The Physics of 911

@Olivier5,

I'm off to a night of cards, but while I'm gone, why don't find the post where I mentioned molybden?

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@Olivier5,

If you can't explain why the intact core structure below the impact zone did not offer any resistance to speak of, that's fine.

And contrary to your idea that there were no melting of girders, I believe that it's been pointed out more than once in this thread that one of the lead investigators into the collapses said he saw melting of girders at WTC. If you are trying to convince me that you know better than him because he was there and you were not, I'm not buying.

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@Glennn,

I don't even understand what you're talking about.

What core? Resistance to whom? To what?

Can YOU explain why the "core" offered no resistance to whatever, per chance? And why should it have offered any resistance, to start with?

Who's your "lead investigator" and what did he say?

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@Glennn,

Glennn wrote:

why the intact lower core structure offered no resistance to speak of.

The trusses under each floor were designed to hold up a static (unmoving) load consisting of the weight of that single floor.

The trusses under each floor were not designed to hold the weight of the entire building above them.

And they were definitely not designed to support the weight of the entire building above them striking them as a dynamic (moving) load.

As each subsequent floor had the entire weight of the building slam into it, that floor's attachments to the core beams simply snapped off.

You can actually hear the impact of the floors slamming into each other, slowly at first and then faster and faster. It sounds at first like semi-auto gunshots, then like a machine gun, and then like a gatling gun.

Keep in mind when watching this video that some 600 people were still in the stairs between the 10th and 30th floors when the building collapsed. All of them were killed.

Once the core beams were standing alone without being held in place by the structure of the floors around them, they simply wobbled and fell over.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

What core? Resistance to whom? To what?

The center of the World Trade Center (where all the elevator shafts were) had a dense cluster of vertical steel beams (much like the beams surrounding the exterior of the building).

He is wondering why the intact steel beams below the plane crash area did not hold up at least part of the building (or at least slow the speed of the collapse).

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Quote:

John Skilling was the head structural engineer for the World Trade Center. In a 1993 interview, Skilling stated that the Towers were designed to withstand the impact and fires resulting from the collision of a large jetliner such as Boeing 707 or Douglas DC-8.
Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed, ... The building structure would still be there. 3

A white paper released on February 3, 1964 states that the Towers could have withstood impacts of jetliners travelling 600 mph -- a speed greater than the impact speed of either jetliner used on 9/11/01.
The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact. 4

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

I don't even understand what you're talking about.

What core? Resistance to whom? To what?

Can YOU explain why the "core" offered no resistance to whatever, per chance? And why should it have offered any resistance, to start with?

Who's your "lead investigator" and what did he say?

Yes, I get that you don't understand what I'm talking about. Your comments here are in no way answering anything that's been asked. Instead of answering anything, you have simply repeated my questions to you.

For instance, I, and another poster have mentioned and quoted one of the lead investigators that you're asking about. I'm not going to take you by the hand and walk you back through this thread. And if you really don't understand why the core structure should have offered any resistance, I'm not going to waste any time trying to help you to understand as that doesn't concern me.

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@oralloy,

Quote:

Once the core beams were standing alone without being held in place by the structure of the floors around them, they simply wobbled and fell over.

You speak as if the 47 columns that made up the core structure were not cross-braced. they were. Surely you've seen photos of the core structure, and have seen that they were not each one standing alone. Your video, as you say, shows that as the collapse progresses, it accelerates. That is impossible from a gravity-driven collapse with the core structure intact below the impact zone.

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Some detailed information, with accompanying drawings, detailing the design of the WTC 1.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/wtc1.htm

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@Builder,

Quote:

Why indeed? Imagine the cost to demolish those old structures, what with all that asbestos in there.

Builder, this is you answering (not) Mcgentrix's question. You just shrugged this off but it seems to be important.
Why would the designers coat the steel beams in asbestos? To insulate them from heat in the event of a fire. But why bother protecting the beams from a fire that couldn't possibly get hot enough to weaken them? Answer: the designers apparently thought that a structure fire COULD get hot enough to weaken the beams. This was a contingency that was anticipated in the design and construction of these buildings. They knew the kinds of materials that the offices would contain; desks, carpets, interior walls, etc. and reasoned that a big enough fire of these materials could be hot enough to weaken the beams, and so took precautions against it.
Another bit of false reasoning put forth by you and Camlock is that the presence of certain molten metals is proof positive that the planes didn't bring the towers down. Did you consider that the presence of those molten metals is proof that the fires were hot enough to melt those metals?
Your whole belief is based on an assumption. Evidence which contradicts your assumption is immediately tossed aside.
When I was younger my buddies and I would sometimes drink around a campfire. Sometimes someone would throw a beer bottle into the fire. I assumed that an ordinary wood fire couldn't get hot enough to melt glass. And yet, in the morning there would be a melted beer bottle in the ashes. What conclusions should I draw from this? Someone secretly added something to the fire to make it burn hotter? The government planted thermite in the fire pit months before our party? The wood we used for the fire was laced with hydrocarbon compounds from the contaminated groundwater in the area? How about the most sensible conclusion: I was wrong in my assumption that an ordinary wood fire can't get hot enough to melt glass.
Sometimes you're just wrong.

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@TomTomBinks,

Quote:

Answer: the designers apparently thought that a structure fire COULD get hot enough to weaken the beams. This was a contingency that was anticipated in the design and construction of these buildings....

Actually, I did answer the question. Asbestos coatings were widely used to stop steel from freezing, which also affects the flexural strength of steel, but it was mostly used to prevent expansion and contraction of the columns. The coating stabilises the temperature of the collumns. They were two inches thick, so quite the heat or cold sink.

And I posted a video above which tested the theory of aluminium and gypsum being the cause of sulfation of the steel columns. Debunked.

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@TomTomBinks,

Quote:

When I was younger my buddies and I would sometimes drink around a campfire. Sometimes someone would throw a beer bottle into the fire.

Sounds like you had a rather boring childhood. We had three months of rain in my eleventh year. I mean rain without a break of any kind. I let my fire bug do some experimenting under the family home. Robbed some fuel from the mower, and found out how long it takes for the chemicals in a torch battery to reach ignition temperature. Rather surprising result, and quite the pyrotechical outpouring from such a small device.

Still, when I consider the short-lived blaze on those planes entering the buildings (second one blew out the other side, mostly) and the thick black smoke that spoke of a low-temperature blaze, choking for oxygen, I'd hazard an educated assumption that none of the molten steel resulted from any office materials or gypsum burning away in there.

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@oralloy,

Thanks Oralloy for the info. These people are really after futile pursuits.

Of course the beams offered some resistance. Upto a point they certainly did. So when a joker says "offered no resistance to speak of", he is just lying. Glenn was not on site measuring the girders resistance as temperature rose. He speaks out of his ass.

I was in lower Manhattan that day. I heard the first tower fall, and then we were swallowed in a dust ball. The dust that some of these clown say should not exist because "gravity cannot pulverize things". I heard that sounds you posted.

What I really want to know is: how can one spend hours and hours studying technical details far beyond one's competence and ability to make sense of, AND at the same time completely forget about the darn planes and the need to explain their presence in any version of the events. Tragically tunnelled vision, that is.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

I heard the first tower fall, and then we were swallowed in a dust ball.

No visuals, then? It was televised ad nauseum around the globe. The second building to be hit, was the first to "fall". Less than an hour of low-temperature fires.

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@Builder,

What are you saying now? That the planes did not exist?

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@Olivier5,

Where are you going with that line?

I don't see anyone saying there were no planes, except for you.

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@Builder,

Just checking on the extent of your insanity.

So you agree the planes were there and impacted the towers? Who do you think was driving them?

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

Of course the beams offered some resistance. Upto a point they certainly did. So when a joker says "offered no resistance to speak of",

Explain why after a "certain point", the core structure offered no resistance to speak of. Explain how the energy required to pulverize everything in the building below the impact zone, and the energy required to produce the lateral ejection as seen in photos and videos of the collapse still allowed for enough reserve energy to allow for a virtually freefall descent through the course of most resistance.

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@Olivier5,

You need to start your own personal thread, mate.

Read the OP again.

You're here to muddy the waters as much as you can.

Things a little quiet on the Trump threads?

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@Glennn,

You wouldn't understand or accept the answer anyway. So why should I bother? You'll find yet another question, and another, like the global warming deniers or the holocaust deniers.

And if I use an argument you can't reply to, like the argument of WHY THE PLANES?, your pall Builder will tell me I'm out of topic....

Fantacize away.

1 Reply

The Physics of 911

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