Some Misunderstandings Related to WTC Collapse Analysis

[Jeffrey Orling]

The columns are not involved in either the initiation or first several stories of the drop of both buildings and that is impossible in a natural collapse.

So what was blown? Sounds like not all that much. Thermite? Where was it used?

Due to the nature of the collapse mechanics I can say for certain that some type of demolition devices were used in the initiation and first several stories of the collapse on at least the outer core columns and corners of the perimeter. Whether it was thermite or not I can't be sure. The perimeter corner focused blowouts would appear to be explosives and nano-thermite (which was found in the dust along with iron microspheres) could fit that bill, as it is explosive as well as hot. The explosiveness can be tailored by sizing the particles to vary surface area to mass ratio and thus brisance or reactivity.

I have seen huge estimates of the amount of explosives needed to take down the WTC 1 & 2. Sounds like your view as that it didn't take that much. Just enough to start the cascade. Correct?

Lauren,

Although I see no evidence for CD... I also think that because the design of the 3 towers they each had Achille's heels which did not have redundancy... such as the FEW massive transfer structures in 7 and the column free office space of the towers... and the fact that there were so few columns in the core supporting the floors outside the core. You don't have to destroy all the core... clearly the 23 columns in the center of the core had nothing do with carrying the outside the core floors. So with 24 doing this it's not a stretch even for a laymen to understand that one doesn't need to destroy ALL 24 to cause the floors to release... One or two or a few more at one level will not erode the reserve strength of the core causing the remaining columns to collapse... but with the effects of heat... the reserve strength of too many of them erodes and after a couple of hours it was all gone. If it was eroded further.. there was inadequate supprt. And that's what apparently happened.

To answer your question... it probably would take less than 12 of the right core columns since all were not equal and it would clearly depend on which ones were destroyed. Take out all 8 of one side.. 500s or the 1000s and the tower would go ROOSD. Or maybe 4 on each of the long sides.

Destroy one spliced connection in TT1 might get the entire structure to collapse. There... I said it.