WHERE DID THE TOWERS GO? by Dr. Judy Wood, Ph.D

[Kyle Burnett]

Attempts to explain the collapse do not defy physics.

Some do, such as the one I mentioned to you, but which you've completely evaded addressing in your response.

[Jeffrey Orling]

No one is clutching at straws and the steel columns at the top of the twin towers whether 4% or 24% of the mass of the bottom one did not.... I repeat did NOT crush the columns in the lower section.

The collapse of the twin towers was a runaway collapse and destruction of the rather flimsy floors which were designed to support 58 pounds per square foot. Whatever the mechanism was which caused the top section's floors to "break apart" or be severed from the columns which held them up... and carried their dead and live loads... one the dynamic threshold mass of floor "debris" came down upon an intact, stone cold undamaged floor... that floor shattered... unable to support the imposed load. It's that simple.

This process repeated rather rapidly... at the rate of 60 mph of 10 floors per second until all the floors were destroyed, crushed, fractured and they and the contents pulverized by the aggregate weight of the debris. Even is 20% (which is way way way too high) turned to fine powder and was carried aloft in the air... the remain 80% of the floors mass was more than enough to crush anything except steel and a few other strong materials... toilets, telephones, wall board, carpet, ceiling tiles, and so forth was crushed beyond recognition. If you don't think it would happen.... drop a few hundred thousand tons of debris on any of those items and see if you can find them intact.

The very strong columns... increasingly strong as you move down the towers toppled over when they lost the bracing which the floors system had provided. Basic science and Judy Wood should know Euler if she is an engineer. But she's a self promoter of fairly tales. Gage is completely out of his league when it comes to structures and physics as is apparently Cole and David Chandler, who refuse to acknowledge the observations of the towers' collapse.

The mystery is what kicked off the floor collapse... not if the floors collapsed. The floors collapsed... sequentially from top to bottom by the driving mass of the floors above the crash zone.

Fetzer is not an engineer and clearly doesn't understand these basic engineering principles as does Boldwyn... who both refuse to believe their eyes.

The problem is that figuring out what started the collapse is the hard part because one can't see THAT as one can see the collapse. And accordingly all the theories arise which are not based on any ob or are supported by any observations. Gage points to the towers exploding sequentially and being pulverized in mid air... and makes no distinction between initiation and collapse. It's all explosive to him and his ilk.

Judy Wood has her blinders on and can't see all the steel which came down mostly intact and with no signs of explosives. Yes yes... there was some steel with eutectic burning and this likely was from the initiation up top where the steel was considerably thinner. There is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that the steel below the crash zone had eutectic burning.

If you simply honestly describe the observations, you can begin to understand what happened if you understand engineering and how buildings.. and this one in particular... which was a very unique design...are built. Chuck Boldwyn apparently hasn't a clue about how those buildings were built and I suspect the same of Judy Wood.

Considering how strong the belief that the towers couldn't collapse are held by people who don't know much about them... it doesn't say much for the truth investigators. Tony Szamboti at least has some understanding of their structure.

Most of the rest of the truth advocates are nothing more than parrots who haven't a clue what they are talking about. Of course you couldn't know that if you are not an engineer or a physicist.

[Kyle Burnett]

Of course you couldn't know that if you are not an engineer or a physicist.

Which one are you?

[James Lewis]

Regarding Jeffrey's assertions that what happened to the Twin Towers was a "collapse"...oh, it was a collapse, all right. It was a collapse aided and abetted by some form of explosives, like demolition charges. If you study films of the towers' destruction, you can CLEARLY see material being thrown to the sides as the buildings are coming down. The only reasonable explanation for this is some form of demolition...which clearly shouts "inside job".

Jeffrey would have the top 16 floors of the North Tower (representing 1.4% of the mass of the steel) overwhelming the bottom 94 (representing 98.6% of the mass of the steel). This is like having a stack of fifty cent pieces (welded together) topped by a stack of quarters (welded together) and dropping a few dimes on top of them. It was ridiculous then and it is ridiculous now and it will still be ridiculous tomorrow.

Jeffrey, of course, is on assignment, which is why he persists in peddling a theory that is not even consistent with the gross observable evidence. His presence here has grown predictable and tiring--but yet he perseveres, like The Energizer Bunny. Take a look and ask yourself if what you observe in these photos remotely resembles a "collapse":

"New 9/11 Photos Released"
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/02/...eased.html

[Jeffrey Orling]

Yes material is being forced laterally out of the window openings and the aluminum skin is popping off. The towers contained millions of cubic feet of air which had to be disbursed by the collapsing debris. This air was forced away from the collapsing debris of course... and there was a negative pressure behind the collapse front which pulled air from above in and behind the collapse. If you drop a mass in relatively still air you can observe the same flow of air caused by the dropping mass.

The air on each floor was forced away from the collapse front and it shattered the glass and carried with it small debris - lightweight crushed ceiling panels, pulverized wall board and small building contents. This expulsion took place just ahead of the crush front. What you are seeing is not explosions but half million cubic feet of pressurized air forced away (displaced) by the driving massive destructive debris/rubble and floor matter at each floor. That's a lot of air to displace in one tenth of a second. And if you don't think air can be destructive... stand around in 3-400 mph winds with sand and other material carried in the air. Consider that the air inside a single floor was moved out of the way in .1 seconds which is the rate that the collapse was measured at. The air located mid span of the floor would be 30 feet from the facade and would have to move that 30 feet in the 1/10 of a second that the collapse front pushed through the floor. If that section of air mid 60 foot span of the floor reached the window in 1/10 of a second... which it did.. it would have had to have traveled at over 400 mph.

Air moving at 400 miles an hour exerts over 600 pounds per square inch of pressure (600psi). And that's enough to shatter the glass and carry and expel the contents. Anyone who has seen a tornado or a hurricane should know how powerful wind is at such speeds. Winds of 100 mph exert 27.5 psi. Basic physics explains the expulsions seen coming from the collapse front. Here is the destructive force of explosive overpressure from http://www.workingfire.net/misc12.htm:

GLASS SHATTERING : 0-5 PSI
FIREFIGHTER KNOCKDOWN: 1.PSI
WOOD PARTITION COLLAPSE : 1-2 PSI
CINDER BLOCK WALL COLLAPSE: 2-3 PSI
BRICK WALL COLLAPSE : 7-8 PSI
FIREFIGHTER LUNG DAMAGE : 15 PSI
THRESHOLD FOR FATALITIES: 35 PSI
50% FATALITIES: 50 PSI
99% FATALITIES: 99 PSI

One can see how destructive over pressure is and how this easily explains the observations.

Calculate the pressure of an explosion:

That initial pressure will decrement as the volume expands adiabatically from V0 to V; where V = 1/2 4/3 pi r^3 (The 1/2 accounts for a hemisphere.) So, the pressure upon expanding becomes P = nRT0/V; where T0 remains the same as this is an adiabatic expansion. (In a non-ideal case, aka reality, this would not be the case, but the P derived would serve as an upper bound with the expectation the real P would be somewhat less.)

Therefore P/P0 = nRT0/V//nRT0/V0 = V0/V and P = P0 (V0/V) = P0 (V0/[2/3 pi r^3]); where r = 10 meters. If you measure P0 at ground zero, say, r0 = 1 meter, you can write P = P0 (r0/r)^3 = P0 (1/r^3) when r0 = 1 meter where P0 was measured.

Bottom line, ideally, pressure decrements inversely with the cube of the distance from ground zero.

Explosive advocates can calculate the explosive force and location of the explosives based on the measured cloud and ejection speed. Be my guest.

[Jeffrey Orling]

Kyle,

I am not avoiding anything. I am basing my understanding on observations and basic science and engineering. Of course you COULD "aid" a collapse of tens of thousands of destructive falling debris with some explosives... but it would hardly be necessary or do much or even be observed... as these explosions would be masked by the destructive over pressure of the crush front.

I don't suppose you have calculated the kinetic energy of of 30-40 or 50,000 tons of material falling (moving) at 60 mph over a 30,000 SF plane? And this would be the weight of about 15-20 or 25 floors and contents. The Queen Mary II displaces about 85,000 tonnes or the weight of about 44 floors.

Apparently James, Kyle, Andrew and others are not aware of the forces involved here and how destructive they are.

[Kyle Burnett]

Kyle,

I am not avoiding anything.

Sure you are. I pointed out the fact that Bazzant's crush-down before crush-up hypothesis violates Netwon's third law, to which you responded by rambling off various arguments which don't address that issue. Then you go on to suggest one must be an either an engineer or a physicist to understand the subject, so I asked which you are, but you've avoided responding to that question too.

[Jeffrey Orling]

I don't agree with Bazant's paper. He wrote it without carefully studying the videos. He was wrong. And we know that.

I am an architect. I began my career working for Emery Roth & Sons in 1970 when they were still working on the construction drawings for the Twin Towers. I am not a licensed PE but a NYS licensed RA. In fact, the engineering concepts are not beyond the grasp of most architects, but few do the engineering design for steel frames. I don't design steel structures, but use and work with a PE. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable knowing that other architects who DO design high rise steel towers such as PGE building

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas...c_Building

in SF and who spoke directly with Yamasaki about his design concept for the Twin Towers and agrees with virtually all of my explanation of collapse.

I approached 9/11 with skepticism about the official story which had holes large enough to drive a truck through. I found myself on the 911 Truth side questioning the OCT and supporting their demand for a new investigation. I then began to examine the "evidence" claims of the truth movement which supported their OWN explanation as to what happened to the towers. I found that many of their statements of evidence were incorrect and they are repeated over and over again by people who have not studied the structure or the videos carefully and that includes Gage and Wood et al. The truth movement is so convinced that since they were lied to by the officials EVERYTHING said they said is wrong, black is white and what they didn't even comment on is evidence of something nefarious.

I have now spent 2 years doing detailed study of the twin towers and as a result of my understanding, I am more convinced that most of the "explosive" 911 truth explanations are incorrect re the collapse phase. There may be use of engineered intervention in the pre collapse phase to kick off the gravitationally driven collapse. And that is just as horrific and troubling, though not as complex of a "conspiracy" as implied by the truth movement.

Research is ongoing.

[Kyle Burnett]

Well, I hope you can look past my not meeting your "engineer or a physicist" qualifications for discussing the issue, particularly seeing as how you don't even quite meet it yourself.

Anyway, do you agree that Bazzant's claims of crush-down before crush-up violate Newton's third law? I ask because that is in large part what Gage and others are referring to when they say the official explanation for how the towers came down violates the laws of physics, and if you actually disagree with their contention, I hope you might explain why.

As for your own hypothesis, have you attempted to produce any semblance of experimental confirmation to test it? Bazzant could have easily debunked himself if only he had done that, yet here we are nearly a decade latter and our government still references him to explain how the towers came down.

[Jeffrey Orling]

I don't have present a hypothesis. I present accepted engineering principles applied to the situation at the twin towers.

Every floor is designed to support a live load in addition to carrying its own weight. In the case of office uses in NYC the code stipulates the floor must be designed to support 100 psf (pounds per square foot). At the time when the towers we being design the PANYNJ requested and were granted a load reduction to 58 psf.

Regardless any floor will fail when over loaded. This is not at the safe working load because the floor and its components have a safety factor. A 5/8" Ø grade 5 coarse threaded bolt has a safe working load (tensile strength) of 27,000 pounds. But with a safety factor it will take more to "fail" the bolt. Safety factors in steel designs are up to 1.5 typically. It's also hard ... and not done in practice to engineer each component to have the same working design load and safety factor in a composite floor system, for example. So in the case of the twin tower floors there were many components, each with their own design performance specs, but each selected to support their part of the assumed design load.

What occurred in the collapse of the WTC composite floors is that they were "assaulted"... by imposed loads far in excess of their safety factor.. whether it was 2, 4, or 6. The design load was 58 psf and floors themselves weighed 120 psf... this includes to 4" light weight slab, the trusses, ceiling tiles and steel to hang them... 22ga metal decking. So each floor itself weighed 2x the design live load. If you simply placed floor 87 on top of floor 86 it would be then carrying 2x its design load... likely less than the margin of safety (design safety factor) it would not fail or fracture. But if you dropped floor 87 on floor 86 it would be a DYNAMIC load and this could be as much as 10x the static load. This is the difference between resting a hammer on your head and letting one drop from 2 feet onto your head. Both cases the hammer weighs 20 oz. But the load experienced by your skull is perhaps 10 times in the dropping case then it is in the resting case.

What you had in the towers was an assault of many dynamic loads from the destroyed floors above the crash zone. We don't know how those floors were destroyed, fractured and broken apart. But once they were... they provided the sufficient over loads to fail any undamaged tenant composite floor.

This did not involve the crushing of any columns as others seem to be focused on to claim that the floors could not possibly collapse. Witness Jim Fetzer's hard head on this as well as those of Gage, Boldwyn, Woods and numerous others who simply haven't looked at the structure or considered the most basic engineering principles at work. I am 100% certain the Dr. Bazant would agree with all of the above as would any qualified civil engineer.

The official story re the twin towers did NOT discuss the actual collapse. They tried (and failed) to (weave a tale) explain what caused the collapse to begin... the sagging truss rubbish. No one accepts that and it has been proven by computer modeling to be impossible. The fact that the official story didn't explain the "collapse" phase... post initiation does not mean it "defied physics" or engineering or simply could not be explained.

By not explaining the basic engineering as I have above, they have left fertile ground for all sorts of speculation and "theories" about what happened as the towers came down.

The task before us is to figure out what initiated this gravity driven collapse. THAT is fertile ground for research, hypothesis and speculation. Arguing about the collapse phase is a waste of time and is making a mockery of the "science" of the 911 truth movement. Send in the clowns.. or send them away I say.

Understanding begins with observations informed by technical experience in structural engineering, physics, material science and the specific design of the structure observed collapsing / or being destroyed. If you aren't up to snuff on these discplines you can't possibly understand what you think you are seeing and your observations are no more informed than a child or naive adult... or armchair "expert" such as Jim Fetzer.