Nope, I guess you're right, there's absolutely no evidence or even reason to believe that explosives were used at the WTC.

Not when you cannot rule out the other dozens of things that go boom in a fire.

There wasn't fire in the basements last time I checked.

There wasn't fire in many of the places people testified to there being explosions.

Not many things just go "boom" without a fire. And once again you kick and scream the whole way to admitting what would naturally be the #1 suspect of something that causes explosions during an extremely significant "terrorist" attack.

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by pteridine
I see you are still avoiding explanation. What happens when the paint-on thermite explodes? Aside from the fact that it won't even burn completely, much less explode, why would an explosive version leave a thin layer on a target beam any more than the deflagrative version? How do you propose that a layer of red paint between the explosion and the target would survive while the target beam was destroyed?

None of the material they were looking at has been proven to be paint, and otherwise you're asking questions that have to be answered by an actual investigation, and not by me. You want to say it's impossible to achieve something, but you can't prove the negative. So instead you ask a million questions about how it could possibly be done when we're not even in agreement about what the substance even is in the first place.

In fact, it has not been proven to be anything other than paint. That small problem aside, why would an explosive version leave a thin layer on a target beam any more than the deflagrative version? You suggested that exploding thermite may somehow allow that to happen. Jones' explanation that somehow a thin layer of thermite would survive when it is between a main charge and the target makes no sense, either.

Show off your great technical skills and explain how that could be possible.

reply to post by -PLB-


Just to show you i grasp it just fine your talking about the velocity at any given point in time....so we take your example shall we....400m after free fall due to acceleration due to gravity the velocity is 90m/s yes i would accept that in a vacuum after say 9s of freefall....as that object is still under going acceleration...You see....no problem...did you quantify your statement...no....now did the object in question...(12 floor upper block)...just fall without any kind of resistance for 400m.......NO.
That is the whole point your failing to grasp my friend....i don't have to show derivitives to explain things....as my physic teacher always says.....do the physics and leave the maths to the mathmeticians...(don't worry i quite cappable of the maths).
now Bazants paper....the ONLY time that the said bject is in absolute freefall is gues when....right at the beggining....this is the point when there is no resistance acting on the block from below...the only time that it is in optimal freefall...so lets keep all thing optimal...and pretend we live in a vacuum shall we,,,, we shall call the block rigid structure RS.....we shall the comprimised floor Damaged Structure DS and the Lower Structure LS
Now according to Bazant RS is in freefall for two floors now we are going to leave this in a vacuum so RS falls 18m Approx +- .5m so therfore by the time it impacts the LS after passing through DS it's velocity at time of impact is...you answer this question for me...because i can.
Now once RS impacts LS what should occur....IT should decelerate....then as it proceeds through LS it should accelerate.. once it comprimises a floor on LS and then Decelerate again this should occur until all the potential energy in the falling is transfered into the LS....but is this what is observed...NO....it is ungoing constant acceleration throughout the process....but guess what it will not achieve the accelerations you are talking about over the 400m....
Now because i am explaining things in a fashion so people understand...and have no need to use derivitives or calculus in this type of forum you just assume i have not a clue.....you see it still comes back to the Question....What happen to the resistance that should be imparted on RS from LS and what has happened the the laws of physics when there is not any conservation of momentum or energy.
you see...THE ONLY way is for the resistance to be removed....but heck what would i know...i should just believe everything you say right...Dont think so.
now then the south tower...an Even stranger monster....the RS is undergoing rotation....then the rotation STOPS....It did not just drop floors...it was behaving as one would expect...then guess what.....the ONLY way to stop the rotation was.....Guess.....Remove all resistance....because that is what was happenng....the LS was resisting the RS...so It's only option was to begin to rotate....but the rotion stops and the RS falls pretty much straight down....hmmmm strange how that all works just great if the resistance of the LS is removed....so you see....the models that would show the observed would be ones that remove Resistance at given points...and that would work with how the collapses really happened.

reply to post by plube


At least it seems you realize that your 30m/s figure was incorrect, although you don't admit it. Instead you try to switch the subject. The subject was the speed the debris hits the ground. Why is it so hard for you to say "yes I was wrong, the average velocity I calculated was irrelevant."? You don't have to worry anyone will disqualify you as an authority in physics, as anyone with a background in physics already has. It is just a matter of ego. I also don't have any problem with admitting that "close to the speed of sound" was an over the top exaggeration, and not really a clever remark to make in a discussion like this.

Anyhow, the resistance subject you are dragging in right now was already addressed by me some posts ago. The paper you linked found a fit at a resistance equivalent to 75% of the core load capacity. I explained why this could easily have happened as the top section fell on the floors, not supporting columns. The supporting columns didn't had to fail, and there is indisputable proof a significant portion of them didn't. So no sabotage was needed. Mystery solved.

reply to post by -PLB-


you are so wrong my 30m/s is not incorrect for the velocity of the collapse from start to finish...so why would i admit what your trying to say....the distance traveled and the time taken are correct...but you tried to twist what was being said and move onto instantaneous volocity while it is undergoing acceleration....so don't try to put words in that were not there...go back and read.

reply to post by -PLB-


did you read the discussion it tried to find a fit but in both models it failed ....even at 75% of load.....wow you just dont get it do you....i know exactly what the paper i linked to you is saying....it took Bazants model and tried to see if it would fit...but in both cases it did not......model b was a closer fit...but it is not what the observed data showed....i am so glad others can read with open minds.....because you fail on all accounts from your statments....you say to quantify...you say physics is not your area of expertise....you say you are a Electrical Engineer you say you have a masters...and yet you do not comprehend what is stated to you.
you do not come back with evidence and you do not looks at the whole picture.....you try to break things down into singularites even people staements to get it to read the way your want it too....don't worry i know the part where it says it fits...but it does not apply to the observed.....just keep reading you might just come to understand what is being said because as i said to you before ...when you put in the effort...to back up what you imply....i will give you the more respect you might deserve.....but as of yet....your staments still do not hold water....because the impact within the two floor drop senaraio just maybe pushes 19m/s.....so don't even try to say that 90m/s reflects the observed and it does not even come into play in Bazants paper.

reply to post by plube


I don't really think you are able to grasp what I am saying so I don't think you can give a sensible comment on it. Either that or you choose to ignore it as it doesn't fit you world view. I think that must be why you are constantly attacking my person and background instead. How many times by now have you brought up my engineering background?

The fact you do not realize why your 30m/s figure is wrong is a strong indication you are completely out of your league. If you have any response that concerns the contents of my argument, feel free to post it. But currently you are not even touching it, and it is a bit useless for me to reply when you do not address my arguments.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b1da7d583d92.jpg[/atsimg]

Lets look yet again shall we....we will use my work....because it will be easier...remember .25sec intervals here

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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2e157a3b53ff.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cf280c1dd0da.jpg[/atsimg]

Now here we are at one sec into the collapse....it has fell approx 8m so is it safe to apply the numbers i have showed it is still accelerating...it has traversed the two floors already...it should be impacting the LS at this point....lets move onto 1.25 sec and see now are we still accelerating.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5cb051ae9222.jpg[/atsimg]

yes it still is...hmmm interesting now at this point in time there should be serious signs of deceleration...the LS should be excerting resistance....there should be a conservation of momentum.

That concludes our loook at Bazant et al (11) structural model none of the phenomena that the model pridicts are present in The Observation after floor 2. If Bazant structural model,the maximum force is =2.6g the collapse will tend to balance at a frequency of just over three floors a second..(which my model shows)..as the resisting force balances the applied force. We have shown that if signifigant structural is met,it will cause the collapse to proceed with velocities approaching terminal velocity,which for the model of the Bazant wave we've used is 11.5m/s +-0.5m/s around the terminal belocity. If the mass is not accreting at 100% then the terminal velocity falls as the stronger structure in subsequently lower floors will increase the resisting force relative to the applied force. As we see no evidence of this behaviour in The Observation,therefore all 12 floors impacted have an average resistance

Originally posted by plube
yes it still is...hmmm interesting now at this point in time there should be serious signs of deceleration...the LS should be excerting resistance....there should be a conservation of momentum.

Deceleration is only momentarily, even according to the paper you linked to.

The explanation for the lack of observed deceleration proposed in the paper is totally absurd by the way. They suggest that the explosives have spread the mass of the floor homogeneously throughout the volume of the floor. That makes not sense whatsoever, from any perspective. That is just pure fantasy. My explanation: the top section is not a perfect rigid body and will suffer from elasticity, dampening the effects of the impact. Voilà, another mystery solved, without the need of any kind of delusional fantasies.

reply to post by -PLB-


Wow problem solved ....your absolutely right because the Bazant wave says that there should be structural resistance....but the Emperical data shows there is not...yup we can finally agree...problems solved....Bazants paper is completely wrong.....in it being used as a model for the observed events of 9/11.....I am so glad we have finally agreed......

Originally posted by plube
Bazants paper is completely wrong.....in it being used as a model for the observed events of 9/11.....I am so glad we have finally agreed......

Not "finally", I have been saying this all along, repeatedly. It is also clearly stated in his papers, also repeatedly. Bazant even explains the elastic behavior separately, and explains why it is not necessary for his model. Did you ever even read his work? Anyway, lets hope you finally realize that Bazants model was not meant to model the observations accurately.

reply to post by -PLB-


i have read his paper over and over....not just the first one that got such a beating by peer review...but also the second resubmitted paper that he says it does not need to fit the the actuall events...lmao....that was a way of geting out of the poor reviews he had got...not only that....I have written to him....you know what the reply was...he will no longer discuss the events of 9/11....lmao.....now what kind of attitude is that...the paper was written to model the collapse...It failed badly....had to be revised...but hey now you are saying it does not even have to fit the collapse.....amazing.....so NIST blindly put it's faith in an explaination that does not even have to fit the actual events....i now have so much faith in the reports...thank you soooo very much.

reply to post by plube


His paper contained a model that was most optimistic for survival. We all know that wasn't what really happened. But when a model that is most optimistic for survival shows progressive collapse, a more realistic model that is less optimistic for survival will also show progressive collapse. You don't need to make the model more accurate in order to prove that point. Whether you want Bazants model to predict the observed details doesn't change that.

reply to post by -PLB-


wow this bit about it being not rigid...that is the premise of Bazant report...the RS has to remain rigid now you use the word elastic like it is a bungee cord...It is not....the steel becomes elastic due to thermal heating...when it is hot enough the steel becomes elastic....then when the heat is removed the steel returns to it's original shape.....now when it does not return to it's original shape it is now plastic...that is why Bazant describes the buckling of columns as plastic hinges....did i read the reports....my god.....i have i think everyone Bazant et al have written....and have read vigorously...not only that i have evey report and peer review that i have been able to obtain and read.....It is what i do for a living it is nescessary for me to know and understand them.
you see...i have no doubt in my mind you are not who you pretend to be....but i still engage in conversation with you because the more rediculous statements you come up with the better....now the Bazant Verdue report in 2006 was complete back peddling to try to distant themselves from the 2002 bazant Zhou report....yet you say it was not ment to model what occur in WTC yet all the numbers and theory is based on Data from the said events....now...when an Engineer emails someone and asks for explainations on their reports most Engineers are more than happy to reply as it feeds our ego's.....
When you do work you are proud of you like to shout it out...but then being human we all make mistakes...and we take those mistakes and take them onboard.....but has Bazant done that...nope...because he was well exposed for his jumping into the fray to try to defend the undefendable....more fool him.
now when engineers ask for replies because it does pertain to the industry and affects our future work he is almost obliged to provide details and answers because it affects future planning and construction and materials to be used in projects forthcoming.
as Engineers we do not like when our structures fail for any reason.....we are proud of our work....and have every right to be.
sorry my friend....the Bazant report was specifically written to address what occured in WTC.

just to show you.....read the words OUR PREVIOUS NEGLECT

[qutoe]Since the top part of the South Tower tilted @Fig. 3~a!#, many
people wonder: Why didn't the upper part of the tower fall to the
side like a tree, pivoting about the center of the critical ¯oor?
@Fig. 3~b!#. To demonstrate why, and thus to justify our previous
neglect of tilting, is an elementary exercise in dynamics.

now that is pure back peddling this is from bazant journal of engineering paper.

go look it up as i have it on my pc.....everything is based on the wtc collapse.....wow....you better read it.



NOTE: I eargerly always await more and yet more addendum to Bazants reports.....they are always trying to cover their A$$es because NIST will make them the scapegoats in the end

Originally posted by -PLB-
reply to post by plube

 

His paper contained a model that was most optimistic for survival.

Please show the reason you say this...everything he has done was over simplify so the survival was not an option...so please just show where you got this. If you are going to make such sweeping generalization please back it up.

because the last words i read in one of his many addendum was they were LISTEN his words....DOOMED TO FAIL....watch.

this is the applied force in bazants paper

For our purpose, we may assume that all the impact forces go
into the columns and are distributed among them equally. Un-
likely though such a distribution may be, it is nevertheless the
most optimistic hypothesis to make because the resistance of the
building to the impact is, for such a distribution, the highest. If the
building is found to fail under a uniform distribution of the impact
forces, it would fail under any other distribution. According to
this hypothesis, one may estimate that C'71 GN/m ~due to un-
availability of precise data, an approximate design of column
cross sections had to be carried out for this purpose!.

from same document as above.....

now lets look at the actual numbers....shall we....and you just keep on believing Bazant.

The measurements of the roof’s actual fall do not show any abrupt negative change in velocity,
so it appears that there was no impulse and thus no amplified load. It seems that Bazant was
simply theorizing that there had to be one to make sense of the collapse in a natural way. It is
also important to note here that Bazant was off by a factor of ten in his calculation of the
stiffness of the columns, with his 71 GN/m estimate. [8] The actual stiffness, calculated here
using the actual column cross sections, is approximately 7.1 GN/m. (see Appendices B and C)
[19][20] This error caused Dr. Bazant to significantly overestimate the potential amplifying
effect of the impulse or jolt, which he claims occurred after a one story fall of the upper block.

the missing jolt but don't worry Bazant has come up with yet another addendum on that.

And once again in this paper the issue is the fact that there isn't any resistance being involved....hmmmm so strange since i have been saying that the whole time.

Now i will say one thing to you...your recomended video has worked wonders in showing what did not occur in the collapse ...so thank you for that.

also interesting...he is off by a factor of ten....suprise....

also if you look at the data sheet figure 3 third sheet...Calculated velocity after 3 sec...one sec after the data i gave you in the former about the impact area....listen carefully....68.65 ft/sec.....or approx 25m/s

where have we heard that number before....but lets not get carried away as i did say i was talking about the overall velocity from start to finish of the collapse so i will not take any credit there...but hmmm quite the coincidence .....but definately...the entire building is not...impacting velocities of 90m/s on all points of the building....as i said If an object was dropped from the tower and you pointed out the impact velocity being approx 90m/s...in a vacuum does not apply now does it. But i am sure you still believe it does.

anyways....please read on...and don't worry have you ever heard the term...backing a dead horse....because that is what your doing by backing Bazant's work...he was off by guess what....a factor of 10. 71gn/m compared to 7.1gn/m

Originally posted by plube

For our purpose, we may assume that all the impact forces go
into the columns and are distributed among them equally. Un-
likely though such a distribution may be, it is nevertheless the
most optimistic hypothesis to make because the resistance of the
building to the impact is, for such a distribution, the highest. If the
building is found to fail under a uniform distribution of the impact
forces, it would fail under any other distribution. According to
this hypothesis, one may estimate that C'71 GN/m ~due to un-
availability of precise data, an approximate design of column
cross sections had to be carried out for this purpose!.

Is this a wrong assumption?

Seems to me that a direct axial column to column impact would indeed be the most favorable to arresting the collapse.

Do you have another opinion?