Unanswered Questions Surrounding the 9/11 Attacks: Take 2
 

Preface:
I invite you to read the 9/11 Commission Final Report (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/), the initial FEMA report on the WTC collapse (http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/official/fema.html) the NIST website (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm) and the NIST reports (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/). These encompass the government’s full accounting for the occurrences on 9/11 and are very important to this thread’s content.

This thread is here for two reasons: to present evidence that contradicts the official account of the occurrences on 9/11, and to either prove this evidence correct beyond a reasonable doubt or to prove it incorrect beyond a reasonable doubt. This thread is not about conclusions about the “bigger picture” (ex.: aliens did it). This is simply about verifiable facts being tested. Anyone who is thinking of asking something like, “But how did they get away with it?” is welcome to join the 9/11 thread in Paranoia.

Because this thread is evidence based, it is not paranoia. Paranoia is an incorrect thought process that’s motivated by anxiety or fear. This discussion will be dispassionate (this also means leave your anger at the door). Paranoia is irrational. This discussion will be rational. Paranoia is delusional. This discussion will be factual. If anyone is concerned about someone who may be violating this, please hit the warn button or private message me. Don’t allow anyone to derail the conversation. Anyone behaving inappropriately will be dealt with accordingly.

This thread will deal with the following 9/11 subjects:
- WTC 1 (also known as the North Tower) and 2 (also known as the South Tower)
- WTC 7
- The Pentagon
- Arlington, Virginia
- The Hijackings
- Lead up
- Aftermath
- Other


I’ll get us started by using photographic evidence preceding, during and after the collapse of the building known as WTC 7. These photographs were taken by various people but were all in reputable publicans after 9/11 including but not limited to major news media and government.

This first image is just to establish the subject. This is World Trade Center Buidling 7 (from now on referred to as WTC 7). It was 741’ tall at 49 stories and had a floor area of 1.7 million sq ft. The shape is trapezoidal from above and it is a quadrangular prism. The shorter of the parallel walls of the building was on the south (pictured below), while the longer was on the north. WTC 7 was surrounded by the Post Office and Verizon Building.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...reCollapse.jpg

After WTC 2 (the South Tower) was struck, some debris from the damaged areas hit WTC 7 on it’s southern wall. The following photographs were taken from the southeast and displays fires caused by said debris.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...tFireSmall.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...astFireBig.jpg

According to the initial report by FEMA (WTC Building Performance Study), the floor assemblies detached from where they connected to the inner columns and outer walls that started a chain reaction of collapses. (1) Unfortunately, this theory does not stand up to scrutiny. Not only did armature investigators and news outlets debunk this theory, but it was abandoned by NIST in their 2004 investigation.

NIST’s investigations pointed at debris instead of fire that caused the complete collapse of WTC 7. They theorize, though have stopped investigating, that the “The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7…On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out.”. (2)
The following image is the evidence, which has been presented as the “scooped out” area and has only appeared once officially, in the NIST report.
http://nuke.crono911.org/Portals/0/Foto4/wtc7_2.jpg

Now is when things get a little confusing.

The following is a link to a video broadcast on CBS taken from the north of the building (taken from 1000 ft or .18 miles from the collapse).
http://www.911research.com/wtc/evide..._collapse2.mpg

Please watch this video very carefully. It is not sped up whatsoever. For all intents and purposes, this building fell straight down and evenly. We are witnessing asymmetrical damage supposedly causing a symmetrical collapse. Unfortunately, the NIST report, while explaining collapse initiation, does not explain how the collapse initiation leads to global collapse, or the collapse of the entire building.

The following is a picture taken by an amateur photographer of the southwest of WTC 7, which is exactly where the supposed damage has been done to the building as seen in the NIST photograph above.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...cEvidence1.jpg
The original picture (large)
The following is a comparison between the two:
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...aredamage1.jpg
This is not the only image to have surfaced—that shows no signs of tampering—which contradicts the image used by NIST to show the damage to WTC 7 which supposedly cause the collapse.

Last piece of evidence, I promise:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...vel/Rubble.jpg
WTC7, despite only suggested damage to one side of the building, has in fact collapsed into it’s own footprint almost perfectly.

It should be noted that before and since 9/11/01, no steel frame building has ever fallen due to fire. There have been high rise fires that have lasted more than 18 hours, burning out many floors, but none has ever caused any significant structural problems and definitely no collapses.


1. Figure 2-20 from FEMA’s WTC Building Performance Study
2. 2. NIST interview with Popular Mechanics

I have to say the two contradictory images of building 7 are interesting. At least 1 of them has been doctored. It is usually pretty easy to detect doctored photos by looking at them in something like photoshop.

While I'm only an amateur, I cannot find any evidence that either of the photographs has been doctored. If anyone has the expertise necessary to make an informed decision regarding the contradictory pieces of photographic evidence, I would invite them to join in and contribute.

I remember watching the building collapse on TV. A friend of mine worked at the SEC, which was in 7 WTC, so I was very interested in the scene. Number 7 came down IIRC around 5pm on 9/11. It appeared to have been weakened from the lower parts of the building, so that it collapsed almost like an accordion at the bottom, and then the rest of the building fell in from the impact. That's what it looked like at the time.

When those buildings were all up, they were pretty close together. #1 and #2 had a space between them, connected underground, but there wasn't that much space between #1 and #7, and there was a bridge across West Street extending out of #7 behind it. The Customs Service was in #7, too, IIRC.

All of this is a long way of saying that the fires could well have caused a straight-down collapse if they were on the floors in the lower half of the building. Remember, there was an electric substation there, too.

I checked contrast, brightness, and color pallet in both regular and Neither shows any signs of blatant doctoring, although the low resolution of the smaller picture makes doctoring difficult to detect.

Do you know the amount of time that lapsed between the two photos being taken? the shadows seem to indicate that the larger picture was taken mid-day and the one with more damage taken either when the sun was lower in the sky or when significantly more sunlight was blocked by smoke. Was there any non-catastrophic structural collapse preceding the total collapse that could have occurred between when the large photo was taken and the one with more damage was taken?

Yes, many eye witnesses confirmed what your friend described about the initial collapse happening towards the bottom, and uniformly.

Assuming that the photograph provided in the NIST report was accurate, there is still a question as to how what was supposedly asymmetrical damage to the building (the scooped out area) can lead to a symmetrical collapse across an entire floor or set of floors, which is not only what was described by eyewitnesses such as your friend, but which is supported by videos of the collapse like the one I presented above.
It's good you mentioned this. I forgot to include a layout of the WTC preceeding 9/11.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...e_Plan.svg.png
This is the layout. Both the North Tower (WTC 1) and the South Tower (WTC 2) fell reasonably into their footprints, though the cloud of debris from the bottoms each spread quite far. You can actually see the cloud from the collapse of WTC 1, the collapse closest to WTC 7, decending after striking the side of WTC 7 in the photograph that contradicts the NIST photograph. That actually gives us a very good idea of when the photograph was taken.

I do not know, however, when the NIST photograph was taken. That information isn't available.
This is precisely the conclusion I reached regarding the pictures. Clearly one is mistaken.
The larger photograph taken by the amateur was probably taken anywhere from 20 seconds to 10 minutes after the collapse of WTC 1 (which occurred at 10:28 EST). The description used in an interview with the photographer used the phrase "just after". The possible conclusions:
1) The picture is doctored
2) The picture is correct and was taken after the collapse of the South Tower and proves there was no damage
3) The picture is correct and was taken after the collapse of the South Tower, but the damage in the NIST picture somehow happened afterwards.

I can't think of another explanation, but maybe someone else can. The only thing I can be sure of is that the NIST picture is intended to show damage to WTC 7 caused by the collapse of WTC 1, as it's clearly stated in the NIST report.

This is the actual original WTC 7 photo, scanned by the photographer, and displayed in his website. Click on the photo, <a href="http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-110.jpg">here</a> The larger version is more dramatic:<p><br>
<center><img src="http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-110_1_small.jpg"></center><p><br>I downloaded the large format (15 mb file size) photo file, and cropped the corner, right below the double floor area of burned windows, and above the top of the Winter Garden building, (probably the 12th is the lowest visible floor) in the foreground, using my lazy/easy to use "Photo Studio" program, and I uploaded the resulting 1.5 mb file to a web address:<p><br><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/wtc7sw.jpg" width="1298" height="1272"><p><br>The following two shots were obviously taken from a helicopter, after the twin towers had both collapsed, and the dust clouds from the second collapse had dissipated. The purpose of the follwoing shot is to give a perspective of just how far in from the Hudson river, the brown colored, reflective walled, WTC 7, actually was. The distinctive roof of the blue topped building, just to the right of WTC 7, helps to highlight the different angle in the bottom photo:<br><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/wtc7a.jpg" width="1200" height="900">
<p><br>I counted down from the top floor of WTC 7, and I believe that the SW corner area below the 23rd floor is visible in the shot, tending to offer more visual confirmation that the corner of WTC 7 was not "gouged out". I am still looking for support for opinions of others that the original shot from the NIST website, in willravel's first post, is certainly not the original "hi rez" file, taken by the NYPD helicopter photographer. Consider that I am showing you much better resolution, and evidence that other shots of WTC 7, not obscured by dust or smoke, are most likely available for NIST to examine and to Share with us, especially considering that <a href="http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/ENR/20021209g.asp">NIST made a public appeal</a> in 2002, for photos of WTC 7.<br><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/wtc7b.jpg">

I apologize before hand if I lose anybody here, but I'll step in as an engineer if I may. Also, as much as I'd like to cite my sources, I don't think any of y'all want to pay for $800's worth of engineering textbooks.

The collapse of WTC 7 makes complete and total sense from an engineering perspective. I'll list my arguments to make it a bit more readable.

1.) Buildings are designed to support their weight and any other kind of loads(i.e. dead loads, wind loads, snow/rain loads, etc.) in complete equilibrium. What this means is that all of the supports are responsible for upholding this loading and should any of the supports, especially 25% of the building be damaged or destroyed the building will fail and collapse in upon itself.

2.) The beams will already be subjected to all kinds of stress because of their loading. Stress is essentially force divided by cross-sectional area. Now, there are three kinds of stress that are important: normal stress, shear stress, and bearing stress. As the loads increase, especially if supports and the foundation start to fail, the stress in the remaining beams will increase as the load(force) they are supporting increases. As stress increases you the materials start to reach their "yield" points(as plotted on a stress curve) and begin to buckle, bend, etc. This only worsens the problem as the loading becomes even more assymetrical and increases on the remaining beams, said beams will quickly reach their failure point, where they permanently deform, snap, explode(more for timber), and fracture.

3.) While fire may not cause failure outright, it can lead up to it. As steel and just about every metal is heated, it becomes more ductile(malleable, can bend easily) and thus will deform under loading. Also, let us not forget that these fires were started by aircraft crashing into the WTC 1 and WTC 2, which means they were no doubt accelerated by jet fuel(I don't recall off hand what most commercial jet fuel is). This means they were burning at far higher temperatures than would other burn in a normal structural fire, which also means they were closer to the melting point of the steel. As you get closer and closer to that melting point, steel becomes more and more ductile, and will begin to deform far more easily than it would otherwise.

4.) WTC 7 did not collapse until after WTC 1 and WTC 2 collapsed. The energy from those two towers collapsing had to go somewhere. It was directed into all of the other buildings and objects surrounding it. As the building falls, the potential energy it has is quickly converted into kinetic energy. We'll just look at a single floor. As that floor falls it converts potential energy into kinetic energy and then when it impacts the ground it must then "find" a place for that kinetic energy it has to go. Some is converted into sound energy, the rest will cause the debris to scatter and explode, sending debris everywhere and causing damage in the surrounding buildings.

"Conspiracy theories love a vacuum. And Building 7 is a major focus precisely because initially there wasn't as much evidence and there wasn't as much known about what happened with Building 7..."

The first half is a good introduction, but if you're versed in the issue, skip to 4:00. It does a very good job of addressing each theory.

Your concerns about "how" it fell are addressed quite well; after 6:02 and beyond, especially.

I have yet to find credible evidence which demonstrates a strong contradiction with the information in this video.

So the issue we are left with regarding the pictures is the timing of the pictures used in the NIST report.
Is this solvable? If not, maybe we can't compare these images as two seperate truths as if they were seperate (and different) images of the same point in time.

I think it is correct to say that the actions that caused the damage to WTC7 are the collapses of one or both WTC1 and WTC2.
I do think, however, that not all of the evidence of damage shows right away but can take some time to show up. After the initial damage is inflicted on WTC7 it is possible that the damaged area can degrade more as time passes (pieces that were broken, cracked, loosened can fall off).

Anyway, my point is that time can be a factor and it is possible that the two images are truth at different points in time.
If we can't find out the time of the NIST image then the two images do not necessarily contradict each other.

Here are some introductions to concepts I described, such as stress, loading, etc. I apologize for any grammar errors as I wrote that at about 0830 this morning before class.

Engineering Stress

Force

Engineering Yield

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Equilibrium

Yes, I know it's all wikipedia, but I've found wikipedia to be a good introductory website.

Yes. The laws of physics and good old-fashioned engineering know-how are wonderful things. :D

One can usually find the necessary links online to support their degrees. I can find enough to support my psych degree.
[QUOTE=Atreides88]The collapse of WTC 7 makes complete and total sense from an engineering perspective. I'll list my arguments to make it a bit more readable.
At what temperature would the steel used to construct the skeleton of a building become weakened to any significant degree?
http://web.archive.org/web/200308181...fire/fr006.htm
This site has a lot of good data. How hot would a fire fueled by your average office burn? Add to that the firefighters quotes saying there were only small fires and, as NIST concluded in their 2004 report, fire played almost no role in the collapse.
Are you talking about seismic kinetic energy or contact with debris?

Comments on the video I posted, Will?

The gentleman speaking at 4:00 is an editor for a publication, not any kind of expert on demolitions, explosives, buildings, or anything pertaining to the thread. In addition to this, he provides no evidence to supports his claims. He simply states his claims as fact.
6:00 "We didn't find any blasting caps in 5 years". The material from WTC 7 started shipping off days after 9/11 and has been completely gone for years. It was not shipped off to be investigated, but rather to be melted down. While his message would have one believe that they've been looking for this evidence for years, the fact is that they were only looking for a few days.
"Debris rained down, scooping out part of the building" We've already covered this.
"Fires raged on for the rest of the day" The "rest of the day" was actually only 7 hours.
"The trusses heated up from the fire and caused the collapse" This is, of course, incorrect. The link I included in my previous post proves this.
"There's strong evidence that the fires were fed by the fuel lines" And they don't supply said evidence.

I'm sorry, Jinn, but not only does the video attempt to exaggerate information, it's flat out wrong on some points and provides no evidence.

You're right, he's just an editor. But he's an editor for POPULAR MECHANICS, discussing their 9/11 articles, for which they:

I doubt that you've personally consulted "more than 70 professionals" about concepts of Engineering, nor have you acted as an editor for a technical magazine. While you might call his credibility into account, I think that (at the very least) he has more contacts and more relevant engineering knowledge than you or Alex Jones.

Do you know who the man speaking was? His name is Brent Blanchard. He's the author of "A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE COLLAPSE OF WTC TOWERS 1, 2 and 7 FROM AN EXPLOSIVES AND CONVENTIONAL DEMOLITION INDUSTRY VIEWPOINT", available
here He's not a stranger to scientific publication, and has a handful available, including: A History of Explosive Demolition in America". Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Explosives and Blasting Technique: 27–44, International Society of Explosives Engineers. ISSN 0732-619X. He is also the DIRECTOR of Field Operations for Protec, who describe themselves as:

I believe him when he talks about building demolition. His experience similarly lends credence to his comments earlier in the documentary about "Pull it" not being a demolition phrase. Also, from their paper:

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/930/textcq1.jpg

You'll note that he was PERSONALLY there, taking thousands of pictures of the rubble before it was transported away. To DIRECTLY address your assertion, here is another section:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4099/text2az6.jpg

This is almost not worth arguing, as it's relatively semantic. The average time between sunset and sunrise is roughly 9 hours. Since the sun was already up when the planes hit, "7 hours" is equivalent to "the rest of the day." Clearer?

Which link? You've presented quite a few, and I missed the one that "proved" that trusses were "of course"not heated and did not cause the collapse.

I've already addressed the entire PopMech book elsewhere. I'm not doing it again and please present your own work.

The correct point that the man in the video is an editor and has no expertise on the subject still stands.
You're right, I've contacted a lot more than 70 people who work in fields that are relevant to the discussion, but that means exactly nothing. "I've contacted 70 engineers" is not a fact and is not evidence. This is both your first and last warning. Facts and evidence only. Assertions and fallacies can go in Paranoia, but have no place in this thread.
This doesn't disprove the fact that the wreckage was immediately shipped out and that they had days, not years, to locate blasting caps. A degree, being a director, and being an author on a subject does not allow one to control the passage of time.

This will be the last time a title will be used in lieu of evidence in this thread. "Dr." isn't the same as "is always correct". Evidence cannot lie.
http://web.archive.org/web/200308181...fire/fr006.htm

Bye. Enjoy your thread.

There's a reason that no one but me dares discuss this with you. I don't think you know that how you word things does everything BUT foster discussion. If you want to play the rule maker, then I'll let you have your little box of rules while I go have a discussion elsewhere.

And for the record, you're not a moderator; stop acting like one.

Everyone take a deep breath and chill out. The purpose of threads like this is constructive conversation.

Okay.
You didn't provide evidence, instead making fallacious arguments. I call you on it, you leave, but not before attempting to chastise me:
For the record, MSD's message was something you were supposed to read, and in his post he made it clear that one was to avoid logical fallacies. MSD is a moderator and has graciously agreed to help keep an eye on this thread. Out of respect to him, I would hope people would take his advice.

Thank you, troit. I appreciate your attempt to help keep things on track.

JinnKai.

The reason the rules are to stick to "Facts" and provable content only is that if you don't have the materials to build that bridge, then you're expecting people to walk out half way and make the leap of faith and take your word for it. (or in this case, some other dudes word)

The fact of the matter is, while the majority of people in this world would love to believe that the government would never lie to us or kill it's own people via demolitions, the statements issued vs conflicting evidence (otherwise known as facts that weren't addressed) would raise suspicion in anyone who is truly interested in learning all the facts that lead up to, contribited to, and followed up on that event.

Oops! Sorry, I missed this.
This is absolutely correct. We are to assume the picture took place some time between the collapse of WTC 1 and the collapse of WTC 7, which leaves us quite a bit of time. The damage in the NIST picture was credited to the collapse of WTC 1, but it's not said if the damage was immediately caused. Unfortunately, further information simply doesn't exist to the public.
You are correct. If they were taken at different times and if WTC 7 had a collapse of some sort long after the collapse of WTC 1 (option 3), then the pictures do not contradict each other. Thus, further information is needed:
1) Any other evidence, including eyewitness reports, that can verify a collapse that happened after the immediate damage of the collapse of WTC 1
2) Specific verifiable times of each photograph.
3) Further photographic or video evidence of WTC 7 immediately before it's collapse.
That's one theory.
This would be hypothetical option #3 from the post you responded to.
There are other photographs taken of WTC 7 by the photographer available. Unfortunately, the times of the photographs are not available which doesn't help.

1.) Depends, do you know what kind of steel or materials were used to build WTC 7? That makes a lot of difference. So, fire may not have played a big role. I concede that point. Still, the undamaged portions of the building were no doubt over stressed by having to support the loads the other supports weren't able to hold up. This causes buckling and mechanical failure. If it is widespread enough, which it obviously was, the building whole building comes down upon itself. That fact does not change. Also, do you know where exactly the fires were in the building? Do you have blueprints to correlate where those fires were with were vital load-bearing beams were located? [URL="Considering most room fires burn in excess of 1000 degrees Celcius, you do the math."[/URL]

2.)Both.

I didn't know much about WC7 before now, this thread got me curious enough to start digging into the information available, and actually just consumed the last 4 hours of my life :)

The prevailing explanation of the tower collapse is that debris from WTC 1 impacted WTC 7, damaged a fuel oil system that fed generators on the 5-9th floors, feeding a fire that weakened the steel support columns on the East side of the building and eventually caused them to fail and the building to collapse.
If I understand correctly, there are 3 main questions/points:
1) Where is the damage that was in the report?
2) Were there fires that weakened the support structure (and if so how did they burn so hot)?
3) How did the building collapse in such a symmetric way?


I will be up-front and admit that I kept coming back to www.debunking911.com. While the author of the site at times takes a dismissive tone, I found his reasoning and sources to be persuasive and within the realm of credibility that supports the prevailing explanation of collapse. I understand that per the format of this thread sources may be brought into question but I would also encourage you to look at his collection of arguments at http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm and http://www.debunking911.com/WTC7.htm as another source of information to consider.


1) Where is the Damage?
Regarding the NIST picture of the Southwest corner, I would offer a 4th possibility that smoke is obscuring the corner. However, I would also say that the damage to this corner of the building was not what was being referred to, and it is unfortunate that the NIST report didn't have a better picture to show.

The "scooped out" section referenced by the report was on the *South* face of the building, *not* the Southwest corner as shown in the picture. The report also had a graphic showing the possible locations of initial failure, that showed (in a cross-hatched orange region) the damaged areas. Note that the largest damage area is supposed in the middle of the south wall, and a much smaller damage area is shown on the southwest corner:

The thinking goes that a large chunk of WTC1 impacted the building, tearing out the wall and floors between 2 outer columns. If you watch the video above, it appears that the gash goes from the top of the building down at least 20 floors, possibly more, which is corroborated by a fireman on the scene.
The smoke blowing through the building makes the damage difficult to see. This video zooms in at about the :32 mark

and this still is taken from the video:


http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/9.../gz/boyle.html


1a) Why this Damage could have been significant to the collapse:
It is surmised that the fire was fed by fuel oil that failed to shut off when the supply piping was damaged, the routing systems for the piping crossed the area of damage:

As I said above, it is unfortunate that the NIST report did not have pictures showing the damage to which they are referring, but I believe that their graphic showing the possible initial failure locations, coupled with the videos and photos above, indicate that the damage was there and was as significant as was reported.

The fires and collapse mechanic still need to be addressed, but I fear that this is already eye-glazingly long. I also want to verify that I am staying within the spirit of the posting rules, and to discuss any points of debate that this post may generate :)

Before I start, thanks for an honest and open-minded response.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...aredamage1.jpg
This picture comparison uses identical damage in order to determine which floors are seen. Look carefully at the bottom 5 yellow lines showing where the photographs match up. I don't know about you, but there doesn't seem to be smoke covering the lower area in the amateur photograph (in comparison to the area shown to be damaged in the NIST picture where there is obvious damage). It's pretty clear that these pictures aren't showing the same thing.
Yes, this is the illustration provided by NIST, but that exists in a vacuum of evidence. No photographic evidence is known to exist that verifies this damage. If there were such photographic evidence (that was verifiable), it would change my perception of the situation considerably.
I'm sorry but I don't see anything in the smoke to suggest damage. If you do see something, could you highlight it?

Again, thanks. I was a bit concerned that things were off course there for a minute. I hope the 4 hours were enjoyable.

Well, enjoyable for a knowledge gaining standpoint, but tempered by the fact that I was researching a tragedy :sad:

Here is the pic with my attempt to highlight the gash. There were other pictures available but the smoke was so dense that it obscures it and this was the clearest. I would suggest keeping this picture in mind, then watching the video again from about the :32 second mark to around :50, as it pans up to the roof and offers an (arguably) clearer sense of scale.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1..._02Gash1-a.jpg

From the West Side face, the gash is about 4 or 5 columns over from the corner of the building (referencing the NIST Chart...oh, it's easier to post a highlighted pic):
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...ISTGraph-a.jpg

Oh, you mean the vertical dark stripe. It appears to be very uniform. Are you sure that's a gash from debris? Could it be a shadow? I'm not familiar enough with the skyline of NYC.

Since I volunteered to moderate the discussion, I don't want to get too involved in it, but I also want to spur discussion along when I feel I can add something, having done a fair amount of research on the subject. The following quotes are by Thomas Eagar, who is a Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Engineering and Engineering Systems at MIT. He discussed how fire could have brought down the towers in the first paragraph, and how the design of WTC 7 contributed to its eventual collapse in the second.

What I got from this is that structural steel doesn't have to be near its melting point, and doesn't have to lose much strength to cause damage, all that has to happen is for it to deform until connections to the center and the steel exoskeleton start to break, transferring loads to adjacent columns until those are also overloaded. The resulting domino effect would be what cause the collapses minutes and hours later.

In WTC1 and WTC2, the planes' impacts seem to have been sufficient to strip away fireproofing materials from columns. Damage from debris approaching the extent claimed in the NIST report in addition to seismic shock from the towers falling is likely to have caused significant damage to fireproofing material surrounding columns in WTC7. Seismic shock and debris are also likely to have damaged windows, at least in the immediate area of the fires, which is significant according to Dr. Egan.

What would have caused the fire to burn at 1300F? The hottest house fires rarely even reach 1000F, most closer to the 300-800F range. House fires are usually fueled by wood, which is substantially less common in a building made of steel and concrete.

I can't find any statistics about high rise fires that strike me as being reliable (most are on 9/11 conspiracy pages), but I cannot believe that they burn hotter than house fires considering the fuel.

The melting point/loss of strength point is actually my fault, or at least the fault of conspiracy theorists. After 9/11, the melting point of steel was used as evidence pertaining to the collapses to WTC 1, 2, and 7. It represented one of the largest struggling points of the movement because it was a mistake repeated over and over, and one that was easily debunked. It wasn't until 2004 that the theories really began shifting away from the melting point and towards the point at which steel begins to lose it's tensile strength. That particular evidence is relevant, which is why I posted it above in post 13.

Add a little K1 or K2 to that house fire and see what happens to your 300 to 800 degrees F. Then factor in a small breeze to help get some oxygen where it needs it and don't be surprised if you don't easily double or even triple those numbers. A gallon or less of K1 or K2 burns hot enough to catch dripping, drenching wet wood and brush piles afire and it's a heck of a lot safer to use than gasoline, been there done that! Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't K1 the equivalent of jet fuel?

*edit* Also think of all the plastics and rubber based items that had to be in those offices, much more than what's in your "normal" house fire and while it takes a pretty hot fire to get them started once you get'em going they burn pretty darn hot, as hot if not hotter than your required 1300F.

Just to clarify....are you posting about WTC 7?

Sinec the NIST WTC 7 investigation status meeting, on December 18, 2007, the NIST "working hypothesis", does not include any petroleum distillate fueled fire, only normal building fires", from my post #191, in the "part I" thread, on page 5:

The disclosure by the chief NIST WTC 7 investigator at the 12/18/07 meeting, that NIST's "working hypothesis" does not currently include diesel oil fueled fires, only fires that are "normal building fires".....

The transcript of the minutes of the 12/18/07 meeting were apparently not available until two days ago. In this post, #180, I posted a link to the recording of the meeting and a log of the time points in the recording, where relevant points, highlighted below, were discussed:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...&postcount=180

There was no kerosine in WTC 7. The planes struck WTC 1 and 2, and the jet fuel burned out in less than 10 minutes, most of it in the initial impacts.

Aw but somewhere in this thread there is a post about there being fuel oil, which is the same thing for the most part.

Please refer to post #24 for this tidbit :

Fuel Oil

Diesel

Jet Fuel

You will see they are all pretty much the same thing, some are just refined a little more and others have a few extra additives.

The "tidbit" in <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2387703&postcount=24">post #24</a> was poster Byrnison's own opinion, possibly influenced by media reports and prior comments by NIST investigators, in their now, six years plus, long, and yet to be completed, investigation of the collapse of WTC 7.

I've posted the current NIST "working hypothesis", relevant excerpts from the transcript of their Dec. 17, 2007 meeting, and the time log points where the combustibles in WTC 7 are discussed by NIST, on Dec., 18. Listen to the audio and use my time points to minimize the time you have to spend.

The media covered the speculation of what fueled the WTC 7 fires, in the months following the 9/11 collapse, but they did not report on the new NIST disclosures.

Byrnison posted a now obsolete assumption.

Even in 2005, when NIST released it's 10,000 page report on this collpases of WTC 1 & 2, they were laying the groundwork for abandoning a hypothesis for "diesel oil fueled fires", in WTC 7.:

The above status was issued on April 5, 2005. 31 months later, NIST stated that it's working hypothesis involves ONLY "normal building fires", and NIST asnswered a question on Dec. 18, 2007, as to what those fires were fueled by; "normal"room contents, predicted to be 4 lbs, of combustibles, per square foot, consumed in moving fires, buring no more than 20 minutes in a given location, before completely consuming the combustibles.

OK I'll buy that, I was just working off previous posts and I'm by no means an expert of any kind on anything that happened on 9/11. It sounds like they haven't ruled out the possibility of fuel contributing to the fire though. From your post :

That text on page 38 was a quote from the NIST April, 2005 WTC 7 Investigation Status presentation.

At the NIST December, 18, 2007 WTC 7 Investigation Status presentation, Diesel fuel or other combustibles not found normally in an office building, are not being considered in the current working hypothesis. Since NIST claims it will offer a preliminary report withing six months for a period of public comment, and a final report in August, seven months from now, there will be no time to do computer modeling of the effects of anything but what NIST described on Dec. 18. Normal building fires, no diesel fuel or other combustibles burning in the building. They allow for 4 lbs, of office type contents, per square foot of floor space, as the only fuel feeding fires in their working hypothesis.

In the audio I linked to, there is an explanation that an allowance is made of plus or minus ten percent in combuistion generated gas temperatures, to compensate for the unpredictable combustible contents densirty and variety, on each floor of the building, consumed in normalbuilding fires.

If the report is finished in August, it will be coming out at exactly 84 months after the WTC 7 collapse. Seven years investigation time, and abandonment of a working hypothesis that included diesel fuel fed building fires, hints to me that NIST is either clueless, or attempting to run out the clock on this investigation, for reasons not known to the few in the public body who are still watching this.

I'd be happy to read other opinions. It looks like they had alack of evidence...smell, visible evidence from witnesses and pictures, and examination of the debris, if they did any....to defend an investigation that continued to center on fire other than "normal building fires", so they went there, exclusively, in their modeling. They've simulated every structural steel joint in the building's frame, including joints modified in the 1988 alterations. That is what has take so much of the additional 31 months, they claim in the audio from the december meeting.....

<ing src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/204/474552810_487cc91165_o.jpg">

Took me a bit to find a view showing the window locations on the south side of the building. Below is an elevation view from I believe the initial FEMA report, showing the outer columns. Between each column is a window, and I've attempted to show the corresponding locations on the picture with the gash. The reason it is suggested it is so uniform is that the columns stayed intact, but the chunk from WTC1 ripped out the relatively weaker floors and facade.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...Elevations.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1..._02Gash1-b.jpg

I will need to read host's information since it appears that the fuel-oil scenario is no longer being considered, and I'd like to see if the damage is still considered the cause of the fire to start.

The conclusion I reached as far as the damage portion is concerned is that based on the NIST graphic, the fire captain's interview, and the news image, is that there was a scooped out portion on the south face that was as the report noted, but that the picture provided in the report was not indicative of the damage referred to, whether by oversight or that there were no better ones available at the time.

The fires and collapse mechanism I would like to reconsider after I get time to read the info host posted (it's been a hectic weekend and will likely continue into the week), but in the meantime do you still see a question regarding the damage reported?

WTC 7 exposed structure and debris pile:

The way WTC 7 was constructed, I don't see how it collapsed so quickly,or how even a neat, 20 stories tall, one or two windows wide, shallow verticle gouge out of the south face, could have caused or contributed to the failure pictured here:
<img src="http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/b7_2.jpg"><img src="http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/b7_3.jpg">
<img src="http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/verizon/b7_debris1.jpg">
<img src="http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/verizon/b7_debris4.jpg">

If you're considering that the verticle structural columns were subjected to demolition crew cutting torches before the photos were taken, I don't think that they were. A fire crew is still on the scene, and although that, in and of itself proves nothing, it contributes to my observation that the area below the coumns has not been cleared for access, there would be no rescue/recovery operation near there, it is early in the demolition removal operation, and working in that area, with hopes in the first two weeks of finding trapped victimes near WTC 1 & 2, it woild not have made sense to expend resources to cut and remove heavy steel, in that area.

WTC 7 seems to have been built of strong stuff that failed simultaneously, for as yet to be determined reasons.....

Scout, assuming that is a gash, that means that the columns were still just fine, in fact they were carrying less weight. Why would that have weakened the building's structural integrity?

Well Will I dunno :) Hopefully Byrnison will stop back by :thumbsup: !

host, I still want to dig into the info you posted above to see what differences it makes in the information I've seen so far - as I said last post though it's a bit hectic this week, so might take me a bit :)

Also host, I see red Xs in place of the pics in that last post, could you repost (or in the event it's a problem on my end) suggest how I can view them? (I can see the pics in your previous posts, just the last one is the problem)

The information I found so far (as I said I need to go through host's info first) is that a main interior column/truss system failed, causing internal collapse first, and the facade to collapse last. I would offer that the gash and scooped out section only indicate that the building was hit by debris that may have provided a mechanism for starting the fires - that they were *not* the reason for structural failure. The reason I have been focusing first on the damage is that it is (to me anyway :) ) the easier question to answer regarding the damage descriptions in the NIST report.

The fire intensity I suspect will be the most difficult to answer, so I will dig into the collapse mechanic first.

This was my point - that those two photographs alone are not enough to prove anything about the amount of damage (either way).

So we should not use those two photographs (in the state that we have them - i.e. without times) together, without any further evidence, with regards to amount of damage or as proof of a cover up.

OK, I am going to take a look at the rest of what was posted since back then in the therad.

Question 3) Symmetrical Collapse from Asymmetrical Damage?
(I apologize, much as I tried to distill my reasoning, this is still a long post)

As I said in previous posts, I do not believe that the damage to the south face was the cause of collapse. The collapse initiation cause and location may well never be answered to a certainty, but the information and hypotheses available regarding the collapse mechanic and why the building stayed close to it's footprint is compelling.

From the current NIST status summary posted by host in post #31 (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/WTC7_Appro...ec07-Final.pdf)
(My interpretation):

• An interior column (or columns) failed at a lower floor on the East side of the building.
• The floors above the column pancaked down until the East penthouse sinks into the roof.
• Meanwhile, the interior columns to the West of the failed section are subjected to more and more loading until they finally exceed their design limit, and they fail.
• The floors collapse, but since they are attached to the facade, they initiate a force vector that pulls the facade down over them.

The video below shows a real-time collapse of WTC7 from a Northeastern view:


Using my highly newbie screen capturing/annotation skills, I grabbed some shots that were of interest (yellow text is from the video, green annotations are mine):

Between the 4 and 5 second mark, the East penthouse begins to collapse. While it is possible that the failure began from the top and progressed downward , it seems more sensible that the failure began at a lower floor some time before this (since there is more weight to be supported the lower the floor, and it was the lower floor structural members that may have been subject to heating). This seems to support the "vertical progression of failure" in the hypothesis.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...OMPOSITE1a.jpg

Between the 6 and 11 second mark, nothing appears to be happening externally. However, it is sensible to presume that some areas are still settling, and it is certain that the load of all the collapsed floors is now being distributed to the remaining columns on the West side.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...OMPOSITE1b.jpg

Sometime between the 11 and 12 second mark, the West penthouse begins to collapse from the middle of the building towards the west, as evidenced by the tilt of the penthouse as it collapses through the roof. This tilt would seem to bolster a "horizontal progression of failure" in the hypothesis.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...OMPOSITE1c.jpg

Another annotated picture that might be a little clearer:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...upposition.jpg

My unofficial count from the time the penthouse is first seen to collapse (4-5 second mark) to the time it is about to leave the frame (17 second mark) is 12-13 seconds, which matches the value annotated in the video. Since the building has not hit the ground yet, and since we do not know at what point the collapse started before we see the east penthouse begin to sink, it is reasonable to assume that the entirety of the collapse mechanic was longer than 13 seconds.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...OMPOSITE1d.jpg


Structure Magazine released an article in their November issue in which they commented on the WTC7 collapse, and modelled the building in order to try to determine the most likely member that failed. While it is safe to assume that their model was not nearly as detailed as the NIST one will be, their conclusions offer support to the hypothesis as well:
Article: http://www.structuremag.org/Archives...sanz-Nov07.pdf
Column 79 (right upper internal column):
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...1NISTGraph.jpg

Simulated model still (from page 4 of the article):
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...ModelImage.jpg

Based on the video evidence and the findings in the Structure Mag article, I don't think it unreasonable that the NIST hypothesis as to the method of collapse is incorrect, specifically that WTC7 collapsed due to an internal column failure which led to global collapse, and that a small footprint is indicative of such an internal failure (because the floors would be bringing the walls down on top of them).


Again, I don't believe that the gash or damage in the south side was the cause of collapse, other than providing a mechanism to starting the fires that were in the building. It seems there is sufficient evidence to suggest that it did *not* collapse very quickly, that the building was internally collapsing before the global (visible) collapse began. The question to me is whether:
1) the fires themselves were sufficient to initiate a collapse;
2) they ignited something else that finally initated a collapse (fuel tanks or transformers?);
3) A combination of 1) and 2) (However, as you posted NIST has discarded any fuel other than typical office items, so 2) and 3) would be an unlikely area to research);
4) A combination of the south face damage plus the fires contributed to the collapse.
5) None of the above (other)

I don't believe that there will ever be a 100% certainty as to the initiation cause or the exact location of initiation, only a high-percentage possibility. But I've invested this much time into it so I'm going to dig into the fire aspect as time permits just to satisfy my own curiosity :)

2) Were the fires in WTC 7 responsible (either partially or completely) for it's eventual collapse?

As I said in earlier posts, this was the question I believed would be the hardest to research and present. As host pointed out, the NIST investigation is focusing on "normal building fires" as a hypothetical cause for the event. Using that as a basis, I dug into a variety of information, and I struggled with how to present the information in a way that is concise - I don't know if I will meet that goal, but I am going to attempt to boil down the info and interpretation as much as possible - I will try to tie it all together at the end I promise :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Technical Approach Summary of Dec. 18 (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/WTC7_Appro...c07-Final.pdf), NIST is investigating "fire events" and "hypothetical blast events" as the possible initiating causes of collapse. Since the NIST investigation is not complete, this is presented as a question of "does the [fire events] hypothesis agree with observed events?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a) Time and magnitude of fires in WTC7.
The collapse of WTC1 is thought to have been an initiating mechanism for the fires in building 7. Fire crews were not sent into the building, and as such the fires were free to burn for approximately 7 hours before the ultimate collapse. From the FEMA report fires were known to be on floors 6,7,8,10,11, and 19 (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf page 20). Evidence that that fires continued during that time and got bigger:

a1) A picture taken from the southeast sometime after the collapse of the towers. The light reflecting on the east faces of the buildings would point to the time being before noon. Note that there is very little smoke emanating from building 7 (tall building to the right):
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...SmokeEarly.jpg

a2) A picture taken from the southwest. The light on the west walls indicate that it is later in the day. Note the smoke pouring from the south face of the building. This would indicate that the fires have increased, and also indicates that the wind is blowing from the north to south, so we are not looking at dust from either of the towers, since they are south of building 7.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...SouthLater.jpg

a3) Two pictures taken from the Northeast at different times (left picture is earlier, noted by the people in the frame, right picture is later, noted by the absence of people in the frame. Note that the fire has progressed toward the north of the building, and note specifically that this is from the East side of the building, the area in which it appears the collapse initiated and caused the penthouse to sink before total collapse ensued.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...tComposite.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

b) Temperature of room/structure fires.
Like Will, I had trouble finding reliable information on temperatures in a structure fire. Since fire heats objects via conduction (flame impingement on object), convection (flame heats air or other meduum which then heats object), and radiation (energy transfers to objects, much like the sun heating asphalt), where do you measure temperature?

b1) We can look at ASTM E119, which is a test adopted intially in 1918 (http://www.iaei.org/subscriber/magaz...d/berhinig.htm 3rd paragraph) used by building codes in the USA to determine acceptable fire ratings based on a time temperature curve. The curve used by the test presumes a temperature increasing over time that approaches the flame temperature of a fire fueled by typical fuel sources that is not subjected to any sources of cooling, and peaks at 1260 degrees C after 8 hours. Now, no structure fire is a closed system with no cooling mechanism, and building codes recognize this by making the highest rating only need to survive for a 4 hour period of the curve, but it provides us with a starting point as the a maximum theoretical temperature.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...03TempASTM.jpg


b2) Another area to consider is flame temperature. Information on this is more readily available, and a good summary can be found at http://www.doctorfire.com/flametmp.html

b3) Fire introduces energy into the surrounding environment, sources of cooling take that energy away. Based on b1) and b2), it is conceivable that in a scenario in which the energy input from the fire exceeds the energy removal from sources of cooling (such as in the interior of a building in which fires had already raised the temperature of exterior members), that the environment can get close to the temperature of the flame if enough time is given, and that would seem to suggest a value from 600C to 1200C (1112-2192F)

b4) The NIST December 2007 advisory meeting included some preliminary fire simulation data in which floor subassemblies were calculated to have temperature regions in the 500-600C range (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACMeet...utes121807.pdf page 6 second paragraph). This value would seem to substantiate the lower temperature boundary in b3).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

c) Other observations.
c1) WTCs 4, 5, and 6 were also hit by debris, and in the case of building 5, caught fire. None of them globally collapsed the way building 7 did, but the fire damage in building 5 can give an indication as the intensity that building fires can generate. The pictures below are from the FEMA report, Chapter 4 (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch4.pdf)

c1a) Portions of WTC 5 at floors 5 through 8 collapsed due to fire. Note that these regions were in the interior of the building, in locations where we can expect the least amount of cooling mechanisms to be found (fires at the exterior regions would have air as a mechanism for carrying heat energy away and lowering the amount of heat buildup in objects):
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...5FemaRpt03.jpg

c1b) Beams in non-collapsed fire regions of building 5 show sagging, suggesting that the temperature was sufficiently elevated to weaken the steel, although not catastropically as in other regions (yellow arrows are my annotations):
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...5FemaRpt01.jpg

c1c) A picture of a buckled column in a non-collapsed region also show that the fire temperature was sufficient to weaken the steel. The load from this column would have transferred to other columns, otherwise this area would have collapsed as well:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...5FemaRpt02.jpg


c2) A link Will posted has a graph of load-bearing properties for high-temperature steel as a percentage of strength vs. temperature. From a temperature range of 500C to 900C, the load bearing ability goes from about 70% to 10% of its ability as compared to room temperature. Steel framed buildings are built with a safety factor to account for loss of strength in a fire event, but as the images in c1) show, permanent deformation and partial collapse are still possible.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...engthcurve.jpg

c3) WTC7's framing was unique in that not all of its columns went straight from the ground to the roof, due to the fact that it had to be build over a substation that already had caissons poured for column support, but at different locations from the eventual building 7 construction. As such, in the area between floors 5 to 7, trusses and girders were used to support columns above floor 7. This construction can be seen as a weak point should a column above floor 7 fail, especially since fires were reported in the area, and is the reason that the NIST hypothesis is that this region failed horizontally after the East penthouse collapsed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Putting together the observations:

• Fires began burning after the fall of the twin towers.
• The fires in WTC7 were not fought by fire fighters, and spread over approximately 7 hours.
• Over time and without sufficient cooling sources (water, air) fire temperatures can weaken steel.
• Available data from testing standards, flame temperatures, and NIST computer modelling indicate that temperatures of at least 500-600C are possible.
• WTC 5 contained regions of collapse due to fire damage in the interior of the building, regions in which cooling sources can be expected to be the weakest.
• WTC 5 showed evidence of steel failure due to excessive temperature, but the loads were distributed to other columns and prevented global collapse.
• WTC7 collapsed internally first, at the East side of the building, an area in which fires were seen to progress throughout the day, and again in an area in which temperature would be expected to be highest due to lack of cooling sources.
• WTC 7 had a unique load distribution scheme in floors 5 to 7 - the columns did not extend straight from the ground to the roof.
• Evidence seems to show that after the East side interior collapsed, there was a delay while the load was redistributed, then the interior collapsed from the East to West, pulling the facade down with it.

Since the NIST analysis is not complete and is only at the hypothesis stage, do these observations provide a likely probability that the fires led to the events that occurred. At this point, I would have to say that they do. If there are other observations/evidence that point to a higher probability, let me know!

So what you are suggesting is that all buildings should be expected to collapse in a fire and maybe having 1,000,000 square foot ranchers is the way to go for office buildings?

It's really odd that only the WTC buildings seem to collapse from fire even though there have been lots of other buildings that have had fires. But that was the day of many coincidences.

I take those NIST findings with a grain of salt... OK a fifty pound bag of salt. It's making a cause to fit the results except where they can't explain, so they don't.

What do you think started those fires... inside a building? The NYC emergency command center was in there... you don't think somebody could have grabbed a red bottle off the wall and put the fire out right away?

Based on the most stringent standard of the ASTM E119 test for fire survivability of materials, structural/firewalling members need to be able to survive for at most 4 hours (2 hours in some instances, I do not know what the code was for WTC7) in a time-temperature profile deemed to be attributable to a standard fire. The test assumes that sources of cooling or fire fighting will be taking place within that time frame. The observed events are that the fires burned for approximately 7 hours with no firefighting crews to put them out, and the point of failure seems to have occurred in the interior of the building - the area least likely to have external sources of cooling.

Interestingly, I ran across some stories about steel framed buildings collapsing from fires after I last posted. I do not know the veracity of the information, but at this point have no reason to doubt them:

Kadar Toy Factory Fire, May 10 1993 (http://web.archive.org/web/200703070...8&nh=0&ssect=0)
3 steel framed buildings collapsed, the cause seems to be lack of fireproofing
McCormick Place Fire, January 16, 1967 (http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/...mick_fire.html)
Roof collapse, again attributable to lack of fireproofing
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...rmick_fire.jpg

Sight and Sound Theatre, Lancaster, PA, January 1997 (http://www.interfire.org/res_file/pdf/Tr-097.pdf)
Roof collapse. This building did have fireproofing on the structural members.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...casterFire.jpg

All of these buildings were rather short - the Kadar Buildings were the tallest at 4 stories. The McCormick and Sight and Sound buildings were shorter, which could explain why the walls did not fall when the roofs collapsed. It lends credibility to the hypothesis that fire *can* weaken the steel enough to cause collapse, and also lends credibility to the FEMA report that showed sections of WTC5 collapsed due to fire as well.

An archived article from Fire Protection Engineering Magazine also lends support to the temperature that building fires can reach (emphasis mine):
Obervation seems to suggest that any building, if on fire for a long enough period without adequate fire fighting capability, *can* collapse, at least partially.

The NIST report is still in the hypothesis/theory stage, with simulations and data gathering ongoing. The questions posed by Will are based on whether the initial NIST hypothesis is credible:
Hypothesis: Fire burned in WTC7 sufficiently long to weaken key structural members.
~~~~Observation: Fires burned without any fire fighting control for approximately 7 hours. Evidence from other sources indicates that temperatures can reach sufficient value to weaken steel.

Hypothesis: structural members most likely on the interior of the East side failed and pancaked the floors in that area.
~~~~Observation: The east side penthouse collapsed approximately 6 seconds before global collapse began.

Hypothesis: After the east side collapsed, the load was transferred to the remaining structural members, which then failed horizontally east to west.
~~~~Observation: the roofline is seen to collapse from the east to west during the global collapse.

Hypothesis: the interior collapse pulled the exterior walls down at the same time, causing a compact collapse field typical of an interior failure mechanic.
~~~~Observation: The debris field *was* compact.

I understand that at this point they cannot be 100% sure (and maybe never can be more than highly probable), but which cause have they not explained, at least hypothetically?


The collapse of WTC1 sent flaming debris onto WTC5, 6, and 7. WTC5 and 7 were observed to catch fire after that, so it seems like a credible mechanism for fire initiation.
As for putting out the fire, that supposes that the buildings were still occupied. Since WTC2 collapsed before WTC1, they may have already been evacuated when WTC1 came down, but I do not know for sure. Were they to still be occupied, the next question would be at what locations the fire started - it appears from the pictures that the fire progressed South to North, indicating that they started in the South. After a bunch of debris gouged out a chunk on the south of the building, I don't know that I would stick around to check for fires at that point.

I drove past these structures for many years in the early 1990s.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...q/985a816c.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...q/ff22b9ea.jpg

see more twisted steel from a fire

http://figure-ground.com/travel/image.php?piers

really? a HUGE fire and you're going to try to use a small fire extinguisher?

i'm thinking that Will owes Jinn an apology. I'll no longer attempt to follow this thread.

I certainly appreciate all your well formulated arguments in this thread.


Apologies, everyone, but this thread takes a lot of time. I will get to everything eventually.

Responding to post #43:
Column failure due to fire is virtually impossible, so let's first look at possible damage.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...1NISTGraph.jpg
The columns that would have had to give completely in order to account for the collapse are deep in the building. There is only one photograph showing any damage, and it's not 100% trustable considering that other photographs have surfaced that contradict it.

Despite this, I must concede the following point, absent any additional evidence:
Asymmetrical damage could have theoretically caused a symmetrical collapse.

Again, I will revisit this in greater detail when I have the time and energy.

Very nice posts Byrnison. That had to have taken a lot of time!

Thanks scout, you would probably think me crazy if I told you how many hours I spent sifting through the information and trying to boil it down :)


Aye, this topic does take a lot of time doesn't it? When you do get back to it and have a chance to read the posts regarding the fires, I'd be interested to know if you still rule out fire as a credible collapse initiation source. Initially (before posting), I thought that severe damage might have played a primary role, but after researching the information (especially for posts #44 and #46), I'm thinking that the fire may have been the cause, and that the damage played little or no role at all.

here's the article about the 1971 fire which left the twisted metal you see above.
Jun 9, 1971
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ytimespier.gif

http://web.archive.org/web/200703070...8&nh=0&ssect=0

The fires at Kader toy actually involved only two buildings, a one story building and an "E" shaped, four story building. The fire occurred in Thailand, in a relatively remote area, hindering fire fighting response time. No data on what the capabilities of the "50 pieces of firefighting equipment" actually were, or about water sources at the scene...i.e., high pressure hydrants, nearby pond, trucked in water on board fire fighting apparatus....???

The buildings were not steel framed high rise towers....

From page 2 of the above linked source:

....and early in Byrnison's post #46:
From my post #180, in the original thread:
I am sorry, but I don't see anything provided in the contents of the posts this week that seriously challenges anything that has come before, and, if you're comparisons were so compelling, and obvious, the NIST's WTC 7 collapse investigation, would not be incomplete, in this, the 77th month after the collapse, would it?

I quoted a section of that article in post #46 that reported buildings 1,2,and 3 collapsed at 5:14, 5:30, and 6:05 respectively. However, even if it is actually only 2 buildings it still supports the observation that fire can sufficiently raise the temperature to cause the steel to be weakened enough to cause partial or even global collapse in the event that no external sources of cooling/firefighting are available.

You are correct that the buildings were not high rise towers, nor were the McCormick Building or the Sight and Sound Theatre. The example that Cynthetiq posted wasn't even a building really. But they were constructed with structural steel columns and rafters. In the case of the Sight and Sound Theatre, those structural members were coated with a fireproofing material, and yet the fire still raised the temperature sufficiently to cause them to fail in a relatively short time (2-3 hours).

One aspect of the unanswered questions is whether the fires could have sufficiently raised the temperature to weaken the structural integrity of WTC7 - What these examples suggest is that it is indeed possible. Also remember that portions of WTC5 collapsed due to fire according to the FEMA report, and there is a picture in post #44 showing a buckled column from fire in an area that didn't collapse. I understood that the FEMA report might be viewed with a skeptical eye, so offered more examples of the capability of fire to be a collapse-initiating mechanism.


I am having trouble seeing how this contradicts fire being a possible mechanism for collapse. It supports the observation that fire adds energy to the environment, and if there are no cooling elements to remove the energy (or if the cooling elements cannot remove the energy as quickly as the fire is adding it) then the net result is a rise in temperature. Fireproofing is simply an insulator to retard the transfer of energy into the item that is fireproofed, but again if there is insufficient cooling/firefighting, that item's temperature will rise, fireproofing or no. As the bolded part you quoted states: "the height of the temp reached and not the duration [mine: of the fire being in one particular spot] is the factor."


From a faq page on the NIST site, question #14 (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm):
Whether the decision not to hire new staff was good or bad is debatable. But since they didn't, it makes sense that they would focus on the towers since those were the most prominent buildings destroyed. Also, the act of gathering building prints, modelling them down to the bolts and welded joints, and then running simulations is not a quick process. At my previous job we used Algor (an embryonic little brother to ANSYS and LS-Dyna) to dynamically simulate the interaction of a baseball and bat during impact. Granted, this was 6 years ago, computing power was slow, and Algor is probably not as optimized as ANSYS, but it still took upwards of 24 hours to simulate a 1-second interaction between these 2 objects. The model of WTC7 undoubtedly has thousands of objects, maybe 10s of thousands including the bolts. And I'm sure there are many hundreds of hypothetical scenarios involving fuel load, fire location, damage, etc. etc., so I can easily see the dynamic simulation phase taking a year or more.

Additionally, based on the fact that the simulation will now include hypothetical blast events, it would seem that NIST is aware of the criticisms against it for its working hypothesis and the fact that the report is taking so long to finish, and that it has a vested interest in making sure that this report comes out, and that it contains the most probable explanation possible.

As far as the contents of my posts not challenging anything that has come before, I'm not sure if you are referring to things from before in this thread or the one in Paranoia. I chose to participate in this thread because the format allows us to discuss whether the so-far hypothetical explanation for the events matches with observation, and in the case of disagreement with the hypothetical explanation allows us to make the case for another explanation that is more likely, provided we can provide evidence whether direct or circumstancial.
I searched through many CT sites, debunking sites, the NIST and FEMA sites, and other backwaters linked from those sites. I make no claim that the NIST working hypothesis *is* what happened, only that to me it represents the highest possibility at this juncture, and I've laid out my reasoning as best I can. I am happy to re-evaluate or defend my reasoning should observation/evidence that represents a higher probability be presented.

Two weeks ago, NIST finally released it's draft of it's report investigating the collapse of WTC 7. This is a postion of the transcript during which Dr. Sunder, lead investigator, answered questions about the report. The report determined that WTC 7 did not collapse due to damage from falling debris from other WTC towers, nor from diesel fueled fires from storage tanks, nor from explosives....but from fire initiated by impacts from falling WTC 1 debris, causing "ordinary building fires"....fueled by combustible office contents ONLY!

Will building demo contractors use Dr. Sunder's new method of collapsing high rise steel building into their own footprints....simply setting fires in lower floors and waiting....instead of by planting expensive and risky explosive charges?

Is this believable to you?

I'm glad you brought up this fact, host. One of the more important pictures in the thread:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1..._02Gash1-a.jpg
supposedly shows an area of WTC 7 to have been scooped out, and could have possibly explained the collapse (though not all that well). Now it seems that the NIST doesn't believe that structural damage from debris contributed to the collapse at all, only small fires.

The fact of the matter is that, even when one assumes that fire-protected steel expands at an unreasonable rate when heat from fires are applied, it still doesn't explain the appearance of the collapse caught on video.

Since it has been nearly 7 months since we left off, I had to go back to re-read the points brought up earlier. I apologize for quoting posts previously written, but since no rebuttals were made, their contents are still game for debate.

Posts #44 and #46 contain a healthy deal of information, but some summaries are:
From Post #44 (2/04/08):
from Post #46 (2/12/08):
from Post #51 (2/13/08):
and finally from Post #54 (2/14/08)

I understand skepticism could exist were there higher-probability scenarios to the observations provided, but to this point none have been forthcoming. To me at least, the NIST change of position that fire itself was the cause of collapse (and not the building damage) for WTC7 is something that seemed reasonable nearly 7 months ago, and it is interesting to see that it is now currently the leading suspect after NIST's analysis as well.

Without rebuttals and/or competing evidence to the many pieces of information brought up in those previous posts, I am uncertain how to continue the debate.

I have a few thoughts on the subject in general, but I probably wouldn't be able to comply with the strict regulations of this thread. I inferred that there was a less controlled thread somewhere but couldn't find it. Does it still exist?

It was moved to Paranoia.

This thread exists with such stringent rules because several individuals were unable to post constructively on the subject.

Has anybody seen the Barry Jennings interview?

He's now dead as are many others that had information.

"I understand skepticism could exist were there higher-probability scenarios to the observations provided."

Several people who have posted to the thread seem to be fairly knowledgeable, if not actual engineers/architects. That's a refreshing difference to many threads like this. One very common aspect of threads such as this (but not so much this one) is that people who aren't qualified to perform any sort of structural analysis or post-mortem do so any way because they have an axe to grind. Even though I'm an engineer, I'm not qualified to add to the body of work done by the various investogators. I tend to view the whole set of events from a probabalistiv point of view, i.e. The Razor of Occam. Thanks all, for an entertaining read.

I finally finished reading a large amount of this thread and I can see that alot of people have done some SERIOUS homework! Thanks to Will, who even though we have disagreed on many points, I respect your candor and knowledge. What I am most curious about, is that if the facts prove that the fire could not have caused the collapse (not that I am agreeing with this, just asking here) then what DID cause the collapse? I see alot of discussion about what DIDN'T cause it, so where is the information and facts on what DID cause it?

Also, I keep hearing about people in some of the interviews and other information sites posted that people kept hearing explosions, and that some people claim that these explosions cause the collapse. My question on this is: Has anyone taken into account that EVERY building in the entire US must have a certain number of fire extinguishers per floor, and from my research it appears that most have a protective disk that prevents them from exploding, but there have been a few cases where they have. Is it POSSIBLE that the explosions were from these?

I am by no means an engineer or anything of the sort. I only have an associates degree, not a B.S. or Doctorate, so forgive me if I am being a little too low-brow here in my questions. I just can read information that some people show that says that it WAS caused by a fire, but other supporting information from another source that says it WASN'T cause by fire. I know the paranoia thread is alot on conspiracy, so I am enjoying this one, but again, where is the information that shows how it DID fail, not how it DIDN'T, If it was NOT due to the aircraft impacts and resulting fires?

Well, this is a problem with the 9/11 debate. A lot of people on my side of the discussion like to jump from one thing to the next without establishing one thing: a common frame of reference. That frame of reference has to be an agreement that the official story is not the most likely explanation, then we can move on to what is the most likely explanation.
Probably not. If you listen to the interview posted above, you hear him describe an explosion that throws the men into the air. While exploding extinguishers could certainly sound like explosions, there's no way they'd have the force to, from at least one floor below, throw grown men high into the air.
It's not an easy question. Honestly, I don't think there's enough information available to make a reasonable claim as to what would be a more likely explanation.

This is where I differ from the norm. I am an automotive technician. I say this because I do not fall under the common nomenclature of "a mechanic" because in todays cars there are too many computers for a "mechanic" to fix.

You say "That frame of reference has to be an agreement that the official story is not the most likely explanation, then we can move on to what is the most likely explanation." But I disagree. As a technician on cars I have learned one thing that has helped me time and time again, sometimes rather than look at what is a possibility of what might NOT have caused the problem, I like to sometimes eliminate what DOES work, and the other questions answer themselves.

I do like the idea of a common frame of reference as you have stated, but it seems like not enough people can agree on one. So why not look at the abstract, and see what DOES work, instead of eliminating what one might say IS the fault? I hope I explained this properly.

Interesting take. I hadn't thought of it like that.

The most common alternate to the official story is that of an intentional collapse. Using some method, some individual or individuals intentionally caused the collapse of the towers. This would explain WTC7 being the first steel framed building in history to fall (supposedly) due to fire, it would explain falling into it's own footprint despite apparent asymmetrical distribution of fires, it would explain how only small fires were witnessed, and it would explain the reports of explosions. Unfortunately, it begs some rather frightening questions, and that's when things generally get way, way off track in a thread like this. Someone says "controlled demolition", someone else asks "why?", they try to guess, but then the whole issue moves away from facts and gets so deep into speculation that it can become silly. I'm pretty sure aliens aren't responsible for 9/11, for example.

That's an interesting debate technique. Assume that the official version is wrong (not the most likely, by some measure or other) and go from there. It's comparable to "Assume that the earth is flat. Now let's go on to explain celestial mechanics from that point of view."

We can assume that terrorists flew airplanes into buildings, which then collapsed. In addition to eyewitnesses seeing the planes, we have the admission of the terrorists them selves.

We can assume that there was some sort of government conspiracy, which provided some sort of cover that only appeared to be terrorists flying airplanes into buildings.

Maybe it isn't the best starting point you have there. Maybe you would want to start with evidence. You know, the conspiracy theories only gain traction when you make an assumption such as the NIST investigation was all a sham.

This is, quite plainly, completely and totally incorrect in every single way. A careful reading of this thread demonstrates clearly the exact opposite of what you're saying here. This thread is about presenting evidence, testing that evidence, and coming to a conclusion. It assumes nothing. Comparing it to flat earth theory is offensive. This thread has stood as an example of an evidence based conversation on the events of 9/11 which is exceedingly rare. Please reread MSD's introduction.

Post #65 was an aside in which I tried to illustrate why evidence based discussion was necessary.
We don't want wild assumptions and baseless theories. We want facts.

I was responding to post 63: "That frame of reference has to be an agreement that the official story is not the most likely explanation, then we can move on to what is the most likely explanation." My apologies for taking it out of context. Most conspiracy threads do just that.

My belief is that the typical layman hasn't the access or the skill set to do building failure analysis, though many, many attempt to do just that. My personal assessment of the whole thing is probability-based.

You guys are doing OK, just make sure to keep the tone of the thread respectful and productive. I killed the rules since I think we'll do OK without them.

If it gets sidetracked, we can always make another thread for other discussions. Let's keep this one to discussions of hard evidence rather than questioning premises and motives.

Will, I have a problem with this statement and I am hoping that I can get you to see the issue as well.

I agree we have to have a common frame of reference if we want to get anywhere.
The problem that I have is that you jump right to:
"That frame of reference has to be an agreement that the official story is not the most likely explanation"

I think that from what I have seen from almost every thread on the Politics board is that this is a step too far and too quick.

I believe that we have to build the common frame of reference - in the case of this topic by examining things one at a time, coming to agreements on any conclusions, and thenmoving on to the next issue.
In fact, it seems as thought this thread has been successful so far because we are doing just that.

If we can agree on items one by one then we can build a common frame of reference.

The problem with every other thread that gets nowhere and goes in circles over and over is that everyone comes to the thread with their own version of what the common frame of reference should be (or what is obviously apparent) and tries to tell everyone why it is so.

I think that we are doing something different (speacial) in this thread. We may all be coming to this thread with our own belief of what the common frame of reference should be but we are putting it on the side (maybe temporarily or maybe permanently) while we try to investigate items one by one.
Hopefully we can agree on some of these items and then add them to our collective common frame of reference.

Do you see the point I am trying to make?

If we can't agree that the official story is not the most likely explanation for any of the evidence, there's no use talking about any conspiracy theories at all because they'll be assumed by one side and dismissed by the other. In effect, my method is your method: building a common frame of reference by addressing the question one piece of evidence at a time. Once there's enough evidence that people generally agree that the official story isn't the most likely explanation, then the thread has done what I intended. Likewise, if the opposite has happened, where most of the evidence is thoroughly studied by each side and the consensus is that the evidence does support the official story, we can share this information with other people that don't believe the official story.

The end result should be truth either way, after all.

Perfect.
All I ws trying to say was I don't think that we have that common frame of reference yet and that this thread (hopefully) will help build one. What it is? who knows.

At this point to say that the common frame of reference HAS to be X would nullify anything we are trying to do in this thread.

It may take us a very long time to build this common frame of reference. It may take us a very long time to agree on even one thing (I am not sure we have yet).

Maybe we should think of a way to track what we agree upon as we move forward.

What you guys are describing as a "common frame of reference" is really an outcome, in my mind.

One approach might be to analyze the documentation one item at a time, with an open mind. These items would include the various "official" investigation reports as well as the numerous "unofficial" ones, like the various building collapse analyses, video examination discussions, etc. At the end of the day (or whatever time period) each item might be generally accepted or rejected, and the final body of evidence would indicate the truth. I think this is what you guys are trying to do, right?

One problem with this approach is the difficulty in getting concensus on what to reject and what to accept. For example, in the free-fall discussion endlessly debated in so many of these threads, a discrepancy of a few tenths of a second causes some to conclude that the real cause was aliens and micro-nukes. It's hard to accept that if a document contains a small error or fallacy, then the whole is or is not suspect.

Since my personal opinion is based on probabilities and not a detailed scrutiny of the thousands of documents available, I think I'll back out and leave you to it. I'll lurk, though, because a lot of thought and work is going into your posts.

If you just assume you are doing the same as the official theory.
Many facts were ignored if they didn't fit that preconcieved theory.

That's how we end up with things like some of these supposed 19 hijackers still being alive and the planes they supposedly crashed still being flown years later.

The idea of 19 Saudis having hijacked planes is a conspiracy theory without solid evidence to prove it. Much of what is still being used to support that case has been recanted. Check for yourself, are the Barbara Olson phonecalls legit? FBI says there was no call. No call means the story of the boxcutter hijack isn't based on any reality.

fastom, you can pick any particular fact and dispute it. Depending on which websites you read, and which authors you trust, you can have any number of facts confirmed or denied. Most arguments, in my reading on the subject, do just this. They identify a list of facts that they can somehow dispute and then go on to declare that all official reportage must then be suspect because of it.

For myself, I have no way of establishing whether any of the 19 terrorists are still alive, unless I read something and choose to believe it. The list goes on.

The way I approach the whole issue is to assess the probabilities. In a nutshell, what are the chances that the US government or some part of it could pull off such a massive conspiracy and not leave behind all sorts of clues, turncoats, etc. to prove it? If such a conspiracy could really be proven, it would be the news story of the millennia. Wht hasn't someone with credibility (not Rosie O or Willie Nelson) come forward with witnesses willing to testify. Instant fame and wealth, you know? Woodward and Bernstein will be in the history books for years for breaking the news of a hotel breakin.