Kevin Ryan od UL FIRED for questioning government WTC collapse story!

[Emillereid]

Just received this in an email -- is it true?

"I just got off the phone with Paul Baker in Media Relations at UL in Northbrook, IL. (847-664-1001) Paul confirmed that Kevin R. Ryan, the head of the Environmental Health Laboratory Div. of Underwriter´s Laboratory (UL) was fired today.

He promised to give me a copy of UL´s statement on the termination by e-mail as soon as it is available. He said the memo thing "needs to be cleared up."

For those of you who are not up to speed, Kevin had written a curt e-mail to Frank Gayle of the National Institute of Standards and Technology questioning that the steel (which his lab had certified) had failed in the WTC 1 and WTC 2 collapses due to the buring jet fuel. Kevin´s memo is available elsewhere here on GLP."

Here's a copy of the original letter:
From: Kevin R Ryan/SBN/ULI
To: [e-mail]

Date: 11/11/2004



Dr. Gayle,

Having recently reviewed your team´s report of 10/19/04, I felt the need to contact you directly.

As I´m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I´m aware of UL´s attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.

There continues to be a number of "experts" making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). He states "What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel . . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts." Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says "Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown´s theory."

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.

The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team´s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse". The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.

However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building´s steel core to "soften and buckle"(5). Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C". To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.

This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I´m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9/11 were due to a safety-related failure. That suggestion should be of great concern to my company.

There is no question that the events of 9/11 are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror. And the issue of the WTC collapse is at the crux of the story of 9/11. My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux. Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and "chatter".

Thanks for your efforts to determine what happened on that day. You may know that there are a number of other current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth. I´ve copied one of these people on this message as a sign of respect and support. I believe your work could also be a nucleus of fact around which the truth, and thereby global peace and justice, can grow again. Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.

1. http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html

2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st edition, pg D-187

3. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P3MechanicalandMetAnalysisofSteel.pdf

4. http://www.voicesofsept11.org/archive/911ic/082703.php

5. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStatusFINAL101904WEB2.pdf (pg 11)

6. http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/ffaaMacSleyne.pdf

Kevin Ryan
Site Manager
Environmental Health Laboratories
A Division of Underwriters Laboratories

South Bend

[Beam Me Up]

1. Here's the original DU thread FYI:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2677196

[Old and In the Way]

2. Stuff that makes you go hmmmmm.

It would be interesting to do a real world model, using the same fuel and see how the steel reacts. Infact, couldn't a computer model simulation, programming in the building materials/loads/time be devloped that would test out the failure?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. That's what this was

http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStatusFINAL101904WEB2.pdf

The man from UL seemed to be objecting to the fact that it concluded the steel weakened enough for the WTC to collapse.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Thanks...interesting read.

[lil-petunia]

9. I dunno.

I work with steel in my forge. It really softens up at 2000 (using temp sensitive crayons to mark dimensions and check for a proper heat) At about 1800, steel loses its ability to hold a magnet, (meaning that a structural change has occured) and glows pretty nice in dim light.

2000 degrees is really hot. I mean damned hot. Enough for a blacksmith to shape even one inch thick steel by hand (with a hammer and anvil, of course) The steel beams used in WTC were less than 1/2 inch thick, meaning that once they began to soften, the massive weight above them would force them to bend. that massive movement would lead to shear forces on those beams not affected by heat, causing what we saw on TV.

No, from my personal experience, if you reach 2000 deg. F., the building was toast.

[notadmblnd]

17. So how hot does jet fuel burn?

Am I to understand that no sprinkler systems went off in the towers that day? Wasn't there reports that the firefighters had the fires under control?

[MadHound]

18. Jet fuel is essentially kerosene

It burns at 800-900F under ideal conditions. Yet conditions for that fire were far from ideal that day. The sprinkler system was indeed working(as evidenced by the taped conversations with the firefighters on the scene in the towers, and other eyewitnesses who escaped). In addition, the fire was having to work on large quantities of fire retardant material, the kind of material mandated by law to be present in every public building. I don't know the specific NYC fire codes, but virtually all fire codes across the country mandate that furniture, carpeting, drapes be fire retardant. Other codes are more extensive, covering wall finishings(paint, paneling etc), and even that the building materials themselves be fire retardant.

And yes, the firefighters on the scene, in the towers, were confident that the fire could be knocked out. They were calling for three lines, three hoses in each tower to knock out the fire. As a former firefighter myself, if you're calling for only three lines, I don't care if they're three inchers, you are confident that the fire is controlable and can be knocked down easily.

[patcox2]

23. Who called for three lines? Thats an absurd statement.

It is not possible to pump water up 80 stories. Physically impossible. Even the water system in a skyscraper can't do it, they have tanks every few floors and pump from one staging level to another. You cannot run a hose up a skyscraper. Their only option is to use the hoses in the building.

They may have called for hoses to fight some of the fires elsewhere in the WTC complex at some point, but your beleif that they called for three hoses to fight a skyscraper fire on the 80th floor is just silly.

Each tower had 5 or 10 floors engulfed in flame. The majority of those in floors even way above the fires jumped, because conditions were that bad well away from the flames (there were hundreds of jumpers, something the media is shy to report.) This idea that it wasn't much of a fire is just crazy.

Where are you a firefighter, Mayberry?

[berni_mccoy]

28. If it's not possible to pump water up 80 floors...

How do they get the water in the tanks in the first place? I agree that tall buildings have tanks on upper floors, but they have to get the water to the tank somehow...

[patcox2]

31. Once you have the water in a tank, you can put another pump their.

The tank breaks the water column. Its like starting over again. The enormous pressures build up in a continuous pipe, because the weight of all the water in the pipe builds up all the way to the bottom. but if you pump it into a tank, then use a separate pump to pump further up from there, there is no problem. Its not one of those intuitive things, but its real. I beleive they can't even pump up 10 stories at a time, they have to stage it, and this is in the buildings internal water supply systems.

[Throckmorton]

39. 400 PSI is not an enormous pressure,

I agree that flexable hoselines would have trouble delivering addquate fireflows with that kind of elevation rise. But, hard piping will handle it with ease.

The ten story problem is more of an issue for domestic water supplies, as the ground floors would have 400+ psi water in the faucets.

[One_Life_To_Give]

43. But 400 is more than firepumps can produce.

Even with one of the old two stage pumps I had trouble getting 300PSI static. A building like that should have firepumps on maintenance levels. Which is like every 13th story. That would be 65Lbs loss between each pumping stage, so each stage would make up the 65PSI.

[MadHound]

38. And have you done any firefighting friend?

Sorry, I'm not laying every little fucking thing out for you, I would hope people would use their own native intelligence, but apparently in your case that hope was in vain.

So, in simple words, this is what was going on. The firefighters got on the scene and evaluated what was going on. They called for three lines. What this means when they do this is that they need to find three interior lines, pumping stations that all major public building have. They are not saying to drag a hose up eighty stories from a tanker truck. Sorry I'm using fireman's short talk lingo, it is apparently too complex for you.

And where is your evidence of "hundreds of jumpers" friend. If that were true, we would have seen a blizzard raining down on 911, instead we saw singletons.

[One_Life_To_Give]

44. French Video

Madhound Check out that French FDNY Documentary. IIRC it talks about how he avoided showing the jumpers who were landing on the plaza outside the lobby and the guy on fire coming out of the elevator.

[BREMPRO]

24. this is all very interesting..

the first i've heard questions about the collapse not being caused by the aircraft impact/jet fuel. Wasn't there some evidence that the bolts connecting the steel beams were not to standard and failed? Would they have been compromised by 800-900 degree heat? if it wasn't the official explanation, what could have caused them to collapse as they did? is there evidence of explosives? i'm skeptical of the implications here.

[berni_mccoy]

27. The bolts are welded into place

with high-temperature welding torches... if they were going to fail from a jet-fuel fire, they would have failed when they were welded in place.

[lil-petunia]

40. Not if the welds were poor. also kerosene is not the issue

Any and every office building is filled with amazing amounts of consumables. If you provide an ignition source (Mr. Plane) a source of ignitable fuel (said kerosene) and you think of furniture, carpetting, paper, computers, (standard stuff in most offices, at least here in Chicago) and you mix them all together, you will achieve much higher temps than from jet fuel alone.

Three things happened when those planes hit. Well, four, but I will save the best for last.

1) Collision damage. Shearing through the weight bearing beams surrounding the building, it caused major damage to the building shell, and its ability continue to stand.
(By the way, the same theory and approach were used in Chicago's Amoco building. Heck, they even look as ugly and boring as Amoco. I've worked with those construction plans - every architect I dealt with stated that the outer beams of this building bear the weight.

2) Shock damage. You CANNOT expect the areas surrounding the collision act like a sponge. Bolts, welds, connections would crack, deform, shear simply from the impact some distance away. When the shock waves that size are transmitted over the beams, I guarentee you that there will substantial damage elsewhere.

3) Fire damage. In a building as large as this, you will have hot and cold spots. Some will have little oxygen, others will be well fed. With all the cumbustables, the kerosene, etc, you easily had temps exceeding 1800-2000 degrees.

I tell ya, with these factors all put together, these buildings were toast.

and finally, 4) it created a great opportunity for conspiracy theorists.


Want to hear a better rumor? Well, as the story goes, some archtectual student had been studing wind forces tunneling through surface of Manhattan's buildings, and her math told her that if wind from the proper direction sustained 47 mph, the wind would flow and compress and hit the twin towers in a way that would start them vibrating. Much like that famous bridge that collapsed so long ago. And ergo, no more twin towers.

[MadHound]

41. Well, let's see here

1. The central core, not the exterior trusses, was the weight bearing, gravity defining part of the building. The exterior trusses that sheered away were designed only to hold up the exterior skin of the building, not the whole of the building. The central core, according to eyewitnesses who survived, and the reports of firefighters on the scene was not damaged. Thus, while some exterior sheeting and glass would have and did fall, the towers should have continued to stand.

2. The towers were designed to withstand such a shock. In fact they were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707, a plane that is very similar to a 767 in its vital specifications(weight, length, wingspan, etc.)

3. You're estimation of a fire temperature is ridiculously high. First off, jet fuel burns at aprox. 800-900F in ideal conditions. Yet conditions in the towers were far from ideal. You had a fully functioning sprinklers system, you had fire retardent drapes, carpets, furniture, etc, even a fire retardent material sprayed on the beams themselves(all mandated by law and checked yearly). All of this fire retardent material makes public building inhospitable to fires, and thus keeps them cooler. Thus, without the fire reaching the required temperature required to soften steel(1100-1200f) something else is required to bring down the building.

As far as the Tacoma Narrows bridge and harmonic vibrations go, ever since that event buildings, bridges, etc are required to have vibration dampeners. That is why the Towers didn't collapse over the years due to hurricanes and other storms with winds in excess of fifty mph.

[One_Life_To_Give]

46. Sprinkler? Temp?

Madhound

Do we know that all of the firepumps were working?

Also the temp 800kf is for a clean burn, ample air in and out. You know as well as I that a house fire will break 2000 degrees on wood alone. And 20 minutes after fire inception a steel truss roof is coming down in any warehouse.

Granted on the morning of the 11th I thought the building would stand. But that was one heck of a shot it took.

[MadHound]

47. Well, no, we don't know that all of the fire stations were working

However, considering the redundancy built into office buildings the past fifty years, you could assume that there were some which were relatively close by that were working. However, it is my main point that the firefighters on the scene were calling for only three lines. To me, in my experience, it is indicative that the fire was, in the estimation of those on the scene, fully containable, and wasn't a major catastrophe.

In addition friend, fires in a house rarely break 1000F, much less approach 2000F. I've been inside too many fires to think otherwise. If the housefires I went into were 2000F, I would be a crispy critter within fifteen seconds.

And yes, steel trusses are sometimes the first to go in a warehouse fire. However that is mainly due to other factors, such as their support going out from underneath them, getting hit and dragged down by a wall, etc. The central core of the WTC had no such damage done to it, and the heat alone wasn't sufficient enough to cause it to collapse.

[One_Life_To_Give]

48. Check IFSTA manuals

About 10-14 years ago models of Cairns Metro helmet were recalled. The plastic liner, which melted at something like 1400+ degrees ran down on some guys face during a fire. I forget where the flashover case was that burned the coat right off a firefighter. The only part that looked intwact on the video was under his airpack frame.

If you think that steel trusses wont give way till the cinderblock walls come down. Don't ever work as my safety officer. I have seen these trusses give out.

[chicagiana]

56. When talking about fire temperatures ...

... don't we have to consider the effects of a "vented" fire vs an oven??? How rapid was the heat loss in the building given prevailing winds and temperature that day???

It's hard to MAKE a fire that will melt steel. No other building has EVER collapsed due to fire damage.


OK, I look at it from the perspective of WTC 7. There was ZERO reason for that building to spontaneously fall down. It looked EXACTLY like a controlled demolition. It did NOT sustain the type of damage that WTC 1 and 2 did.

They say the diesel fuel tanks exploded. But disel fuel is VERY stable and must be compressed to ignite!!!

Well, it seems pretty implausable that the plane attacks were part of a "master plan" to mask a controlled demolition. But when I look at the WTC 7 evidence, I am compelled to believe that there is no other explanation.

Well, if WTC 7 was wired for demolition that day, why not WTC 1 and 2??? Why did the security cameras go dead a week before. Why were the explosive sniffing dogs pulled from the buildings shortly before the incident??? Who warned the Odigo staff to clear out of the building?? Why were justice department officials warned to stay clear of the airliners???

How did a paper and cardboard passport survive the blast when the steel reinforced flight data recorder did not???

It all points to pre-meditation and conspiracy!!! Will I say it happened defninitively ... NO. But I DO NOT believe the story my government has told me!!!

[One_Life_To_Give]

62. Many Questions

Yes a vented fire will be alot cooler than when it's all closed in. The upper temps only occure where ventilation is restricted.

No other building has EVER collapsed due to fire damage.
No other steel skyscraper has collapsed due to fire. But steel buildings/roofs is another story.

I can't help you with WTC 7, diesel is easy to burn but explode is not easily acheived.

Passports/Papers
When the floors pancake, the air has to go out. Some paper etc would have been carried by the air rushing out.

To your list of other questions we should add;
Who shorted the airline stocks?

[chicagiana]

67. Well, the passport ...

The passport of one of the highjackers was found on top of the world trade center wreckage. Thats what I'm referring to. Presumably that passport was on the plane with the hijacker.

A small paper booklet survived the crash, but the flight data recorder did NOT!!!

[lthuedk]

78. Not so.

I have melted steel cans-not aluminum-in a wood fire by simply using a billows. Both of the towers stood in the wind and a high velocity vortex could very easily concentrate and focused heat on a main supporting vertical member.

[gbwarming]

50. Where are you getting your info on steel and fuel fire temperature?

It's wrong.

There's no specific temperature where steel 'softens'. Tensile strength for high strength, low alloy steel similar to A242 at elevated temperature looks something like:
70F 80kpsi
600F 75kpsi
800F 65kpsi
1000F 40kpsi
1100F 30kpsi
(This is approximate, read from a graph in the the 8th edition ASM metals handbook, vol1, p491)

Various alloys in this family have different initial tensile strengths but fairly similar shaped curves. I don't know the rational for ASTM E119 choosing 110 but it looks like about 1/2 original strength for a wide variety of structural steels. The design factor of safety is most likely much higher than two, so if the rest of the structure is working properly this normally wouldn't cause a failure. (I'm not a structural engineer and don't know these specific requirements) If the structure was severly damaged before the fire a much smaller reduction in strength might result in failure.

---
Jet fuel fire temperature, according to this FAA report on airplane structural response to fire is 1850F. Thermocouple data from the report show skin and floor temperatures over 1900F due to burning jet fuel. (fig 27)
http://aar400.tc.faa.gov/acc/accompdocs/98-52.pdf

[vincent_vega_lives]

87. You have so many factual errors in this post

I was going to refute one by one, and started doing so, but got bored. Suffice to say you have absolutely NO CLUE what you are talking about.

Kind of sad really.

[demodewd]

92. suffice it to say

Suffice it to say you don't have a worthy rebuttal or you would have offered it!

[chicagiana]

55. That assumes the steel reached 2000 deg

Yeah, the initial fireball may have reached 2000 deg. But after the intial blast, most of that fuel was all burned up!!! All you have left to burn are the materials (carpet furniture, paper) inside the building.

How hot would that fire have been ??? How long would it take for indirect heat to push those beams up to 1800 deg???

Firefighters up in the structure were reporting an all clear. It seems the fire was mostly extinguished. Than there was a surface tremor and the building pancacked itself!!!

[One_Life_To_Give]

74. Tempered Beams?

I would like to see a set of temperature/time/property tables for the actual steel used as well. Being high KSI steel it may have been subject to loss of temper, hich occurs well below the melting point.

[vincent_vega_lives]

88. Regular, routine everyday house fires

can easily reach 2000 degrees f.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Thanks for posting this.

I saw this yesterday and had meant to post it.

[berni_mccoy]

6. Why doesn't someone

take a steel beam of WTC measurements, put it under equivalent load in a control room, fill the room with jet fuel and ignite it? This will be proof positive that the steel beams could not have melted under the WTC conditions.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Have you read the NIST report referenced in the OP and post #3?

There's quite a lot of detail about the tests and computer simulations they did.

Whoever said 'melted' was wrong - but the tests and simulations do show the temperature (mainly from the building and aricraft contents, though the jet fuel did a very efficient job of starting the fire over a large area; and the oxygen flow to the fire was more than normal in office fires, due to the large hole in the side of the building) was enough to weaken some columns. With some of the exterior load-bearing struts missing from the aircraft impact, and more of them buckling (there are photos showing this - they have buckled inwards, by the way, which wouldn't be consistent with internal explosions), much of the load was transferred to the internal columns. These, in their weakened state, (with some of their fireproofing knocked off in the initial impact) could not take the weight of the floors above.

Once one floor started to compress, the momentum of the floors above coming down was enough to keep the collapse going - and with this driven by the vertical momentum, the towers collapsed straight down.

[MadHound]

8. A few things you are glossing over

First off, the fire was being smothered, and the oxygen flow to the fire was not greater than normal, it was actually less than the fire needed. I've been a fireman, and this is easy to see. Go back, examine the video tapes, and note the large quantity of thick black smoke roiling out of the towers. This is a sure sign of a fire being smothered. Take into account the fact that all public buildings are required to have fire retardent materials, carpets, drapes, even the wall coverings are regulated to be fire retardent. Combine this with the fact that the sprinkler system was working normally, helping to supress the fire, spraying water everywhere. You are left with a fire that is controlable, not threatening the building. This is confirmed by tapes of the firemen who were on the scene, and witnesses who managed to escape. They tell of the sprinkler system working, of how smoky it was and how little open flame they saw. And the key here is that the firemen on the scene are asking for three, THREE lines to put out the fire. I don't care if you're asking for three three inch lines, the fact that you are asking for so little water means that the fire is easily controlable, not an out of control inferno that is melting steel and collapsing buildings.

Another point where you are mistaken is your analysis of the buckling of the exterior load bearing struts. These didn't bear much of a load. In fact the only load that they were designed to carry was the load of the skin of the building. The real, gravity defying load was carried by the central core columns, and if that had softened to the point of collapse, we should have seen the tops of the towers slide off to one side. Instead, both towers defied the odds and came down into their own footprint for the most part. If the external struts collapsed, all you would see is some exterior wall material and windows come down, not the entire building. And we did see some of that. But the exterior struts do not carry the big load of the building.

The towers were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707, a plane of similar specifications as the 767s that hit. The witnesses and firemen on the scene state that it was a perfectly controlable fire, nothing to worry about. And yet defying all odds, both towers came straight down. Hmmm?!

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Well, it's what I read in the report

Relative Roles of Aircraft Impact and Fires Relative Roles of Aircraft Impact and Fires

• Fires played a major role in further reducing the structural capacity of the buildings, initiating collapse. While aircraft impact damage did not, by itself, initiate building collapse, it contributed greatly to the subsequent fires by:
  
• Compromising the sprinkler and water supply systems;
  
• Dispersing jet fuel and igniting building contents over large areas;
  
• Creating large accumulations of combustible matter containing aircraft and building contents;
  
• Increasing the air supply into the damaged buildings that permitted significantly higher energy release rates than would normally be seen in ventilation limited building fires, allowing the fires to spread rapidly within and between floors; and
  
• Damaging ceilings that enabled “unabated” heat transport over the floor-to-ceiling partition walls and to structural components.

Analysis for WTC1: WTC2 is similar.

• Aircraft impact damage to perimeter columns, mainly on the North face, resulted in redistribution of column loads, mostly to the adjacent perimeter columns and to a lesser extent to the core columns.
  
• After breaching the building’s perimeter, the aircraft continued to penetrate into the building, damaging floor framing, core columns, and fireproofing. Loads on the damaged columns were redistributed to other intact core and perimeter columns mostly via the floor systems and to a lesser extent via the hat truss.
  
• The subsequent fires, influenced by the impact damaged fireproofing condition:
  
  
  • Softened and buckled the core columns and caused them to shorten, resulting in a downward displacement of the core relative to the perimeter which led to the floors (1) pulling the perimeter columns inward, and (2) transferring vertical loads to the perimeter columns.
    
  • Softened the perimeter columns on the South face and also caused perimeter column loads to increase significantly due to restrained thermal expansion.
  
  
• Due to the combined effects of heating on the core and perimeter columns, the South perimeter wall bowed inwards, and highly stressed sections buckled.
  
• The section of the building above the impact zone began tilting to the South as the bowed South perimeter columns buckled, and instability rapidly progressed horizontally across the entire South face and then across the adjacent East and West faces.
  
• The change in potential energy due to downward movement of building mass above the buckled columns exceeded the strain energy that could be absorbed by the structure. Global collapse then ensued.

[MadHound]

13. So what are you going to believe?

The reports of experts right on the scene(firemen and other witnesses from the top of the towers), the opinions of other experts investigating the collapse after the fact, your own eyes, or will you believe the findings of a political panel, hand picked to do a whitewash job and sweep everything under the rug?

Look at the video of the collapse! Sit there and tell me that not one, but two large skyscrapers, damaged in different ways, at different locations within their structures, both defied the almost insurmountable odds and fell essentially straight down into their own footprint. Unless you are conducting a controlled demolition, the odds of even one of these towers achieving such a relatively tidy demolition are astronomical. The odds that both towers perform such a miracle within minutes of each others is approaching insurmountable.

Look at the video of the collapse. Notice that you see no visible signs of flames, which would be plain to see if there was such a conflagration as this report proposes. Instead, all that you see is a great amount of thick, black and grey smoke, roiling out of the towers. This is the sign of a fire being smothered. Remember back to your last campfire, and when you dumped water on it to extinquish it. Remember all the smoke that came up when you did that? Same principle is at work in the towers. Plenty of fuel, not enough oxygen, the fire is being choked and smothered.

Listen to the audiotapes of the firemen who were on the scene, working to put out the fires. They report that the sprinkler system is functioning well. They are calling for only three lines to battle the blaze. This is the talk of firemen who are confident that the fire isn't that great a threat, and can easily be put out. And please note that in the south tower(the one that mysteriously collapsed first), half of the accelerant, the jet fuel, is taken out of the equation entirely because it burned up in that spectacular flash fireball when the plane hit the tower.

If you wish to put your faith in the words of a report written by a whitewash committee, that's up to you. Many people couldn't believe that a conspiracy killed JFK either, and took the Warren report and the magic bullet theory as gospel. Me, I'll side with what my own experience tells me, what the firemen on the scene were saying, and what the experts who aren't hand picked by Bushco say. I'm of the feeling that this is going to play out much like the JFK assasination played out. The government will continue to stonewall and whitewash, until at some point in the future it will have to reluctantly admit that yes indeed, it was a conspiracy.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. My own eyes

Page 14 of the NIST report: flames clearly visible on 4 adjacent floors, and on a floor further up, WTC1 10:22:59.

Page 15, flames visible WTC2 9:58:55.

There is plenty of smoke. But it's obvious that a huge gaping hole in the side of a building would allow much more oxygen to a fire than intact walls and windows. The fire is larger than would be normal in such a building.

[berni_mccoy]

20. What you aren't acknowledging

Is that there is conflicting scientific evidence. When science points to two different answers, both have to be challenged, and in this case, an experiment to determine heat and load conditions required to buckle one of these girders is the only way I can see of resolving this.

[MadHound]

22. No, you're believing a report prepared by those with an ulterior motive

If you were believing your eyes, and the eyes of those who were there, firefighters, eyewitnesses, then you wouldn't be falling for this load of crap. Go back over the videotapes, listen to the audiotapes of the firefighters. Then tell me how big this "raging conflagration" really was.

Yes, a hole in the side of a building allows greater circulation of air. The trouble is that it wasn't enough to compensate the difficulties the fire itself was facing in a vigorous spinkler system, and fire retardant materials. The firefighters confirmed this with their call for only three lines. This is real evidence, evidence that we don't see reported anywhere in the commission's report. Why? If they were to do as thorough a job of investigation as their stated intent, they would have included such reports as I mentioned, for on the spot, eyewitness reports are VITAL in such investigations. Instead, they leave them out or gloss them over. Sounds like a whitewash to me.

[patcox2]

26. Still waiting on this "3 lines" nonsense.

Do you actually believe they drag hoses up skyscrapers? They fight high fires with the hoses and the water system in place, its physically impossible to pump water up 80 stories.

[MadHound]

34. Do you even know WTF you're talking about?

Have you even listened to these tapes? They're out there, why not go find them. Or do you just like to spew disinformation for the fun of it.

Of course they're not going to drag a hose up eighty stories. Their call for three lines was for their comrades in the building to find those three lines and get them working.

Don't try and pretend you've fought fires when you haven't OK, it just makes you look foolish.

[chicagiana]

57. Big hole goes both ways!!!

A big whole in the building allows more oxygen flow. At the same time, doesn't it allow more heat to vent reducing the overall ambient temperature in the affected areas??? Doesn't this make it more difficult to reach the temperatures at which the steel will soften???

[patcox2]

25. He is referring to the primary load bearing columns, not struts.

The unique architecture of the trade center made it essentially a hollow tube, with each floor a "bridge" across the empty interior. The exterior columns held ALL the weight of the buildings. And the photos clearly show that dozens of these columns were completely severed by the impact, obviously completely disrupting the designed flow of the stresses and increasing the load enormously on the remaining columns.

And the towers did not fall in their own footprints, thats horseshit. The sideways deviation may look small in photos, but it was hundreds of feet. Remember, there must be a force to divert the fall of anything to the side. In most cases this force is caused by the moment arm created when the support becomes uneven because of partial collapse occurring. This occurred with the first tower to fall, the top floors did in fact tip out to one side, considerably. however, once this happened, the remaining floors did indeed pancake as the accelerating collapse happened so quickly that uneven forces could not build up and because such forces as were present had no time to act (the debris was going 90 MPH in the X axis vector, but only a few meters per second in the Y axis vector).

[MadHound]

35. More disinformation friend.

Go read your analysis of the WTC again. The exterior columns were NOT designed to carry all of the weight of the building. They were designed only to carry the weight of the exterior skin. The real weight bearing, gravity defying work was designed to be done by the central core columns.

Oh, and if the sideways deviation was hundreds of feet as you claim, then the top of the building would have landed on another building, destroying it instantaneously. Instead, the only only building that collapsed was WTC7, and that was hours later, and in much the same fashion as the towers, straight down into its own footprint. Yes, there was some minor deviation as the towers collapsed, but certainly not hundreds of feet as you claim. Your hyperbole is getting old, why not try working with facts, not fiction friend.

[patcox2]

45. You are wrong about the load bearing exterior columns.

Just as I was wrong about the 800 degrees figure for steel losing strength, I forgot that its 800 centigrade, at which steel does lose 90% of its structural strength.

But anyway, the WTC did not have a typical structure for a skyscraper (an interior honeycomb-like grid of steel columns and girders, with a light curtainwall attached to the interior structure.)

The exterior walls of the WTC were in fact the loadbearing structural columns which supported the majority of the weight of the building. Columns were spaced so closely together around the outside of the building that no curtainwall was needed, the entire space between them was filled with the narrow windows.

The only other vertical columns in the building were in the small central core of the building, inside which the elevators and stairs were located.

The building was essentially hollow, and it was in fact structuraly analogous to the beercan.

They built the floors by hanging steel trusses which spanned from the exterior columns to the central core. These were lightwieght trusses that added no vertical strength to the building, they just supported the floors. The span from core to exterior was quite long, not like a typical steel frame building with columns regularly spaced throughout the interior.

The one thing they did do was keep the exterior columns aligned vertically. When these floor trusses failed, it allowed the exterior walls to buckle.

Whether this should or should not have happened given the temperature of the fire is one thing, but I think there is pretty broad agreement about the nature of the structural collapse which did occur.

I don't know how to post a picture, but this link shows a diagram: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/innovation2.html

[patcox2]

29. "internal columns," I think you mean the girders, right?

The floor.

The trade center was like a hollow pipe with a much smaller pipe in the middle, the rest was essentially empty. The floor girders were hung, suspended between the inner and outer columns. The floor girders were not even solid, they were a truss system, actually very light material. To see examples, look up at the ceiling in any unfinished large building, like a home depot or a sams club, those metal trusses are the same thing.

The floor trusses don't do anything to hold the building up, except to help maintain the shape and configuration of the load bearing columns.

Thats why it happened. Many floor trusses were destroyed in the impacts. others were weakened by fire. They were connected to the exterior columns by a single bolt, smaller than you'd think. All it toook was for a few of these to fail on a single floor. That floor would then collapse down on the floor below it, and no floor is engineered to take that impact force. Meanwhile, the absence of the floor trusses holding the exterior columns allows the columns to buckle. They didn't really have to be weakened much, once they lost horizontal stability, they can't hold the weight.

I used to do a trick; I could carefully stand on top of an empty beercan, it will hold a lot of weight as long as the shape is perfect. but if you just tap the side with you finger, deforming it almost microscopically, it would suddenly, instantaneously collapse (in its own footprint, I might add). Similar structural situation, weight held by an exterior wall which is strong only so long as its shape is held perfectly, any deformation and it suddenly loses all strength.

Fires are complex, some parts on some floors in some rooms may have been colder and oxygen starved, others may have ben much hotter. A collapse only neeeds to start in one critical place.

[MadHound]

36. Again with the trusses, sheesh

Get over the trusses, they were not the main load bearing structure of the WTC, the central core was. The central core was relatively untouched, and certainly not melted or softened. It would have had to take a raging fire over the time span of hours to weaken the central core to the point the towers collapsed, and then the tower would have fallen over towards the origin point of that massive heat, not go straight down.

According to the eyewitnesses on the scene, the firefighters, the survivors, the fire wasn't that hot. Your scenario is improbable, to say the least.

[Dancing_Dave]

77. The WTC was blown to smithereens-NOT gravitational collapse!

Didn't you ever bother to analyze all the pictures of what really happened???

Check it out and free your mind from propaganda bullshit:
http://plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/

:think: ;-)

[demodewd]

93. core columns

Why would the core columns colapse with the floors? Wouldn't it remain standing(at least partially) with your theory?

[lil-petunia]

10. steel is strong when frozen (solid)

It DOES NOT HAVE TO MELT to become really malliable, soft and bendable. Trust me. I do this every weekend. Melt means liquid. Forging and shaping hot steel never comes even close to melting temps because you risk burning the steel. (oxidation at 2800 deeg. or so) Steel at 1800 - 2000 is forging temperature. It bends. Easily. Think of cold silly putty that glows yellow and red.

[MadHound]

14. Yes, but the temperatures that the steel were exposed to were much lower

Jet fuel(kerosene essentially) burns at aprox 800-900F under ideal conditions. Given that there were vast quantities of fire retardant material inside the towers(as mandated by law), and that the sprinkler system was functioning well(as reported by the firemen in the towers and on the scene), and that the firemen on the scene reported that they only needed three lines in each tower to put out the flames, it becomes readily obvious that the conditions weren't ideal, and that the fire was indeed being smothered. This is born out by the scene outside of the tower, where you see no flame(which would have been obvious if the conflagration was as great as is claimed). Instead, you see great curtains of grey-black smoke roiling out of the building. To me, a former fireman myself, this speaks to the fact that the fire was being smothered, deprived of oxygen, choked out. Thus, you have a much cooler fire, nowhere near approaching the temperatures needed to soften, much less melt, steel.

[jmowreader]

52. Okay, now try this...

Crank up your forge to 2000 degrees. Next, take a piece of steel and set it on the floor a foot or so from the forge to heat it. After it's nice and hot, shape it with your hammer and anvil.

I ask you to do this because here's what a "jet fuel fires softened the beams" theory means: that somehow, the fuel from the plane, which is stored in tanks in the wings and in the cargo hold between the wings--there is no fuel tank in the nose of a commercial airliner--all ran up to the core of the building, turned into a gel, smeared itself on the beams--but went nowhere else--then heated itself to 1800 degrees and stayed that hot long enough to soften the beams enough to get the building to collapse.

What's the flame temperature of kerosene in air? It seems to average out at 800 degrees. I keep hearing that the influx of air into the tower made the flame hotter--there's no way it made it THAT MUCH hotter; there's not that much oxygen in air.

Now here's what happens in real life: the building was made of stressed steel girders; the plane was made of aluminum. Take a piece of aluminum, accelerate it to 400 mph, slam it against a piece of stressed steel, and the steel will cut through the aluminum like a hot knife cutting through butter. It will cut through the fuel tanks too, causing the kerosene to spray wildly into the building and also onto the face of the building. This creates a fuel-air explosive, and when the ignitor--the hot engines--entered the building, it ignited the fuel.

The national building code requires that all commercial buildings use drywall as an interior wall finish and that all drywall used in commercial buildings be at least 5/8" thick Type X Fire Code drywall. (Fire Department of New York was the first code to specify this product.) The WTC being a commercial building, it is safe to assume that there was 5/8" drywall surrounding the core of the building. Type X panels have a minimum fire rating of 45 minutes.

(Jim's note: USG recently performed a comparative test between regular drywall, Type X drywall and the new Type C panel. In an 1850-degree flame, Type X drywall lasted for 57 minutes. The first WTC tower collapse happened less than 90 minutes after the plane flew into it...meaning this magic 800-degree flame that could heat a steel beam to the malleability point managed to heat no less than 40 feet of steel (assuming that the vertical beams were 40 feet long, which makes sense because semis back then had 40-foot trailers), assuming there wasn't a joint in the impact area, to 1800 degrees. Steel conducts heat readily, meaning you'd need a lot of heat to do this because the metal is carrying the heat away as you apply it.)

Essentially, the more we discuss the idea that a kerosene fire dropped these buildings, the less logical it really sounds.

[chicagiana]

58. It's interesting that ...

One plane hit dead center and made a big whole. The other almost missed and struck at an angle. It produced a massive fuel air explosion OUTSIDE of the building.

The building that sustained the LEAST damage from jet fuel "fell" down FIRST!!!!

[muriel_volestrangler]

59. That's because no-one is saying is was the heat from jet fuel that caused

the structural failures. It was the heat from the flammable contents of the offices and planes.

Hitting closer to a corner may alter the behaviour of the perimeter tube.

[chicagiana]

63. Yes but the fires were started by the jet fuel ...

Less jet fuel, less flashpoints. Less penetration, less fire inside the building.

I'm not saying it's definitive, I'm saying it's curious.

[AP]

65. You start the fire on your grille with a match whether it's mesquite

or charcoal briquettes that you're burning. Mesquite burns at a higher termperature.

The fire in the buildings wasn't just from jet fuel. The jet fuel was the match or, more accurately, the lighter fluid. The thing burning was the building in addition to the lighter fluid.

[chicagiana]

71. No fucking shit ...

But were talking about a building stocked with all fire retardent materials. We're led to believe the fires spread rapidly because they were ingnited by jet fuel.

But the plane that hit the corner spewed most of it's fueld right out the other corner of the building. The WTC was NOT a tinder box. It was NOT a wood structure. It was steel and masonary filled with fire-retardent trimmings.

BTW, set your match on a plane piece of coal and see how long it takes to light. Or better yet, try lighting coal with gasoline ... it doesn't work!!!!

The materials that make up a flame are fire retardent as well. As was reported, the sprikler systems were operational so it would be difficult for the fire to spread!!!

[AP]

73. Your evidence also supports the other side of the argument.

If the building without as much jet fuel burned in the same way as the one with jet fuel, that might suggest that the fuel was just the lighter fluid. Whether you pour it on, or just light a little bit with a match, the fire starts and burns at the temperature of the largest mass of fuel: the mesquitte briquetts on the grille, or the inside of the building at the WTC.

You know how you know that things inside that building can burn? Becuase they had a sprinkler system. If nothing could burn, they wouldn't have had a sprinkler system.

I remember hearing that the sprinkler system in the first building had a chance of slowing the fire in that building, but when the plane hit the second buidling, it was such a drain on the first building's system that neither system did a decent job of slowing the fire. At that point, it was off to the races with the fire.

[jmowreader]

80. No one said the entire contents of the building were fireproof

Most of what burns in an office fire is paper.

If you have a building that has flame-resistant carpeting, flame-resistant upholstery (including flame-resistant polyurethane foam, which is normally extremely flammable--google "Station Nightclub Fire"), probably intumescent paint, all the best fire safety practices, then your major worry is paper fires--which are bad enough. (See http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jul02/58638.asp to see what a paper fire can look like.)

Also...if you're dealing with two separate buildings, wouldn't they have had two separate fire suppression systems?

[AP]

81. They're the tallest buildings in NY. I don't know how their water pumps...

...worked, but I heard that when they were designed, they didn't anticipate fires in both buildings at once. When the second system went on, pressure dropped in the first, and then pressure was too low in both.

[MadHound]

64. Thing is though that a lot of those "flameable contents" weren't.

Virtually everything in an office building built in the past forty years is flame retardent to one extent or another. Furniture, wall coverings, drapes, carpets, even the steel beams themselves are covered with a flame retardent material. State laws and insurance regualtions have mandated this kind of fire protection. The few things left that aren't fire retardent are paper, some office supplies, and the personal belongings brought in by employees. In addition, you have to factor in the sprinkler system, which was functioning well according to eyewitnesses.

[AP]

68. Just about everything burns. It just takes longer for some things to catch

fire than other things (and it takes higher temperatures). Jet fuel might not burn at a high temperature, but pour enough jet fuel under just about anything and set it on fire and it's going to give off its energy eventually.

Look at volcanos. That's flaming rock. Now, I don't think a burning 747 could melt a building made of rock, but there were definitely a lot of things in the WTC that were less flamable than rock.

[muriel_volestrangler]

69. 'Flame retardant' doesn't mean the objects aren't flammable

it means they will resist the heat for longer.

[MadHound]

70. Which makes for a cooler fire

Thank you very much for playing.

[AP]

72. I'm not sure about that. A desk has potential energy. You treat it with

something so that it doesn't catch fire as easy, but that doesn't reduce the potential energy in the desk. It just means that you delay the point at which the ignition takes place.

Say you had a desk made of mesquite and you put some treatment on it so that it doesn't burn easily. Well, put jet fuel under that desk until it starts to burn, it's going to start to burn, and at some point it's going to burn at the temperature that mesquite burns at until it burns out or is extinguished.

No?

[MadHound]

75. To take your example

It would take X degrees of temperature to set that desk corner on fire, which would take X calories of energy to ignite that corner. However that is simply for that one corner. The other corner would take the same thing. Now, the fire could burn from the inside out, but that would cut back on the oxygen, thus choking the fire, lowering the temperature. And that is with spray on stuff. If the entire piece is made out of fire retardent, then each and every single molecule of that particular piece would require the same higher degree of temperature to ignite, consuming more fuel and O2, lowering the overall temperature. Most fires slow way down when they hit fire retardents, and many simply go out due to lack of fuel. It is simpy a matter of energy available to energy expended.

[AP]

76. The fires got a lot of oxygen from the holes the planes put in the...

...buildings, and things burned becuase the thing next to them burned. And once they got through a fire retardant coating, the thing burned. I don't know how many of those desks and things were coated or were flame-retardant on the molecular-level. But I'm more inclined to say that it looks like there was enough fuel than to say there wasn't.

Look at any airlpane that catches fire. I'm sure everything in a plane is designed not to catch fire easily, but once they do, there's not much left when they finish burning, and the fires are often hot enough to destroy just about everything.

[gbwarming]

79. There's actually a government agency expert in this sort of thing

They've done tests and stuff for years.

http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/firedoctoc.html

Here's a paper on the heat release rate of typical cubical contents (not sure if the partitions are flame retardant or not)
http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/bfrlall/key/key1618.html

This survey of office fuel load contents found that about 50% of the contents was paper and books:
http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire96/PDF/f96080.pdf

[berni_mccoy]

11. Like I said

We need to re-create the experiment under controlled conditions to know what happened to those beams to be certain.

My father-in-law is a machinist *and* a fireman, and given the smoke/sprinklers, it's highly unlikely that the fire was hot enough to weaken the structure to a point of utter collapse in a completely straightdown manner. Think about how THICK these beams were and how many explosives it usually takes placed in just the right places to take down a building that way. The odds of that happening from that accident are so astronomical that it warrents an experiment to prove/disprove beam failure.

I also have a hard time believing an aircraft impact could cause enough damage to the STRUCTURE. The towers were designed to take that kind of impact and the planes clearly disintigrated (being made of aluminum).

[KeireG]

15. Whitewash indeed

Anyone can see that the smoke was very black, and the fire was being starved. The jet fuel did not get anywhere near 2000 degrees, and the fact that this man was fired for offering an analysis out of the proposed whitewashed collapse theory is evidence that SOMEONE is trying to hid SOMETHING.

[patcox2]

21. "anyone can see" is not science.

Anyone can see what they want to see; many think they see the virgin mary in taco shells.

Engineers can measure the temperatures by examining photographs of the blaze, it has been done frequently in cases of steel frame building fires.

Certainly black smoke usually indicates a low temperature flame in a simple system such as a lamp or a burner. But when you have 10 stories of an office building simultaneously doused with an accelerant and ignited (after first having its combustibles reduced to tinder by the impact) I think you have a somewhat more complicated situation. Forest fires routinely reach temperatures in the thousands of degrees, yet give off enormous quantities of black smoke.

And there is no requirement, as so many seem to think, that steel "melt" in order to collapse. Steel loses 80% of its strength at a temperature of 800 degrees.

The guy was fired because he was a loon.

The conspiracy theories on this issue are so whacked its amazing. We have the "the planes were piloted by remote control" lunacy, we have the "the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition" crap, and the logic of it all is what? That they went to the trouble of planting explosives, and then also flying airplanes into the buildings, after first faking hijackings? Gee, what else would these theories require? Okay, even though they used remote control, they would have to have had hijackers on the planes pretend to hijack the planes, right, so that the passengers would call their spouses on cell phones and report a hijacking, right? Or did they use trained voice actors who had researched the intimate lives of all the passengers, who then called the spouses and made tearful goodbyes, tricking them into beleiving they were talking to their husband or wife? Of course, there is the hysterical, reality-ignoring claim that cel phones don't work on planes, when in fact they do. Meanwhile, all the passengers on the radio-controlled flights, thye are where? Taken off and now hidden at Area 51, being used as food for the human-eating space aliens stored there? And it wasn't even a plane that Barbara Olson and a dozen others weren't really calling from. That plane either, what is it, didn't exist, or flew into a vortex in the bermuda triangle, or is now taking part in time travel experiments a-la The Philadelphia Experiment?

And of course, we never really landed on the moon.

[MadHound]

32. LOL friend, when you can't disprove with science, mock and ridicule

Is in order, eh? Same tactic they tried with the JFK assasination, but that too was eventually proved a conspiracy. Same tactics and the same path the WTC collapse will take I suspect.

You are proving your ignorance on these matters with every sentence you type. Your statement about steel losing eighty percent of its strength at 800F is flat out wrong. If it were true, many internal combustion engines, forges, etc would fail. According to the ASTM E119 standard of structural steel strength, those beams in the WTC wouldn't have started losing tensile strength until the fire reached 1100-1200F, and then only gradually, not all at once.

You attempt to gloss over the smoke evidence is truly pathetic friend. Eyewitnesses, firement on the scene confirm that the fire suppression systems in place were working. The sprinkler system, the fire retardent materials making up the building. The firefighters on the spot were calling for only three lines. This is all a sign, along with the smoke evidence, of a relatively cool fire. And by the by, forest fires, raging or not, don't give off much black smoke. Grey, white, dark brown, but little black smoke, that is unless they're being deprived of air. I know this for I have fought many, and viewed them from inside the fire and outside. And they don't routinely reach temperatures of thousands of degrees friend, even with a good wind whipping them along. You're talking blast furnace temperatures there, not forest fires. As I said, I know, for I've been in many.

Your attempts at disinformation are pathetically obvious, yet sad to say people will believe them, just as many fell for the magic bullet theory from the JFK assasination coverup. But as with the JFK assasination, the truth will not be denied, and will pop up unexpectedly. So in the end, your efforts will prove futile, and you will merely look foolish.

[Chelsea Patriot]

37. Black Smoke! Exactly, MadHound!....I saw it!...Totally Black!

I am always amazed at the people who were no where near the collapse; yet,they know everything about it.

I have never known the significance of the Black smoke until reading your posts. Thank You, MadHound!

Every time, I read another thread on the WTC collapse, I become more and more convinced that what I saw on 9/11 was a controlled demolition.

No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

[muriel_volestrangler]

61. This forest fire smoke looks pretty damn dark to me

[vincent_vega_lives]

90. How's this for mock and ridicule

Getalife. You're a fucking moron.

Hit the alert, delete this post, ban me I don't give a shit.

I'm sick of this crap.

[chicagiana]

60. Kersone and gasoline ...

Ya know, when I want to start a GOOD fire, I use Kerosene, not gasoline. Gasoline is explosive, it goes BOOM and than the fire is gone. Kerosine on the other hand takes it's time. It burns slow enough that it can catch other things on fire!!!!

Jet fuel is a LOT more explosive than gasoline. It went BOOM and than it went away. Firefighters in the tower were reporting that things were under control. THATS when the towers came down.

Look just examine the WTC 7 collapse. The reasoning all begins there. I don't know what really happened to WTC 1 and 2. But I'm 95% certain that WTC 7 didn't come down by fire. It just "fell down" in a manner indistinguishable from a controlled demolition. The structure (ground floor and all) moved simultaneosly earthward intant as if someone had blown all the supporting columns simultaneously.

The pancake theory does sound reaosable enough on WTC 1 and WTC 2. It does seem somewhat reasonable. And an elaborate plot to ram jets into buildings to conceal a controlled demolition DOES sound far-fetched. But if someone would blow up WTC 7 on the same day using controlled demolition ... why not WTCs 1 & 2????

Oh yeah, and please, o please explain to me how a paper passport of a 9/11 hijacker miraculously survived the wreckage when the steel reinforced flight data recorder of BOTH planes DID NOT survive????

[gbwarming]

66. Good Grief. Jet A _is_ a kerosene type fuel.

You've got it completely backward :)

http://www.chevron.com/prodserv/fuels/bulletin/aviationfuel/pdfs/chapter3.pdf
International Air Transport Association (IATA) publishes a document entitled Guidance Material for Aviation Turbine Fuels Specifications. The guidance material contains specifications for four aviation turbine fuels: three kerosene-type fuels (Jet A, Jet A-1, and TS-1) and one wide-cut fuel (Jet B). Jet A meets the ASTM requirements, Jet A-1 meets the Joint Checklist requirements, TS-1 meets the Russian GOST requirements, and Jet B meets the Canadian CGSB requirements.

[Sodium Pentothal]

16. Stop using this "science"

Use your faith! What does God tell you, deep down? What does His President tell you? Listen up and listen good!


This "science" thing is completely overblown. It doesn't factor in divine intervention! Science is the devils tool to make you lose faith!









(I completely agree with you and have been harping these points to absolutely no avail. People will not believe the US had a hand in knocking the towers down so we could justfiy to the populace a war for natural resources in this time of Peak Oil. Hell, they can't believe some bushies hacked our votes, no way are they going to see all the evidence that 9/11 doesn't add up if you believe in "science".)

[Blue_Tires]

30. curiouser and curiouser

[berni_mccoy]

33. Ok, I've read the full report...

Here's where a conflict of information arises:

UL did a load/fire test as I was asking about above, and this test is quoted in the report.

The test showed that there could be no sign of collapse. From the report: "The floor system did not fail to support loads in all tests." UL tested both fire-protected and bare steel. No collapse or weakening was repported in either case.

The report says that the test UL did does not apply because the temperature of the fire was more extreme than was tested. However, there is no evidence to support that, ONLY a HYPOTHESIS.

That's it. That's all we have to go on. A THEORY. We don't know how hot it was, period. We only have simulations, and as a computer scientist who has worked with simulations of electronic circutry, in a dynamic case like this, you can only show trends, you can't give a pinpoint accurate assessment of what really happened. Physics is extremely difficult to simulate to match what really happens. I know, because I've worked with physics simulators.

My point earlier is that we should extend the UL tests to see at what point failure occurs. That will give us a temperature and load combination that we can use as an end-point for the simulation. If it adds up to the simulation, then we have an accurate relation of the real events. If it doesn't, then we know there is significant error somewhere that will need further investigation.

[0rganism]

82. Hey! No rationality in here!

This is supposed to be a dick-wagging contest, not a calm discussion of scientific methodology!

[leesa]

42. How surprising. It's no wonder those experts who said no way the WTC

could collapse like that the day or two after 9-11, immediately and very suspiciously changed their stories.

[Emillereid]

49. Muslims suspend the laws of physics stuff --

that analysis seems to also suggest that a jet fuel fire could not get hot enough to have caused the collapse. Is that analysis any good? http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/physics_1.html

[berni_mccoy]

54. Wow, thanks for that link

That's a pretty thorough analysis with well-documented facts. And it was a lot cheaper than the millions spent by NIST!

[Dancing_Dave]

51. The 9/11 Cover-up is So Busted!

Hurray for this heroic citizen who was so oppressively persecuted for spreading the truth about a matter of great importance to us all! It's a pity there aren't more brave truth-tellers like Kevin Ryan in this world!:toast:

The 9/11 cover-up is so busted...and when it breaks down in New York, it will break down everywhere.

[ElementaryPenguin]

53. Wow! How would they possibly explain WTC -7???

That HAD to be a total demolition job!

:puke:

[LARED]

83. Two things

1. The guy should have gotten fired. He's a bloody idiot. Based on his letter it is clear he either has no clue what he's talking about or he purposefully is misleading people on The UL's time. The UL division he works for performs water analysis, and does not pay him to display his ignorant fantasies on the internet.

2. Steel buildings are FIRE PROOFED. This is done to PROTECT the steel from the temperatures reached in an ordinary office fire. (In fact the ASTM method the author speak about addresses this issue).

The fire proofing protects the steel because at elevated temperature. (like those found in ordinary office fires) WILL weaken the steel to the point that it becomes hazardous to assume the integrity of the building remains sound. The fires were started by jet fuel. The jet fuel is nothing more than the match that started the fires and subsequent collapse. Also let not forget the buildings did have jumbo jets crash into them a 400 to 500 MPH.

[berni_mccoy]

84. You are so wrong

1. This guy is not a 'bloody idiot'. His letter simply calls out that there is a contradiction in the facts and that the heart of the matter is finding out what the temperature really was. Only this information could lead to a determination that the beams failed due to thermal conditions. He was fired because he works for UL who is paid by NIST and he is challenging their report to go further. This obviosly must have pissed off someone at NIST who jumped to conclusions (as you are) and in turn complained to UL and resulted in his firing. As a consultant, I know you have to be very careful when criticizing a client or you will end up losing the job (and $).

2. The tests that UL performed for NIST show that given the temperatures reached by a jet fuel fire could not be enough to cause failure in the columns. The NIST report even admits this. The open question in the NIST report is what temperature the columns were exposed to. Without this information, they only have a theory, and right now their theory doesn't have sufficient factual backing.

The resulting problem is that if there was no way to reach the temperatures that would weaken the beams sufficiently, then there must be another reason for the collapse, which NIST doesn't seem to want to get into.

[LARED]

85. Actually I'm not wrong

The guy is not pointing out any contradictions, he is implying there are contradictions because he either doesn't understand what he's reading or he is misrepresenting what he's reading.

He apparently was fired because he is using the name of UL to post his special brand of idiocy on the internet. I'm sure he did piss someone off because what he did was very stupid.

Regarding weakened beams. I have at least 50 times now pointed out that temperatures reached in ordinary office fires weaken steel to the point that they must be fireproofed. The fact that the fireproofing was inadequate due to being thin and knocked off by the jets hitting the building is well known, so why do people continue with this sophistry?

[berni_mccoy]

86. Please read the NIST report

Or look at post 33 above. The report even says that the UL Tests (including non-fireproofed beams and columns) showed that the heat could not explain the weakening of the beams.

The NIST results are only conjecture. What the author of the letter is asking for is a focus of the investigation to get to the real thermal conditions.

I do agree, posting his letter to the internet was not wise, but we don't know the circumstances... he probably tried reasoning with them privately first, and meeting a stonewall, turned to revealing the NIST's lack of interest in understanding what really happened.

The NIST report is nothing more than a theory, and while there is evidence to support their theory, there is evidence to contradict it as well.

We may never know the real answer unless NIST (or an independent group) does more to thoroughly investigate the thermal conditions.

Also NOTE:
The NIST report is far from accurate. One good example is that they show 'buckling' of the facial columns prior to collapse. First off, these collumns did not support the building. Secondly, the 'buckling' has been shown to be rippling from impact shock-waves, not buckling due to load as NIST claims. With an obvious inaccuracy as this, the author of the letter from UL definitely has merit.

[RH]

89. First off,

the support of the building is not the most critical factor.

The most critical factor is the ability to stay steady, to damp intrinsic vibration. The rippling is therefore moot.

[demodewd]

95. bs award

hahahaha! You are totally full of a large pile of bs.Total bs.You win the DU bs award.

[LARED]

91. I read the report, did you?

The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team´s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse". The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.

Ok except that the < 250 C temp were only regarding some perimeter columns. And that ruling out weak steel is about the testing performed to indicate the properties of the steel as constructed (i.e the quality), as the author seems to strongly imply that ruling out "weak steel" has something to do with the temperature of the steel before the collapse.

Now he goes off the deep end.

However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building´s steel core to "soften and buckle"(5).

The report does not say the core columns were exposed to low temperature. In fact the report indicates that the temperature was as high 650C. This temperature is well into the area where steel loses significant strength.

Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250 C".

The report states the columns on the south face softened. It also states that large loads were transferred to these columns. In short the author is equating information in reports that are not related to each other.

To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.

Can anyone say straw man or perhaps idiot. No one that understands the relationship between temperature and the strength of steel would talk about forging temperatures when discussing the collapse. Steel loses much of its strength long long before you reach 1100C.

[demodewd]

96. valid measurements?

NIST has no valid measurement of how hot the core columns were. This is all pure conjecture and has no scientific validity at all. Of course the core columns reached such temperatures..they must... to conform to the NIST cover-up.

[LARED]

97. The irony of demodewd

NIST has no valid measurement of how hot the core columns were.

I think its methods are reasonably valid. I would not call it conclusive but it better that and more valid that the pure conjecture of demodewd.

This is all pure conjecture and has no scientific validity at all. Of course the core columns reached such temperatures..they must... to conform to the NIST cover-up.

Which is of course pure conjecture and by demodewd. I have asked you this maybe a dozen times now, do you have any evidence the NIST report is a coverup? Any?

[demodewd]

94. re: fireproofing

What fireproofing that would have been knocked off by the planes would have been confined to a limited area. And as we all know,well at least most of us,the intense heat of the immediate area of fire would have been quickly conducted away to the core columns and other connecting pieces. So why do you continue with this "sophistry"?

[LARED]

98. Now we are getting somewhere

.. fireproofing that would have been knocked off by the planes would have been confined to a limited area.

I'm glad to see you can admit that much is true. Now that you have recognized this you will have to agree that an area (although possibly limited) was exposed to temperatures that would have affected the steel.

And as we all know,well at least most of us,the intense heat of the immediate area of fire would have been quickly conducted away to the core columns and other connecting pieces.

I am not sure how quickly this would have happen but I do know that without fireproofing the steel will conduct heat faster. Meaning more steels would have been affected by the fire. Out of curiosity do you have any clue whether this is bad or good? And what is it based on?

[BlueDog2u]

99. Can I ask you, sir, what is your problem?

Has it occurred to you that you are "posting on the internet"? Stop using insulting language about someone who is not even present to defend himself from your cavalier attacks. It only makes you look bad and certainly does not impress those of us who are attempting to follow this discussion with open minds.