Some Misunderstandings Related to WTC Collapse Analysis

[Jeffrey Orling]

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.

[Jeffrey Orling]

Let's see if Jeffrey's notions of the floors collapsing first and instigating the collapse of the North Tower can hold up to scrutiny when combined with observation and how things actually work.

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.

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.

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.

No Tony... that's not what the visuals tell us. Have you looked and read the linked critique of your conception?

[Lauren Johnson]

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.

[Jeffrey Orling]

Lauren,

Please stop with your nonsense tag lines like LIMITED HANGOUT. It's beneath you and it's insultinbg to me.

I am writing / speaking honestly exactly as I see it and not representing any point of view other than my own. You can disagree but at least acknowledge that I am not being disengenuos or carrying water for some group...not to mention insulting. I am just as angry at these fascists as you.


A limited hangout, or partial hangout, is a public relations or propaganda technique that involves the release of previously hidden information in order to prevent a greater exposure of more important details.
It takes the form of deception, misdirection, or coverup often associated with intelligence agencies involving a release or "mea culpa" type of confession of only part of a set of previously hidden sensitive information, that establishes credibility for the one releasing the information who by the very act of confession appears to be "coming clean" and acting with integrity; but in actuality, by withholding key facts, is protecting a deeper operation and those who could be exposed if the whole truth came out. In effect, if an array of offenses or misdeeds is suspected, this confession admits to a lesser offense while covering up the greater ones.
A limited hangout typically is a response to lower the pressure felt from inquisitive investigators pursuing clues that threaten to expose everything, and the disclosure is often combined with red herrings or propaganda elements that lead to false trails, distractions, or ideological disinformation; thus allowing covert or criminal elements to continue in their improper activities.
Victor Marchetti wrote: "A 'limited hangout' is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admittingsometimes even volunteeringsome of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further."[SUP][1][/SUP]

[Lauren Johnson]

Moving over to your collapse cartoon: I have studied it and do not understand it.

First, what is axial strength?

Second, I see that after the airplane impact, their are two load arrows, one pointing down and one pointing up. Obviously you don't mean that when the up arrow is bigger than the down arrow, the core starts to push out the top of the building. Or do you? And then the load appears to transfer out the hat truss and down the perimeter columns until collapse. It appears that as the load transferred symmetrically by the perimeter columns becomes so great it causes the weakened core columns to compress like a piston pulling down the entire building from floors 94 and up uniformly down onto the building below. That's the way I read your cartoon.

[Jeffrey Orling]

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 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.