letter to NIST

reply to post by Seymour Butz


Isreali does not necessarily equal jewish.

BTW, care to dispute anything I said? Am I wrong in any of my statements?

Originally posted by Griff
Yes, it would show that it is physically possible despite the already known tests of Cardington et al.

That's quite interesting, not many people are so explicit with their requirements. I urge you to submit this to NIST as you comment correctly later that they do have more resources than you.

(btw, isn't that the going theory of the towers?).

Essentially yes, due to fire damage trusses exerted roughly a 6kip inward pull.

Another thing is the thermodynamics involved. NIST states that the fire went approximately 20 minutes per cubicle and then moved on to the next. Thus only a cubicle's worth (and probably a few feet more taking the transition amounts on both ends into affect) would be burning at one time. NIST's computer model has the fires raging the entire time.

You'll read more about this later on, NIST estimates temperatures required for some of these failures to be quite low.

Last thing. I need more time. NIST had how many years/people/money to do this? It's going to take one person without as many resources a lot longer to achieve what you want.

No pressure, I understand that it's not exactly a case of adding a few numbers together. I would help out if I could but I don't expect anything ridiculous off you. I'm simply trying to push people because NIST expects comments before the 15th, and I want to see some good testing requests submitted.

Also, the original structural documentation would be hepful. But, I will say thank you for the link to the latest paper you gave me. I read in the NIST report about that paper, but I didn't have it.

No problems, if you need anything specific researching, just mention it.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

NISTs original WTC1 and 2 tests did not attempt to capture any sort of connection failure as far as I can remember.

Could you paraphrase which parts please? Thanks.

The exterior column buckling as mentioned above would not be achievable due to a reduction in lateral support. Gravity loads on unbraced columns would (according to a Structural Engineer at JREF) not result in severe deflections, but there are pictures of these deflections increasing over time in the report.

There's also damage which can be seen to increase over time, such as floor disconnections/collapses. It's quite funny that AE911Truth talks about large visible deflections, as they obviously haven't read the NIST report.

reply to post by Griff


Everyone has their opinion.

Yours is that they knew about it, or had an early warning, or had a hand in it.

I was posting that to counter the "who" part of your previous statement.

IOW, you have some pretty strong ideas of what happened, and who knew about it, regardless of what you may say at times.

Originally posted by exponent
The exterior column buckling as mentioned above would not be achievable due to a reduction in lateral support. Gravity loads on unbraced columns would (according to a Structural Engineer at JREF) not result in severe deflections, but there are pictures of these deflections increasing over time in the report.

I agree with this. But, I'm talking about interior column buckling. That's a different thread though.

Originally posted by Griff

I'm asking how beam buckling, beam buckling, beam buckling causes this collapse. I agree that removing some floors worth of horizontal bracing would cause column buckling, column buckling, column buckling. Notice the difference between beam and column?

I wouldn't imagine that floor beam buckling would cause a collapse, since they weren't attached to the columns at that specific point.

But if floor beams "grew" enough to cause the girder, which was, to shear its bolts or tear out of the flange, I could see how it would, by the way described above, above, above. The NISt report goes into tjis in some detail, but I skipped over that part. (my bad)

Clarification: Would the girder buckle down, or would it be displaced laterally by the "pushing" floor beams?

Why would a buckle in either direction NOT result in the connection failing?

Originally posted by Seymour Butz
But if floor beams "grew" enough to cause the girder, which was, to shear its bolts or tear out of the flange, I could see how it would, by the way described above, above, above. The NISt report goes into tjis in some detail, but I skipped over that part. (my bad)

I'm talking about that the beams are designed to buckle before the connections would fail. As the beams in the Cardington tests do.

Clarification: Would the girder buckle down, or would it be displaced laterally by the "pushing" floor beams?

Displaced laterally. But, remember, there are also beams pushing from the opposite side of the girder that need to be taken into account that are obtaining their sability from girders and beams beyond.

Why would a buckle in either direction NOT result in the connection failing?

Why would a connection failing cause all the others to fail and result in a floor cascading down to the next causing that floor and multiple others to fail?

Originally posted by Griff

1-Displaced laterally. But, remember, there are also beams pushing from the opposite side of the girder that need to be taken into account that are obtaining their sability from girders and beams beyond.

2-Why would a connection failing cause all the others to fail and result in a floor cascading down to the next causing that floor and multiple others to fail?

1- not against that girder there wasn't. It was unbraced in the direction away from the expanding floor beams. Nothing.

2-because the girder had several floor beams terminating into it in that corner. So when it failed, several floor beams would have gone down with it. The area was pretty large. Look at the plans again, it was a pretty large area that was supported by the girder. I'll make a WAG and say 50'x50'.

reply to post by Seymour Butz


So, are you saying that the girder/column connection would fail before the girder?

BTW, that's a pretty dumb design (if true) if you ask me. There should always be bracing against lateral-torsional buckling. Imagine standing on a long 2x12 board. The board will tend to rotate (lateral-torsional buckling) if not braced at certain points. Now, imagine just bracing it on one side. The other will still be susceptible to rotation. An interesting point you bring up none-the-less.



[edit on 9/2/2008 by Griff]

Originally posted by exponent
No, two seconds after the main collapse portion starts, and that was just an estimate. This occurs at least 10 seconds into their analysis.

It took the building less than ten seconds to collapse, so how can the collapse sequence last longer than that?

So, two seconds is just an estimate? What can NIST actually claim that is accurate?

Why couldn't they verify the building's construction. I saw Griff paste this and haven't properly contested it yet, but I'll be surprised if you get the reason right

I don't need a reason why they can't verify it. The fact is that NIST state they can't verify the building's design or construction. Read Disclaimer 4 on page 4/115.

Originally posted by tezzajw
It took the building less than ten seconds to collapse, so how can the collapse sequence last longer than that?

It didn't take less than ten seconds. www.youtube.com...

So, two seconds is just an estimate? What can NIST actually claim that is accurate?

It was my estimate, NIST doesn't consider accuracy anywhere after the global collapse phase starts I don't think.

I don't need a reason why they can't verify it. The fact is that NIST state they can't verify the building's design or construction. Read Disclaimer 4 on page 4/115.

Perhaps you should read their reason, instead of simply parroting claims you have heard elsewhere.

due to the destruction of the WTC buildings, NIST could not verify the actual (or as-built) construction

I really don't think you can blame NIST for being unable to walk around a destroyed building.

reply to post by exponent


(I really don't think you can blame NIST for being unable to walk around a destroyed building.)
Are you implying they did not have the blue prints for the building?

Originally posted by cashlink
(I really don't think you can blame NIST for being unable to walk around a destroyed building.)
Are you implying they did not have the blue prints for the building?

I hate to respond sarcastically, but why haven't you read the report? Yes they had the blueprints. They couldn't verify the construction because the building no longer exists.

Originally posted by exponent
It was my estimate, NIST doesn't consider accuracy anywhere after the global collapse phase starts I don't think.

So without considering accuracy, who knows how well the NIST model fits what happened?

Perhaps you should read their reason, instead of simply parroting claims you have heard elsewhere.

Perhaps you should read Disclaimer 4 on page 4/115 of the report where NIST states that it can't verify the design or construction.

The only thing that I have parroted is what is written in the report.

Originally posted by Griff

1-So, are you saying that the girder/column connection would fail before the girder?

2-BTW, that's a pretty dumb design (if true) if you ask me. There should always be bracing against lateral-torsional buckling. Imagine standing on a long 2x12 board. The board will tend to rotate (lateral-torsional buckling) if not braced at certain points. Now, imagine just bracing it on one side. The other will still be susceptible to rotation. An interesting point you bring up none-the-less.

1-I'm not saying anything. I asked if a beam or girder buckling would prevent a connector failure.

2- page 58/404 1-9 Vol 1 has it. I remembered a little wrong. There's ONE floor beam bracing it, but it's virtually parallel to the girder, maybe a 25 degree angle at best, rather than perpendicular, so I wouldn't think it would give much bracing.

reply to post by exponent


Ok, so if they have the blueprints why couldn’t NIST verify the construction?
Am I to assume then, that blueprints do not tell you how to build a building?

Originally posted by tezzajw
So without considering accuracy, who knows how well the NIST model fits what happened?

Anyone who reads the NIST report?

Perhaps you should read Disclaimer 4 on page 4/115 of the report where NIST states that it can't verify the design or construction.

I quoted from it. Let me explain this as plainly as possible.

NIST could not verify the as-built construction of WTC7 as WTC7 has been destroyed. Walking round and confirming that welds were up to spec, that plates were correctly fitted, that appropriate bolts were used is not possible because the building no longer exists.

Originally posted by cashlink
Ok, so if they have the blueprints why couldn’t NIST verify the construction?
Am I to assume then, that blueprints do not tell you how to build a building?

Blueprints tell you how to build a building, they do not tell you how a building was built. Nor do they detail post-construction modifications, any sort of damage, fireproofing issues etc etc. See my response above for any other questions regarding this topic.

Originally posted by exponent
Anyone who reads the NIST report?

Anyone who reads the NIST report can see that it is not accurate, as NIST did not have enough information to produce an accurate report.

What's your point? You agree with me that NIST could not verify the building's construction.

That proves that NIST, by not testing the steel or knowing the building's construction, were guessing their input paramters.

Their collapse sequence is wrong, which you admit, as you state that it's only valid for a couple of seconds.

What's your point? You're agreeing with me about how poor the NIST report is, the more that you post.

Originally posted by exponent
I really don't think you can blame NIST for being unable to walk around a destroyed building.

So, the owner (Silverstein), nor the Port Authority, nor the engineer, nor the architect, nor any contractors kept the construction documentation? That's highly irregular. And I can garantee that not all those companies were housed in the WTC complex.

BTW, NIST has the authority to subpoena this material.

Originally posted by Seymour Butz
2- page 58/404 1-9 Vol 1 has it. I remembered a little wrong. There's ONE floor beam bracing it, but it's virtually parallel to the girder, maybe a 25 degree angle at best, rather than perpendicular, so I wouldn't think it would give much bracing.

I have seen what you state. I still think it's a bad design if true. My opinion of course.