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Originally Posted by willravel
Before I start this, I want everyone to know that I am making a good effort to keep this from going into paranoia. This thread is simply here to examine facts and claims surrounding the 9/11 attacks. I'm not here to hypothesize about larger issues.
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I totally agree with you.
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Originally Posted by willravel
This is an interesting point. Tow things pop into my head when I read this:
1) If the heat is localized around the center of the buildings, that would mean that the perimeter columns were not subject to the same heat and thus the same fatigue as the center of the building. This means that when the building collapsed, one would expect to see free standing portions of perimeter columns that are buckling. This is not the case. There is no photo or video evidence that shows any of the perimeter columns standing for even a frame as the building was collapsing.
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With all the smoke and debris of the collapse, I don’t think you could see anything like that. The tower collapsed floor by floor, not all at the same time, the compact air pushed debris out the windows of the collapsing as it fell, obscuring all view of the collapsing floor. The inertia from acceleration of the above floors when the first floor failed let the above weight crush the lower floors one by one. If you watch the videos, you can see that the inside column goes first, notice the radio towers on the roof disappear before the outside of the building, then after a second, the rest starts to fall. This shows that the failure was at the inside support not the outside support
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Originally Posted by willravel
2) If the heat of this fire was able to collapse - at almost free fall speed - a steel reinforced building, how is it the same fire didn't show any effects on the aluminum on the outside of the building? I have no answer for that question.
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The fire was not at the outside, it was localized in the center. The smoke reached the outside and some heat, but not really that much; it was all at the core. And that initial explosion would not transfer enough energy to do anything serious to the outside.
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Originally Posted by willravel
I understand what you're saying here, but what I keep wondering is how much of a beating this building can take. According to public records, WTC 1 and 2 were designed to withstand a direct hit from a plane not much smaller than the ones that hit them. This to me suggests considerations in structural integrity (the tower can stand despite the loss of several perimeter columns) AND fire from airline fuel. WTC 1 and 2 were designed so that the perimeter columns supported some of the weight of each floor plate, but the core supports held the building up.
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They were designed to take the impact of just about any plane that existed, when they were built, and then Boeing made a bigger plane. When you scale something up linearly, the mass increases by a larger ratio, if you double the size, you increase the mass by 8 times. A lot more weight going just as fast, the building was designed to survive a moderate plane crash, not a 767.
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Originally Posted by willravel
I can understand that the core did heat up a great deal, but we're talking about a core that extended from its bedrock foundation to its roof. The cores were rectangular pillars with numerous large columns and girders, measuring 87 feet by 133 feet. The core structures housed the elevators, stairs, and other services. The cores had their own flooring systems, which were structurally independent of the floor diaphragms that spanned the space between the cores and the perimeter walls. The core structures, like the perimeter wall structures, were 100 percent steel-framed. I need to stress that jet fuel (lamp oil) cannot burn hotter than about 350 degrees C without assitsance. There was nothing in either of the buildings that would burn hotter than jet fuel. That temperature simply is not hot enough to decrease the tensile strength of the steel used in the twin towers.
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Well, to get a hotter flame, we need more oxygen, that’s easy. Think of the shape of the impact, its cone shaped, and the plane’s wings tore a large gape in the walls before breaking away while the fuselage continued to go deeper. Now the airspeeds at that altitude are pretty fast, if the air gets going the right way, it will be funneled through the cone, and increase the oxygen content greatly.
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Originally Posted by willravel
Most of the fuel ignited upon contact. Jet fuel will not keep getting hotter and hotter as it burns, no matter how much you have. There is a limit, and that limit falls short of the ability to warp or bend steel, espically the steel core of the WTC.
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Jet fuel alone will only burn so hot; the extra oxygen as described above would make it even hotter, as would all the office supplies. But it is not just about the fire, there are many more forces at work here, you don’t have to melt a beam to make the building collapse. Take this bad diagram I am making in ascii, as the fire heats the top girder, it will expand, bending the bottom supports, causing the building to lose its integrity, this coupled with the large plane that defiantly ruined some of the supports, cause the tower to collapse.
______ ______
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Originally Posted by willravel
So a plane that can punchture a 1'+ steel reinforced wall, multiple supports, and go through all the wings of the Pentagon can't break bullet proof glass?
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It did, but only the glass in the direct line of the plane. I think the term is sectional density, describing bullet penetration. We have the main plane cylinder, a huge mass, hitting the pentagon in a relatively small area this allowed it to penetrate so deeply, where as the wings are relatively light, and have a large surface that they hit, causing the light damage.
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Originally Posted by willravel
According to the testimony of the fire fighters, the fire was almost out when they arrived on the scene, only about 15 minutes after he crash.
Either jet fuel is hot enough to bring down two steel reinforced buildings in a matter of hours, despite there was no precedent for ANY fire bringing down ANY steel reinforced buildings...but it was also cool enough that it would essentially put itself out in 15 minutes. You can't have it both ways, and it really confuses me.
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Well yes I can. There is no precedent because we have never had something of this scale before; never have 767’s hit large steel buildings, never. Second as I stated with the wind adding oxygen to the fire in the towers, this would not be the case at the pentagon, the wind speed on the ground would not be anywhere as fast. Second, even though the fire crews did not make it to the scene for 15 minutes, does not mean that the internal sprinkler system did not kick in. and before you mention the sprinklers in the wtc, they are designed for small fires, pumping water up 100 stories is tough, it is done through multiple pumps space out among multiple floors, the power would be ruined and not allow the pumps to work not to mention some of the pipes would be ruined by the plane making them ineffective.
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Originally Posted by Seaver
This should come with a "WARNING: FAULTY MATH AT WORK"
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Play nice please