Some Misunderstandings Related to WTC Collapse Analysis

[Tony Szamboti]

I said it would take 5 floors falling on one floor to break the connections of the floor to the columns. You are confusing impact of floors with impact of columns. There is a big difference. 12 floors could not fall on one floor.

I think you are trying to get around the obvious here. If you view the video there's a point where the collapsing top section impacts the building with its full weight. Your argument was very specifically an argument of the threshold of weight or mass required to break the static resistance of the building below. There's no doubt that threshold was reached during the collapse of the 12 storey top section by your own definition. I feel you are equivocating here and not answering the point. The collapse has obviously given you your required 5 floors plus. You have failed to answer this point directly. We have provided proof, by your own definition, that the conditions to initiate floor collapse were met. Besides, you're wrong because the video clearly shows 12 floors of top section falling on the remaining building below which possessed the first floor to be hit by this mass. The statement "12 floors could not fall on one floor" is clearly wrong then, especially since you can see it happening right in front of you in the video.

You are not realizing the columns would have prevented that in a natural collapse and they are designed to support many times the story load above them. The columns of the 98th floor, which were supporting 12 stories above them, had enough reserve strength to support about 48 stories with no margin.

If that were the only dynamic in question. My argument is that lateral forces you are repeatedly not recognizing in your model defeated that resistance by blasting pneumatic pressure inward in a manner the core columns were not designed for. What I'm saying is those same columns had no resistance to the kinetic force of blasted air from the floor pad collapse. As long as the lateral destructive force of the blast wave that descended as the floor pads fell was stronger than the columns' ability to resist it this force would defeat any vertical resistance you refer to and there render your model invalid. The simple explanation is the core columns were not designed to resist many times the storey load above them when they are being compromised by extreme lateral blasting force from pneumatic air blasts caused by the falling floor pads. You are seeing evidence of those blasts in your video.

You haven't explained why, if those dust jets are explosions from controlled demolition charges, aren't there similar jets further up the building where the initiating cd allegedly occurred?

You need to separate impact of floors (think floor slabs) from impact of columns in your thinking.

You're obviously trying to force a deficient theory in order to avoid answering the points you can't answer. However, I feel you're wrong because the driving force of the floor mass from the 12 storey section was enough to create this lateral blast on the first section of intact core column it encountered. You can't reference static vertical resistance if it isn't there because it has been compromised by an intense lateral pneumatic force caused by those falling floor pads. I think it is you who fails to realize the parameters for this force were met when the 12 storey section impacted the first floor of the building below.

It is the 283 columns in the building that should have born the load of impact by the 12 upper stories, they are what holds the building up, not the floor slab hanging on them. You have an error in your logic.