Quote from bronks:
Steel never regains it's strength past a certain point of heating.
So where are the white hot flames, shattered windows and incinerated bodies that prove such an incredibly hot fire took place?
Quote from bronks:
Highrise iron are built to withstand temperatures only long enough to allow evacuation of a building.
Overlooking the fact the WTC was built with steel - not iron - the structural steel used was rated at 2000F for several hours.
Yet the building failed in less than half that time under avg. temperatures that weren't even 50% that. According the NIST report.
Quote from bronks:
This is done by spraying all structural members with "Monokote" fire retardant. If the monokote is "scraped" off or compromised in any way, the rest of the structural member now has a weak point.
And? According to the NIST report, the fire never burned hot or long enough to fatally weaken the structural perimeter, core of trusses:
"At any given location, the duration of [air, not steel] temperatures near 1,000C was about 15 min to 20 min. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were near 500C or below.â (NIST, 2005, p. 127,)
Further, the NIST test of WTC trusses exposed to 500C temps showed a 0% failure rate:
"All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing.â
hmmmmm..........
Even stranger, actual samples collected by the NIST confirmed neither the perimeter walls or columns in the effected floors experienced temperatures exceeding 250C.
Boy, those fires were a real raging inferno!!
Perhaps the most interesting part of the NIST report: they junked realistic collapse models based on empirical data because they concluded the WTC would have WITHSTOOD the impact and resulting fires:
" The Investigation Team then defined three cases for each building by combining the middle, less severe, and more severe values of the influential variables. Upon a preliminary examination of the middle cases, it became clear that the towers would likely remain standing. The less severe cases were discarded after the aircraft impact results were compared to observed events. The middle cases (which became Case A for WTC 1 and Case C for WTC 2) were discarded after the structural response analysis of major subsystems were compared to observed events." (NIST, 2005, p. 142
Thankfully, the NIST concocted a more 'severe' model based on *tweaked* parameters that ignored eyewitness and photographic accounts, which ultimately yielded in full collapse of the building.
I think we can all breath a big sigh of relief knowing our good scientists will curve fit data to support a forgone conclusion.
Talk about circular logic.
Quote from bronks:
If the iron is twisted, bent or distorted in anyway either from impact or heat, all bets are off.
Not according to the engineers who actually designed and built the towers to withstand such a calamity.
But I guess your opinion is far more valid when it comes to the ultimate resilience of the Towers, than opinions of those who actually built it.
LOL.
Quote from bronks:
Bar joists were used for the floor supports. Why? Because these members have an extremely high strength to weight ratio. They are very susceptible to heat because they are made with light grade steel relative to
And the max temp was 500C at any given area, post-collision --- not even within the ballpark to fatally collapse an entire floor even if one floor was totally engulfed in flames (which never happened. NOt even close).
Quote from bronks:
Once one floor goes, the pancake effect is on. Floors are only engineered to carry their rated load, plus a bit more. There's no way in hell it would support another coming down on it from 5 feet much less 10 or 12 feet.
Thats a great theory. Considering the fires were relatively tame, isolated and temps didn't exceed 500C post collision.
Too bad even IF that happened, you'd be left with the Towers wide, cross-braced steel core jutting a few hundred meters into the air.
Or, should we assume those weak-ass truss connectors that were apparently to blame for the collapsing floors, showed incredible strength on the opposite side by tearing down and SHREDDING the huge, cross-braced inner core - at the speed of gravity no less.
Sure. Sure.
Quote from bronks:
To "pull" a building means let it go and get out.
To 'pull' also means to pull my pud or yank my wanker.
In this context, 'pull' means to demo a building.
http://vestigialconscience.com/PullIt.mp3
Look at what Silverstien said: we made the decision to pull and then watched 7 come down.
Given the temporal proximity of Silverstiens order to 'pull' and the perfectly symmetrical, free fall collapse of 7, its obvious WTC7 was a controlled demo.
Of course, the NIST report doesn't even TOUCH why WTC7 fell at the speed of gravity.
Or why both Towers fell at the near speed of gravity.
Doesn't happen. Ever.
