Richard Gage Debates a Member of International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators

Originally posted by Haroki
Now I'm fairly sure that despite your claims otherwise, you've never read much, or none at all of the NIST.

Right, I haven't read much, I've read the important parts (it's divided up into easier sections on NIST's website, which is where I have read parts of it). It's over 10,000 pages of mostly padding, how many people escaped down the stairwells and how long it took them, etc. Have you read it all? Has anyone here?

The hanging floor slabs, away from the plane hits, but in the fire zone, are in the NIST Report.

Post the pictures, let's talk about them.

So are close up photos of the outer columns bowed in.

NIST uses tries to fall back on about three different photos to assert this. One of them was taken through an obvious heat field and from a good distance away (which they used to try to estimate deflections by measuring the angles of the aluminum coverings over the columns), one of them was taken as WTC2's whole upper mass was tilting simultaneously as it began to collapse (which is OBVIOUSLY going to cause deflections in the outer columns), and the other(s) I have in mind were all of the aluminum cladding being pushed this way or that, and not of any actual column deflections.

Take this picture for example:




Notice the difference between the outside cladding, and the actual (reddish-gray-colored) columns.

Which structural elements look more deflected when viewed from the outside? It looks like the aluminum cladding had a little room to play, doesn't it? But the columns are still locked into place behind them.

This is one face of WTC2. Did NIST show ANY WTC faces that show the columns themselves deflected behind the aluminum cladding? And please don't deflect to showing me perimeter columns severed by the plane impacts.

I disagree with your accusation of curve fitting by NIST.

It's not "curve fitting," they just worked completely backwards in proving their hypothesis, by already assuming going into their models that it was right and didn't need verification.

It doesn't matter if you disagree to me. I don't think you really understand the problem, and even if you do, you haven't given me good reason to think otherwise than I do because you haven't even addressed the problem I have with this report. You keep dancing around it, like you're trying to "feel" your way through rebuttals, like you don't know what you're talking about but think that you know we're wrong anyway. Just like the NIST team, when you think about it. I guess it's just like a natural reaction for naive/go-with-authority people to have. I couldn't care much less what your opinion is, to be honest.

Did they ever make a statement about how using hard numbers was difficult to do since many factors couldn't be verified?

English, please? Do you know what you're talking about?

Things like whether or not floors had pulled off the interior column connection (there's an answer there to one of your q's) and exactly how much damage was done to the core - which had to be modeled, since the engines/landing gear flew out the other side of the building in line with the cores.

No, they have to be done in a lab. You can measure deflections and calculated forces in labs. They actually rebuilt the composite floors for one lab test they did do, where they were trying to see if the assembly was able to withstand 2 hours of fire like it was rated for. And it didn't fail, or even begin to deflect, apparently.

The problem with their computer models is that every time they did one, and it didn't do what they wanted it to, they just said it didn't match the visual data and ramped up the appropriate variables until things DID begin to fall apart. That's not logical or honest research.

Plastic and carpeting - both contain petroleum prodocts - will produce black smoke even under normal oxygen conditions. So will many other materials. Google it.

I guess you got what Griff just pointed out, right? Darker smoke = more uncombusted hydrocarbons = less combustion = less energy output. Which means less heat. Thus the fact isn't "lame," it's completely relevant. Those fires weren't putting out optimum heat/temperature, which is required to sufficiently heat the steel within such a small amount of time, if it's even possible at all. Hydrocarbon fires max out in open air at 825 C from the sources I've seen, and that's when they're burning perfectly. Steel has to be uniformly heated all the way to 600 C just to lose half its yield strength.

[edit on 16-11-2007 by bsbray11]

reply to post by bsbray11



No Photoshop here, so you'll have to grab 'em yourself.

wtc.nist.gov...

Most of the photo's we're talking about atart around pg 95. Slabs are 110ish. Bowing column 100ish.

Additionally, go here to find Design and Construction of structural syatems. It has all kinds of info there, like what grade steel was used where, bolts sizes, actual tests on floor/column connectors, etc, etc.

wtc.nist.gov...

And then here, to look any other specs.

wtc.nist.gov...

Originally posted by Haroki
Most of the photo's we're talking about atart around pg 95. Slabs are 110ish. Bowing column 100ish.

Almost all of those are of impact holes. The most potentially meaningful ones are the ones I just talked about in the last post. The image on page 98 of the PDF is the one I was talking about, taken from a distance through a heat field and observing the aluminum panels. They even show that the exterior columns had fireproofing on them that wasn't knocked off by the planes (exposed where the impact had severed the columns and ripped off the aluminum cladding). On page 109 of the PDF they show an image of nothing but aluminum panels and smoke, and try to overlay lines to suggest the columns themselves were deflected.

The image on page 103 of the PDF is of the corner of the South Tower that was dripping molten metal. The flame seen there is giving off bright white light and is probably a different chemical reaction than just oxidation of hydrocarbons. NIST is just pointing out that these columns are still intact at the time of the photograph (shortly before collapse).


Keep in mind too that none of these photos are evidence in favor of NIST. NIST's job was to create a collapse model that used independent, already-known math and engineering principles to come with what we saw happen to the towers. They never tested their hypothesis to see what it actually produces (ie, if it even works), so they have no way of knowing if what they're showing you is even related to their explanation. Basically they still have to do the testing of their hypothesis. There is NO way around this. It's not science if they don't recreate it independently.

Additionally, go here to find Design and Construction of structural syatems. It has all kinds of info there, like what grade steel was used where, bolts sizes, actual tests on floor/column connectors, etc, etc.

Does his link fill in all the missing information, Griff?

More to the point: can you estimate the missing figures from that data? Is all the geometry there and accurate representations of all the structural elements in their right dimensions and etc?

Haroki:

As a side note, does anyone hear the pop pop pop pop pop pop pop of demolition explosions that one ALWAYS hears during a controlled demolition?

Yes. At least one witness said almost exactly that:

Paramedic Daniel Rivera:

[I]t was [like a] professional demolition where they set the charges on
certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'.

and

Firefighter Richard Banaciski:

[T]here was just an explosion [in the south tower]. It seemed like on
television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going
all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.

and

Assistant Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory:

I saw a flash flash flash [at] the lower level of the building. You know
like when they demolish a building?

and

FDNY Captain Dennis Tardio:

I hear an explosion and I look up. It is as if the building is
being imploded, from the top floor down, one after another, boom, boom,
boom.

Fireman (Naudet documentary)

It was as if they had detonated--as if they were planning to
take down a building, boom boom boom boom boom . . . .

Originally posted by Haroki
Granted. But it also says that all the claims about "oxygen starved fires" to be unfounded when they base it on the black smoke. It seems like you agree to that ....

I do agree.

It also says that there was plenty of fuel to heat the steel.

It also shows that there was too much fuel. Which also leads to a cooler fire than optimum.

[edit on 11/17/2007 by Griff]

Originally posted by bsbray11
Does his link fill in all the missing information, Griff?

No. Becasue first of all, I refuse to just take someone's word for it when it would be just as easy to look ourselves.

Another thing that gets left out when people talk of this fireproofing being blown off. They forget to mention the 2 inches of cement and gypsum. They want us all to think that it was flimsy spray-on fireproofing. Here are Skilling's calculations for the dead load of the beams and core columns. Notice the 1 inch of cementitious material and the over 1 inch of gypsum on the beams.



Notice the 2 1/2 inches of cementitious material and almost 2 inches of gypsum plaster on the core columns.



Flimsy spray-on fireproofing. Pfff.


mod edit: fixed bbcode



[edit on 18-11-2007 by chissler]

reply to post by Griff


Too much fuel = a cooler fire.........

This makes no sense. Find various photos of the corner of 2, where most of the fires were. I see flames coming out of the fire broken windows, about 1 1/2 -2 stories tall. And coming out of...... 6-8 windows, if memory serves.

I see a hot fire.

reply to post by Griff


The spray on fire proofing is on the floor joists. You know, the 1.09" bars, etc. It would be rather difficult to put fireproofing there any other way, agreed?

Your descriction of the core columns' is accurate. Amazing what can be found in the NIST, eh. However, the landing gear assemblies (tires,wheels, hubs, axles,struts, linkages, heavy attachment points to the fuselage, hydraulic actuator cylinders... well you get the point) would have taken a LOT of that off. Surely you must agree that if some core columns could be severed by these 500mph objects, then many more of the unsevered core coulmns had their fire proofing removed.......

Haroki

Can you tell us how the middle core steel collapsed into itself at high speed, this defies physics. Not the floors, but the very middle core of the building as has been shown in this thread.

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


Sure, when the core columns above the global collapse zone came down, it smashed into the core structures below it, agreed?

The first few floors from above the global collapse zone would have torn out the supporting cross beams between the core columns, agreed?

This would have left core columns standing unsupported, which then would have been broken, bent, and smashed by the remaining building above the global collapse zone as it fell.

Easy......

Originally posted by Haroki
Surely you must agree that if some core columns could be severed by these 500mph objects, then many more of the unsevered core coulmns had their fire proofing removed.......

"Surely"? Why? What authority are you on this, or the NIST (which just shot a piece of steel with a shot gun, literally, for their "test" on this)?


There were perimeter columns that still had their fireproofing attached despite being completely severed only three feet higher up.

Originally posted by Haroki
reply to post by Griff

 

Too much fuel = a cooler fire.........

This makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. What do you think "too much" means? The relevant ratio is fuel to oxygen, too much of EITHER is a bad thing. It produces black smoke.

Regardless of whether it was fuel deficiency or oxygen deficiency, the fact remains: the WTC fires produced sooty smoke (after the jet fuel burned up in about 10 minutes, anyway). And we've already posted what soot means. It's the uncombusted hydrocarbons.

Sure, when the core columns above the global collapse zone came down, it smashed into the core structures below it, agreed?

Define the "global collapse zone," please.

It doesn't start with the entire block if you think the floors were falling. It would start with one single floor. And that floor is AROUND the core columns and INSIDE of the perimeter columns.

The first few floors from above the global collapse zone would have torn out the supporting cross beams between the core columns, agreed?

No, the core floors were reinforced with I-beams and etc. and weren't like the floors between it and the perimeter.

This would have left core columns standing unsupported

If the trusses falling onto each other could be proven to physically propagate that far. Theoretical math assuming a host of bad assumptions doesn't equate to a physical reproduction of the mechanism.

[edit on 18-11-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by Haroki
Surely you must agree that if some core columns could be severed by these 500mph objects, then many more of the unsevered core coulmns had their fire proofing removed.......

"Surely"? Why? What authority are you on this, or the NIST (which just shot a piece of steel with a shot gun, literally, for their "test" on this)?


There were perimeter columns that still had their fireproofing attached despite being completely severed only three feet higher up.

Yes, I believe you now.

Engine and landing gear debris flying through with enuf force to sever core columns and fly through the other side of the building in no way would have enough energy to remove drywall.

Thx for clearing that up for me.

(Off-topic post removed)

Mod Note -- Courtesy is Mandatory -- Please Review

[edit on 18-11-2007 by chissler]

Originally posted by Haroki
Yes, I believe you now.

Engine and landing gear debris flying through with enuf force to sever core columns and fly through the other side of the building in no way would have enough energy to remove drywall.

Drywall is not the same as fireproofing. You have no idea what you're talking about.

You realize this is a deflection, a non-sequitur, not a response at all? Mocking me is not a rebuttal.


Same with the other post, which really should be worth a warn, especially with posting the huge quote just to try to get off some immature insult.

[edit on 18-11-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by Haroki
reply to post by Griff

 

Too much fuel = a cooler fire.........

This makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. What do you think "too much" means? The relevant ratio is fuel to oxygen, too much of EITHER is a bad thing. It produces black smoke.

Regardless of whether it was fuel deficiency or oxygen deficiency, the fact remains: the WTC fires produced sooty smoke (after the jet fuel burned up in about 10 minutes, anyway). And we've already posted what soot means. It's the uncombusted hydrocarbons.

*** Ok, thanks for the heads up. Next time I go camping, and it's cold, I'll remember to not throw too much wood on the fire, cuz that'll disrupt the optimum air/fuel mixture and give me a cold fire. There's a message there, in case you missed it.***

Sure, when the core columns above the global collapse zone came down, it smashed into the core structures below it, agreed?

Define the "global collapse zone," please.

It doesn't start with the entire block if you think the floors were falling. It would start with one single floor. And that floor is AROUND the core columns and INSIDE of the perimeter columns.

*** Global collapse would start at the damaged cores once their ability to absorb the vertical load is exceeded. And the cores were damaged/severed on several floors, as you can tell by the bank angle of the plane as they went in. Floors don't hold the building up.****

The first few floors from above the global collapse zone would have torn out the supporting cross beams between the core columns, agreed?

No, the core floors were reinforced with I-beams and etc. and weren't like the floors between it and the perimeter.

*** The cross beams would be removed by the 200' plus core columns when they bent and broke off after their vertical load capacity was exceeded. There's no way that I-beams designed to support floor loads and as braces to stabilize the cores geometry could support any significant vertical loads of the building above the global collapse. ***

This would have left core columns standing unsupported

If the trusses falling onto each other could be proven to physically propagate that far. Theoretical math assuming a host of bad assumptions doesn't equate to a physical reproduction of the mechanism.

*** The floor trusses would be stripped off immediately as soon as the core columns hit them. There's no way that they could slow up the fall, since they also were not designed to support the vertical load. ***

[edit on 18-11-2007 by bsbray11]

My answers are inside the ***. Just like in the original post.......

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by Haroki
Yes, I believe you now.

Engine and landing gear debris flying through with enuf force to sever core columns and fly through the other side of the building in no way would have enough energy to remove drywall.

Drywall is not the same as fireproofing. You have no idea what you're talking about.

[edit on 18-11-2007 by bsbray11]

No, you have no idea....

Review the NIST report again. Floor trusses had sprayed on fire proofing. The core columns had cementious panels and drywall as their fire proofing.

Originally posted by Haroki
My answers are inside the ***. Just like in the original post.......

Sorry, but you can't really blame me if you haven't figured out how to use the BB code the way people usually do it.

*** Ok, thanks for the heads up. Next time I go camping, and it's cold, I'll remember to not throw too much wood on the fire, cuz that'll disrupt the optimum air/fuel mixture and give me a cold fire. There's a message there, in case you missed it.***

Irrelevant to my point. Black smoke = not efficient heat transfer to steel.

*** Global collapse would start at the damaged cores

So what theory is this? It's not NIST, it's not FEMA, it's not pancake collapse (because that starts with the floors). Where did you get this, and what are your sources?

*** The cross beams would be removed by the 200' plus core columns when they bent and broke off after their vertical load capacity was exceeded.

Ok, let me get this straight. When a column's "load capacity" is exceeded, it bends in place and 'breaks off'? Where did you get your degree?

The yield strength is the maximum force a column before permanent deformation begins. Even the ultimate strength, when the column will fail, will not result in a column busting out of its bolts and 'breaking off'. When this stuff is modeled it's in deflections and buckling, not ripping apart in pieces. That would come later from more extreme impact forces or else from explosives, but would definitely not be that early in the collapse.

The core columns, btw, were continuously welded, terminating in three-floor lengths typically, I think. They were butt-welded all the way around and then smoothed and everything so you could hardly tell it was ever 2 columns and not just 1. This is until they transitioned into I-beams on the higher floors.

There's no way that I-beams designed to support floor loads and as braces to stabilize the cores geometry could support any significant vertical loads of the building above the global collapse. ***

Get what you're saying straight. Those I-beams wouldn't be meant to carry vertical loads, that's irrelevant.

*** The floor trusses would be stripped off immediately as soon as the core columns hit them.

The core columns were attached to the trusses, and you're just asserting this anyway. You've already shown me at least two cases where you word something so as to show you don't know what you're talking about. Why should I take this garbage from you? Post some sources.

[edit on 19-11-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by Haroki
Review the NIST report again. Floor trusses had sprayed on fire proofing. The core columns had cementious panels and drywall as their fire proofing.

Drywall was not attached to the core columns in any way that would allow it to be dislodged by the impacts like a spray-on fireproofing *might* be, so I don't know why you're referring to it as a fireproofing here. As far as I even know, "fireproofing" just means what's applied directly to the column, but I may be wrong. No big deal either way.

So, where's the tests or calculations or etc. showing that it would be dislodged by the impacts, when the exterior fireproofing wasn't?

And if (for whatever reason) the fireproofing on the exterior columns was obscured, do you think NIST would just say it was missing, too, to try to further justify their case? Wouldn't you want some kind of proof or actual verifiable reasoning behind their claim?

Originally posted by Haroki
The spray on fire proofing is on the floor joists. You know, the 1.09" bars, etc. It would be rather difficult to put fireproofing there any other way, agreed?

So, you agree that this spray-on fireproofing had no affect when it comes to the core columns or floor beams, but just the joists?

My comments still stand because floor joists don't hold structures up. Columns and beams do. You know, the very things that actually had about 5 inches worth of gypsum, plaster and cementitious fireproofing?

Surely you must agree that if some core columns could be severed by these 500mph objects, then many more of the unsevered core coulmns had their fire proofing removed.......

Surely you must agree that even NIST doesn't know exactly how hany core columns were even severed, let alone had fire-proofing taken off?

Oh, btw, I highly doubt that those objects were traveling at 500 mph throughout the entire building until they exited the opposite facade. You know, loss of speed (energy) when hitting the facade.