June 8 NIST Presentation - Findings on WTC Fire and Collapse

[Bolo Boffin]

It's a PDF file of Shyam Sunder and William Grosshandler's presentation at the FFPA World Safety Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas.

http://wtc.nist.gov/NFPA_Presentation_on_WTC.pdf

Download it, read it, love it.

[philb]

1. Here's the problem I have with the NIST explanation

Something caused the huge explosions that reduced most of the solid materials in the WTC buildings to a fine powder.

I've never heard or seen comparable done by a building simply falling. Has anyone heard of such? and is it plausible that
the NIST scenario could cause this to happen?
Doesn't seem plausible to me.

And the NIST report, similar to the 9/11 report seems to have disregarded much of the evidence not compatible with their findings.

The huge amount of evidence and reports supporting explosions before and during the collapse.
The report of firefighters at the level of the fires that the fires were relatively small and subsiding, especially that in WTC2.
Other evidence of the same- small fires and dimenishing. No prolonged major fire.

The molten steel in the basement- hot for months after 9/11.
The splintering(not bending or buckling) of the huge steel beams and expulsion outward with much force.
The pictures of explosions and explosive exhaust of the building materials outward.

[hack89]

3. Concerning the firefighters...

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren't the stairways impassable through the impact zones? Thats why there were no(perhaps one or two) survivors from the floors above the impact. So the firefighters got to the floors below the impact but could not go any further. Couldn't there have been infernos raging above the firefighters and they would have never been aware of them?

What evidence is there that there were no major fires on those floors the fire fighters could not reach?

As to your initial statement "Something caused the huge explosions that reduced most of the solid materials in the WTC buildings to a fine powder." Explosive cutting charges would not reduce concrete and sheet rock to powder, they would be used to cut the steel so that gravity would bring down the towers - thats controlled demolition 101. So even if there were explosives, the only cause for the powder would be the fall of the the buildings. So I fail to see how this powder you refer to is proof of anything.

What evidence is there of splintering of steel? And don't you understand that this is not evidence of controlled demolition? The shaped charges have a very focused explosion that cleanly cut the steel. There would not be Hollywood style explosions as that would be wasting energy which in turn would require even more explosives to get the job done.

And I will ask once again - how do explosive melt steel? Explosions are a pressure event with very little heat. Certainly explosives do not produce the sustained heat needed to melt steel.

[Kevin Fenton]

4. 5+ survivors

I know of no-one at or above the impact zone in the north tower who survived.
There were 4 people who escaped from above the impact zone in the south tower - they used the north staircase, which was furthest from the impact zone and it was apparently very difficult. I know of 1 woman on floor 78 of the South Tower who got out. Apparently she waited there for 15 minutes until the fire started going down and then left. There may have been others on the same floor, I don't know about that.

[philb]

9. reply

I din't say that I think that conventional controled explosives produced all the damage. I think there may have been more than one mechanism involved, perhaps an advanced technology.
There is a lot of support that the fires in WTC2 were not major and were dying down. Have you seen the pictures from neighboring buildings into the WTC2 building. People alive in the area where the plane entered peering out the broken wall, and very little fire.
The recordings of what the firefighters said are available and I've posted the URL. We don't have to speculate about what they said.
I've listened to them. And seen statements by other firefighters, building engineers, others at the site. And seen lots of pictures.
Its clear that there were explosions in the basements of both buildings before the collapse. And also explosions in other areas of the buildings. And what clearly looks like cutter charges going off.
But I don't think that gravity could produce the powdering of the building materials or the massive explosions of dust and sections of massive steel beams that were thrown outward with obvious great force.

My main focus is the obvious complicity of officials where it is clear that officials were deluged with lots of specific warnings about the events of 9/11; and that they clearly knew about the flights in time to prevent the attacks at each site if they had tried. Someone prevented the normal response proceedures from being carried out.

[hack89]

12. "Advanced technology"? - Okaaaay.

But you didn't answer my question. What difference does it make what the firefighters said if they weren't able to enter the impact zone? If they couldn't access the floors than they couldn't see all the fires.

As to the people alive, well have you considered that the area of each floor was huge - there could have been an inferno in the center of the building or on the other side.

If all that dust was spread over lower Manhattan by explosives, why were no traces of explosives ever found?

And again, you seem to miss the obvious point behind controlled demolition. Gravity does the work once the supports are cut. There would not be massive explosions strewing debris all over the place. There would be barely noticeable puffs of smoke(if that) as the cutting charges cut the steel.

[MellowOne]

5. Something I've wondered about

I'm just a young girl so I'm probably way off but is it possible that timed bombs were planted in the basement and/or in the planes? I believe I read in here that one traffic controller said the two planes out of Boston disappeared off the radar screen over the Atlantic. Maybe they used different planes, other than the ones that supposedly hit the towers, with only a pilot and timed bombs to cordinate with the bombs planted in the basement to bring down the towers. Or maybe I should take up writing sci-fi?

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. You don't remember were you saw

that little tidbit about the planes flying out to the Atlantic?

I'm working on trying to find info about Flight 93 which I believe went down in Indian Lake and someone else was looking at Flight 77 and the Pentagon Lagoon.

[MellowOne]

13. I don't remember exactly

But it was somewhere in the September 911 forum. We were discussing congested airspace over NYC and air traffic controllers. I'll try to find it but it might take a while.

[spooked911]

14. Yes, it is quite possible.

and I remember seeing some quote like that too, but I don't know where.

I know one early article right after 9/11 in USA Today talked about three emergency signals on planes going on over the Atlantic. But they never explained whayt happened with the signals.

[LARED]

11. This is a problem I have

Something caused the huge explosions that reduced most of the solid materials in the WTC buildings to a fine powder.

There is simply no evidence most of the solid materials were reduced to a fine powder. There was without question huge amounts of dust, dust from many different sources, but there was plenty of solid materials not a fine dust.

This is one of the most prevalent falsehood repeated about the WTC.

[spooked911]

16. Apparently everything except the steel columns was converted into powder

and very small pieces. Have ou seen anything besides steel beams and powder in any picture?

The question is, what made those huge clouds of dust that billowed out from the towers very early on in the collapse?

Also, why did they collapse occur so very rapidly? Why was there so little resistance from the floors that were unaffected by fire?

[LARED]

24. Here's a few

[TomClash]

36. "there was plenty of solid materials not a fine dust"

But not relative to the number of objects and enormous size of the building. And almost all of the concrete was pulverized.

[LARED]

2. Try this as well

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/Media_Public_Briefing_040505_final.pdf

[Kevin Fenton]

6. Inconsistency

There seems to be at least one inconsistency here.
On page 41 "Probable Collapse Sequence for WTC 2" it says
"Several of the undamaged core columns near the damaged and severed core columns developed high plastic and creep strains over the duration the building stood, since both temperatures and stresses were high in the core area."
But on page 31 "Results of Thermal Analysis" which "shows maximum temperature reached by each column" the maximum temperature of the hottest core columns is only 200 degrees C. Most of them have hardly heated up at all. Also, this is a "severe case", which I suppose means they are taking something close to the maximum possible values, not the average probable ones.

Further, on page 31 they seem to think three core columns were compromised by the aircraft impact into the North Tower (the plane that hit straight on and slammed right into the core) but eleven were compromised in the South Tower (where the plane only dealt the core a glancing blow). I find the difference hard to explain. In addition, how do they know? Can they see inside the buildings, right into the middle of the core?

[Bolo Boffin]

7. Many of the charts are incomplete movie files

We only see the first frame, but the presentation had the slide change over time.

[Kevin Fenton]

18. Incomplete

Why do you think it is the first frame?
Have you seen it?
Don't suppose you have a link?
They are claiming the maximum temperature is around 600 degrees C in the north tower - when would the first frame start?

[Bolo Boffin]

21. I only think it's the first frame because that make sense to me

I'd imagine each frame to look like it would when the presentation first brings that slide up. Then the presenter could push a button and run the movie file.

However, that one frame starting at 100 seconds might mean that random starting points are shown (although for that particular frame, 100 seconds would be a good starting point).

[Kevin Fenton]

25. Eh?

"However, that one frame starting at 100 seconds might mean that random starting points are shown (although for that particular frame, 100 seconds would be a good starting point)."
I don't really get your point here. You think the slides show the two buildings 100s after each of them was impacted?

[Bolo Boffin]

27. Not all of them.

Just that particular slide - and I'd guess the film would move at 100s intervals.

[Kevin Fenton]

29. Severe case

It says "severe case", what can that mean?

[Bolo Boffin]

30. That simulation was run as a type of worst case scenario.

It's computer modelling, so they could run a variety of factors and see how the building would react.

[Kevin Fenton]

31. Multiple scenarios

So they would have standard and mild cases, too?
If a column was at 300 degrees C in the severe case after 100 seconds, then how hot would it be in the standard and mild cases?

[Bolo Boffin]

32. That I don't know

If that's anywhere, it's going to be in the final report - the draft of which will be released soon, according to NIST.

[Kevin Fenton]

33. I guess

I guess that if there were multiple scenarios, then the differences should be more than a couple of degrees. If the difference was just a couple of degrees, then why have an alternative scenario?
The idea of multiple scenarios seems really wierd - if the towers collapse "on time" in the standard scenario, then why have a severe case, where I figure they collapse earlier, or a mild case, where I guess they collapse later?
And, if the slide on the internet is really the first one they showed at the presentation, which seems likely given the "100 s" and the lowish (you think) temperatures, then why did they start with the "severe case", not the standard case, which should be the right one?

[LARED]

10. The way I interpret page 31 is

it shows a temperature profile for the worst case scenario within the models parameters at 10 seconds.

In other word they picked an image from a set of image's showing temperature verses time for the columns as time progressed. Why else indicate 10 seconds.

[Kevin Fenton]

19. 10 seconds?

The diagram I'm looking at says "100 s". Some of the columns in the north tower seem to be 600 degrees C. If it is 100 seconds after impact, it seems hard to imagine they could have gone from room temperature to 600 degrees C in 100 seconds, however bad the inital jet fuel fires were.

[LARED]

22. I meant 100 seconds

I do not find it hard to believe some exposed steel columns were at 400 to 500 C in 100 seconds

[Kevin Fenton]

26. Can't see it

"I do not find it hard to believe some exposed steel columns were at 400 to 500 C in 100 seconds"
I was pretty surprised by this.
How did you work that out? How hot do you think the jet fuel was burning?
There's a huge difference between the two towers - several hundred degrees, so couldn't it be 100 seconds after the second tower was hit - that would explain the discrepancy? But then the text on the page would be very unclear.
Why are they using a "severe case" anyway? Shouldn't we see the average case as well? I didn't notice it in there.

[spooked911]

15. I think they were making educated guesses from how the planes hit as to

many core columns were affected. There was an MIT study that did calculations of this.

[Kevin Fenton]

20. Educated guesses

Do you have a link to the MIT study?
It doesn't seem to be affected core columns, but ones that are severed completely - they are missing. Some of the severed columns are not even on the plane's trajectory - is it supposed to be because of the shockwave or something?

[mirandapriestly]

17. Why the South tower collapsed first

according to David Griffin in The New Pearl Harbor

In both cases the fires within the buildings died down after awhile, giving off only black, sooty smoke. If the Twin Towers were deliberately demolished, and the intention was to blame the collapse on the fires... then the latest time at which the towers could be collapsed would be just as the fires were dying down. Since the fire in the South Tower resulted from the combustion of less fuel than the fire in the North Tower, the fire in the South Tower began to go out earlier than the fire in the North Tower. Those controlling the demolition thus had to collapse the South Tower before they collapsed the North Tower. >65

[hack89]

23. Could it also be that..

the South Tower was hit lower than the North and thus there was more weight above the impact zone? It was a combination of structural damage, fire and weight of the towers that brought them down.

[demodewd]

28. But...

But there is no tilting towards the impact area right up to the very second of the collapse's initiation.

[hack89]

34. Why would it tilt? (nt)

[TomClash]

35. But from the outside the fires appeared to be greater in 1 than 2 nt