Some Misunderstandings Related to WTC Collapse Analysis

[Jeffrey Orling]

read this interesting comment:

"The mistake in reasoning also occurs wrt WTC7 as well and is even more glaring since the very event of the in-falling of the rooftop structures demonstraes a cascading series of events that lead to total collapse.

Since several persons(including Major Tom)have shown that the rooftop structure of WTC 1 begins moving before the perimeter we can know that there were internal failures first.
Tony asserts that this internal failure was in fact the severing, by means of demolition devices, of the outer core columns.

However, there is a much more pedestrian explanation in the large area, multi-floor fires that were in effect beginning within seconds of impact.

femr points out movements of the upper portion of the tower well before collapse release though, and there is the obvious inward bowing of perimeter columns all of which are red flags as to large dynamic effects of the raging fires within the structure and certainly not indicative of explosives.

So what's left to the truther?
Well an arguement that says that there simply was not enough heat to cause the slow creep and loss of structural integrity that leads to total collapse and that something else had to add extra heat in various locations at or near the impact floors.
"Cry Thermite!"

I do note how this requires the truther movement to edge ever closer to a scenario in which impact damage and fires brought down these structures though. We have gone from massive explosives throughout the entire building ("the towers were blown to bits" was one claim) , to superthermite charges with magical properties (quiet yet with speed and effect equal to high explosives), and now it would seem we are moving towards reg-lar ol' thermite to add heat to existing office fires.
,,and why?
Because of a political mindset that assumes massive malfeasance on the part of an un-named yet pervasive shadow control group (in some circles its 'obviously' the Jews/Zionists) must be in effect in all major events in the world (and in some rather smaller events depending on the level of paranoia in the individual)."

[Charles Drago]

The firemen who made this report could not possible have examined or seen 47 core columns on perhaps 6 separate floors... they couldn't even get close to them where there were fires. Are you denying that there was huge amounts of smoke CONTINUOUSLY POURING from the south tower frokm the instant of the plane strike until it collapsed?

Of course they were doing their jobs as best they could. I would not denigrate them or their bravery. I am saying that they could not possibly have seen ALL the fires going on. No one could pass up through the plane strike zone. I think they were reporting what they saw... but they couldn't and didn't see the full extent of the fires. PERIOD.

This is a modified limited hangout. What you are going, intentionally IMO, is to shift the focus from how hot the fires were, to they didn't know everything. Chief Palmer needed to know enough to call up more men and equipment to knock down a couple of fires to not be calling them to their deaths.

Agreed.

[Albert Doyle]

1. In order for the floors to instigate the collapse they would have needed to collapse at least three floors before leaving the columns unsupported enough for buckling of the columns to even be possible.

I believe the scientific interface in question is the floor support for the first floor pad under the initial collapse area. If the top 12 floors of the North Tower drove downward in a ram effect the actual scientific formula involved would be the mass and force of this section vs the resistance of the floor supports and core and outer skirt columns beneath it. I don't think you understand that with this initiating force the first floor pad would possess enough force to start the process. The floors didn't initiate the collapse, as far as I know, the buckling of the damaged section allowing the full weight of the top section to fall on it did. Or perhaps the lack of load capacity of the columns slowly allowed the outer frame skirt to bulge (this was seen on video) releasing those floors and starting the process.

2. If the three floors had collapsed before the columns buckled we would have seen huge amounts of smoke and dust coming out of the windows before the roofline fell. We don't and three stories if 36 feet of height so this would not have been something easy to miss. So the floors did not instigate the collapse.

I think you are creating a false premise here. You are forgetting that there was probably huge damage to the inner core columns in the strike area. If we exclude the CD theory then the behavior of the collapse suggests the fire weakened and mechanically damaged strike area gave way initiating the collapse (KISS). Any chance the South Tower tilted towards the impacted side while falling because this shows the lack of column integrity was responsible for the collapse? The design of the tower was such that once this mass-ramming initial event impacted the intact tower structure below it it was enough to set-off the cascading floor dynamic.

So Jeffrey's floors first theory does not hold up to scrutiny and it is no different than saying the moon is made of green cheese.

What actually happened is the core went down first and pulled the perimeter columns inward causing them to buckle and fail and smoke and dust came out of one story 9the 98th) across the building as the roofline started going down.

I think this is a gross oversimplification that works by theory instead of observing the actual conditions in the buildings. While you tell us the fires were light and staircases intact you forget victims above the impact zone in the South Tower told of hellish conditions and blocked stairways. Video shows fires so hot and smokey in the North Tower that no rooftop rescues could be done. Molten metal flowed from the South Tower.

Your theory fails to consider that the core columns were so damaged in the impact area that their failure was enough to initiate the event.

By the way, there's a You-Tube that shows a seriously bowed floor truss from heat and stress damage.

[Lauren Johnson]

Because of a political mindset that assumes massive malfeasance on the part of an un-named yet pervasive shadow control group

So where does LIHOP fit into this thought? Is it malfeasance, the performance of an illegal act? Or is it misfeasance, the inadequate performance of a lawful act? Or is it nonfeasance, the neglect of duty or the failure to perform a required act? You have posited a large agglomeration of government, security, military, and private concerns all knowing that war is the way to go and also knowing that it is best to not stop a terrorist attack if one were to find it out. This sentence describes your position to a tee.

[Jeffrey Orling]

Because of a political mindset that assumes massive malfeasance on the part of an un-named yet pervasive shadow control group

So where does LIHOP fit into this thought? Is it malfeasance, the performance of an illegal act? Or is it misfeasance, the inadequate performance of a lawful act? Or is it nonfeasance, the neglect of duty or the failure to perform a required act? You have posited a large agglomeration of government, security, military, and private concerns all knowing that war is the way to go and also knowing that it is best to not stop a terrorist attack if one were to find it out. This sentence describes your position to a tee.

Lauren,

I don't have a simple position about 9/11. It's layers and layers of meaning. Lots of things going in and coming out.

I think that the neocons and company were wanting to go agreessive and sought to dominate the world... why? for empire reasons.. wealth and so forth. Their military pals see the world as a place to wage war and conquer... a convenient marriage... greed and force.

I think that there is much incompetence, waste, fraud and abuse. 9/11 would reveal all of this in how these slackers performed or didn't. That had to be kept hidden

I think the usual old boys networks played cover up so per usual there was no accountability for wrong doing or incompetence. We saw this again in the mortgage crisis, the financial meltdown and so forth... anyone go to jail? Who got helped when the sh*t hit the fan?

I think the MIC has a co dependency thing going on with the enemy du jour... we don't have a real military adversary so we need to make it seem as if we do.. even the USSR was not coming to conquer the US. Terrorism is a handy one... it is everywhere... the world's a battlefield. Hard sell unless the enemy actually attacks you... eh? Do Americans really care if some one attacks our warships nosing around the world as if it's their backyard? No... or some housing complex for oil workers in Riyad? na... opportunists who took a risk living amongst the crazies... Or marines in a barracks in Beruit... soldiers expect to be targets of violence. But hit us in the workplace... going about our biz.. scares everyone sh*tless. Now we're talking.. we've got an enemy WHOOPDIDO!!!!!!! Everyone knows that.. you attack us and out attack dogs are unleashed. Doggies know it., PNAC knows it, guys in bars know it, gangs know it. Go ahead... test me.. make me do it! How much longer can the MIC justify sucking down the treasures with no enemy? When USSR folded people demanded a peace benefit... drop the DOD budget and build buses and schools... MIC was not happy with that. Cold war ended... they tried star wars for a decade... complete non starter... Who was going to fight us up in space? Are they serious? Waster billions but they actually put out contracts. GWOT is the real thing... People can get in line behind THAT sort of security... and sign up to kick butt... rah rah patriotism... don't take away mu Big Mac and smell phone. These guys gamed this for years... they watched the terrorist thing cooking as the Izzies squeezed the Palestinians. We had no Palestinians. Native Americans were Americanized and on their reservations and drinking... not bombing. FBI took care of the one who got uppity... AIM.

Izzies are our friends... our best friends... they even gave us our new enemies - islamic terrorists... the friend of my enemy is my enemy... Intel guys were told to do foreign policy in the early 60s... not intel told us they would do it and do it on the sly and we pay for it... On the sly means criminal stuff... killing, assassination, drugs, guns, bribes, blackmail...mafia type stuff... get it done and no effin around. No one talks. Elected governments fell and our puppets popped up... all is good. AND we get to practice counter insurgency when those ungrateful serfs begin to rebel. We train em and we go down and get some hands on killing and terror training. We get to use their tactics too... knock off Ortega that stinking commie. This is fun!

We need to expand the theater of operations... Let's go for the Caucuses (energy Caucuses that is) and the ME where it's producing and controlled by pesky OPEC. That has to change. Meanwhile MIC is cashing out supply weapons to our puppets to keep the serfs quiet. Foreign aid... weapons bought from the MIC... the money never leave the US... straight to Northrop... the planes go out and our pilots are paid to fly them... win win win And as a bonus we are safe as a big in a rug.

Pushing hard on the serfs and sending out weapons to kill them pisses them off. Not very xtian way to treat folks. Serfs have no where to go. USSR ain't no more. China is doing slave labor for America... EU is trying to be a democratic isolationist socialist haven... NATO... the US military club is the dues they must pay because the US saved their asses from the Nazis. Our Nazis are more reasonable... They go after the weak third world first...

Let's cut to the chase here...why would these idiots try to stage a massive complex conspiracy sans rehearsal when they knew it was only a matter of time before the Izzies enemies would be our real enemies. Bennie knew it and he jumped for joy... He wanted US to take out his enemies. Every intel knew something was cooking. They called it chatter. They couldn't wait... They had all the plans for roll of of the New American Century... USAPATRIOT act and all... flags and bumper stickers... freedom fries in the frier... They even practiced the attack everyone knew was coming. It wasn't going to be a landing on the beach in East Hampton.

Gladio was practice runs. Terrorism freaks people out... you can blame whomever because no one gets caught and there are no trials. Doesn;t matter who does it as much as how it is spun. The right acts claiming it's the left and the left becomes the bad guys... That works. No matter who does what grab the mic and tell the story and make it stick.

Neocons didn't want to stop an attack.. they wanted to wage a war... a huge never ending war. Once it began they could and would control the message. red yellow and green... take your shoes off and no shampoo on a plane nor a nail clipper... for your own good. Got it.

Skeered people are easy to push around. If they ain't skeered... tell em to be skeered. Lies work too... it's all good.

[Lauren Johnson]

Gladio was practice runs. Terrorism freaks people out... you can blame whomever because no one gets caught and there are no trials. Doesn;t matter who does it as much as how it is spun. The right acts claiming it's the left and the left becomes the bad guys... That works. No matter who does what grab the mic and tell the story and make it stick.

Of course, you do realize that Gladio was a MIHOP operation. And it was deep politics all the way. Parallel governmental structures. Run out of NATO. Other three letter orgs in on it. Cut outs. False fronts. And it was one big, organized, from the top, very successful psyop.

So why would such a strong tradition of top down psy ops suddenly have to vanish as these parallel deep structures with such a long history lay down and go dormant and just wait for something to happen.

Jeffrey, your "position" can't get out of its own way. You can't stand truthers except you are one. Your LIHOP dissolves into 'nobody decided anything' except when somebody decided to make a MIHOP out of what nobody decided not to do.

[Charles Drago]

Gladio was practice runs. Terrorism freaks people out... you can blame whomever because no one gets caught and there are no trials. Doesn;t matter who does it as much as how it is spun. The right acts claiming it's the left and the left becomes the bad guys... That works. No matter who does what grab the mic and tell the story and make it stick.

Of course, you do realize that Gladio was a MIHOP operation. And it was deep politics all the way. Parallel governmental structures. Run out of NATO. Other three letter orgs in on it. Cut outs. False fronts. And it was one big, organized, from the top, very successful psyop.

So why would such a strong tradition of top down psy ops suddenly have to vanish as these parallel deep structures with such a long history lay down and go dormant and just wait for something to happen.

Jeffrey, your "position" can't get out of its own way. You can't stand truthers except you are one. Your LIHOP dissolves into 'nobody decided anything' except when somebody decided to make a MIHOP out of what nobody decided not to do.

Precisely.

[Jeffrey Orling]

Gladio was practice runs. Terrorism freaks people out... you can blame whomever because no one gets caught and there are no trials. Doesn;t matter who does it as much as how it is spun. The right acts claiming it's the left and the left becomes the bad guys... That works. No matter who does what grab the mic and tell the story and make it stick.

Of course, you do realize that Gladio was a MIHOP operation. And it was deep politics all the way. Parallel governmental structures. Run out of NATO. Other three letter orgs in on it. Cut outs. False fronts. And it was one big, organized, from the top, very successful psyop.

So why would such a strong tradition of top down psy ops suddenly have to vanish as these parallel deep structures with such a long history lay down and go dormant and just wait for something to happen.

Jeffrey, your "position" can't get out of its own way. You can't stand truthers except you are one. Your LIHOP dissolves into 'nobody decided anything' except when somebody decided to make a MIHOP out of what nobody decided not to do.

I am interested in understand what happened... who isn't? We really never get to see the real deal.. only the PR and the official statements.

Gladio was created after WWII as a check by the right on the leftists who were being supported by the USSR. The left had popular support... and communists were and are a recognized party in Italy for sure. My deceased brother in law was involved in the communist party in Tuscany and was a marxist economist. The right of course fear the left and their fascist pro capitalist view of the world was diametrically opposed to the communists. In the US we had the idiotic red scare of HUAC... the right was on a hunt to get the left. And so intel decided to engage in a series of terrorist attacks blame it on the left to turn the people against the left and demand the state crack down on them. Nasty SOBs. They infiltrated the red brigades and the bider meinhof.

This strategy turned out to be rather effective especially when the truth of who did what was concealed by the right who were in power and it was not in their interest to reveal it. False flags have been used at times to create excuses for militarist adventurism. Terrorism by definition is meant to instill fear in the public. But fear of what or whom? The guys with the mic get to tell the story. In fact, the guys with the mic ALWAYS get to tell the story.

It's hard to deny hive mentality or group think. People identify with a group and share its values and goals and so forth. They don't have to read and rehearse talking points... only talking heads do that. All people inside the MIC partake in the same (more or less) hive behavior and thinking. In fact.. they all know who the enemy is... how could they not? When you are a hammer... every problem looks like a nail and you slam it as the hammer that you are.

Of course Gladio was a fascist series of MIHOPs... they've got the admissions and documents to prove it. And it's likely that the practice continues because intel is engaged in criminality and black ops and ALL CRIMINALS try to pin the blame on someone else... or at least have an alibi... but better to have some one else framed and that settles that. LHO was a patsy wasn't he? Having one was part of closing the book and dead ending the investigation... killing him AND Ruby etc.. made that so much easier. Destroy evidence and it makes solving the crime harder and less certain.

Remember when terrorist committed their crimes with a stated purpose or demand and did not hide who they were? Their demands were political or to free one of theirs who was captured. Never worked really and so the tactic was changed to shear unadulterated terror... why exchange hostages if they are going to kill you anyway? That changed terrorism. People with the mic get to tell the story no matter what happened who did want or why.

Terrorism and insurgencies DO exist. CIA etc. has counter terrorism and anti insurgency guys because they have to deal with it before it deals with them. But you can be damn certain that the fascists will never come down on right wing terrorists and blame the left for acts they didn't commit. People with the mic get to tell the story no matter what happened who did want or why.

The empire created an insurgency problem in her colonies. The natives were and continue to be restless. This is to be expected when you run an empire as our guys do. Gives our guys something to do... find em and kill em... set up stings and kill em and make sure the public is aware of these threats periodically. Why not expect a big attack? If someone can think it up... they will try. Bojinka was an old plot and it was known that one day some hijack plane attack would have to be met. They even gamed it each Fall.

Real or memorex? Hardly matters because it was the outcome which is the REAL horror--- militarism and war...and that comes from the empire not at the empire.

[Tony Szamboti]

First thanks for attempting to make sense of my cartoon. It's a cartoon and obviously not a depiction of the actual dynamics but suggests/shows how the gavity forces work as the structure degrades.

axial strength refers to the ability of a column to resist or support loads applied directly above (compression)

A column's axial strength is limited by its slenderness ration.. stout columns are stronger then slender ones. Too slender will buckle from their own weight.. meaning that as the unbraced length increases... a given column section weakens ie supports less load and thus is more subject to buckling (failure)

The arrows are meant to indicate the direction of the loads...

When a column is removed if a multistory structure the column above it has no support and can't couple the forces (loads) to the foundation and the earth. These loads are then redistributed to columns that are coupled. The load has not changed... it has to and does find other paths.

you weigh 100 pounds and when standing each food supports 50 pounds. If you stand on a scale with both feet it shows 100. If you lift one foot it STILL shows 100 because all the 100 pounds are resisted by one leg.

Now if you lift the heaviest thing you can... say your dog which weighs 50#... each leg is at its limit of 75 pounds. On the scale it shows 150.

If you try to stand on one leg... you collapse... your leg would *buckle* at the knee and you'd call down and you would likely fall in the direction of the missing or lifted leg.

The twin towers had many columns and they shared the load carrying and when the columns were destroyed and weakened the load sharing was shifted all about. This caused uneven stresses and even warping, torquing and distortion and eventually collapse when the capacity was eroded below loads imposed. The failure rapidly propagates one this happens... the structure does not fall at once... but the propagation can be very quick when as more and more load is carried by fewer and fewer columns. This also introduces some eccentricity and tilt of the falling top... as it's almost impossible to have a completely symmetrical force/load redistribution.

We know the core collapsed first because we see the antenna begin to sink into the top... and this was followed by the release but inside the entire core up there and the floors were already probably dropping. The facade hung together because of the nature of the structure... structures without internal stress do not fall apart or even distort... they sort of float (as in free fall) When they meet resistance or forces they yield to them in some manner.

The disconnected mass of the top floors is what drives down through the tower destroying it.

Jeffrey, the cartoon depiction you show of the core load being transferred to the perimeter is appropriately named because what you show is impossible. As I stated to you when you e-mailed this to me a while back, the outriggers of the hat truss did not have anywhere near the ability to transfer the 12 stories of a central core gravity load to the perimeter columns. They would have immediately failed in bending had that entire upper 12 stories of core load been applied to them. The outriggers were only intended to provide counteracting moments to antenna wind loads by shifting them further outboard to the perimeter, where the force involved in the counteracting moment would be lower due to the greater arm involved.

The core did fail first and it was the pull-in it applied to the perimeter that caused perimeter failure. The proof for this is in the stagger between the core falling first (as evidenced by the antenna drop) and the exterior roofline line just a short time later being coincident with the exterior columns being pulled inward.

It is interesting that your "cartoon" does not get into the dichotomy concerning the lack of resistance by the columns in the building, which is clearly provable, by the measurements showing there was no deceleration of the upper 12 story mass after it started to fall, and the calculations based on the real columns, which say there should have been massive resistance by them in a natural fall.

It seems that you allow yourself much more freedom in your explanation than science would allow. Hence, your terming your explanation a "cartoon" is appropriate, as things often happen in them that are impossible in real life.

[Jeffrey Orling]

I call them cartoons... but I could call them sketches. That hardly matters. Like all drawings they are abstract graphics representations. I deal with drawings all the time and they are not reality.... nor are formulas reality... just another form of abstraction. as the core was destroyed column by column, or it was losing strength and lost its load carrying capacity that had to be picked up by the facade columns... the load was not disappearing. The loads were redistributed through the horizontal members including the hat truss. That is to say if you severed the columns several stories below the HT those still attached above the severed columns who have the part of the floor loads and their own weight and this load would then be hanging from the HT ... the columns would switch from compression members to tension ones. If he column splices held then the weight would add a series of concentrated loads to the bottom chord of the HT and these would add load the bearing points of the HT or the truss itself would fail and collapse. My hunch is that there would have been a very rapid increase in load and it would result in some buckling of the facade at some of the bearing locations of the HT.

As we can't see how the damage / weakening progressed we can't know precisely how loads were redistributed.. and I don't believe all the core columns of this region have been recovered and analyzed. That would show if there were explosive devices or if the core columns failed from heat, distortion, warping and connection failures. The pre release movements suggests a failure PROCESS over time not an instantaneous one... but the moment of release was when aggregate capacity dropped below the aggregate service load... and the failure raced through all remaining load bearing columns.

It seems that you allow yourself much more freedom in your explanation than science would allow. Hence, your your convoluted explanation ..... is inappropriate, as that did not happen in real life.