Collapse warning at Deutsche Bank (Building at WTC Site)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/450615p-379129c.html

Officials have raised concerns about a possible massive floor collapse during the planned demolition of the Deutsche Bank building near Ground Zero, the Daily News has learned.

In comments to the state agency overseeing the tearing down of the 40-story tower, federal regulators demanded that workers now removing toxic dust from the interior be evacuated before any demolition starts.

Occupational Safety & Health Administration officials warned, "An unexpected collapse could very well pancake the floors quicker than employees below could evacuate."

OSHA joined state Department of Labor inspectors, who also demanded a total evacuation in the early stages of the demolition until conditions are deemed safe for workers inside the tower.

[zanne]

1. HUH?

If you demolish a building, aren't the floors supposed to collapse? What am I missing here?

[mike_c]

2. it's a "deconstruction," not a demolition....

http://www.lowermanhattan.info/news/animation_details_deutsche_bank_97552.aspx

The video, available for download on the LMDC website, illustrates the process step by step from beginning to end. It documents a preparatory work phase, already underway, that involves the erection of scaffolding and elevator hoists around the exterior, the removal of existing netting around the building, and the installation of new netting. This preparatory phase is scheduled to continue for the next two months.

The next phase depicted in the video, interior abatement, is expected to begin in earnest in early 2006. This phase will include environmental cleaning and removal of all interior surfaces and non-structural elements in the building. It is expected to continue through the end of 2006.

The project's third phase, the actual floor-by-floor deconstruction, will also commence in early 2006. The video helps bring this process to life, showing each step involved, from the breakup of floor slabs to the cutting and lowering of interior beams to the removal of exterior column trees. It also illustrates how a buffer zone and abatement zone will be established beneath each floor as it is deconstructed. During this process, all materials removed from the building will be bagged, rinsed, and bagged a second time. The double-bagged materials will be stored in a sealed-off room until and transported away from the site in sealed trucks using approved routes. Most of the hauling will take place on the west side of Ground Zero. This phase is expected to conclude in spring 2007.

more@link

[Mika]

5. Why not just demolish it in the same way that the 3 WTC buildings were?

Timed detonations.
Straight down.

:shrug:


on edit: forgot the --> :sarcasm:

[AngryAmish]

6. Wouldn't that raise a lot of dust

Pretty dense area over there. Lots of housing especially by the river.

[Mika]

7. Forgot the sarcasm smiley.

:hi:

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Make that TOXIC dust . . . n/t

[MrPrax]

10. Oh you...

That's a conspiracy!!

...mind you I don't see too many demolition companies buying old used passenger jets -- they could save a few bucks.

:sarcasm:

[0007]

13. I think it was four.......WTC-6 and WTC-7

Building 7 was the third skyscraper to be reduced to rubble on September 11, 2001. According to the government, small fires leveled this building, but fires have never before or since destroyed a steel skyscraper.

The team who investigated the collapse were not allowed access to the crime scene. By the time they published their inconclusive report, the evidence had been destroyed.

Why did the government rapidly recycle the steel from the largest and most mysterious engineering failure in world history, and why has the media remained silent?

WTC 6 is the (demolished) building with the hole in the middle of it at the bottom left corner of the plaza. WTC 7 once stood in the area immediately down and to the left of it.

WTC 7, although damaged slightly by falling rubble, stood for about six hours on September 11th, then around 5 p.m. it suddenly fell. No official explanation for this has ever been given. This building was completely destroyed, and came down in the manner of a controlled demolition.

[jacklambert]

19. building 7

Why didn't they just fly a plane into building 7, and just remove all doubt as to how it came down?? Why did the CIA only fly planes into the two towers when they really wanted all three buildings to come down??

Don't you think in their planning stages they would have considered this??

[melnjones]

25. From your two posts...

you seem like an interesting character. Welcome to DU.

[karlrschneider]

36. LOL! I like your style! Welcome to DU

:D

[TheWraith]

64. None of that is actually true.

"According to the government, small fires leveled this building,"

Actually, being hit by the falling debris from the Twin Towers, combined with major structural fires and the probable accidental release of mass amounts of diesel fuel used for on-site generators destroyed WTC7, which is a bit different than "small fires."

"but fires have never before or since destroyed a steel skyscraper."

That's completely untrue. Skyscrapers being brought down by fire is rare, given modern fire-supression and prevention techniques, but not unheard of. There was one in Chicago, another in Brazil, one in Indonesia I believe... Steel isn't immune to fire. Steel buildings collapse all the time. If steel structures were immune to fire, there would be no reason to have the massive number of requirements that we do for fireproofing in such buildings.

"The team who investigated the collapse were not allowed access to the crime scene. By the time they published their inconclusive report, the evidence had been destroyed."

Both of those statements are false.

"WTC 7, although damaged slightly by falling rubble,"

It had a hole that looked to be about 75 to 100 feet wide and twenty feet deep sliced off the side facing the towers.

"No official explanation for this has ever been given."

Completely untrue.

"This building was completely destroyed, and came down in the manner of a controlled demolition."

No, it didn't. Controlled demolitions are predictable and designed to collapse a building into itself, whereas a normal collapse simply falls down, which is what WTC7 did.

People try to claim like WTC7 was somehow unique and suspicious, but they forget that the entire World Trade Center plaza, from buildings 1 and 2 (the Towers) all the way through every building surrounding them, was either destroyed or catastrophically damaged.

[aquart]

17. Gosh. Because that didn't happen.

GOD, I hate this stupid stupid stupid persistent garbage!

Right. Only clever white guys could bring down the towers.

[leesa]

29. They had to be white? Didn't realize it was so exclusive.

[leesa]

28. Marvin Bush ain't working security there anymore...no one to hold

the doors open while they set the charges.

[TheWraith]

65. Marvin Bush never worked security there.

It's one of the more interestingly tenuous connections that has been exaggerated by the conspiracy crowd. They like to say either that Marvin Bush ran the company that provided security at the WTC, or that he ran security at the WTC. The truth is that he was on the board of directors of a company which offered consulting services to the Port Authority, some of which were for the WTC--a deal which was terminated in 2000, long before the attacks.

[Eurobabe]

16. Abatement, key word here, on 9-11 all that grey shit

was toxic cloud that rained on lower Manhattan. Just goes to show how the EPA lied it's ass off about the contents of the giant cloud that roared through the city after WTC collapsed. If they had this building scheduled for abatement, stuff to be packaged and hauled off in sealed trucks, makes you wonder WTF went flying through the air on Wall Street that day, doesn't it? No wonder so many people are sick, it's only going to get worse...ANOTHER CRIME PERPED ON THE PEOPLE OF NYC by the BUSH ADMINISTRATION. :mad:

[Pharaoh]

4. one would think so......

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. There's an idea: Evacuate the building BEFORE you demolish it!

(Slaps head): Before, stupid! BEFORE...

:shrug:

[rinsd]

11. Thank god for experts!

[Buns_of_Fire]

32. Evacuation before Demolition: what a concept..

I guess that's why these guys get the Big Bucks. :shrug:

[uppityperson]

9. well those are good ideas.

Amazing that this would be news since it seems like commone sense, you know?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. I predict...

That when the building is demolished, we will have conspiracy theorists here claiming that it was hit by an airplane. :evilgrin:

[anotherdrew]

14. NAME one building in which floors have ever "pancaked" n/t

[kwassa]

18. Pancaked? The Sampoong Department Store collapse

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Sampoong_Department_Store_collapse

The Sampoong Department Store collapse was a structural failure that occurred on June 29, 1995 in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea. The collapse is the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history – 501 people were killed and 937 injured.



At about 5:00 p.m. Korea Standard Time (UTC+9:00), the fourth floor ceiling began to sink, resulting in store workers blocking customer access to the fourth floor. However, when the building started to produce cracking sounds at about 5:50 p.m., workers began to sound alarm bells and evacuate customers. Around 6:05 p.m., the roof gave way, and the air conditioning unit crashed through into the already-overloaded fifth floor. The main columns, weakened to allow the insertion of the escalators, collapsed in turn, and the building's south wing pancaked into the basement.

[anotherdrew]

22. well done

I was wondering if the pancaking term was around in the 20th century or not.

thanks for the info.

[Igel]

31. Indeed it was used prior to 9/11.

Ackerman Union at UCLA was built to withstand earthquakes, state of the art 1960s technology: The building was flexible enough to sway, instead of being rigid; in a quake it wouldn't crack and need serious repair. Unfortunately, later analyses showed that in a sufficiently strong earthquake the joints holding the floors to the superstructure that formed the building's shell would simply come undone, and the floors would pancake. That was the term used in '93 and '94 when a rather extensive retrofit was proposed to the Assoc. Students board of directors; the Northridge quake in '94 kicked the Board into approving the retrofit.

[rman]

43. due to weakened main columns

Any examples of such a collapse of buildings of which the structural integrity was not so thoroughly compromised?

[jacklambert]

20. Name one building that was built like the towers...

that had fully fueled aircraft penetrate their upper floors????

[melnjones]

24. WTC was built to be able to withstand

the impact of the largest plane of the time in which the towers were built. Some experts say it should have been able to withstand SEVERAL plane impacts without collapsing.

[anotherdrew]

33. I remember them talking about that when it was first opened

I was a little kid, watching news specials on the new york independent stations we got on our early cable system. I might be able to accept one of the towers being hit just right to make it fail, but not both.

[melnjones]

34. Especially not falling like it did...

Would have made more sense if it toppled over rather than crumble straight down.

[VTMechEngr]

44. Why?

Gravity pulls downward, not out. What force was there to topple the building sideways?

[karlrschneider]

56. That is just silly.

It wasn't damaged at the BOTTOM which is where it would HAVE to be for it to 'topple'. Buildings aren't trees.
:eyes:

[melnjones]

69. Yes they are...I just planted one.

I'm tired and feel the need to create sentences that make no sense. Nothing personal.

[karlrschneider]

70. We just planted 2 sycamore trees last night.

Hoping for some good shade in a couple years. ;-)

[kwassa]

35. It was designed to withstand the impact BUT not a jet fuel fire.

That was never figured into the equation.

[melnjones]

39. The jet fuel would have burned up awfully quickly

and the collapse didn't happen for some time. Look at the pictures and all the people trapped by the fire that are hanging out the windows...they are that close to the impact and fire, yet still alive? Think about the incredible amount of heat it would take to melt or otherwise weaken steel beams. Plus, the heat that was concentrated at the site of the fire and impact would have been transfered quickly by means of the steel infrastructure of the building, meaning that it would have been even less likely to produce such high temperatures in even one area, let alone enough areas to cause the collapse of the building. Logic (and physics) says that something is wrong with this equation.

[VTMechEngr]

48. well...

Logic says there is only 15 gallons of gas in a car gas tank, yet the entire car can burn to a twisted metal shell for several hours.


Food for thought.

[melnjones]

54. Um...if I've seen twisted shells of cars,

it's usually because they wrecked, not from the heat of the fire. Correct me if I'm wrong...

[VTMechEngr]

73. I've seen a truck twist from a fire -

A guy I knew had an accident while fixing the carburetor on this old ford, and needless to say, it was toasted. The heat caused the windshield frame to twist into a parallelogram. And most of the panels in the doors were wrinkled afterward.

[hack89]

52. What about the contents of the building?

wouldn't they burn, especially when ignited by a gasoline fire? Regular building fire can reach the temperatures required to weaken steel - that's why there are fire codes.

[melnjones]

68. The contents of the building are office supplies...

I'm not seeing how they could burn to such a temperature.

Do you have an example of a building burning hot enough by itself to compromise the steel structure? Even with wood houses, it is rare to see a whole house collapse from a house fire. I'm not a scientist by any means...just trying to figure this out logically, so please dialogue with me.

[hack89]

71. In the Madrid fire

the steel portions collapsed due to fire - only the concrete portions prevented a complete collapse.

http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/default.htm

Don't forget that steel weakens at relatively low temps - approx 500 -600 F

Here is a NIST study on the fuel load for office buildings - approx 14 pounds of combustibles per square foot. Each floor of the WTC was approx 30,000 square feet which equals half a million pounds of combustibles per floor.

http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire96/PDF/f96080.pdf

Here is just one study showing room fire temps of 800C - certainly high enough to weaken steel.

http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire85/PDF/f85002.pdf

Here are thousands of NIST studies - spend some time here and it becomes clear that routine fires are hot enough to weaken steel.

http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/

[karlrschneider]

72. Er, wood houses don't -need- to collapse, they just burn up (down)

there isn't anything left of them. Look, for a thousand years, people have melted or softened all kinds of metals by burning wood. How do you think horse-shoes were made in the 1800s? They didn't even have kerosene to use as fuel...build a fire, aerate it with a bellows and presto!...hot enough to soften steel (pig iron, more accurately in those days) and bend/pound it into shape. Large bells (remember the Liberty Bell?) have been cast from molten metal for centuries.

[daleo]

42. Why didn't they figure airplane fuel into the safety considerations?

It seems like an elementary fact, that planes that crash into buildings will have fuel. Why would the designers not have considered this?

[VTMechEngr]

47. The scenario for a plane crash -

Was a plane lost in fog on the way to land at an airport. A plane about to land wouldn't have much fuel on board.

[daleo]

58. Planning for only one scenario makes no sense

What if it was a plane that lost its way after takeoff, or had some other problem after takeoff - clearly it would be full of fuel then. Someone wasn't doing their job, if they only planned for the low fuel scenario.

It's like assuming single vehicle highway rollovers will come from one convenient direction.

[VTMechEngr]

74. A plane taking off is climbing away from buildings.

Only a commercial plane landing would be at an altitude to strike one.

[daleo]

83. A plane could be out of control for a lot of reasons

And that could be coming or going, at any altitude. It makes no sense to just assume that any plane that crashed into a building would have to be nearly empty of fuel. That's the whole point about accident planning - you have to expect the unexpected. A good percentage of accidents are the result of unexpected things happening (as happened in this case). This was poor planning on somebody's part.

[VTMechEngr]

87. I disagree.

The building was built to withstand a Commercial passenger jet colliding with it by accident. This is a skyscraper, not a fort. The WTC was hit with fully fueled planes traveling at a speed that almost exceeded the structural limits of the airframe. You can sit there and play the 20/20 hindsight game all you want, but I think the planning was perfect. The WTC wasn't hit by accident.

The parameters of the day:
Lightly fueled plane looking for airport at low speed to match the altitude- Not a plane fueled for a transcontinental flight traveling at ~500 MPH being used as a guided missile.

Think of bridges: We design them to survive earthquakes, collisions with ships, weather, etc. We do not design them to survive getting bombed by bombers or smart bombs. The WTC was basically hit by guided missiles. You can't plan for that. You wouldn't be able to afford to build anything.

[daleo]

90. I still say a plane could have hit the building by accident, fully fueled

And it made no sense to assume it could only have hit by accident when relatively low on fuel.

Here is a scenario:

- Plane leaves airport fully fueled.
- It has trouble of some sort (mechanical, weather, lightning strike, medical, or otherwise).
- It has to make emergency return to same airport.
- It hits WTC, fully fueled.

That scenario strikes me as one that could easily happen, yet has nothing to do with terrorism.

[VTMechEngr]

91. The problems are:

To be valid, you need to address:

Weather (take off in complete fog?)
Flight paths (which with modern systems has improved)
Speed (which was a factor in the damage done to the WTC)

[daleo]

92. OK, I will give it a try

Weather - plane takes off, fog gets worses, plane has to return to airport.
Flight paths - equipment malfunction.
Speed - plane descending out of control due to equipment malfunction.

It's not really fair to bring speed into the picture now, as the point is that it was the fuel load that created the conditions for the buildings to come down. The speed of impact shouldn't have had any great effect on the lower floors. Supposedly, the intense heat of the jet fuel/office furnishings was what caused the weakening of the structure, which created a catastrophic failure due to the buildings unique design (the central column essentially provided the tensile strength for the entire building).

Not that any of the above has a bearing on the contingency planning, which should have included the possibility of a fully fueled plane accidentally hitting the building.

Think of the Space Shuttle:
- O-rings shouldn't have failed, but did (especially from a little ice).
- heat tiles shouldn't have failed, but did (especially from being hit by a measly few kilograms of foam).

Contingency planning is all about expecting the unexpected.

[VTMechEngr]

93. Speed is a factor.

The extreme wall damage and central core damage was caused by the increased speed. A much slower plane wouldn't have knocked out quite as much of the building structure. That said, your scenario relies on multiple failures, which is highly unlikely.

You need to keep a bit of realism to this. You can build your house and say, well, someone could set a thermonuclear weapon off 300 feet away...

But you have to trade off what could possibly happen vs cost and ability. If we built buildings to withstand attacks like 9/11, we wouldn't have tall buildings.

As for the space shuttle, it was known that the O-rings could fail at cold temps. NASA launched anyway. The heat tiles and the foam can be considered a design flaw.

[daleo]

94. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on some matters

I appreciated the civil exchange of views, though.

The buildings themselves seem to have proved to be based on a design flaw. I haven't heard of others that have used this engineering style, and it seems doubtful that it will be used in the future, given this history.

For the record, I am agnostic on the 911 event. The thermite explosive conspiracy seems somewhat overdone, although I can believe that forces within the government were "asleep at the switch" on purpose. They may have been as surprised as anyone at the scale of the devastation - e.g. that the 911 terrorist pilots could hit their targets with such precision and that the buildings would collapse.

That being said, the fact that some terrorists with a few hours on a simulator could hit these targets at such high speeds, in such a coordinated fashion still gives me pause.

I have read fairly widely on the subject, though far from obsessively. "The War on Truth" is an interesting book that presents well researched points against the status quo. It doesn't get into these technical, engineering details, but does lay out the scale of the security collapse that day, and in the months preceding that day. It makes you think. The book is rather plodding and scholarly by the way, not a ripping conspiracy yarn by any means.

[karlrschneider]

38. In the 1970s the 707 was the largest airplane and it was assumed

that if one were to hit the WTC it would be travelling at something around approach or departure speed, not 500+ MPH. KE = MV^2

[melnjones]

40. The main issue is with heat.

The impact itself didn't cause anything to collapse, as is obvious by how long the buildings stood after the impact itself. If there was enough heat to weaken steel beams, the people that were trapped on the upper floors by the fire would not have been able to hang out the windows ALIVE. The jet fuel would have burned up very quickly, but the collapse didn't happen for some time. It doesn't add up. Plus, WTC 7 wasn't hit by a plane but still collapsed...from fire? There was no jet fuel involved even. It doesn't add up.

[karlrschneider]

41. It doesn't add up for conspiracy theorists with no knowledge of

engineering. It makes perfect sense to me as an aeronautical engineer and commercial pilot for 40 years. And Steven Jones is an idiot.

[VTMechEngr]

45. As an engineer...

I agree. I don't see a conspiracy, just physics.

[melnjones]

51. Please explain it.

I am not claiming there was a big conspiracy...I really try to stay away from that. I do not understand though how the physics of it could have worked out though as the majority of people think it did. Please explain why Steven Jones is wrong, I really want to understand this.

[The Straight Story]

59. Try Jenga

A game where you stack blocks and remove them.

But here is my take on it:
WTC 7 - no need to demolish it, there were other buildings they did demolish that did not fall on their own. No problem admitting they downed those for safety reasons, so they could have waited and done 7 later as it was heavily damaged. My take, it fell due to severe strucual damage.

WTC 1 and 2 - Which one was hit lower and had a greater load? Which one fell first? Logical so far.
Add to that the collapse shook the ground and the standing wtc was further weakened by this 'quake'...

There WAS an explosion that brought them both down, via planes. The planes did not just crash into the building, but a large explosion followed which created even more damage.

Why plantcharges, and if 'they' did, why not on the same floors on each building? How did they know 100% for sure that the planes would not dislodge said exposives or cause them to go off right then? How were they detonated, long wires running out of the building?

You hit a high rise with a plane traveling really fast, do a lot of damage, toss in a huge explosion, and then massive fires. You don't need a bunch more explosions on top of that one. I am surprised myself they stood as long as they did.

[melnjones]

61. Thank you for taking my request seriously

and giving me a well-thought out and educated answer.

[The Straight Story]

67. I hope it made some sense

I have been on the 9/11 forum for some time (though usually lurking) and read/watched all I could from all view points.

LIHOP or even MIHOP may well end up ruling the day, and be true, but the towers coming down seems to be pretty cut and dried to me. Hell, I am guessing they would have demo'd them afterward any way as well, near impossible to repair.

So no need to make it happen that day with lots of conspiracies.

bush is a boob, he ignored warnings, and slept with pakistan. Screw him. The towerts though, well to me they just had too much stress on them.

[heliarc]

80. Decent logic

You are right about WTC7, and there is a new document from the NIST that certainly does a better job of explaining the 7 WTC collapse (Lots of <ahem> physics and <ahem> data, but there is one misstep in your argument about waiting to demolish 7.

Perhaps there is new information about the increase in stock shorting for UA and American the day before the attacks. Apparently there were quite a number of regulatory (SEC), and Government offices in 7 WTC. Is there any possibility that motive for destroying 7WTC on the day of the attacks shielded someone from inquiry due to the destruction of sensitive data? I'm certainly not an expert on this, nor do I claim to believe this motive as anything but circumstantial (donning riot gear), but I believed the shorting story to be a compelling one, and thought often about the loss of SEC data at 7WTC. Anyone got more information than that? links?

BTW... you can detonate things by radio. You don't need a spool of fuse wire, the Tasmanian devil and a Road Runner.

[TankLV]

86. ALL engineers are amazed that they stood as long as they did.

That says something about how good the engineering was in the first place.

Not too bad when over 1/3 of the structural support is wipes out by the impact!

[VTMechEngr]

89. Indeed. nt

[heliarc]

57. As a sociologist...

I see conspiracy all the time. Not theory, but fact. Problem is that most conspiratorial practice isn't revealed until long after those in power have died or moved on.

As an audio engineer... I see physics too. The official 9/11 report claims that a consipracy was responsible for the WTC disaster... problem is that Osama Bin Ladin's conspiracy might not have been the only one, although it certainly may have been the only one. Will we ever know? Hard to say. You're not the only expert here, physics man.

[melnjones]

63. Well said. nt

[VTMechEngr]

78. funny.

The thing about physics though, you can't spin it. We are all bound by those laws. The MIHOP/LIHOP stuff isn't my concern. Can I say who is behind the attack with 100% certainty, no. Can I say with 100% certainty that the buildings came down because they were hit by commercial jetliners and the consequences thereof and not by explosives, absolutely.

[heliarc]

79. Physics...

and chemistry is spun every day by Pharmaceutical companies eager to make a buck. That's a conspiracy too by the way. They use chart scale and data management to skew the psychological perspective on the trials for the drugs that they've invested in. Damn the chemistry. They are using social engineering to tell us how our bodies work and advertising to sell us miracle drugs that use side effects as target results. We are all bound by the laws of physics, but knowledge is power. Fudge some of the data and you've got a compelling story. Fraud after fraud is committed as simply as that. Nowadays they use trial pools in Africa for any number of drugs under the guise of charity. But anyone who responds badly to a drug gets thrown off the trials. Can you blame America for not trusting the official story? After the fraud by Colin Powell at the UN? After lobbyists influenced government/FDA to tell us Vioxx was safe? After Bush and Cheney lied about Aluminum tubes and Yellowcake? You might see physics. I see social distrust, and it's justified. There is a deep seated conflict of interest among the higher ups in our administration. I want to know what Sibel Edmonds has to say, and I want to know now. I want to know what it has to do with Drug Trafficking, and Arms sales, and war profiteering. Don't you? I'll agree that the explosives theories are very possibly a side-show, but if they have to defend their story, so much the better. I wouldn't be surprised if the inquiries that the American people are hoping for unearth more interesting variations of the MIHOP/LIHOP theories. The transparency of government is tearing apart this Administration, and its about time.

You aren't concerned that our government may have known about the attacks before hand? Are you certain that's a smart scientific position to take? Where do you work? Do you just design circuits and not concern yourself that its for a neutron bomb detonator? Are scientists really just supposed to make calculations and not ask questions of the data and how it is arranged?

[VTMechEngr]

81. You are not separating science from politics

Am I concerned about the state of the country, or ethical concerns of weapons, yes I am. But, Leaving aside the emotional clouding, the WTC collapse can be explained by physics without all the other "stuff".

[heliarc]

96. Emotional clouding? None at all sir.

"stuff" like facts and the actions of leaders, scoundrels and liars? Well, you can discount all of that if you like as emotional clouds. They happen to be facts all the same. Chronicled ever more meticulously as history progresses.

Today, I mourned a personal loss. Not the 9/11 that you seem to view only with a sliderule, nor the 9/11 that the rest of the country seems to deem all enveloping. I mourned the loss of friends and family who were taken on 9/11, 1973 when a conspiracy proven by the congress of this nation schemed to destroy the Chilean democracy through sabotage and violent acts. 3000 of my countrymen perished at the hands of the US trained Chilean General Augusto Pinochet, and the way to these souls was paved by CIA dollars and assassins from the Navy. 80,000 more were tortured. All of which was proved in Congressional committee, as well as through a process of reconciliation in Chile. There is no emotional clouding when approaching fact.

I hope only that the Physics you so diligently apply will meet with an equal inquiry into the motives and actions of men in power. As of yet the commission report is not satisfactory to many of us. Your tone of condescension and pure science smacks of the same sort of zweckrationale, that fulfilled Weber's vision of the karismatik... but I hope that as you say your "ethics" will allow you to question righteously, and use the expertise that you defend so staunchly. I would respect that wholeheartedly, and do as I expect that you would.

[melnjones]

50. Ok...so explain it. nt

[karlrschneider]

55. I wouldn't know where to begin.

Do you know anything about strength of materials? Static and dynamic loads? Non-stochiometric combustion? Specific heat values of metals? Modulus of elasticity vs. temperature? The difference between stress and strain?

Please don't expect me to give you a working knowledge of these disciplines in a day, let alone a couple of paragraphs. For the moment, I will make some short comments on what you said earlier:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The impact itself didn't cause anything to collapse, as is obvious by how long the buildings stood after the impact itself. If there was enough heat to weaken steel beams, the people that were trapped on the upper floors by the fire would not have been able to hang out the windows ALIVE. The jet fuel would have burned up very quickly, but the collapse didn't happen for some time. It doesn't add up. Plus, WTC 7 wasn't hit by a plane but still collapsed...from fire? There was no jet fuel involved even."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. The impact caused a LOT of things to collapse. That is why so much debris from the buildings
was instantly knocked out and fell to the ground. There was absolutely considerable collapse
of several floors near the point of impact, including the severing of crucial structural members.
If the aircraft had been a fully fueled 747 with double the mass, it could have caused the
building to fall more or less immediately.

2. I don't understand why you find it odd that people way above the fire were alive...they were
hundreds of feet away with many reinforced concrete floors between them and the fires.

3. The -rate- at which the fuel burned doesn't much matter, in any case it would have released
some 25,000 BTU of heat per pound into the building whether it took one minute or one hour.
That it took 45 minutes or so for collapse to initiate is totally consistent with the expected
heating, deformation and redistribution of weight that was ongoing during that time.

4. Building 7 had been struck by debris from the collapsing tall towers - it is absolutely possible
if not probable, that even without the fire it could have fallen anyway. In Oklahoma City, the
Murrah building (near me, I drove over to see it after McVeigh blew half of it away) it was so
unstable for many days it was virtually too dangerous to explore it for victims...this is
a common problem with earthquake damaged, partially collapsed structures - they can fall down
simply because of shifting loads, vibration, even wind.

edit: corrected a couple of minor typos

[melnjones]

62. Thank you for the explanation...

...educated explanations always help the process:-)

[karlrschneider]

66. I appreciate your candor, I try not to be condescending in these

discussions and I'm not the most diplomatic old phart in DU; sometimes I come off as a smartass but I don't mean to be. :D

[VTMechEngr]

76. karl, your a better man than I

I just can't do that anymore. I spent many hours writing out nice detailed engineering explanations for the collapse, and usually it went nowhere. So, I don't even bother anymore.

[VTMechEngr]

77. Guess I'll be cool and add in

1. The floors were made of trusses, which are effected by heat more readily than steel columns. Remember the experiments in school where you heat a piece of metal and it expands? Trusses, due to the shape and many steel pieces welded or bolted together, tend to warp when subjected to high heat. The floors collapsing weakened the outer walls ability to avoid buckling.

2. Steel doesn't have to melt to fail from heat. The steel can either be heated and fail because the yielding point of the material was reduced to below the current weight load, or it can buckle. Buckling is failure where the column bows out. At this point, the column will pull down on its upper mount, and when a load is put onto it, it can bend or possibly snap in half.

The first effect I call the blacksmith effect - Notice how a blacksmith heats the metal, but doesn't melt it? The hot metal has been softened by the heat, and can be hammered into shape before it cools. The columns didn't need to be heated that much, the combined effect of reducing the wall area to support the building (since less wall columns remained to support the top of the building, I.E. Increased load)would cause them to yield, or fail under compression.

3. People say the building should have toppled over. Why? Look at the forces acting on it at the time of collapse - A free body diagram in engineer speak. The top of the building failed at or near the plane crash site, with the only force acting on the top being gravity. So when the columns fail, the enormous mass of the top of the building fell straight down with the pull of gravity. At that point, you have to think about the literal pulverization of the lower floors that occurs. You have the kinetic energy of the upper floors basically just smash any remaining structure to splinters due to the massive amount of energy that has been unleashed. If you remember F=MA, think about this - You have an extremely large mass, going at freefall (32.174 ft/s^2).

[VTMechEngr]

75. Whats your background?

You really need an understanding of statics, mechanics of materials, and some kinematics. However, just a solid base in high school physics is enough to work with.

[TankLV]

85. As an architect, I complete agree also.

No conspiracies needed - just plain old fashioned PHYSICS.

But some people...

[VTMechEngr]

46. And don't forget -

The assumption was the plane would be low on fuel as it was lost in fog while trying to land at an airport.

[karlrschneider]

53. Yes, that's an important point, I should have thought to mention it.

:-)

[Ragin_mad]

82. The key being "at the time"

1. The largest plane at the time WTC was constructd was the Boeing 707. The 767 that hit the buildings are much larger

2. The buildings did survive the impact. It was the fuel fire that caused the collapse. If the planes would have been arriving, not departing NY, most likely the building would still be standing.

[TankLV]

84. Nope - it was designed to withstand the highest structural forces at the

time - mainly WIND loads - that also just happened to be able to withstand the impact of planes the were IN EXISTENCE at that time - not as large at all as the planes that eventually hit the building.

I don't know of ANY building that's designed INTENTIONALLY to withstand the impact of planes, etc. Wind, Earthquakes, yes, but planes, NO.

We design highrise buildings the world over, and this question is NEVER brought up during the design phase - nor should it...it would be riduculuously expensive and never allow for anything short of a bunker design - short, squat, minimal windows, heavy skin...

[Drifter]

97. Your statement is not qualified properly ...

Indeed the WTC were designed to withstand an "accidental" crash of a B707. The key word here is accidental. This would most likely involve a relatively slow moving aircraft.

the 9/11 aircraft were full of fuel, and traveling at cruise speed. The difference in the energy release of a slow moving aircraft and one that is at top speed (and full of fuel) is going to be big.

Cheers
Drifter

[DemInDistress]

26. the Empire State Building July 1945 B-52 crashes into the 78th fl.

[Amonester]

27. B-25 (not B-52).

1945 Jul 28, A twin-engine U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors and killed 14 people. The plane’s propellers severed elevator cables and sent one on a 38-story fall in which the operator survived. (SFC, 2/24/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/11/97, p.A1)(HT, 5/97, p.26)(AP, 7/28/97)
http://timelines.ws/subjects/Aircrashes.HTML

What happened on July 28th
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/today/0728.htm

[DemInDistress]

30. I give up.. what happened on July 28? nt

[karlrschneider]

37. You aren't allowed to ask logical questions here.

Pay attention. ;-)

[WHAT]

15. I think this is iconic, banking is the new frontier...

have you noticed all the new activity going-on in banking, lately?

Well, I think this is the shifting of the tectonic plates...major realignment and new direction. Collusion is not for the big guys, anymore. This is subtle, this is serious. I have noticed a lot of new articles about banking, particularly on BBC. Just last night, there was an interview with someone questioning the corruption index with respect to the new world and the third world (hey, definitions are telling, aren't they); anyway, this person put forth the idea that the pristine image of "transparency" in the west is in doubt when so many enablers of corruption/money laundering have the ability to distill that precious grease of commerce in private unmolested just because? Well, there have been other articles, lately...some African country allowing/submitting to banking infrastructure touted as superior, meaning dominate, but not "best".

I think there is a shake-up going on that is descriptive of the way the whole world organizes that will, eventually, find the old structures of collating money to will superfluous, confining, irrelevant (impractical by common concensus,...a form of democracy more perfect than media manipulation, more accommodating to a larger consensus, more workable and fairer.)

Once the banks go the world changes.

Better forms of co-operation and consensus will be more telling of a will to co-operate. It will be pragmatic and integral and herald a new direction not imposed by olde tyme calculus. This, I think, is the crux of the matter that will cripple the aspirations of world dominationists...agreement, co-signed by self-acknowledgment and the benefits of co-operation might be the way to go.

It's inevitable...

[bhikkhu]

23. intriguing comments...but

the article refers to the structural failure of a building, which only coincidentally used to be occupied by Deutschbank.

Is there another thread where your ideas or suspicions are more thoroughly worked out?

[Earth_First]

21. Why? Is there something to be concerned about?

:sarcasm:

[zann725]

49. "DEUTSCHE Bank?"...how ironic.

n/t

[Name removed]

60. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TankLV]

88. Hey - be very CAREFUL how you pronounce their name!...

:evilgrin:

[Jamastiene]

95. Sounds like a good idea to me.

If I am in a building that they are planning to demolish, I'd appreciate that heads up too. It seems kind of logical to get out of a building BEFORE they demolish it. I mean it would be kind of hard to get out afterward. This seems like common sense to me. :shrug:

Who wanted to stay inside as the building came down, I wonder? :shrug:

Somebody's bored at that paper, methinks.