Collapse dynamics: Matthys Levy on controlled demolition

[plaguepuppy]

Some interesting comments from the author of Why Buildings Fall Down (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/039331152X/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_4/102-0245915-6264177)

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/discovery.wmv


Levy is also one of the authors of the study done by Weidlinger Associates for Larry Silverstein:
http://enr.construction.com/news/buildings/archives/021025.asp



"The report exonerates the floor trusses for the collapses. "Failure of the floors...was shown not to have had any significant role in the initiation of the collapses," it says. Studies by Hughes Associates and ARUPFire led the team to conclude that tower floors survived the initial impact of the planes, suffering only localized damage. On the basis of a review of smoke plumes and fire spread, for each tower, the engineers concluded that the fires did not lead to the collapses of the floors affected before the towers fell. Additionally, the engineers claim that computer modeling shows that the failure of columns alone, independent of the floors explains the collapses.
...

The Silverstein report also concludes that fire temperatures were lower than typical "fully developed" office fires. The fires were fueled by office furniture and floor contents initially ignited by the jet fuel, which burned out quickly. Dust and debris distributed by the crashes inhibited the fires, which at the impact floors were between 750°F and 1,300°F.



To recap my comments about this from the previous thread:

What Weidlinger got right was that failure of the floor trusses wasn't the cause of the tower collapses. What they got wrong was the idea that, lacking a truss collapse, it made sense to propose that the columns or the core could get hot enough to simultaneously and completely fail. There is not even a preliminary attempt to estimate real temperatures in various parts of the towers, just a blanket assertion that the columns must have failed. The cores are the poorest areas in terms of fuel, and would conduct heat away very quickly from any area of high temperature. Also the oxygen must come from the outside, making the area around the core the poorest prospect for a hot fire (and no, the cores did not act as chimneys).


Having, I think correctly concluded that truss failure was not the initiating event in the twin tower collapses, Levy states the obvious: there must have been a sudden complete and simultaneous failure of all the supporting columns. Since the idea of a controlled demolition is clearly not part of the universe of possibilities that he considers, the only remaining mechanism of column failure he can draw on is weakening by heat. But their own report points out that the fires were not particularly hot.

This gap between proposed collapse mechanism and the real conditions in the towers accounts for Levy's puzzled tone in the interview. But cognitive filters are powerful things, and certain assumptions about the nature of the world can be changed only with great difficulty.



http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2001/ireizine072601.html

[LARED]

1. Huh?

Levy states the obvious: there must have been a sudden complete and simultaneous failure of all the supporting columns.

Where did he state this?

[TrogL]

2. Did you even read the article???!?

There is not a word in there about controlled demolition.

All it says is that the trusses did not contribute significantly to the problem and neither did the fire.

It supports my "butterfly wing" theories concerning towers one, two and seven.

Here's the main argument...

that the failure of columns alone ... explains the collapses.

In other words, the columns were so badly damaged by the original impact that anything including the weight of the building itself, or the flap of a passing butteryfly's wing, could have brought it down.

Foresters run into this all the time. Trees are damaged by windstorms or by fire but don't immediately fall down. Days later, somebody walks past and a tree collapses on top of them.

There's nothing there about controlled demolition. What it does say is...

"The fact that tower one stood for 103 minutes.... and tower two for 56 minutes" after the loss of so many columns, "is a testament to the strength of the buildings and the skill of Leslie Robertson and the other engineers who designed them. I believe that few, if any, other buildings could suffer that amount of damage and not collapse immediately."

[plaguepuppy]

6. Earth to Tro(g)ll: Did you listen to Levy?

No, of course the Weidlinger study doesn't mention controlled demolition, that's not what I was claiming.

What I am pointing out is that Levy is saying that the collapses unfolded in a way resembling controlled demolition, and that this could only happen if all the columns failed at the same time. Quoting from Levy:

"If you've seen many of the managed demolitions where they implode a building, and they cause it to essentially fall vertically because they cause all the vertical columns to fail simultaneously: that's exactly what it looks like and that's what happened."

Having said that it becomes a truism that "that the failure of columns alone ... explains the collapses," but that doesn't even begin to address the question of whether there is a plausible mechanism to explain how and why the columns in fact fail - and fail in a very symmetrical pattern despite the very asymmetrical crash and fire damage. The Weidlinger report simply asserts that the columns fail, with the implicit assumption that this could somehow be accounted for by heat alone. Far from the report suggesting the possibility of a controlled demolition (which would have opened a huge can of worms for all involved and not helped Silverstein in any way), it is clear that it was never considered for reasons having nothing to do with the facts of the collapses themselves, but that it was simply "unthinkable".

As to heating all 47 of the core columns to the softening point (with or without fireproofing), remember that firefighters in the south tower were reporting from the damaged area, within a few floors of the level where the collapse started, and reported survivors and a few small fires. Not a raging furnace, yet we are asked to believe that those steel columns were at the softening point a few floors above.

[OudeVanDagen]

16. ... all 47 ...

One of the problems ... uh, better yet - traps ... readers are falling into .. is the notion that column failure was simultaneous ... that all 47 "failed at the same time" ... "heating all 47 of the core columns to the softening point" ... happened. You're taking Levy's comments ... his generalizations ... too literal.

Note about his comments: A trap that investigation teams constantly fall into ... which often raises up and bites them on the backside ... is using generalizations ... or a "dumbing down" of technical facts and issues .. in some cases for a public that's often viewed as uneducated with limited attention spans ..... but always dumbed down for the news media ... a attempt to avoid lengthy interviews and follow-ups. Engineers do not have always have people skills or a savvy with the public ... don't have the spin doctors and PR folks politicans have ... and often find themselves switching feet when they open their mouths. Don't take quotes too literal.

The videos and ample narratives offered in all these threads show that none of that simultaneous ... unitized ... neat and tidy ... sequences happened. The debris ... size and condition ... confirms it. The videos - what we can ... very clearly ... see confirms it. The lack of uniformity and constant speed in the bottom to top collapse of the upper section ... the lack of uniformity and constant speed in the top to bottom collapse of the lower section ... the presence of that spire ... ALL show NO simultaneous uniform column failure.

Watch those traps ...

[Phil_Jayhan]

32. Trogl

Read the article and see what is says as well as what it doesn't. And devote a little bit of time into this. The 1st collapse took around 10.5 seconds (from memory) about the same time it would take a ball dropped from the top of the towers to the ground;

In other words, there was no resistance to the Tower upon it's 'fall'

Had someone dropped a ball from the roof of the Tower upon its begginning collapse, the ball and the top of the tower would reach the ground at roughly the same time; About 11 seconds. This is impossible without another 'outside' and not explained force. (at least in the official reports)

Not only that but it is evident on the video's if one takes the time necessary to study them.

cheers~
pj :)

[LARED]

34. It's impossible

without another outside and unexplained force?

How about it's impossible because the times you mention are mythical.

[TrogL]

37. let's see your arithmetic

[TrogL]

49. You've been watching too many cartoons

where the coyote runs off the cliff and ends up suspended in midair.

Sorry.

Gravity works.

[Lithos]

50. No

Gravity sucks...

[DulceDecorum]

3. OMG

The Silverstein report also concludes that fire temperatures were lower than typical "fully developed" office fires. The fires were fueled by office furniture and floor contents initially ignited by the jet fuel, which burned out quickly. Dust and debris distributed by the crashes inhibited THE FIRES, WHICH AT THE IMPACT FLOORS WERE BETWEEN 750°F and 1,300°F.
http://enr.construction.com/news/buildings/archives/021025.asp

My house of sticks is in MORTAL DANGER!!

Self-cleaning ovens use an approximately 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius) temperature cycle to burn off spills leftover from baking, without the use of any chemicals. A self-cleaning oven is designed with a mechanical interlock (patented in 1982) to keep the oven door locked and closed during and soon after the high-temperature cleaning cycle, which can be approximately three hours. The door stays locked to prevent burn injuries. You can open the oven door after the oven cools to approximately 600 F (315 C).
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question559.htm

One of these days the dang thing is going to soften and melt just like them thar steel buildings of the WTC.

[LARED]

4. One of these days the dang thing is going to soften

and melt just like them thar steel buildings of the WTC.

Well that might be true if the WTC was made out of ovens.:)

Did it ever occur to you that self cleaning ovens are designed to operate at a high temperature and there were no self-cleaning modes in the WTC.

[OudeVanDagen]

5. traps

Despite established protocols ... one one the traps that collapse investigation teams always seem to fall into ... and this also holds true for those who read and try to digest the reports ... is focus on the extreme event ... which in this scenario was aircraft collision and fire.

Only slightly more than half of all structural collapse involve an extreme event ... earthquake .. typhoon .. hurricane .. flood .. fire .. subversive act .. war .... but NO collapse has ONE cause ... always a combination of several collateral factors ... including building design.

Reports ... none are perfect ... are difficult to accept as whole .. focus goes towards one or more sections ... Weidlinger is no different ... invites scrutiny ... BUT don't fall into that aforementioned trap ... take time to read and avoid that rush to judgment ... much more than just fire temps in it.

[OudeVanDagen]

11. traps ... part deux

No offense meant ... trying to be non-combative ... but people are falling into that TRAP warned about ... too much focus on the extreme event ... therefore and missing the extreme element.

Don't fall into that trap ... the extreme element is key .. how the building was designed ... trusses.

NO! Not floor trusses ... factors yes .. just collateral issues .... the extreme element is the roof truss system ... Weidlinger is valuable because their report explains ... by following collapse investigation protocol ... the purpose of the roof truss ... and their role in the collapse. Clearly visible in the sketches and computer models .... Hmmmmm - computer models .... no comments?

Roof trusses ... connections .... CONNECTIONS! .... haven't I been preaching the value of studying prior collapses and the connections involved? Don't fall into traps ... put fire .. heat on the back burners and check out those connections ... roof trusses ....

[buckeye1]

7. Book this on coast to coast.

It will be a winner. Flying saucers,airfish,crop circles,Loch Nest monsters,Bigfoot,etc. George Nory will eat it up.

[demodewd]

8. skipped floors phenomenon

Referring to http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/so_tower_slow...

It appears to me that there is a certain exacted gap between each row of dust flurries. They appear at 3-4 floor intervals. Is that consistent with the "official" collapse version? I rather think not. Wouldn't the flurries break out of every floor as it is instantaneously pulverized from the falling floors above?

Take a good look at this video. http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/so_tower_slow...

Notice the initial row of flurries at the very top of the lower section. By using a tape measure the second row appears 1/2 inch below the first row or approximately 3-4 stories below. This phenomenon appears consistent throughout the slo-mo.

[plaguepuppy]

9. Try this link

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/so_tower_slow-mo.mpeg

The end of the link in the last post was truncated.

And it is true that the big blowouts occur every few floors, which progressive pancaking of the floors would not produce.

[OudeVanDagen]

10. No ... and why

"It appears to me that there is a certain exacted gap between each row of dust flurries. They appear at 3-4 floor intervals. Is that consistent with the "official" collapse version? I rather think not.Wouldn't the flurries break out of every floor as it is instantaneously pulverized from the falling floors above?"

No.

What you are seeing ... what has been called squibs ... is a collapse sequence called "venting" ...

The lead sequence ... or leading edge of collapse ... is invisible to cameras and the naked eye ... it is an interior event - invisible from the exterior ... several floors below the venting. It's where the columns and collateral framing are under destructive tensive - compressive forces .. struggling to dampen the structure .. trying to regain stability and equilibrium .. arrest oscillations.

The next sequence is a few floors above that leading edge ... where those columns and collateral framing systems fail ... drift ... again invisible from the exterior. The columns DO NOT fail ... drift ... one floor at a time ... they are connected ... bolted .. welded .. but do not fail uniformly or at same speed ... each column experiences different tension or compression ... a different load ... and at a different time ... so failure and drift isn't uniform or at a constant speed. Masonry buildings show this sequence with cracks appearing suddenly between windows and or floors.

The next sequence is a few floors above the column failure and drift ... that venting ... squibs ... where energies push out through the weakest element in the fenestrations. That venting is the first of the visual sequences. Because the collapse sequences before it did not have ... could not have ... uniformity and constant speed the venting will not. The columns did not collapse one floor at a time ... that venting will not appear one floor at a time.

The next sequence is also visual ... fragments falling.

[plaguepuppy]

12. An elaborate fantasia

But fails on several grounds to explain what we are seeing.

"The lead sequence ... or leading edge of collapse ... is invisible to cameras and the naked eye ... it is an interior event - invisible from the exterior ... several floors below the venting. "

This would only be true if the floor truss/pancaking theory were correct, which the Weidlinger study specifically disavows. The floors would have to simply fall straight down without even the help of sagging trusses or buckling outer walls to help cut them loose, another remarkable simultaneous support failure, to get this kind of piston effect. If you have a plausible mechanism for this kind of failure I would be interested to hear more.

"The columns DO NOT fail ... drift ... one floor at a time ... they are connected ... bolted .. welded .. but do not fail uniformly or at same speed ... each column experiences different tension or compression ... a different load ... and at a different time ... so failure and drift isn't uniform or at a constant speed. "

Then how on earth do you wind up with a vertical collapse?

[OudeVanDagen]

13. second first

Your second question first ... look at the falling fragments and debris fields ... IF collapse was uniform and had constant speed - such as in a true controlled demo - all the fragments and debris would be 'same' size ... even your 'spire' is proof there was no uniformity or constant speed. Weight of structure ... plus structure dimension ... plus unimpeded collapse sequence as described ... will always render vertical collapse ....

Your first question ... forget truss/pancakes .... venting occurs in every ... yeah, every ... collapse ... check eyewitness accounts of any collapse ... their descriptions of air pressure ... why do floors "simply have to fall straight down" to create venting ... why does venting have to be a floor by floor sequence? Venting .... aka blow-out ... here called squibs ... in video aren't constant - variations in colors .. intensity ... FPS - feet per second of travel. Buildings are 95 +/- percent air ... which has to go somewhere during sequence .... every collapse has venting. Every collapse ALSO has a leading edge ... not a true piston effect ... reaction to movement ... in earthquake up and down ... in WTC event left - right and forwards - backwards ... aka oscillations ... with roof trusses unable to assist columns and collateral framing in dampening .... leading edge proceeded unimpeded ...

[plaguepuppy]

14. Faustian bargains first, but serially...

What I am describing is the remarkable symmetry of the collapses about the vertical axes of the towers, which has little or nothing to do with the uniformity of size of the pieces created. But as an aside there seemed to be a very bimodal distribution of debris: a small number of larger chunks of the outer walls that fall away early in the collapse and ground level pieces of the outer walls that stood, and another very large volume of smaller debris that included finely powdered concrete, gypsum, etc. and lots of short pieces of steel columns mostly in the 10'-20' range. This latter class of debris actually seems to have been pretty uniform in the sense described and represented the majority of the total wreckage from the towers. And if you look at the debris fields left behind (contour mapping by USGS) they were almost perfectly centered on the towers.

For an interconnected sheaf of steel colums randomly failing under load to simply drop straight down simply doesn't fit with the model you describe:
"The columns DO NOT fail ... drift ... one floor at a time ... they are connected ... bolted .. welded .. but do not fail uniformly or at same speed ... each column experiences different tension or compression ... a different load ... and at a different time ... so failure and drift isn't uniform or at a constant speed. "

What you describe should cause visible large-scale bending and twisting of core as it's columns began to fail. For this to happen would also require all the connections to the multiple steel spandrel plates holding the core columns together at each floor to fail simultaneously so that they can do their bending and twisting, something a bit hard to imagine. But if they did somehow manage this we would find ourselves left with an unbound bundle of cooked linguini that would fall in a messy, assymetrical way, almost anything but a nice vertical descent.

As to the appearance of "venting" in "every ... collapse" (sorry if the dramatic effect of all the ellipses is wearing thin), that's problematic from the outset. How big is our database of spontaneous building collapses in steel frame buildings? How many of those were complete top-down collapses? You make it sound like this sort of collapse happens all the time, but outside of WTC 1, 2 and 7 and most controlled demolitions I'm not aware of anything remotely like the WTC collapses.

[OudeVanDagen]

15. right church ... wrong pew

The debris fields left behind ... "almost perfectly centered on the towers" .. define the weight and dimension of the structure .. the weight and dimension of the structure's elements .. and also confirm the collapse sequence ... the sequences as described. Had there been no leading edge .. no drift mode .. no sequence of destructive energies .. the collapse would have arrested itself - or created a much wider debris field - or even toppled over. In another thread you described the south tower as being in a "static condition" just prior to the appearance of the collapse "mush." There was no static condition ... trying to avoid confrontation here ... anything but static. That tower .. even though it's inanimate object ... struggled deep in it's bowels to stay alive ... trying to regain it's stability ... fighting the oscillations ... trying to arrest drift and motion ... all destructive tension and compression forces. The fenestrations hide these effects from our eyes ... had the structures been masonry we would have seen tell-tale cracks. As hard as it is for some to accept, the WTC collapse was a typical cause/effect collapse with a normal sequence ..

"Normal" because the collapse sequences had no uniformity or constant speed - patterns only found in controlled demos. The debris field ... which you accurately describe ... defines this lack of uniformity and speed. First is the vast assortment of sizes .. only a strict tidy uniform floor by floor by floor collapse .. with a constant speed will create 'same' sized debris. Second is the condition of the debris found ... stress delaminations .. buckling ... twists .. shearing .. and NO damage at all. The condition of these pieces .. the full .. very wide range of their condition .. clearly define the lack of uniformity and speed .. as does that spire. The pulverized condition of the concrete and gypsum board and larger pieces of those same building elements found with debris also defines the lack of uniformity and constant speed in the collapse sequences. Contents of debris grids .. size and condition .. also confirm the aforementioned collapse sequences ...

Venting happens during every collapse. It's not always as visible as WTC .. doesn't always travel as far ... or as fast as WTC ... but is present in every collapse. Where's the air going to go?

Obviously there has been no prior total collapse of a super high rise .. but structural collapse does happen every day somewhere in the world .. Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Russia have made recent news .. Chile and Thailand haven't. Not all are total collapse .. snow load collapse of supermarket roofs for example .. but every collapse is studied .. society demands study for prevention. Building codes emerge from the investigation and study of collapse .. so does improved protocols .. and these studies lend to the understanding of WTC.

[OudeVanDagen]

41. a busy day

Q: What did Taiwan, Rishra, Callao, and BanLaiPhrao all have in common today?

A: VENTING

[demodewd]

111. kick

kick!! :bounce:

[demodewd]

17. re: no and why

And this explains the apparent uniformity of collapse sequence...a continual seemingly precise gap of three to four floors between "venting"? If "failure and drift isn't uniform or at a constant speed" then why the predictability in venting locations?

[OudeVanDagen]

18. predictability

I don't see ... and doubt anyone sees ... any signs of predictability in the venting. None of the videos show a pattern of any kind ... no constant predictable locations ... no constant predictable timing ... nothing shown suggests predictable venting events. What the videos DO show are variations ... variations in location ... variations in vent speed ... variations in vent distance traveled ... variations in vent color and content ... nothing but variations. Those variations define the inconsistent speed of collapse sequences .. the lack of uniformity ...

The leading edge of the collapse sequence was not a level uniform floor by floor event ... could not have been ... unless each and every single column experienced the exact same destructive loads at the exact moment and reacted the exact same way. That leading edge was an irregular force ... it caused irregular drifts ... they caused irregular vents ... and caused irregular fragmentation ...

[plaguepuppy]

19. Equal opportunity for the punctuation impaired

I've just about given up trying to make sense of Mr. OVD's stream-of-consciousness mutterings. Seeing all those "..."s just makes my eyes glaze over, but I guess he can't be bothered by the normal rules of grammar and syntax. The operative method is to throw out a lot of sentence fragments suffused with a generally scornful, patronizing tone and try to make the reader feel responsible for making sense out of it.

As to uniformity of "venting" it's really simple: if it's a "uniform" collapse it vents every floor, if it's "non-uniform" it vents every 3-4 floors! (But they never ever topple...)
And how does the collapse know how often to vent? Simple - it's the organ pipe resonance of the debris cloud, with nodes and anti-nodes along the building. Or maybe magic elves running ahead of the collapse to kick out the windows, one or both.

Help me with this one: is this uniform or non-uniform venting?

[OudeVanDagen]

20. some slack please

I've only been using English for a little over 70 years now ... but still can't get myself to think in it. Sorry. Some people drive like they walk ... I write broken English like I talk broken English ... what I believe plaguepuppy once affectionately (or so I thought) called 8-Ballspeak.

The photo offered is an excellent example showing: a) fragmentation, the collapse sequence on top and the step that follows drift and venting, b) the different speeds in that collapse, where the sides are collapsing at different rates, c) venting, just before fragmentation, and d) lack of collapse uniformity causing debris fragments to be different sizes and a spire to appear.

The photo offered is not a "hammer" striking a "static situation" and turning it to "mush" as once suggested, and it is not showing a "piston effect," but it is showing a normal cause/effect collapse.

The photo offered can not show the leading edge of collapse, just it's effects. The photo also does not show the drift in columns, just the effects of drift. Drift has been called 'tilt' in these threads. The columns hidden from view in this photo are being subjected to radical motion, severe oscillations, and are undergoing tremendous and unequal loads of tension and compression measured not in pounds but in tons.

Drift can not be prevented. Beams can only offer support between columns until maximum beam stresses are reached. Concrete floors, at best four inches thick offer no support to columns. Columns drift, misalign themselves with the one above and below, bend, twist and even snap with explosive sounds. Drift can not be prevented, but it can be arrested by the dampening abilities of the columns below; but only if the loads from weight and motion are manageable.

Venting is a product of drift and always presents itself during collapse. Venting almost always visually proceeds fragmentation, unless the leading edge sequence speed slows or the fragmentation sequence speed increases. Venting can only be uniform if all the preceding collapse sequences are uniform; which they never are, unless the collapse is a controlled demolition.

I hope my English was more gooder this time.

[plaguepuppy]

21. Some nice pictures of energetic "venting"

Look especially along the right side of the corner facing us for some very energetic "ventings" moving quickly down the tower:

http://thewebfairy.com/911/stabilized/

Also in the second video (of WTC-2) note how uniform and level the collapse wave is as it progresses.

[OudeVanDagen]

22. multiple floor fragmentation is uniform & level ??

Your "collapse wave" is called fragmentation - the tale end of the collapse sequences.

I disagree with your "how uniform and level" assessments because irregular debris coming from multiple floors is what's really happening.

What's your hang-up with venting? Is it because this common occurrence defines those squibs and explains away the CT obsession with explosive detonations for a controlled demolition? Venting isn't real? Some reports call it blow-out, but I choose not to use that term in these forums. I'm not pulling your leg. Geez, am I allowed to use 'pull?'

Don't believe the collapse sequence as I described, do you? I guess you prefer the hammer on static situation making mush theory. I know you think I'm making this stuff up, so print me out and bring it to another engineer.

[plaguepuppy]

23. hang-up with venting?

Actually it's got a lot to do with the fact that there really is no "database of experience" that shows that "venting" is a normal occurance. There simply is no body of comparable structural collapses to draw on in which anything similar has been observed. Most collapses of a cascade type have only involved one face of a building, and I have seen no pictures or descriptions that correspond to your "routine" venting. I'm afraid it's just another fantasy to go along with your magical "proceedures and protocols" that you claim were so rigidly followed despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary. Protocols that allow for destruction of >80% of the evidence without even a cursory inspection hardly deserve to be called such, and bodies of experiental evidence of "venting" that consist of the null set deserve no more respect.

As to your "fragmentation" (I love the way you invest ordinary words with a mysterious technical sense known only to you) - well of course it's friggin' fragmentation, the building is blowing up before our eyes, but is this really "the tale end" (as in that's my tale and I'm sticking to it?) of the collapse? It looks more to me like the beginning, or the beginning and end all in one: below the demolition wave is intact building, above it is pulverized rubble. Calling this fragmentation - and pretending that this pseudo-technical use of a common word somehow explains everything - does not change the fact of what we see.

"I guess you prefer the hammer on static situation making mush theory." Fifty bucks to anyone who can convine me that that sentence means something.

[OudeVanDagen]

24. your words ... not mine

Geez, plaguepuppy that comment of yours: Quote: "'I guess you prefer the hammer on static situation making mush theory.'" Fifty bucks to anyone who can convine me that that sentence means something." unquote, sure is funny. Hammer - static - mush are your words, not mine - just look back at your posts; posts which by the way, also include; telescoping, noodles, tilt, squibs and a host of other words that never appear in any collapse investigation report or in any conversation amongst engineers. It appears you are not nearly as articulate as you have been given credit for. Your need to become combative with those who disagree with you is most alarming. It has also become abundantly clear to me that you have had absolutley no exposure to any collapse investigation whatsoever. Sorry plaguepuppy, but your bark just ain't up to the big dogs bite. OVD

[plaguepuppy]

26. Cut and paste gone bad

Simply snipping out words at random and stringing them together isn't a terribly fair way of re-stating someone's position, though William Burroughs did some interesting things with it.

Sorry, no $50...

My meta-theory: hammer on static situation making mush theory is really a polite way of saying "big fucking explosion"

[OudeVanDagen]

27. keep your fifty ....

... I really don't need 3 minutes worth of my hourly consulting fee. Let me know when you come east ... I'll take you on a nice tour.

[plaguepuppy]

28. Oooh, a rich dude...

Sorry, I don't hang with people whose sense of worth is so tied up with their incomes, but thanks for the offer. Besides, I don't go "east."

[OudeVanDagen]

29. hang with?

I don't care who your posse is. I'm very disappointed in your assumption that my sense of worth is tied to my income, especially because you're a scientist, or so DancingDave proclaimed. You should know, any educated person would, that my fees are nearly all for overhead. How can I pay my rents, staff, and insurance? I'm no rich "dude" but you can still keep your fifty. My offer stands. Come east and I'll give you the tour, and maybe you can tell us more about those black tech weapons.

[OudeVanDagen]

30. mush mush mush

Check your post #48 made on 2/8 in demodewd's "evidence of explosives in South tower collapse." Mush - you said it, not me. Hammer - you said it, not me. Good example, plaguepuppy of your situational ethics.

[plaguepuppy]

31. situational ethics? You mean I'm missing some Absolute Truth here?

$1000 an hour, OK, you're a high overhead "dude" by my standards - in fact I'm not sure I can even afford to talk to you. (Weren't you the one who started this age-inappropriate slang thing? My posse consists of two aging dogs, a shop cat and my beloved wife, and maybe a son or two I could deputize in a pinch) But then my aesthetic preference have always been for small science and simple tools, although we must all come to terms with "big science" (not to mention big money) eventually. Anyway I would be honored to meet you if and when I ever travel again, though not likely in the forseeable future under the present state of hostile skies.

As to the "mush on mush" description, there was a point to it if perhaps one that was not made clear enough to not seem trivial. We are offered two contradictory descriptions of how the top of the building behaves in the South Tower collapse: one is the "mighty hammer" that applies the immense weight of the top of the building to the task of crushing the lower part, the other being the violent cloud of debris that we in fact see the tops become in both collapses. There really is a fundamental contradiction here, and if the top is really as shattered as it appears to be only the weight of the bottom-most pieces will actually interact with the rest of the building.

And again, what is turning the top to rubble? If the bottom part is also crumbling away, where are the "hammer and anvil" that is causing all this steel and concrete to be ground to bits? No hammer, no anvil, just two mutually impinging debris clouds where a solid building stood seconds before. I see a profound lack of "mechanism" here.

Excerpt from producer's letter from the NOVA WTC documentary:
With clearances finally in hand, we left on a beautiful clear day to film at Ground Zero and at a scrap yard in New Jersey. The scrap yard is where the steel from Ground Zero is taken and then cut into two-to-three-foot blocks for shipping to “re-smelters” overseas. When I asked what this meant, I was told that one day soon, the World Trade Center would come back to America, only this time, we would be driving it or sipping a Coke from it or screwing it into a wall. Recycled World Trade Center metal. Wow! The knowledge was somehow arresting, as if all this mangled steel now piled into mini-mountains next to the Hudson was actually the bones of a deceased loved one being picked over by vultures.



More disturbing, there was no visual relationship between these huge metal mounds and the once-famous New York skyline landmark that has made so many cameo appearances in movies, television programs and print ads; nothing that would let a casual observer know what the piles had been and what had happened to them. Later that day, we went to Ground Zero, and I was again struck by the anonymity of it all. There was not a discernible piece of furniture anywhere. No computers or books or anything that would identify this massive wreckage field as having once been several million square feet of office space. There was only steel of various lengths and thicknesses twisted into bizarre, pretzel-like shapes and an interlacing gray-brown matter enveloping everything. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that that gray-brown matter was the contents and insides of the World Trade Center vaporized by the collapse.
.
.
.

Larry Klein

Producer

[OudeVanDagen]

35. why not just admit it

Your comment, quote: "I see a profound lack of "mechanism" here." unquote, very plainly shows that you know nothing - zip, zero, zilch - about structural collapse, and that you have never spent one moment looking into anything about structural collapse. Your reasoning and skewed theories do not and can not apply to collapse.

Give it up plaguepuppy .... the humor we used to find in your self serving eyes wide shut narratives is ... yawn .... gone - except of course in the eyes ... myopic eyes ... of that tail wagging bobblehead yes-man posse of yours.

[plaguepuppy]

42. Down boy, and stop drooling on your shoes

"the humor we used to find in your self serving eyes wide shut narratives..."

Some pretty overheated rhetoric for someone who is never give a direct answer to a direct question. You clearly don't even know what I mean by "profound lack of "mechanism"", and I am utterly befuddled by your conclusion that this somehow proves that I know "nothing - zip, zero, zilch" (redundancy is good in structures but usually bad in writing) about structural engineering and building collapse.

As long as we're being so honest here, I have to admit that I see you as a sententious old fraud with a big ego and a lot invested in believing that nothing stinks about the WTC collapse, long on verbal abuse and short on reasoned argument. Since you have dropped so quickly to the level of generic insults I see no point wasting any more time and effort on taking you seriously. Wake up and smell the doo-doo!

As to what "loss of mechanism" means (for the others out there, as I have given up on you as a dead loss), it refers to the question of how you get from point A to point B in a given sequence of events. To take one example, consider the mechanism by which the concrete of the floors is turned into dust. It's not enough to say that there are "enormous forces involved," something must happen to "transduce" those forces into the action of pulverizing concrete. Grinding, spalling from impact, shattering from high velocity impact, all these things can, with various degrees of efficiency, use energy to convert concrete to dust. The floor doesn't suddenly jump a few feet in the air and explode into dust.

This is the "mechanism" problem I refer to, and it applies to several other aspects of the collapse. Here's another nice one: how did the exotic metals in the semiconductor chips in the many computers throughout the towers get turned into 50 micron dust particles and distributed over lower Manhattan? Describe briefly how a piece of semiconductor in a plastic package inside a metal case
in an office being crushed at say 30-40 mph (say about 3 floors into the collapse) by the descending floor of the office above is turned to extremely fine particles and expelled along with the pulverized concrete. Doesn't it seem more likely that they would be sealed into the computer case as it was crushed?

Objects don't just change state spontaneously, there must be some mechanism for the change, some series of intermediate steps between A and B. Unless you can describe that transition you have explained nothing.

[OudeVanDagen]

46. "mechanism"

You have described WTC as "static" after the aircraft collision. That is not at all the case. The two tubes - the outer wall tube and the core - are not motionless. Each is moving, something called oscillation. To dampen that motion and remain upright both, BOTH tubes must dampen together.

Lightweight floor trusses topped with a few inches of concrete isn't going to tie the two tubes together and stop motion or aid dampening. The roof trusses were supposed to, that was their role and purpose, but they were unable to do it. Look at those videos. Were each of the towers of the WTC still one unit from bedrock up to the roof trusses after the collision or was there disassociation and drift? Were the roof trusses able to perform their function and dampen? No.

The motion - oscillations between the two tubes is your "mechanism."

Had you spent some time reading collapse reports pup you'd know that.

Collapse quite frankly is very simple to understand, it's not as complex as you make it to be, but you really need to do some reading.

[TrogL]

64. Where is it documented that computer chips turned to dust?

You seem to think the entire building turned into dust in midair and blew away.

Computer chips and computer cases aren't all that sturdy. They aren't designed to have tons of rock dumped on top of them.

[plaguepuppy]

25. That's OK, I learned to drive in Boston

So normal driving is kind of a second language for me. When I moved to Vermont after 10 years of living in the Boston-Cambridge area (where I considered myself a reasonably polite driver) I found this unbidden aggression bubbling up at odd times. In the city you actually have to cut people off at times, no matter how polite you want to be, or you'll never get out of your driveway. I guess after all that time I missed the competitive rush, and actually got frustrated at people being so polite. It took about two years to subside.

Language is one of those things that young brains are very good at assimilating, and to some extent imparts an accent to our thinking as well as our speech.

As to "drift" as a contributor to collapse, I understand what you are trying to say but I think you underestimate the degree to which the columns are interconnected and constrained. The 14" square box columns of the outer walls are on 39" centers, with 57" (or is it 52"?) tall steel spandrel plates tying the columns together at each floor. This made the "tube" of the outer walls an independent structural unit with considerable rigidity.

The core was likewise highly interconnected with criss-crossing spandrel plates at each floor tying each column to the ones around it. Looking at construction pictures of the core (see fourth picture down here: http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.king2/wsb/html/view.cgi-photos.html-MerchantID-56016-Publish-t-makestatic-true-skip-15.html) it's also a pretty substantial piece of work.

The point is that these columns did not start "drifting" around just because things got a bit hot in parts of the building. Before they could begin to wander they would first have had to break all those bolted-and-welded connections, hundreds of them at each floor. These are the primary interconnections that held the columns together - the floor/truss units did not add significantly to the lateral stability of the of the 47 core columns, if perhaps a bit more to the perimeter columns since they were only interlinked in the plane of the wall. But in any case the primary strength of the core, which was the principal weight-bearing structure of the building, was independent of the lateral support of the floors. (And as I recall, Weidlinger Associates says the floors didn't fall first.)


I have yet to see any proposed collapse model that could account for the enormous lateral force it would take to break all those connections. Yet that remarkable event would have to be the very first failure to take place in the collapse, if we are to believe that the columns got all wobbly from loss of lateral support. So what is the initiating event, what actually happens first? Are we to believe that the 2'x3' core columns got so soft that they could bend into hairpins within the height of a 12' floor?

Another interesting view of the start of the WTC-2 collapse:

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/newsouth/newsouth.htm

[OudeVanDagen]

36. Weidlinger and others

If you are going to use Weidlinger you should at least examine the whole report and look beyond the extreme event and it's affect on the columns. What you're overlooking - I hope you're not discarding - is the extreme element - which I have already informed you are the roof trusses. Weidlinger and others shed light on the role and function of this design element. Once you understand how a building dampens and how the WTC structural elements were designed to dampen you'll answer all your own questions. It's all really very simple and not as unbelievable as you imagine.

[TrogL]

63. that don't look like a building "falling in its own footprint"

[Phil_Jayhan]

33. Great articles Plaguepuppy!

It almost like a bulldozer comes into town and destroys a huge cathedral in plain sight of all men, and then instead of arresting the driver and impounding the bulldozer, the towns intellectuals argue about whether or not its even possible a bulldozer did all this destruction. All the while the bulldozer slowly drives away;

Not the best analogy, but it works.

pj :)

[Dancing_Dave]

38. Strange daze indeed....

Ordinarily, when building is so shockingly destroyed, there are certain professionals who look into possibilities such as bombing and arson. It happens all the time.

Attorney General Ashcroft made sure there was no such investigation done by the NYPD, the NYFD, the FBI's bomb squad or any other criminal investigators. The amazing thing is that the press let him get away with it without comment.

There obviously must have been some back-room NYC politics and billion dollar deals done to seal this case. It's hard to even imagine the tragic arrogance of these fat cats who really thought something like this could be covered-up and they could just walk away with their billions.

Time is about to prove them wrong.

[Abe Linkman]

39. How so, Dave?

"Time is about to prove them wrong."

[Dancing_Dave]

61. Breakdown of cover-up, local and global

New York City was built by and includes people from all over the planet, and remains connected to Earthlings all over by many cultural, political, psychological and economic ties. It is a city with strong traditions of Democracy, intellectual freedom and free speach: the cover-up cannot hide the truth from the people there forever!

On a more global level, the threat that Bush Regime poses to continuance of humanity and civilization has been noticed in many countries, and the whole "New World Order" is based on a developmental model that is now failing in many ways. In short, the powers which might wish to hide the truth from humanity for decades, simply do not have the Earth-wide coherence and credibility to do so for so long.

[OudeVanDagen]

48. all the time & da press

Off to a good start; quote: "Ordinarily, when building is so shockingly destroyed, there are certain professionals who look into possibilities such as bombing and arson. It happens all the time." end quote. Attaboy Davey!

But then you blew it - really really blew it. 9-11 the most, THE most covered event in the history of the world - thousands of cameras & scores of news people - and DancingDave says; quote: "The amazing thing is that the press let him get away with it without comment." end quote. You just shot ALL your credibilty Davey.

[Dancing_Dave]

66. Give me an example of this critical press coverage

Of Ashcroft's decision to limit investigation, no explosive or arson possibilities and leads were ever followed up with usual criminal investigation. Who in the New York Times called our attention to this outrage?

[OudeVanDagen]

67. nah, you go first

Davey, like the old expression goes 'beauty before age' so go ahead and prove there was a cover-up and/or an order from Ashcroft to limit investigation because FYI the investigation is still going on and going on strong, some of it is even fully funded by federal money - so tell me how any investigation was limited or stopped?

[Phil_Jayhan]

40. plaguepuppy

So whats your basic premise;

Where were the explosives, what kind, and when were they placed, (if you have an idea)

Did they 'decaptiate' the towers before they started the pancake freefall? And as they decaptitated them, and began the freefall, was it then that they exploded their explosives in the basement?

Im not sure what you beleive; But I think we are on the same wavelength.

cheers~
pj :)

please clarify for the slow minded.... :)

[plaguepuppy]

43. Sometimes slow is good

The most plausible scenario I can come up with that fits all the video and physical evidence is something like this:

Cutting charges were used, probably something like the linear shaped charges that are used commercially. These are made by the foot like extruded molding, a high explosive backed with metal, ceramic, a hard plastic, something to reflect the explosion forward. It creates a very focused linear shock wave that slices right through steel beams - that's what they are designed for:

http://www.lshd.com/client/ebad/aerospace/linear_shaped_charge.php

They were connected to wireless detonators, probably something like this: http://hiex.bc.ca/products.html

Obviously the people planning 911 were buddies of Rumsfeld and a certain ex-Chief of CIA, and had access to the best available technology, including more sophisticated versions of things like the Tele-Blaster but also including items of advanced technology from the ample bosom of the Black Budget, funded as it is by both overt and crime money. What kind of exotic bling-bling may hang there is beyond my imaginings, though I have hear third hand that "if you can imagine it they have it." Don't underestimate what some clever engineers and billions of dollars can produce.

The detonators were controlled by a computer, possibly in the "mayor's emergency command center" on the 23rd floor of Building Seven (an odd place to put a hardened bunker). These could be sequenced to suit the demolitions to the exact location of the plane hits to to best simulate a "natural" collapse. In the South Tower the first charges were set off just below the point of impact and sequenced at an almost linear rate down the bottom 80 or so stories. Somewhere in the sequence, possibly starting before the visible collapse, the core columns were also cut. To keep the collapse contained it's best to start dropping the core a little before the outer columns so that the outer walls are pulled in. There was a large charge at the base of each core tower possibly thermite or a mini-nuke, to make sure it would be sure to fall straight down - otherwise the very strong grillage bases would have kept a large remnant of the core upright:



But the fact that the collapse was begun at this level created a problem: the large upper section could now topple and create more extensive collateral damage. The solution to this was to begin to cut up the top section internally just as it started to topple. This allows the angular momentum to be lost in the turbulent cloud of debris and lets it drop almost vertically. Some video footage shows what look very much like flashes from cutting charges in the upper part of the South Tower, with the correct location and timing to be demolition charges:

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Flashes/flashes.htm

The North Tower was a different story: the plane hit close enough to the top of the tower that they simply started the demolition from the very top. Even though there was almost weight load on the roof the collapse did in fact begin with the antenna and roof, not at the level of airplane damage:

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/Shaking%20before%20WTC-1%20collapse.mpg


Best wishes,

Pup

[LARED]

44. Plausible?

1.Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible: a plausible excuse.

2.Giving a deceptive impression of truth or reliability.

3.Disingenuously smooth; fast-talking: “Ambitious, unscrupulous, energetic,... and plausible,a political gladiator, ready for a ‘set-to’ in any crowd” (Frederick Douglass).


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=67&q=plausible

Just making sure we are still using the same laugauge. :loveya:

[OudeVanDagen]

45. wow

"Don't underestimate what some clever engineers and billions of dollars can produce." wow!

FACT: When a building can not dampen - IT WILL COLLAPSE.

You have described WTC as a 'tube within a tube' which is true. You have described WTC as firmly rising from bedrock which is true. If WTC was to dampen itself against winds and collision with aircraft and with extremes of drift both, BOTH 'tubes' - both the outer wall columns and core - must dampen and MUST dampen together.

Q: HOW were the two tubes connected for dampening?

A: That connection element was the roof trusses.

WTC; a superlight, super-high rise structure, with no intermediate floor columns, needed much more than a ground connection for dampening and WTC employed roof trusses.

FACT: WTC could not dampen - it collapsed.

FICTION: all "plausible" scenarios for explosive induced controlled demo

[OudeVanDagen]

47. wait a minute

now just wait a minute ... quote: "The most plausible scenario I can come up with that fits all the video and physical evidence is something like this:" end quote. "Physical evidence" you say? I thought you said all physical evidence was destroyed. You didn't just say it once, as if you may have made a verbal mistake, you've said it over and over and over again. Now the physical evidence reappears. That's situational ethics, pup.

What fits the physical evidence is a plain ordinary collapse.

As I've stated numerous times before; nearly every structural collapse involves an extreme event that initiates motion in the structure (fire, wind, flood, ground settlement, natural gas explosion, snow overloads etc etc). Even a controlled demo initiates motion - enough motion to overpower the structure's ability to dampen.

Look at the videos after the aircraft collisions. Are the towers static as you suggest, or is their motion? Are all the floors in line up and down or is there drift? Isn't this motion going to cause something to happen?

[plaguepuppy]

51. OK, waiting...

No, as you well know I never said that all the physical evidence was destroyed, only that the vast majority (>95%) was very quickly shipped off for recycling with minimal or no inspection, and only a pitiful ~240 pieces have actually been preserved for further study, out of the hundreds of thousands of pieces that were discarded. Of course normal forensic engineering protocols would call for the rigorous preservation of every scrap of evidence and a full-scale reconstruction at a remote site, as was done with flight 800 and other lesser engineering disasters.

a plain ordinary collapse

You keep referencing this concept of a "normal" collapse, implying there is such a beast and that it resembles the collapses of the Twin Towers. Can you cite one specific example from the literature?

an extreme exent

I quite agree, there is very obviously an "extreme event" and though you have advised us to discreetly avert our gaze from this "naked singularity," I think it is not only legitimate but essential to reconstruct as closely as possible what is going on in arbitrarily small time increments around "time zero." Unless a model stands up to this test it tells us nothing about how the collapse was actually initiated. And the more closely one looks at "time zero" the more it resembles a big bang in the chemical explosive sense.



http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/--=Close-up%20of%20south%20tower%20collapse.mpg

[OudeVanDagen]

52. says who?

Your statement; quote: "Of course normal forensic engineering protocols would call for the rigorous preservation of every scrap of evidence and a full-scale reconstruction at a remote site, as was done with flight 800 and other lesser engineering disasters." end quote is very puzzling. Who, when, where, why, and how has there been "full-scale reconstruction" of structural collapse? "Full-scale reconstruction" - says who, you?

Seems you only play by two (2) rules:
pup rule #1). Plaguepuppy speaks - we listen.
pup rule #2). We listen - plaguepuppy speaks.

[TrogL]

53. You're seriously contemplating reconstructing the buildling?

This is possible with an aircraft because each part is labelled.

A building is put together out of millions of identical parts, most of which have been reduced to dust in this particular case.

What you would have to do is examine the wreckage and look for something out of the ordinary. The fact that they have, indeed, set aside pieces indicates they are doing exactly that.

It takes the better part of a year to reconstruct an airliner. Look at the size of the building. It would take a millenia to reconstruct piece by piece.

[TrogL]

54. There have been plenty of collapses

in earthquakes and from bad design.

They all have this annoying habit of going straight down.

Ya see there's this thing called gravity.

[plaguepuppy]

55. Straight down, you're dead sure of that?

Can you cite one actual example?

[OudeVanDagen]

56. here's one

I think that one of the better examples that I have personal knowledge of would be the tragic 1987 collapse of Bridgeport’s L’Ambiance.

I'll offer this structural collapse because; a) it was very well investigated by interested parties; owner, city, state, insurance, and by independents, including firms hired by unions and news outlets, b) the incident, the investigative protocols and the reports, and resulting litigation was well publicized and is still easily available in news archives, c) it has become a teaching tool as the collapse appears in several engineering trade magazines, is featured in engineering training texts, and is in books dedicated to collapse, and d) while it was a mid-rise structure with steel columns and post-tensioned concrete floors that fell during the lift-slab construction phase, the collapse sequence nonetheless bears many similarities to WTC and is very worthy of study to better understand the events on 9-11.

Some of the predominant similarities were; a) the condition of physical evidence, b) numerous suspect causes, such as building and design elements (connections), and c) the ability of the columns to dampen the motion, withstand the destructive compressive forces, and to carry additional loads transferred from other columns. There are more, which will become obvious to anyone who will read the reports.

As I have noted before, some knowledge of prior collapse will help in understanding WTC. L'Ambiance and others I've mentioned are well worth a look see.

[TrogL]

57. Here's some links

http://www.eng.uab.edu/cee/REU_NSF99/ambiance.htm

http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build94/art023.html

http://www.sgh.com/technicalpapers/tplamb.htm

[TrogL]

58. An interesting finding

The entire structure collapsed, first the west tower and then the east tower, in 5 seconds, only 2.5 seconds longer than it would have taken an object to free fall from that height.

Gee, gravity works.

[HarryLime]

59. Let's not forget

"At the time of collapse, the building was a little more than halfway completed."

You're talking about an unfinished building.

[OudeVanDagen]

60. exactly

All structures, ALL are most vulnerable during the construction phase, and I very clearly stated that this Connecticut mid-rise fell during the lift-slab phase of the erection process.

I didn't hide that fact, I included it.

Q: Why?

A: One of the reasons I offered this collapse is because it was an uncompleted structure and was unable to dampen as engineers and architects had planned - which is exactly what happened to WTC.

WTC, as previously described by myself and others, was a "tube within a tube" and needed roof trusses to dampen them. As shown in the videos, especially that of the south tower, the roof trusses were unable to perform their role in that function, essentially forcing the sections to act exactly as an uncompleted structure would.

A structure needs much more than columns and collateral framing tied to a foundation or bedrock at bottom to dampen, it needs some device or structural element at it's top.

WTC and L'Ambiance are comparable in that they BOTH lacked full dampening elements.

[TrogL]

62. Show me one that fell down sideways

or some other way that defied gravity.

By "one" I mean skyscraper ie. taller than wide. I've seen several buildings (one in Mexico comes to mind) that rolled over because they were built on mud but these were relatively short.

[demodewd]

65. A little help

Here's one that apparently had a little "help" in falling down.

[Abe Linkman]

68. Show me one that fell like the WTC buildings...

AND, that wasn't imploded. Buildings don't just "fall down". Show me a picture of a tall building that fell, unassisted.

[OudeVanDagen]

69. really?

Buildings don't just "fall down".

That's good, and doesn't at all sound like any of that typical "posse-speak" about structural collapse; you know, that "asymmetrical blah blah blah" chanting thing.

It would be much easier for you to list buildings that imploded than it would be for me to list structures that fell like the WTC buildings.

The WTC were not imploded, they collapsed. A structural collapse is several unimpeded linked sequences usually initiated by an extreme event. That is exactly what happened to WTC on 9-11.

The extreme event was aircraft collision and fire which initiated drift and motion that the buildings could not dampen. Structures that do not dampen will collapse.

You really should try reading some reports from structural collapse investigations.

[demodewd]

70. ...

[plaguepuppy]

71. Squibs 'R' Us

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Flashes/squibs_along_southwest_corner.htm

[TrogL]

72. Thought experiment

Fill a baggie part way with flour and put it the rest of the way with air. Put it on a table and flatten it by whacking it with a large book. All the air and dust gets blown out the weakest point.

[demodewd]

75. yuk yuk.

Oh I see ...the weakest point is 10 floors below the collapse center.Well...that's logical. yuk yuk.

[OudeVanDagen]

77. M.O.E.

Logical is the evidence in the debris grids, where it is clear that columns and collateral framing members exceeded their elastic limit and yield point. This produced the venting - what some here call squibs, and what some mistakenly believe is proof of explosives.

There is a relationship between the amount of extension or compression of any material and the load or force producing that extension or compression. That relationship is called the Modulus Of Elasticity - M.O.E. and it establishes, among other things, the elastic limit of the material.

There comes a point in a collapse sequence where forces, tension and compression from load transfer, become so great that deformation of the columns and collateral framing members will occur. That point is called the elastic limit. When the forces are less than the elastic limit in M.O.E. the columns and collateral framing members will return to their original form (and assist in dampening and arresting the collapse), but when the forces are greater than the elastic limit in M.O.E. the columns and collateral framing members do not return to their original form (and can not assist in dampening or in arresting the collapse). The point where this change takes place is called the yield point where columns and collateral framing members succumb to those forces and crush, buckle or bend.

These events display as venting during early collapse sequences as air is pushed out through the weakest points in the fenestrations. Venting is visual evidence for the sequence nearing or exceeding the yield point of the columns and collateral framing members. It is impossible to predict or establish location patterns for venting because no collapse is uniform or constant in speed.

The debris grids very clearly show that the yield points were exceeded. They do not offer any proof of subversive acts such as explosives as no residues or physical evidence such as tear-out or delamination was ever found.

[HarryLime]

84. Thanks Trog

Trog, you are unwittingly reinforcing Plague Puppy's ideas.

[TrogL]

73. Here ya go

Of course you'll never be satisfied. You'll simply keep changing the request until you're asking, show me a building exactly like the World Trade Centre that was damaged exactly like the World Trade Centre that fell down exactly like the World Trade.

The answer is perfectly obviously.

World Trade Centre #2.

Gee. Who'd a thunk it.

[Abe Linkman]

74. I'd have thunk it. That's who.

WTC #2 IS/WAS part of the WTC.


You didn't post pictures of any tall buildings that fell down in the manner of the WTC buildings, because there aren't any that have done so. Tall buildings don't fall down or collapse from kerosene fires & being hit by an airplane. The Empire State building didn't, and neither did the building in Tampa when it was hit by the (admittedlly very small) single engine airplane.

Steel buildings fall down when they are imploded. Even the Federal Building in Oklahoma City didn't completely collapse. Likewise, the Kobar Towers.

Just doesn't happen, my friend.

[OudeVanDagen]

76. partial/total

Oklahoma City was a partial collapse because the building was able to dampen the motion initiated by the truck bomb and was able to arrest the collapse sequence. Your other offerings are fine examples of a dampened structure after an extreme event. WTC were total collapses because they could not dampen.

[Abe Linkman]

78. The explosives used were more effective at the WTC

That's the conclusion, isn't it.

[OudeVanDagen]

79. thats

your conclusion not mine. If there was any evidence of explosives at WTC I would say so. There just wasn't and isn't any. No residues, no tear out, no delaminations. Nothing found suggests the use of explosives. The untrained eye of someone with no knowledge of collapse may think he sees explosives in the videos, but that's just not what's happening. If you have chosen to discard my explanations and my observations do so; but anyone seriously interested in the collapse should put their brains in gear before they put their mouths in motion and read some reports so they understand collapse.

The only explosions I saw at WTC were between rescue teams and the hot headed politicians and wanna be big shots stopping in for their photo ops and half-assed press spins. There was also some initial explosions on site between fat headed heads of agencies wanting to fight over command and control. Other than that there were no explosions.

[Abe Linkman]

80. And THAT'S - YOUR opinion.

You seem eager to dispense your opinions as fact. Why?

[TrogL]

82. Because he actually knows what he's talking about

Your "facts" are fantasies that defy laws of physics.

Your logic is "conclusion leads to evidence".

[OudeVanDagen]

83. don't know, do know

I don't know anything about the airplanes involved in 9-11 so I keep my mouth shut in airplane threads. I don't know anything about the 9-11 commission so I keep my mouth shut in the KeanTeam thread. I don't know anything about holograms so I keep my mouth shut in the hologram thread. Unlike the posse I stick to what I know. I do know about collapse so I run my mouth about collapse, and that, Abe is why.

[NecessaryOnslaught]

86. Explosions

"Abruptly, there was an ear-splitting noise. The south tower shook, seemed to list in one direction and them began to come down, imploding upon itself. "It looked like a demolition," said Andy Pollock. "It started exploding," said Ross Milanytch, 57, who works at nearby Chase Manhattan Bank. "It was about the 70th floor. And each second another floor exploded out for about eight floors, before the cloud obscured it all."

http://www.geocities.com/defendtheusa/page5.html


"As more and more and more and more and more emergency vehicles descended on the World Trade Center, I hear a second explosion in WTC 2, then a loud, low-frequency rumble that precipitates the unthinkable -- a collapse of all the floors above the point of explosion. First the top surface, containing the helipad, tips sideways in full view. Then the upper floors fall straight down in a demolition-style implosion, taking all lower floors with it, even those below the point of the explosion. A dense, thick dust cloud rises up in its place, which rapidly pours through the warren of streets that cross lower Manhattan."

"I decide it's time to get my daughter, who was taken by the parents of a friend of hers to a small office building, six blocks farther from the WTC than my apartment. As I dress for survival: boots, flashlight, wet towels, swimming goggles, bicycle helmet, gloves, I hear another explosion followed by a now all-too familiar rumble that signaled the collapse of WTC 1, the first of the two towers to have been hit. I saw the iconic antenna on this building descend straight down in an implosion twinning the first."

http://www.planetary.org/html/society/advisors/sept11account.html


"The team moved ahead. Scant minutes passed. Suddenly the hallway began to shudder as a terrible deafening roar swept over them. That's when Will saw the giant fireball explode in the street. That's when Sarge shouted, "Run! Run to the left!"

Seconds later the team's entire world began to crumble. It was precisely 9:59 a.m. The Trade Center's South Tower had just collapsed."

http://www.bowhunter.com/feature_articles/BN_FromTheRubble/


"Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've just had another explosion.
Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've had additional explosion.
Dispatcher: Received battalion command. Additional explosion.

http://sonicmemorial.org/public/archive.jsp?listlib_offset=65

[OudeVanDagen]

87. thank you

for offering these insights into exactly what a collapse sequence sounds like. No collapse is without sound and nearly every collapse has sounds that mimic explosions. Eyewitness interviews for every collapse includes reports of hearing explosions. If you read any of my descriptions, any descriptions of what the sequences of collapse are, you'll understand those sounds. Columns, collateral framing members and other building components make explosive sounds when the limits are reached.

I have heard these sounds many times; but people always do what people always do, and that is to put their own personal description and reasoning to them. Here's a short story about one of my first experiences with the sounds of collapse and one man's reasoning behind them: Back in March 1946, when Churchill was giving his "IronCurtain" speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri I was the guest of North African monarchs concerned about their capital city after a violent earthquake destroyed many ancient landmark structures and two newer ones, iron and rivet core structures built by the British during their occupation. Educated in England and on the desert battlefields they demanded to know what happened, and wanted to know how to prevent similar destruction. As we toured the sites a slight aftershock struck felling the last of the British built iron core buildings, each with the rumbling sounds of an express subway train and a steady rain of bombs. Gushing plumes of dust and debris knocked us off our feet. Excited, one of the lead bodyguards began ordering his men to take weapons and positions to guard the entourage. He thought we were being attacked. The King, his face covered in dust looked at him, raised his hand and said, "Stop. We're not being attacked." He then looked at me and said, "I have chased my enemies from these lands. Now Allah helps remove their memories. Tell me, did you hear him speak?"

[NecessaryOnslaught]

89. Click your heels three times

and say there was no explosion, there was no explosion....

http://hometown.aol.com/CovalentBd/

[OudeVanDagen]

90. and you

think link that proves something?

You should see the pictures that my colleagues and I spent over 6 1/2 months taking ....

How 'bout showing me some pictures of the tear out and delaminations that your explosive devices would have had to cause?

Can't do it - can ya. Know why? It didn't happen pal.

[OudeVanDagen]

91. and you (Part deux)

can believe whatever you want. Take it, leave it, it's up to you, but my firm and unyielding position is that no explosives were used and that no evidence was destroyed. I have no first hand knowledge or experience on any other issues but those two, so anything goes on the rest of the stuff.

After just barely making it through the depression, McCarthy and Cohn's reign of terror, getting my skull fractured in marches, and seeing scores of lies affect the lives of millions do you think I trust the government?

[LARED]

92. It's amazing

the lengths some folks will go to rationalize the irrational.

When people call the sounds made during a collapse "explosions," it is held out as some sort of proof that explosives were used. In essences assuming they used the term in a technical sense rather than using it because there are no better word to use. In short they take the rational thought process and twist to suit whatever conclusion has already been made in their minds.

Perhaps this is just fall out of a cyber world were navel gazing is now considered intellectual prowess.

[OudeVanDagen]

93. bangs

I always, ALWAYS get a kick, or excuse me, a "bang" out of reading eyewitness interviews in collapse reports.

Here's an example from a supermarket roof collapse back in the 60s: One eyewitness, a shopper stated; "It fell! It fell fast! No warning! Just before it fell I heard a sound. It was just as if Rodan was coming!"

FYI: Rodan was a screeching giant 1950s Japanese sci-fi movie pterodactyl.

People can only use words that they know and understand, but as humans they will still make mistakes, even the most articulate. Remember the German phrase in the closing line of JFK's Berlin Wall speech? No? Translated he said "I am a pastry!"

[LARED]

95. Rodan

I was a little young for the premier of Rodan, but I used to love those Japanese monster movies as a kid. (I still do)

I can relate to trying to get the facts from people when trying to do an investigation. I am responsible for investigating mechanical failures that effect process safety where I work and it is sometimes a real chore just tying to establish what people saw when an incident occurs.

Everybody has their own way of describing an event and I have to very careful to ask the right questions, because not everyone is working from the same dictionary.

[Abe Linkman]

96. Yes, I know what you mean. Eyewitness testimony is worthless.

Take those eyewitnesses to the unpleasantness at the Pentagon on 9-11, for instance. They all contradicted each other about nearly every single aspect of what they said they saw on that particular day.

[LARED]

97. Worthless?

No, I don't think so. But you need to be careful to be sure you understand what they are trying to say.

[Abe Linkman]

98. Worthless. About 99% of the time. And 9-11 events especially.

Most people (I believe it's more accurate to say, almost everyone) who knows anything about the reliability of eyewitness acounts to events such as those of 9-11, would agree that eyewitness accounts are almost wholly UNreliable, in every sense of the word.

Just like you said before you realized what you had said.

[LARED]

99. No Abe

I didn't say that. My word are plain enough. Spin it anyway you like but it ain't going to fly.

[OudeVanDagen]

100. power of a witness

Investigation protocol requires witness interview. No investigation can be completed without the help and cooperation of honest and sincere witnesses. It's not unusual to find several hundred pages of witness interviews included in final reports.

One of the longest witness lists I have seen, 73 names long was from the 1979 collapse of a Brownstone on the NW corner of 9th Avenue and 41st Street in the Hells Kitchen section of Manhattan's westside.

Most US collapse leads to litigation. The aforementioned collapse took over 9 years to get to trial. There were several very expensive investigations conducted, top gun structural consultants were hired, big name experts selected, jury consultants were flown in, and test trials were held before mock juries.

Of the 73 event witnesses, only 1 was called to testify ... on the morning of trial day 2. The witness was a lovable 70 something year old woman who immediately connected with and won over the jury. The case was settled out of court during lunch that same afternoon.

Witnesses have power.

[Abe Linkman]

102. So does Con-Edison

Proof has power, too. Unfortunately, there's NO proof to the claims of the WH & its spinners at the Rendon Group (or wherever they work)
that a "Wacky Cave Man" is evil genius behind 9-11. Gulf Of Tonkin, maybe. JFK assassination? Maybe. Operation Northwoods? Maybe.

But, not a shred of credible evidence that OBL is behind 9-11.

Personal opinions and anecdotes about long-ago cour cases may be of interest to some people; but 9-11 didn't happen the way we we've been told it did. The Official story is a made-up lie.

[OudeVanDagen]

105. neck size

You are very badly mistaken if you think any of the information I have offered are "personal opinions." I am certain I have used my knowledge and experiences in collapse responsibly.

As for the ramblings of an 80 something year old simply relating a few stories about witnesses; you should be able to tell they were made in response to a message claiming witnesses were UNreliable. Laws governing the legal issues in a civilized society rely on witness testimony, and I'm certain that you'd want a witness to testify on your behalf if it was your neck headed for the hangman's noose.

I can only speak to the collapse issues. I don't know anything about a "Wacky Cave Man" for example, so I keep my mouth shut about him. Maybe many of the 9-11 events are a "made-up lie" I don't know, but I'll go to my grave with the firm unyielding belief that I know what I saw and know what I did and that there were no explosives used or evidence destroyed at WTC.

[TrogL]

81. You've just proven my point

The Empire state building is different construction.

No other tall building like the WTC has fallen down because no other tall building like the WTC has been hit by a big airplane other than the OTHER WTC building.

The Oklahoma building didn't fall down because it wasn't damaged to the core - the facade fell off. Oh by the way, it wasn't hit by an airplane.

You're a victim of your own logical fallacy.

All cows are blue.
My dog is blue.
Therefore my dog is a cow.

Ridiculous, right?

All steel buildings fall down when they are imploded.
The WTC buildings fell down.
Therefore they were imploded.

Same "logic".

[plaguepuppy]

94. All cows are blue...

I think you are guilty of projection - maybe it's really you who are depressed. Most cows are just fine thank you, although being out in the rain isn't much fun.

the way to hump a cow is not
to get yourself a stool
but draw a line around the spot
and call it beautifool

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=344

[TrogL]

103. Who said anything about depression?

Oh, I get it. Very funny.

When dealing with symbolic logic it is often a good idea to use nonsense concepts so you aren't distracted by attempting to make it "real". I was actually referring to the colour.

Fine.

All cows are depressed.
My dog is depressed.
Therefore my dog is a cow.

It still doesn't make any sense.

It's called "affirming the consequent".

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/affirm.htm

Definition:

Any argument of the following form is invalid:

If A then B
B
Therefore, A

Examples:
(i) If I am in Calgary, then I am in Alberta. I am in Alberta,
thus, I am in Calgary. (Of course, even though the premises
are true, I might be in Edmonton, Alberta.)
(ii) If the mill were polluting the river then we would see an
increase in fish deaths. And fish deaths have increased. Thus,
the mill is polluting the river.

Proof:
Show that even though the premises are true, the conclusion could be false. In general, show that B might be a consequence of something other than A. For example, the fish deaths might be caused by pesticide run-off, and not the mill.

Have a gander at this.

http://www.sc.maricopa.edu/orgs/assessment/critical.htm

4. In using this evidence to evaluate possible alternative responses, critical thinkers use rational processes of
thought.

a. they make credible inferences from the evidence based on rules of logic


How about this:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#correlation

Confusing Correlation And Causation:

• earthquakes in the Andes were correlated with the closest approaches of the planet Uranus. Therefore, Uranus must have caused them. (But Jupiter is nearer than Uranus, and more massive too.)
  
• When sales of hot chocolate go up, street crime drops. Does this correlation mean that hot chocolate prevents crime? No, it means that fewer people are on the streets when the weather is cold.
  
• The bigger a child's shoe size, the better the child's handwriting. Does having big feet make it easier to write? No, it means the child is older.

...and...

Least Plausible Hypothesis:

• ignoring all of the most reasonable explanations. This makes the desired explanation into the only one. For example: "I left a saucer of milk outside overnight. In the morning, the milk was gone. Clearly, my yard was visited by fairies."

There is an old rule for deciding which explanation is the most plausible. It is most often called "Occam's Razor", and it basically says that the simplest is the best. The current phrase among scientists is that an explanation should be "the most parsimonious", meaning that it should not introduce new concepts (like fairies) when old concepts (like neighborhood cats) will do.

[plaguepuppy]

106. Back to the past: logic 101

Thank you for the lecture on logical fallacies, which indeed are interesting and worthy of study. Unfortunately arguments in the real world are seldom so clear-cut, and these simple logical analyses based on the world of purely verbal discourse fail to take account of the complexity of the relationship between the words and the world they (attempt to) describe. Your extended fugue on logical fallacies was in response to Abe Linkman's saying:

"You didn't post pictures of any tall buildings that fell down in the manner of the WTC buildings, because there aren't any that have done so. Tall buildings don't fall down or collapse from kerosene fires & being hit by an airplane. The Empire State building didn't, and neither did the building in Tampa when it was hit by the (admittedly very small) single engine airplane."

There's noting logically fallacious about what he says here, and it makes a valid point relating to OVD's recurring claim that all the features that seem to indicate use of explosives are actually normal features of "this kind of collapse." The implication is that there really is a class of building collapse (excluding controlled demolitions) that significantly resembles the collapses of WTC 1, 2 and 7 that we can extrapolate from. If as it seems there are no similar collapses to draw on, it is fallacious to make statements about what is and is not reasonable to expect.

The failure to find a history of similar (symmetrical, vertical) collapses in itself poses a problem: if we are to believe that the primary initiating event was the weakening of the core by fires, why has no fire-damaged steel-frame tower ever collapsed like this? Was there something so unique about the particular combination of fire and plane damage that it could cause the towers to collapse in a way never seen before in a fire-damaged building? But in that case why did WTC-7, with only fire damage, also fall straight down?

[OudeVanDagen]

108. your recurring claim

that there were explosives is problematic, plaguepup because there was no physical evidence found for explosives of any kind known to this planet ... no residues of any kind; AND because no columns, beams, collateral framings, fenestrations, trusses, mechanical fasteners, building mechanicals show tear out or delaminations that would have to occur with the use of explosives.

A teaching tool is sending students and bomb investigators to London, Tokyo, Kansas City etc to look for residues. They find them ..... 60 years after war ... and years after bombing events. There is still residues at LaGuardia Airport in Queens from an old locker bombing. WHY can residues be found at these sites but not at WTC? Don't try to say that there's a cover-up .... there are just too many agencies and private and public investigations going on that involve thousands of people.

You have repeatedly demonstrated that you have no knowledge of collapse. WTC were two towers you described as tube within a tube. Without intact roof trusses connecting these two tubes there was motion that could not be dampened. Each tube was moving. It could not have been the static condition you have proposed. Videos show motion. Witnesses described motion. Your squibs, tech term is venting show just that - motion between the tubes, not explosives. The concrete flooring between the tubes acted just as concrete will; it has NO tensile strength ... JUST compressive. Those concrete floors can not dampen the motion between tubes ... they have no tensile strength, even with rebar they could not exhibit enough tensile strength. One engineer describes each tube acting as hands twisting ice from an ice cube tray. He's right. That energy always ... ALWAYS .... shows as venting.

FYI: Fresh videos in from Taipei (and shown on Fox) show venting during the recent earthquake. No building fell, they were able to dampen and arrest motion. Videos speak volumes ... but unluckily few collapses are recorded.

[OudeVanDagen]

110. logic ... ha, ha

Hey plaguepuppy ...

Check out the web for news pics of the Nanao Taiwan quakes.

No excuses ... too many news sites out there ... don't even try to claim you can't find anything.

Look at all those "squibs!" Too many to count.

That my friend is what VENTING looks like ... and those structures stood!

Your "logic" would say each "squib" was an explosive charge.

Logic? Ha, ha!

Thanks for the laughs, pup.

[Phil_Jayhan]

101. Its pretty obvious the building didn't just fall...

Plaguepuppy-

It's pretty apparent that the tower didn't just collapse; Even from that video; It implodes. I think it was brad who showed the tower lost floors, or mass, 20 stories above, wasn't it? or is that on your site? (the batcave)?

The towers don't even start collapsing where the most damage occurred.

Everything was turned into dust before it actually 'falls' or implodes.

cheers~
pj :P

[TrogL]

104. Everything?

Strange, the most famous pictures of the wreckage show lots of steel girders.

[plaguepuppy]

107. And lots of exploded concrete, drywall, computers, etc.

"More disturbing, there was no visual relationship between these huge metal mounds and the once-famous New York skyline landmark that has made so many cameo appearances in movies, television programs and print ads; nothing that would let a casual observer know what the piles had been and what had happened to them. Later that day, we went to Ground Zero, and I was again struck by the anonymity of it all. There was not a discernable piece of furniture anywhere. No computers or books or anything that would identify this massive wreckage field as having once been several million square feet of office space. There was only steel of various lengths and thicknesses twisted into bizarre, pretzel-like shapes and an interlacing gray-brown matter enveloping everything. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that that gray-brown matter was the contents and insides of the World Trade Center vaporized by the collapse."
Larry Klein, Producer of the NOVA documentary "Why the Towers Fell"

More about the great pulverization:

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/Engine-7.htm

[OudeVanDagen]

109. where then?

The towers don't even start collapsing where the most damage occurred.

Where then ... explain collapse to me ...

[mac2]

85. No high rise building has ever fallen from a fire or impact......

Only from a demolition..which was what happened. Professional enginees, fire inspectors, police, etc. were all kept out of the area.

It was a horrific hoax...NYers the victims.

[plaguepuppy]

88. Some interesting new video clips

Two new clips that I recently found on Kazaa: an earlier segment from Peter Jennings' interview with Evan Fairbank, and an Israeli TV clip of the South Tower collapse seen from a helicopter:

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/

Some other interesting stuff about Fairbank and how he came to film what he did, from Stefan Grossman (http://www.gallerize.com/): http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/8.%20Evan%20Fairbanks%20Page.pdf