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Are Millions of Business People At Risk of Dying In Collapsing Buildings?
This is one in a series of safety-related public service announcements.
Death Traps?
Millions of people work in or visit high-rise buildings … assuming the buildings were more or less safe.
But it turns out that there is a severe, lethal risk of sudden collapse in even the best-made skyscrapers in America, Britain, Germany, Japan and other nations worldwide.
A New Understanding
Before 9/11, no modern steel-frame high-rise building had ever collapsed due to fire.
9/11 radically changed our understanding of architecture and engineering …
Specifically, 3 steel-frame buildings collapsed on that day. That includes one that was never hit by a plane, and had only small, isolated office fires prior to its collapse.
This was unexpected, as much hotter, longer-lasting fires have never before brought down a modern steel-frame office building. For example, the 2005 Madrid skyscraper fire “reached 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 F), said Javier Sanz, head of Madrid firefighter” and lasted some 20 hours without collapsing.
In other words, officials who write building codes, architects and structural engineers had never before worried about small office fires causing office buildings from collapsing.
Appendix A of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s World Trade Center Building Performance Study notes:
In the case of the fire at One Meridian Plaza, the fire burned uncontrolled for the first 11 hours and lasted 19 hours. Contents from nine floors were completely consumed in the fire. In addition to these experiences in fire incidents, as a result of the Broadgate fire, British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cordington in the mid-1990s to investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beam reaching 800-900 °C (1,500-1,700 °F) in three tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600 °C [1,100 °F]), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments.
Underwriters Laboratories tested the steel components at the Twin Towers and found they could withstand fires for hours without failure:
“NIST [the government agency - National Institute of Standards and Technology, a branch of the Department of Commerce - responsible for investigating the collapse of the 3 buildings on 9/11] contracted with Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. to conduct tests to obtain information on the fire endurance of trusses like those in the WTC towers…. All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing… The Investigation Team was cautious about using these results directly in the formulation of collapse hypotheses. In addition to the scaling issues raised by the test results, the fires in the towers on September 11, and the resulting exposure of the floor systems, were substantially different from the conditions in the test furnaces. Nonetheless, the [empirical test] results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” (NIST, 2005, p. 140).
Other fire tests have also failed to cause failures at high temperatures.
So the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11 (not hit by a plane) was a surprise … and should be a huge concern to the millions of people who work in office buildings worldwide.
To get to the bottom of this issue, Washington’s Blog reached out to a former manager at Underwriters Laboratories – Kevin Ryan – to seek reassurance that the danger was small for the millions of financial services industry workers, business men, lawyers, web executives, and others who work in office buildings:
[Question] Wasn’t the steel used in the Twin Towers and Building 7 of inferior quality? So as long as builders use better-quality steel, can’t we be assured of safety?
[Kevin Ryan] The steel used to build WTC Building 7 was the standard grade for high-rise construction–still used to this day–called ASTM A36 grade steel. It was not inferior in any way from the steel used to make many of the other high-rise buildings in America.
For the Twin Towers, fourteen different grades of steel were used in the construction, including A36, which has a nominal strength of 36 ksi. The other grades used were higher strength steels like 100 ksi WEL-TEN steel which was manufactured in Japan and shipped to the States. The steel used in the Towers was actually far superior to typical structural steel.
The official government reports on the destruction of the WTC buildings did not find any problem with the quality of the materials or construction methods used. And although those reports did make some recommendations for changes to building codes, those changes have not been incorporated in municipal codes or adopted by the building construction community.
[Question] You write in Foreign Policy Journal:
“And if people actually understood and believed the official account of what happened at the WTC they would not enter tall buildings because in doing so they would be putting their lives at risk.”
What do you mean?
[Ryan] What I mean is that high-rise buildings are designed and constructed to withstand fires that are much worse than what we know existed in WTC Building 7. My former company, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), plays a big part in that process. We know that UL did the fire resistance testing that was behind the selection of the steel components for WTC7 because that fact is in the NIST WTC7 report. Therefore the steel columns and floor assemblies should have withstood 2 to 3 hours of intense fire in a testing furnace, as required by the NYC code. But on 9/11, the fire lasted only 20 minutes in any given area, a fact that NIST admits, and the entire structure was destroyed due to an inexplicable failure to resist fire.
Moreover, NIST abandoned its previous hypotheses that suggested the destruction of WTC7 might have resulted from diesel fuel fires, or damage from falling debris, or the design of the building. In the end, NIST said that it was only the effects of the fire fed by office furnishings, on fully-fireproofed steel components, that caused the total destruction of this 47-story building. And since no actions have been taken to retrofit any existing high-rise buildings, we must assume that what happened to WTC7, according to the official account, could happen to any tall building that experiences a typical office fire.
No Change (?!)
Given that 9/11 totally changed our understanding of how dangerous small office fires could be, we couldn’t believe Ryan’s claim that “changes have not been incorporated in municipal codes or adopted by the building construction community.”
So Washington’s Blog contacted Richard Gage, a practicing architect for more than two decades, who has worked on most types of building construction, including one project which used around 1,200 tons of steel framing:
[Question] Have high-rise architects and engineers changed how they build skyscrapers, to prevent collapses after 9/11?
And have they changed how they build skyscrapers to prevent office fires from knocking down steel buildings?
[Richard Gage] No – they haven’t made any structural changes.
No structural changes?!
Either building code writers, architects and engineers are cavalierly ignoring this catastrophic new understanding of the extreme danger of small office fires, or the investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center building 7 on 9/11 was flawed.
No wonder New York residents have launched a High Rise Safety Initiative to try to protect the safety of those who work or visit office buildings.
Postscript: Until this issue is resolved through a complete revision of building codes and architectural and engineering practices, we recommend that everyone stay out of office buildings. Because if even small office fires can cause the whole building to collapse, it’s just not worth the risk to go inside.
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Bullshit.
Many years ago I worked in the steel industry.
I know how hot you have to get that stuff to make it bend.
Gasoline with only atmospheric oxygen won't even get you close.\
At least I hope you did
You missed the sarc in his post.
"Many years ago I worked in the steel industry.
I know how hot you have to get that stuff to make it bend.
Gasoline with only atmospheric oxygen won't even get you close."
He was obviously joking.
You are obviously stupid!
You are obviously dumber than dirt. He was being sarcastic moron.
Where in the steel industry did you work? You do understand that when you start welding and riveting those pieces of steel together on the job site (after they have left the factory) that significant loads and stresses are involved, and that until ALL the specified pieces of steel are properly joined, that the loads and stresses in and of themselves can exceed the strength of steel and lead to catastrophic failure absent ANY heat, simply by insufficient engineering or erection of temporary bracing...
(but perhaps he also wasn't actually implying what you thought he was)
Maybe my sarc detector failed me but you have to admit stranger ideas have been put forward seriously.
As for the engineering mumbo jumbo (I'm no science dummy, by the way) that has little to do with a completed building.
I think most people would have agreed that the towers' construction had been completed long ago.
until ALL the specified pieces of steel are properly joined, that the loads and stresses in and of themselves can exceed the strength of steel and lead to catastrophic failure absent ANY heat, simply by insufficient engineering or erection of temporary bracing...
As for the industry - steel production, as in furnaces and casting.
Stranger ideas have definitely been put forward. I'm a sort of a freak on the bracing issue based on personal experience- where I had to use a completely unorthodox (but just as completely overengineered) approach for a concrete slab pour right after someone lost their life locally in a bridge deck pour that appeared to check all the right boxes but still went horribly wrong, for me everything worked out beautifully (but the waiting game was agonizing, and then I had to volunteer myself for the preliminary underside examination).
If you have experience on the foundry side- I'd be interested on your take on the insane level of air flow in those tunnels that someone would have had to intentionally or ignorantly keep pumping in order to keep all that steel soft for so long (unless I missed a comical part of the NIST fairy-tale where the clowns compared melted steel at ground zero to burning wood in root fire or some other such false analogy)
(And have you ever heard of a mill pulling a WT7 and accidentally losing/misplacing batch test results?)
Here's what he doesn't understand about steel under fire. Steel Columns are fire proofed to a specified hour fire rating, 1, 2-hr etc. That means the fireproofing if properly istalled, will allow a fire of a certain temperature in an average fire to not cause the column to fail. After that given time period, if the fire persists the columns Will Fail, they will bend and cause a collapse due to the loads of the floors above the failed columns. The impact from collapsing floors above would cause a straght down, floor by floor failure of everything below.
And the steel beam fireproofing was not designed to work after a 747 crashes into it.
From Wikipedia (which carried the offical narrative):
"The impact from collapsing floors above would cause a straght down, floor by floor failure of everything below."
From NIST's own report (http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/faqs_wtctowers.cfm):
Don't tell me, tell these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDuUR7l3bgc
Perhaps all they need to do is fly drones into buildings ...
ive never seen normal construction grade steel "snap". it bends, creaks and carries on like a bitch. not just "fails" .
super high tensile shit will snap like glass. but when this shit is heated, it loses its high tensile nature.
fuck this shit, lets crowd source making a skyscraper to WTC spec, take 20% off the steel thickness, only put in3 out of 4 rivots, let it get welded together by apprentices and fly a fucking jet into it and lets see if it fails
hint: it wont
Shoddy workmanship can be conclusively ruled out as a cause of the 9/11 collapse. The collapse of all 3 buildings was PERFECTLY SYMMETRICAL. This means that if shoddy workmanship was the issue, EVERY JOINT would have had to be welded or riveted with the EXACT SAME level of poor workmanship. Every joint would have required the EXACT SAME premature failure threshold. This would not be shoddy workmanship. It would be a noteworthy engineering miracle.
"The collapse of all 3 buildings was PERFECTLY SYMMETRICAL."
There was nothing symmetrical about the top 30 floors of 2 World Trade tipping over to the east.
What was left of Trade 2 collapsed symmetrically. Most of it turned to dust in midair as it started to tip over. As stated above, 90% of the rubble pile was missing, when compared to rubble piles left over from traditional controlled demolition. Just look at the pictures. There should have been over 10 stories of rubble pile after the collapse, when there were only a couple. Ever hear of a science concept called "conservation of mass?"
"What was left of Trade 2 collapsed symmetrically. Most of it turned to dust in midair as it started to tip over. As stated above, 90% of the rubble pile was missing, when compared to rubble piles left over from traditional controlled demolition. Just look at the pictures. There should have been over 10 stories of rubble pile after the collapse, when there were only a couple. Ever hear of a science concept called "conservation of mass?"
The east started to collapse first, even below the top 30 floors. Nothing symmetical about the collapse of what remained of 2 World Trade.
90% of the rubble pile was not missing. The exterior columns were spread over a wide area, thus there wasn't a 10 story pile.
Lots of stupid in this topic. But the phrase "turned to dust in midair" wins the prize.
exactly, and even if that miracle happened the Columns would still be standing not melted into a slag pile.
How hot does it need to get for this type of steel to melt completely?
Only about 10% of the building "fell". The rest was 'dustafied'. The two towers were both turned to dust and no commonly known technology or explosive could have dropped the buildings they way they fell.
The biggest "miracle" of all is that billions of people worldwide can look at the evidence, and totally ignore what their eyeballs plainly see. The thousands of mysteriously torched cars is my personal favorite. How do you melt door handles off of car doors, or melt engines out of engine bays, or disintegrate every single metal filing cabinet in the Towers while leaving millions of sheets of unburned paper falling from the sky like confetti? My only question is whether this was an intentional test of a military grade Tesla weapon, or if DARPA pissed off some inter-dimensional "space aliens" who subsequently arranged for a demonstration of their power. Thermite is so cliche. "I'll take Quantum Weapons Systems for $500, Alex."
Fuckin' Romulans!
Krugman may just get his wish...
Central A/C will be deemed far more dangerous than high rise buildings after the environmental nazis and Bloomturd disciples discover how easy it is for those damn terrorists to build thermobaric bombs (odorless ones are only slightly more complicated but some key ingredients are becoming far more readily available- thanks to said environmental nazis)... but since it's all for the children, or our own protection, the serfs can go without for the "common good".
If doors to the roof were unlocked you could have saved those ABOVE the impact sites. Helicopters wre standing by.
But then Cantor Fitzgerald - the largest dealer in government securities was ABOVE the impact level.... their top execs didn't go to work that day...... and hundreds of billions in government securities were cleared under emergency measures during the following week......
I saw some specials that focused either exclusively or a very large % on that firm and the amount of employees that were killed.
Anyone with info or questions can reach us at info@wtfrly.com
carbon trading me boy.
I've never been able to ignite gasoline with a cigarrette.
Old mechanic's trick. If someone wanted to hang around and bother us...who did not know a fucking thing about cars...we had a Bucket of Gasoline with which we used to "clean parts".
Well...We'd show the pest that it was Gasoline.
Then we'd toss our lit cigarettes into that bucket. They'd call us crazy and high tail it out of there and we'd be laughing our ass off at them.
Why are we even discussing gasoline? Jet fuel is more akin to kerosene.
Yes, and regular 1-K kerosene has a flash point of 165 degrees F. It does NOT burn as hot as gasoline. No way kerosene could melt structural steel.
KnightTK, the steel only needs to sag to rip a floor from the outer shell. Melting is not needed for the structure to fail.
God, people do not understand sarcasm.
Look, unless the aircrafts actually did some horrendous physical damage, the chance of jet fuel making a building collapse is ludicrous.
And that does not even address the mystery of Bldg 7 OR the 'plane' hitting the Pent-O-Gon.
My advice: stay away from garages on the east side on Feb 14 and stay out of hi-rise financial bldgs on Sept 11.
hell it does't even bend the exhaust pipes on my motorcycle.
Kerosene doesn't melt the thin steel sheet metal of my kerosene heater no matter how long the fire has been burning.
Why is that?
cause there aren't billions at stake---if there were it could melt if they said so--just saying
Because Lakecity55 wrote this gem, "A guy spilled some gasoline for a generator on a beam and it caught fire from his cig." in the post that started this line.
I am well aware of what Jet Fuel is. Thanks.
Small fires fueled with office furnishings can bring down skyscrapers?
SSSSHHHHHHHHHHH! Don't tell the trrists.
All buildings need to be thermite resistent.
All buildings need to be thermite resistent.
The fraud is coming undone
Did NIST Fraudulently Omit A Key Component Related to Collapse Theory From WTC Building 7 Report?
http://wtfrly.com/2013/11/11/did-nist-fraudulently-omit-key-component-from-wtc-building-7-report/
Media Boos 9/11 Superbowl Messag...e, Ignores #WTC7 Complaint Referred To NIST By Inspector General
http://wtfrly.com/2014/02/05/media-boos-911-superbowl-message-ignores-inspector-general-wtc7-nist-complaint/
National Institute of Standards and Technology Confirms Receipt of Inspector General Referral on WTC7 Report Fraud After Previously Lying
http://wtfrly.com/2014/02/08/nist-confirms-receipt-of-inspector-general-referral-on-wtc7-report-fraud-after-previously-lying/
http://wtfrly.com/911truth
But...but... that smary guy up there ^ says the buildings were made with hollow tubes and that is why Bin Laden targeted them.
Well, that and he hated us for our freedom
This articles author forgot the /s tag at the end.
Can you believe it. There are even Engineers who say that the collapse of Building 7 was a controlled demolition. Either way, not a safe working environment
good article, George Washington
(if that is your real name)
Don't forget the, um, modest impact of a jumbo jet, in addition to the fires. WTC &, though, is a different story. The impact of the collapsing towers so near by would have been equivalent to a significant earthquake from across the street, and earthquakes sometimes cause delayed collapse in affected buildings, but usually buildings don't collapse so cleanly.
Rehypothecator raises an interesting point about earthquakes.
Apparently the seismic activity for 9/11 was the equivalent of quarry blasting in New Jersey.
Which essentially means that not much actually hit the ground when the first two towers fell.
So we can conclude that fires can make office towers turn to dust before they hit the ground.
Got 5 hours to spare this weekend?
Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DOnAn_PX6M
Mostly because it does a decent job of going over the suspension of the laws of physics the official narrative requires, regardless of whatever actually happened. That's mostly in part 3 [part 6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QyugUDYf5E
I'm not going to try to litigate the matter here, suffice to say that people who cite "jet fuel" neither account for how much would have burned up or been dispersed at impact [the, um, giant fireballs?] or just how absolutely massive the towers were. We can all watch video not of a neat pancake collapse, but material being thrown dozens of yards from the buildings - which takes energy and also reduces load - yet the core columns and floors far below, designed to support three-four times the load, suddenly are unable to ecven though there's a lot less weight above? And even if the remaining load, falling, for some reason, at 95% of free fall speed, was enough to rip the floors off the core columns and 'pancake them' down - why on earth would the core columns collapse?
There was far, far too much energy in this system. The only sensible conclusion is the additional energy, and pyrocastic flow as the buildings disintegrated on their way down, is that extremely high-energy explosives were used.
Elements of the US government, military and intelligence services had to be involved.
And so did the Israelis.
As hard as this is to believe, believing that the laws of physics were violated that day, only as to properties leased and insured by Lucky Larry Silverstein only months before - is even harder to believe.
I don't know for sure what happened that day, but I know for sure what did not - and that is the official version.
"Mostly because it does a decent job of going over the suspension of the laws of physics the official narrative requires, regardless of whatever actually happened."
There wasn't any suspension of the laws of physics required.
"We can all watch video not of a neat pancake collapse, but material being thrown dozens of yards from the buildings - which takes energy and also reduces load - yet the core columns and floors far below, designed to support three-four times the load, suddenly are unable to ecven though there's a lot less weight above? "
A neat pancake collapse? It looked rather messy to me. Tons of falliing debris produced a lot of kinetic energy, tearing the Towers apart. Floors might have been designed to carry a static load three or four times that which was on them in the way of office equipment, but that means nothing when tons of debris suddenly lands on the floor and core support beams.
"And even if the remaining load, falling, for some reason, at 95% of free fall speed, was enough to rip the floors off the core columns and 'pancake them' down - why on earth would the core columns collapse?"
Lack of lateral support.