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Engineers Request Permission to Speak Freely Regarding World Trade Building 7
Preface: This essay does not question whether Bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked us on September 11, 2001, or whether Iran, Saudi Arabia or another nation-state had a hand in the attacks. It focuses solely on a peripheral issue regarding the third building which fell on that terrible day.
Former commander-in-chief President Bush said:
Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories.
Indeed, the 9/11 Commission was warned not to probe too deeply. For example, ACLU, FireDogLake's Marcy Wheeler and RawStory reported (quoting RawStory):
Senior
Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission
against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.
The current commander-in-chief, Barack Obama, has also warned against questioning 9/11:
As anyone in the military knows, you can't give your opinion unless you get first "permission to speak freely".
We're not in the military. However, I am not entirely sure that matters, given that speaking out against government policies may be considered a type of terrorism in America today.
Many hundreds
of high-level military officers, intelligence officers, congressmen,
legal scholars and experts have broken the commander-in-chief's orders
not to question the government's official narrative regarding 9/11. And
see this and this.
But neither Bush nor Obama has instructed us not to discuss World Trade Center Building 7. Indeed, they have never once mentioned the
fact that a third building collapsed on 9/11 (and the 9/11 Commission
never mentioned it either), even though that building was not hit by a
plane.
And no one was killed when Building 7 collapsed. As such,
discussions of why Building 7 fell does not question Al Qaeda's
responsibility for the 3,000 deaths of innocent Americans which occurred
on 9/11. It doesn't even touch on U.S. military affairs since 9/11,
since no wars or anti-terror campaigns were launched to avenge anything
which happened in connection with Building 7.
For these reasons, I
will take the commander-in-chiefs' silence on this subject as
permission to speak freely. And the family members who lost loved ones
on 9/11 want this topic discussed.
Moreover,
if Building 7 collapsed for reasons other than the official
explanation, that does not necessarily show nefarious intent. For
example, Paul K. Trousdale - a structural engineer with decades of
experience - says
:
I had always thought the 3rd building was destroyed to prevent unpredictable collapse.
Here It Is
Have you ever seen Building 7 collapse? Here's footage from several different angles:
Top Experts Say Official Explanation Makes No Sense
Numerous structural engineers - the people who know the most about
office building vulnerabilities and accidents - say that the official
explanation of why building 7 at the World Trade Center collapsed on
9/11 is "impossible", "defies common logic" and "violates the law of
physics":
- Two professors of structural engineering at a
prestigious Swiss university (Dr. Joerg Schneider and Dr. Hugo
Bachmann) said that, on 9/11, World Trade Center 7 was brought down by controlled demolition (translation here)
- Alfred Lee Lopez, with 48 years of experience in all types of buildings:
I
agree the fire did not cause the collapse of the three buildings. The
most realistic cause of the collapse is that the buildings were
imploded
- John D. Pryor, with more than 30 years experience:
The
collapse of WTC7 looks like it may have been the result of a
controlled demolition. This should have been looked into as part of the
original investigation.
- Robert F. Marceau, with over 30 years of structural engineering experience:
From
videos of the collapse of building 7, the penthouse drops first prior
to the collapse, and it can be noted that windows, in a vertical
line, near the location of first interior column line are blown out,
and reveal smoke from those explosions. This occurs in a vertical line
in symmetrical fashion an equal distance in toward the center of the
building from each end. When compared to controlled demolitions, one
can see the similarities
- Kamal
S. Obeid, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering
from UC Berkeley and 30 years of engineering experience, says:
Photos
of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the
unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite in the debris as
well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well
planned and controlled demolition
- Steven L. Faseler, structural engineer with over 20 years of experience in the design and construction industry:
World Trade Center 7 appears to be a controlled demolition. Buildings do not suddenly fall straight down by accident
- Ronald H. Brookman, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Davis, writes:
Why
would all 110 stories drop straight down to the ground in about 10
seconds, pulverizing the contents into dust and ash - twice. Why would
all 47 stories of WTC 7 fall straight down to the ground in about seven
seconds the same day? It was not struck by any aircraft or engulfed in
any fire. An independent investigation is justified for all three
collapses including the surviving steel samples and the composition of
the dust.
- Graham John Inman points out:
WTC
7 Building could not have collapsed as a result of internal fire and
external debris. NO plane hit this building. This is the only case of a
steel frame building collapsing through fire in the world. The fire on
this building was small & localized therefore what is the cause?
- Paul W. Mason notes:
In
my view, the chances of the three buildings collapsing symmetrically
into their own footprint, at freefall speed, by any other means than by
controlled demolition, are so remote that there is no other plausible
explanation!
- David Scott says:
Near-freefall collapse violates laws of physics. Fire induced
collapse is not consistent with observed collapse mode . . . .
- Nathan Lomba states:
I began having doubts about, so called, official explanations for
the collapse of the WTC towers soon after the explanations surfaced. The
gnawing question that lingers in my mind is: How did the structures
collapse in near symmetrical fashion when the apparent precipitating
causes were asymmetrical loading? The collapses defies common logic from
an elementary structural engineering perspective. “If” you accept the
argument that fire protection covering was damaged to such an extent
that structural members in the vicinity of the aircraft impacts were
exposed to abnormally high temperatures, and “if” you accept the
argument that the temperatures were high enough to weaken the structural
framing, that still does not explain the relatively concentric nature
of the failures.Neither of the official precipitating sources
for the collapses, namely the burning aircraft, were centered within the
floor plan of either tower; both aircraft were off-center when they
finally came to rest within the respective buildings. This means that,
given the foregoing assumptions, heating and weakening of the structural
framing would have been constrained to the immediate vicinity of the
burning aircraft. Heat transmission (diffusion) through the steel
members would have been irregular owing to differing sizes of the
individual members; and, the temperature in the members would have
dropped off precipitously the further away the steel was from the
flames—just as the handle on a frying pan doesn't get hot at the same
rate as the pan on the burner of the stove. These factors would have
resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining
intact and possessing its full structural integrity, i.e., strength and
stiffness.Structural steel is highly ductile, when subjected to
compression and bending it buckles and bends long before reaching its
tensile or shear capacity. Under the given assumptions, “if” the
structure in the vicinity of either burning aircraft started to weaken,
the superstructure above would begin to lean in the direction of the
burning side. The opposite, intact, side of the building would resist
toppling until the ultimate capacity of the structure was reached, at
which point, a weak-link failure would undoubtedly occur. Nevertheless,
the ultimate failure mode would have been a toppling of the upper
floors to one side—much like the topping of a tall redwood tree—not a
concentric, vertical collapse.For this reason alone, I rejected
the official explanation for the collapse of the WTC towers out of
hand. Subsequent evidence supporting controlled, explosive demolition
of the two buildings are more in keeping with the observed collapse
modalities and only serve to validate my initial misgivings as to the
causes for the structural failures.
- Edward E. Knesl writes:
We
design and analyze buildings for the overturning stability to resist
the lateral loads with the combination of the gravity loads. Any tall
structure failure mode would be a fall over to its side. It is
impossible that heavy steel columns could collapse at the fraction of
the second within each story and subsequently at each floor below.We
do not know the phenomenon of the high rise building to disintegrate
internally faster than the free fall of the debris coming down from the
top.The engineering science and the law of physics simply
doesn't know such possibility. Only very sophisticated controlled
demolition can achieve such result, eliminating the natural dampening
effect of the structural framing huge mass that should normally stop the
partial collapse. The pancake theory is a fallacy, telling us that
more and more energy would be generated to accelerate the collapse.
Where would such energy would be coming from?
- Antonio Artha,with 15+ years of experience in building design
Fire
and impact were insignificant in all three buildings. Impossible for
the three to collapse at free-fall speed. Laws of physics were not
suspended on 9/11, unless proven otherwise.
The symmetrical "collapse" due to asymmetrical damage is at odds with the principles of structural mechanics
It
is virtually impossible for WTC building 7 to collapse as it did with
the influence of sporadic fires. This collapse HAD to be planned
- Travis McCoy, M.S. in structural engineering
- James Milton Bruner,
Major, U.S. Air Force, instructor and assistant professor in the
Deptartment of Engineering Mechanics & Materials, USAF Academy, and
a technical writer and editor, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
It
is very suspicious that fire brought down Building 7 yet the Madrid
hotel fire was still standing after 24 hours of fire. This is very
suspicious to me because I design buildings for a living
- David Anthony Dorau,
practicing structural engineer with 18 years' experience in the
inspection and design of buildings under 5 stories tall, who worked as a
policy analyst for the Office of Technology Assessment, an arm of the
U.S. Congress providing independent research and reports on
technological matters
- Russell T. Connors, designed many buildings and other types of structures
- Lester Jay Germanio, 20+ years experience
- Daniel Metz, 26+ years experience
- Jonathan Smolens, 11 years experience, with a specialty in forensic engineering
- William Rice, P.E., structural engineer, former professor of Vermont Technical College
The above is just a sample. Many other structural engineers have questioned the collapse of Building 7, as have numerous experts in other disciplines, including:
- The
former head of the Fire Science Division of the
government agency which claims that the World Trade
Centers collapsed due to fire (the National Institute of
Standards and Technology), who is one of the world’s
leading fire science researchers and safety engineers, a Ph.D. in
mechanical engineering (Dr. James Quintiere), called
for an independent review of the World Trade Center
collapse investigation. "I wish that there would be a
peer review of this," he said, referring to the NIST
investigation. "I think all the records that NIST has
assembled should be archived. I would really like to see
someone else take a look at what they've done; both structurally
and from a fire point of view. ... I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable.
- A Dutch demolition expert (Danny Jowenko) stated that WTC 7 was imploded
- Harry
G. Robinson, III - Professor and Dean Emeritus, School of
Architecture and Design, Howard University. Past President of two
major national architectural organizations - National Architectural
Accrediting Board, 1996, and National Council of Architectural
Registration Boards, 1992. In 2003 he was awarded the highest honor
bestowed by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of
Architects, the Centennial Medal. In 2004 he was awarded the
District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architecture Societies
Architect of the Year award. Principal, TRG Consulting Global /
Architecture, Urban Design, Planning, Project Strategies.
Veteran U.S. Army, awarded the Bronze Star for bravery and the Purple
Heart for injuries sustained in Viet Nam - says:
The
collapse was too symmetrical to have been eccentrically generated.
The destruction was symmetrically initiated to cause the buildings to
implode as they did.
- A prominent
physicist with 33 years of service for the Naval Research Laboratory in
Washington, DC (Dr. David L. Griscom) said that the official theory
for why Building 7 collapsed "does not match the available facts" and supports the theory that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition
Again,
this essay is not questioning whether or not Al Qaeda carried out the
9/11 attacks, or even the collapse of the Twin Towers.
It is simply questioning why a third building which was never hit by a plane collapsed on 9/11.
»
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I remember seeing an interview in the 90's with the guy who built/designed the towers. The basic premise was that the building were run like small cities themselves. Anyway, the designer said that the towers were designed to fall within their own footprint in the event of a catastrophe.
Disclosure: I think you're all idiots.
So they designed a building that makes sure that everybody in it will die in the case of 'catastrophe' (fire). So instead of a few floors falling over killing a hundred or so they design it to collapse directly down on the countless floors beneath without fire and thousands of people.
What fucking bullshit.
No, buildings are designed to withstand fire for a period of time deemed necessary to evacuate and get firemen in and out without collapse. The only way to protect steel is through covering it up with some kind of fire-retardant material. WTC 1 and 2 sufered from loss of supports, loss of fireproofing leaving steel exposed, and one additional factor, which is that as columns heated up they expanded vertically about one inch. So not only did a column lose strength (retaining only 10% of its strength at 900 degrees C) from heat but thermal expansion made it a jack that took the load off of surrounding structure until catastrophicly failing.
You mean like the One Meridian Plaza, which burned for 18 hours, long after any fire-proofing was in effect?
Or Caracas Tower (17 hrs)?
1 New York Plaza (6 hrs)?
First Interstate (3.5 hrs)?
There's not a shred of evidence the fires were hot enough to even soften the steel, much less cause steel temperatures to reach anywhere near 900 C. Based on the steel collected and the analysis done on it, steel temperatures were about what you would expect for a short-lived, diffuse fire of that nature: ~250 C
So, how much of the structure was taken out of each of the buildings you referenced when a commercial airliner slammed into them. Oh yea, NONE.
What? You don't think the loss of structural support due to such a collision, the effects on the exterior structure clear for all to see, was a significant factor in the collapse of WTC 1 and 2?
Really?!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cddIgb1nGJ8
I never claimed temepratures were maintained at 900 degrees, only that steel, no where close to melting, has almost no strength at that temperature. The Japanese found that temps around 500 degrees are enough to cause steel to fail when considering thermal expansion. And yes, there's plenty of proof that the floors sagged, pulling the exterior supports inward. It was the misallignment of the exterior vertical column plates that doomed the structure, not the sagging floors themselves, so only in part do you have a point.
There is no need for your useless speculations.
Why do you ignore my good advice? Go out to your bbq grill right now. [If you don't have one, hurry out and buy one.] Turn it on with the steel grill in place. Go have a beer. Go have another beer. Come back and look at your grill. Did the steel melt??? Of course not. Can you bend it??? Of course not.
You are not interested in the truth. You are interested in telling the "Big Lie", loud and often, like Goebels. Too bad for you no one here, including yourself, believes you.
No be a good troll and go out and turn on the grill. You can report back and tell us what you see.
You are simply an idiot. A simple-minded buffoon.
When you turn your grill on and walk away, did you remember to stack enough concrete blocks on the barbie to simulate load, in the amount of half the maximum load that the grill could carry, so to test for deformation under load?
Did you then hacksaw through some of the grill surface to approximate damage to structure caused by an aircraft collision?
You are worse than stupid. You are willfully ignorant AND insist on inflicting your ignorance on others. A tool's tool.
how about this steel structure in Madrid Spain that took firefighters 24hours to put out
http://tinyurl.com/le9c3 (photo of a steel high-rise after burning for 18+hours)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4MjsVnasLA (video of the high-rise on fire)
Nice work Psycho and Sedaeng. Anybody making up these ridiculous claims about steel melting in a jet fuel fire better go out and torn on their BBQ if they have one.
I mean not only are they making this ridiculous claim about steel melting, they're claiming that the steel melted pervasively, up and down the 400m height of the building, so that it failed all simultaneously. No other steel frame building fire in history has caused the steel to fail due to fire.
Yet, at the WTC, the gubernment's claim is that 3 steel frame buildings suffered catastrophic, complete collapse due to fire.
I never claimed steel melted, only that its strength deteriorated due to heat AND thermal expansion. You don't need steel to lose 90% of its strength to result in collapse when you had A FUCKING JET SLAM THROUGH IT. Given the damage that caused, and the subsequent strain due to fire, and you really only need enough heat to rob the steel of a small portion of its strength for the tower to collapse. The 90% loss at 900 degrees was only a reference point, not a claim that 900 degrees was maintained throughout the structure until collapse
which is that as columns heated up they expanded vertically about one inch. So not only did a column lose strength (retaining only 10% of its strength at 900 degrees C) from heat but thermal expansion made it a jack that took the load off of surrounding structure until catastrophicly failing.
Right and they all were equally heated and weakened at the same time to enable the building to fall symmetrically.
No, they failed one by one until the last one...
Look at photo 6 of this report. Were the Japanese in on it as well?
http://www.pwri.go.jp/eng/ujnr/joint/35/paper/71sakumo.pdf
I am not even going to argue that as it doesn't explain what I stated.
he's done that more than once in this thread.
WTC2 DID NOT FUCKING COLLAPSE SYMMETRICALLY.
Anyone who claims it did is an IDIOT
trav7777:
Best be trollin'.
It may not have been "perfectly" symmetrical, in the abstract sense, but it was close enough for government work.
Idiot.
edit: Trolling Is A Art
Anyone who claims it did is an IDIOT
Whats your definition of "is"? Every video I have looked at shows that they pretty much fell symmetrically. I do admit that the top portion of WTC 2 did deviate but it seems it was minimal. Instead of calling names like a juvenile why don't you state your proof or reasoning. I can call you an idiot too, but it doesn't prove anything.
You are asking to be junked with your contrarian beliefs on this topic.
I just junked myself to prime the pump for the idiots.
What no link to your treasured memories?!?
Why?? Because you have a guberment approved imagination?
Show me the link, you weasel.
So now we have it that not only were these buildings pre-wired for demolition but they were in fact designed to collapse into their own foot prints as in fact they did. Well, that's a relief, I was actually starting to believe the thousands of architects, engineers and physicists who are questioning this scenario, at great risk to their careers and reputations I might add. 911 threads bring out the troll patrol like nobody's business.
ironic that the evidence must be that overwhelming for them to collapse into it and BS a reason for it
I stayed in the Marriot hotel in the twin towers the weekend before it happened. We shoped in the multi level mall below the building and rode the subway from there to midtown. I can easily see how the force of the twin towers coming down on that mall could have destroyed the foundation of other buildings closely connected. I am no engineer, but it seems obvious to me if the foundation is gone, down comes the building. End of conspiracy.
"I can easily see how the force of the twin towers coming down on that mall could have destroyed the foundation of other buildings closely connected."
According to Dr. Judy Wood (materials scientist), in her book "Where Did the Towers Go?" and on her website at http://drjudywood.com/wtc/ , the foundations of the twin towers were surrounded by a "bathtub" of concrete that was designed to keep out water and that would have cracked if the towers collapsed on them. (And they did get cracked during the rubbish-removal phase.) But they were undamaged by the towers' fall.
@legal eagle
I call BS to you. You are correct, you are not an engineer. The fact is that the Trade Center complex buildings were constructed on, and anchored by massive piles and cables, Manhattan schist. That, fyi, is solid bedrock and not glacial till. There is no way that a building, even one the size of either of the twin towers, would destroy the "foundation" of other buildings closely connected. Furthermore, WTC7 was not in any significant structural way "closely connected" to the towers across the street.
they were not connected to bedrock. too far down. the wtc had a huge pan type foundation.
Free fall speed legal eagle. Figure that out.
I once went to the observation deck. Does that make me an expert like you??
=========================================
While there, at the top, I told my kids to buy a souvenir. Lots of NYC knick-knacks to choose from. They looked and looked and found a snake. They took the snake. Prescient?!?
7 collapsed at 5:22 p.m., over six hours after WTC 1 and 2 collapsed.
Buildings between 7 and 1 and 2 did not collapse.
Here are pictures of what a real gravity-driven collapse looks like:
not even REMOTELY close to correct!
Will you moonbats just STFU?
physics are no match for obscenities
Sham (Shyam) Sunder NIST's Laboratory-Director
Stated that the WTC 7 was brought down by fires fueled by office furnishings. It did not collapse because of explosives or fuel fires.
If you watch WTC 7 falling you can see that one corner of the building gives way and starts to collapse before the rest of the building which obviously shows greater weakness on that corner, but then the penthouse on top starts to cave in and the rest of the building seems to catch up to this weaker corner of the building and falls together into its own footprint. WTC 7 is supported by three main columns so we are to believe that these three columns all weakened within fractions of a second of each other thus enabling the building to fall into its own footprint? It would seem to be common sense that this couldn't happen. As I pointed out there is a weakened corner that starts to fall before the total collapse so one would assume that this weakened corner would continue to fall faster than the rest or at least not fall symmetrically.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUkvnfV606w&feature=related
Absolute bullshit, GW. Absolute bullshit. The cross-sectional area of the buildings in your pictures is multiples of that of the twin towers and #7; or stated another way, there was much less material volume and thus more air in the towers as would be in any comperable volume of the pictured structures. None of the three towers would have even remained intact if laid on their sides as these apartment buildings did; simply not rigid enough.
Had the twin towers been built with the same ratio of structure to open floor in plan as those buildings you pictured, they would have collapsed on themselves long before they were finished. Constructing a 1200-foot-tall tall tower is not as simple as making a 100-foot-tall building 12 times bigger, which is what you're suggesting with those photos. Gravity acts only downward. When you scale up a structure by X you increase its volume, and thus its weight, by X-cubed. However, its cross-section increases by only X-squared. Since it's the cross-sectional area that supports the building (resists gravity), then a building scaled up by X gets weaker by a factor of X (X-cubed increase in mass divided by X-squared increase in area).
Assuming the towers in your images are 1/12th the height of WTC 1 and 2, then if you wanted to use them as models for a collapsing WTC building you need to first add enough dead load to increase their weight 12 times. That would be equivalent to adding an additional entire building mass onto each of the floors 2 through 11 and on the roof. Then, knock a few walls out at the base and you'll see a building fall down into a pile of rubble. Again, it would probably collapse before you finished loading.
The taller a structure, the straighter it falls. The idiots using blocky, concrete buildings of modest stature (or worse, staked cardboard boxes) to explain how all buildings should fall don't understand gravity.
Send my regards to Cass Sunstein when you drop by for your paycheck. Maybe he can pay your tuition to a civil engineering 101 course so you can make comments not worthy of a dullard.
Yes, and don't forget to stop by Dick Cheneys office so he can shit in your mouth. All the BS you're spewing, you must be gettin' low. Seriously though I am curious, are you a civilian contractor or are you just some enlisted cannon fodder who tested slightly brighter than the average 20 watter. Officer? Noncom? What's the set up? Is there only one office or do you guys have competition from another service? If you are completely unbelievable and a fuck up do you get sent back to guard duty at the latrine? Maybe you should be getting ready for that then, hmmmm.
maximin thrax:
If I hit you in the head with a brick and an hour later your body collapsed into your shoes as if you had no skeleton, wouldn't you want your family to find out what really caused your death?
(There's no way the brick did it.)
For all the napkin caclulations you eagerly make in order to try to "disprove" GW, don't you think you're ignoring the obvious fact that WTC 1 and 2 had massive steel frame core "skeletons" that evidently completely gave way from the basement and on all the way up?
As stated in a link provided by GW:
(AE911 Truth interviews WTC Chief Electrical Design Engineer Richard Humenn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJy7lhVK2xE#at=06m11s
I love how MT compares this incredibly strong structure to an aluminum can with air inside. Very similar to huge steel columns.
Yeah seriously... they would have taken much longer to fall straight down if they actually were actually pile-driving themselves down through gravity. Or they would have taken a path of less resistance and toppled askew at some point in a such a collapse.
Two powerpoint slides from AE911 Truth that should make things clear
http://www2.ae911truth.org/ppt_web/10min/slideshow.php?i=124&lores=1
http://www2.ae911truth.org//ppt_web/10min/slideshow.php?i=139&lores=1
The very first screen in that powerpoint sets up that argument for failure. If you watch the south tower fail, you see the top section disintegrate as it collides with the collapsing base. That could only happen if the collapse of the base was less than free fall. If in free fall, the top section of building would have ridden the collapse down intact, which it certainly did not. Fail.
Just find a video and watch. Somebody is lying to you, and it's not me.
perhaps you're lying to yourself to avoid an ugly truth
How can you be so obtuse?
Is it deliberate?
http://media.onsugar.com/files/ons1/306/3064574/20_2009/3Kings5.png
The thing fell too fast to have been due to the damage at the top. DUH!
You totally missed the point of the slide.
Watch the collapse videos. You can clearly see through the dust and debris core columns remaining vertical for several seconds after the pancaking floors stripped away. It's just not a mystery what happened to them. Marry theoretical collapse senarios with the chaos of an actual collapse and you'll get many inexplicable outcomes.
No.
Yes!
42 seconds into the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fGTw6Xqpv4
Okay no hard feelings, but that's not core columns.
That's one side of the four-walled outer structure that hangs on by some miraculous thread for a brief period of time.