by Geezer Power …9:01 AM PDT
This association of professional people is a breath of fresh air for those of us that have been combing the innertubes for certified truth about the destruction of the World Trade Center. This is what is needed to bring about a real investigation by an outside source. As it stands there are far too many unanswered questions to believe the explanations of the 911 commision.
We are a non-partisan association of Architects, Engineers, and affiliates , who are dedicated to exposing the falsehoods and to revealing truths about the “collapses” of the WTC high-rises on 9/11/01.
We call upon Congress for a truly independent investigation with subpoena power. We believe that there may be sufficient evidence to conclude that the World Trade Center buildings #1 (North Tower), #2 (South Tower), and #7 (the 47 story high-rise across Vessey St.) were destroyed not by jet impact and fires but by controlled demolition with explosives.
We believe that this website, as well as the other referenced sites, contains the information necessary to demonstrate to all with an open mind that this is the case, and that such an investigation is warranted and overdue. We believe that the available relevant evidence casts grave doubt on the government’s official story of these “collapses”.
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth are encouraged to take an active role by reporting the results of their research on 9/11 by means of lectures, articles, and methods of disseminating the truth about the 9/11 WTC building “collapses”.
Richard Gage, AIA is the founding member of ae911Truth.org. He has been a practicing Architect for 20 years and has worked on most types of building construction including numerous fire-proofed steel-framed buildings. He is employed with a San Francisco Bay Area architecture firm and has most recently performed Construction Administration services for a new $120M High School campus including a $10M steel-framed Gymnasium. Currently he is working on the Design Development for a very large mixed use urban project with 1.2M sq.ft. of retail and 320K sq.ft. of high-rise office space — altogether about 1,200 tons of steel framing.
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LINKS TO RELATED ARTICALS AND VIDEOS~
Where is the proof of the official 911 story
Were WTC buildings collapsed by explosive charges?
YouTube – Lou Dobbs calls for a new investigation of 9/11
BYU Professor Steven E Jones WTC Lecture UVSC
Thanks for posting this, Geezer.
I have long been of the view that 9/11 was an inside job, but whether it was a controlled demolition, as Steve Jones says, or whether high tech weaponry was used, as suggested by Judy Wood, I am undecided.
Many of the scholars for 9/11 truth are not in relevent disciples. Architects and Engineers are. I hope what they have to say gets heard. The mainstream media generally ignores this kind of stuff.
You will find a number of interesting articles on this topic on the 9/11 page on my blog, Friends of the American Revolution.
I posted this in reference to Anthony’s post “The Timeline to Tyranny”. I hope that all the information that these concerned citizens are putting together reaches the MSM…G:
I’ve just visited this site, geezer, and it’s quite impressive.
I argue over 9/11 with my brother, who’s an engineer every time I see him.
Have a look at Judy Wood’s 9/11 issues website which forwards the high tech. weaponry thesis and tell me what you think of it.
I regard myself as qualified enough to say that 9/11 was an inside job, but my background is History and Philosophy and languages, so I am not qualified to say which of the two 9/11 truth sides of the movement I back.
I hope that all the information that these concerned citizens are putting together reaches the MSM
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Fat chance! The MSM are controlled by the same kind of people who stood to benefit from 9/11.
Hi Anthony
Looked at Judy Woods info…I would tend to go with demolition as described by the Architects and Engineers. Here’s a link from their site…G:
Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional
Interesting site….
let truth and justice prevail…
Excellent post Geezer! 🙂
I’m not convinced.
Chimpy’s initial reaction was telling. He spent the first 2 weeks or so trying to convince everybody to live like they normally lived, and THEN switched to fearmongering to make his case for attacking Iraq. If it was a planned operation, it seems to me he’d have been much better scripted right from the start.
In addition, the whole “steel structures don’t collapse from fire” theory was retired by a bridge in California. As a matter of fact, they do.
Hi, JollyRoger,
The only instances of high rise buildings collapsing due to fire in the history of modern civilization is that of the three, not two, buildings, that each collapsed “due to fire” on 9/11.
Normally, when a high rise building collapses, it pancakes, that is, the floors remain more or less intact, but one on top of the other.
This did not happen on 9/11. The Twin Towers did not pancake. They disintegrated. They were pulverised. They literally went up in smoke. Concrete cannot be pulverised other than with the use of explosives.
If you read nothing else on the subject, read Judy Woods’ 9/11: A Refutation of the Official Collapse Theory, which shows that it was impossible for the Twin Towers to have collapsed at the speed at which they did without the use of explosives.
And take a look at a video of the collapse of WTC 7, a blatantly obvious controlled demolition if ever there was one.
And if you have time, have a look at some of the articles on the 9/11 page on my blogsite.
It is my belief that the only way to save America is to make them aware of just how evil the regime which governs them is, and 9/11 truth is pivotal in this.
Actually the European demolition expert appears to be a naysayer, when talking about buildings 1 and 2 (there are more videos by this dude on youtube), and claims that fire could have made them fall. Notice that his explanation of building 7 says that there was time to plant the charges after buildings 1 and 2 fell. When a real investigation finally happens, Bu$hco will have to admit that building 7 was demolished and the real story will come forth as more qualified proffesionals come forth with facts to explain exactly what happened.
The Architects for 911 Truth are growing in number, doing their own independent investigation, and don’t appear to be going away, so unless they are blackmailed, blackballed, or stonewalled, we will be better informed on the subject.
Geezer, I’ve watched that video you posted a link to earlier, but this deals with WTC7 which, as I said earlier, was a blatantly obvious controlled demolition, with the building collapsing into its own footprint, from bottom up.
The collapse, nay, disintegration, of the Twin Towers was soething different, either a non-classic controlled demolition beginning with the explosion at the bottom of the top fifth of the buildings, then going on down, or something completely outside our knowledge, such as high tech., classified weaponry.
If you look at the pictures of those cars in Downtown Manhattan on Judy’s website, with their bonnets (front part where engine is housed, whatever that is in American English) frazzled, but their back parts intact, this looks more like the results of lazer weaponry and cannot be explained by conventional demolition.
Geezer, I wrote that last post before your last post appeared. It seems to corroborate the possibility that WTC7, on the one hand, and the Twin Towers were brought down by two completely different methods.
Anthony, In my opinion all three were demolished. The sheared steel columns and the residual molton metal certainly indicates that. A&E has compiled a lot of evidence that shows that this is probably what happened. The jury is still out and Judy could have some good points, but nothing would surprise me including the use of advanced weaponry techniques.
Anthony
“with their bonnets (front part where engine is housed, whatever that is in American English) frazzled”
I’m glad you clarified that…”Their hoods were fried” . Will take a better look…LOL
Cripes… with all of the jack-booting going on in the world, and the excuses for getting there all hinging on 9/11… and all of the evidence (not carted away in a hurry by the government) there is supporting a planned event… and there are STILL those that want to give the government the benefit of the doubt?
All I can say to those is… make sure your cell in the camps isn’t beside mine!
Highwayman
LOLMFAO…I have no doubt about your convictions on this, or for that matter my own.
These idological idiots built the camps before they trashed the WTC, and after doing this post I might be in one of em before you…;)
That’s okay, Geez… we can take turns beating on what’s left of the ignorant so-and-so’s that empowered the deceptions of government, after the guards get through with them!
Thanks for posting this. There’s definitely too many fishy things about 9/11. When Hunter Thompson died, there was a rumor that he didn’t actually commit suicide. He was investigating 9/11 and was about to conclude that the WTC was imploded rather collapsing because a jet crashed into it. He was “suicided” because he knew too much. Just a rumor; I have no idea whether it’s true or not.
I read the posts on this blog’s current thread and I’m reminded of of all the ridiculous and debunked “inside job” crap the public has been ignoring for years.
Oh and by the way, I joined A&E for 9/11 truth under an assumed name and I’m 14 years old.
Half my classmates are members under assumed names.
Bobby:
Sure you are 14 yrs old and sure your classmates did the same thing…
and I am Little Red Riding Hood..
Make sure your cell is next to mine, Bob… sweetie…
😉
Stop by again Bobby…Don’t forget yur tinfoil jammies…G:
I just completed a book on the reasons the Towers collapsed and a theory on why Building 7 collapsed.
Here is an an excerpt from the book “Fire in the Skyscraper” at Llumina Press.
“Reports of Controlled Demolition
Some reports interpreted the loud sounds and short free-fall time to complete collapse as an indication that explosives were used to demolish the buildings. Explosives, however, had nothing to do with the collapses. All the supposed explosions can be explained by the sounds and impacts made by the burning and collapsing buildings after the columns were pulled in by the bowing and buckling floors or when the floors themselves detached and impacted the floors below. The exterior walls can be seen bending and buckling in the videos long before any sounds or ground vibrations occurred. It is also clear from the computer studies that the heat from the fires caused destructive expansion in the steel in the long span floor trusses and the collapsing floors pulled-in the exterior column walls. Once the top section of a tower building began to fall, like a heavy wedge or sledge, all it had to do was break the welded, and single bolted connections holding the floors to the columns. This is coupled with the fact that the momentum increases as the square of the number of floors impacted as the floors were detached and added to the weight of the descending top. There would have been little resistance to slow the top building section’s acceleration to the ground. Once the core columns got out of plumb, there would have been little resistance to their buckling at the weak splices.
“Explosive” sounds were heard when floors collapsed on the south side of Tower 1, 12 to 14 seconds before the building was seen to tilt southward and begin falling as a unit. Seismic instruments and a camera shaking on a tripod on a roof some distance away detected the impact of these collapsing floors. Since each section of floor on the long-span side weighed about 500 tons, the acceleration caused by gravity increased the speed of the collapsing floors or building top, so the impacts would have been extremely violent. As for the short collapse time, it could also be said that the collapse had begun quietly in Tower 1’s south wall earlier. When the south wall of Tower 1 was photographed it was bowing inward up to 55 inches on floors 95 to 99, about six minutes before these columns were seen buckling. Up to the point of the ground-shaking floor collapse 12 seconds before the start of global collapse, there was some evidence that other sounds or vibrations occurred. I would explore these sounds as evidence of floor failures. Also explosives leave characteristic tears and fractures in steel, and such indications were not found in the debris pile.
In Tower 2, the exterior columns in the east wall were photographed bowing inward up to 10 inches 18 minutes after the plane’s impact. That’s 38 minutes before the global collapse began. To be technical, you could say that the collapse began slowly, without any overt noise or impact sounds, about 38 minutes earlier than the official collapse time. The explosive sounds and expanding dust clouds occurred just after the east wall buckled inward, not before the buckling, as would have happened from controlled demolitions.
The boom, boom, boom, boom, boom repetitive explosive sound heard as the towers came down was probably caused by the sequential collision of impacting floors. The great quantity of air on each floor being compressed in a fraction of a second by great momentum would propel air, smoke, and any concrete dust and debris outward at great velocity.
The lightweight aluminum cladding’s breaking free from the buckling columns also would have been propelled outward a great distance by this expanding cloud of air and dust. This would account for huge dust clouds and pieces of aluminum seen projected outwards from the upper sections of the collapsing buildings.
In addition, the compression of air in the elevator and air-conditioning shafts by the collapsing upper building section and floors would project air, smoke, and dust down these shafts and out of any air intake or discharge openings on the exterior walls on the lower mechanical equipment floors. This accounts for the plumes of smoke seen projecting outwards from the buildings well below the collapsing floors. There were quite extensive vertical HVAC shafts built into the building. These shafts are connected to the airconditioning exhaust and intake ducts on the mechanical floors. Collapse of these shafts would force the dust and smoke out these HVAC exhaust and intake openings in the side of the building.
Arthur Scheuerman Ret. B.C. FDNY
Get ‘er done FDNY…
These Guys were the Real heroes of the 9/11 false flag as I’m calling it.
While Bush was jetting away to join Cheney in his bunker these guys were out there in ground zero not knowing what to expect.
They cared not about security. But they cared about people. They were out there and they saw everything, they smelled everything, and they heard everything.. While leaders cowered, they came to defend others..
I know FDNY is getting hammered by the press because they are telling the truth about what happened that day. They also told the Truth about Rudy Guliani and what his real agenda is. $$$$
The fact is that what really happened that day is being supressed from the American people but no matter how long or how much opposition we face, we’re going to tell what REALLY happened that day to everyone in this Nation.
Come hell or high water…
That’s why I say …get ‘er done FDNY!
*Cheers*
This is my theory on the collapse of Building 7 from my book “Fire in the Skyscraper”
The Collapse of Building 7
WTC’s Building 7 was a 47-story office building completed in 1987 by Silverstein Properties on land owned by the Port Authority. It was built according to PA-NY-NJ codes developed for tenant alterations in the tower buildings. Building 7 was not hit by any planes but had some damage from parts of Tower 1 impacting the south wall. Because of the damage to the building and the failure of the water supply, after talking to the owner, the Fire Department decided to evacuate the building and not to attempt to control the fires but to let them burn out. Since it was a “fire resistive” building, there would have been every expectation that the fires would burn out without any local or global collapse. However, given that the towers had collapsed and that there had been a serious interior collapse of Building 5, there was concern, and the collapse area around the building was cleared. The building did suffer global collapse from fire after several hours of uncontrolled burning. There were no known injuries or fatalities in the collapse.
Building 7 was built over an existing Consolidated Edison power station. Above the seventh floor, the construction was very similar to that of the towers: with long-span outer floors, large open areas, unknown fireproofing on the steel, little lateral bracing in the core, and most likely weak column splicing.
Since the perimeter wall columns were shear walls that resisted wind loads, the long-span floors (53 feet) acted as a diaphragm, transferring loads between exterior walls and between the walls and the core; the center core structure, as in the towers, supported only gravity loads with no lateral bracing except the floors. One important difference was that instead of steel bar-joists, the primary floor structure was more typical in that it had two-foot-deep wide flange steel ‘I’-beams, nine feet on center, composite with a concrete slab.
Figure 20a. Floors 8 to 45 plan. (Courtesy of NIST)
Photo 21. Building 7 before September 11 (left) and hours before collapsing (right). (Courtesy of Fire Department of New York.)
The long-span steel ‘I’-beams had ¾-inch diameter by five-inch-long steel shear studs, about two feet on center that projected into the concrete. These studs provided bonding and composite action under load with the 5½-inch concrete floor. Shear studs were not provided in the core.
Similar sorts of floor-failure mechanisms, as those responsible for the towers’ collapse, might have been responsible for Building 7’s interior column failure, which triggered the progressive collapse. NIST studies (2, Appendix L) show that because of the large areas and long spans failure of one or more of three key interior columns on the east side of the building would travel vertically to the roof, collapsing all the floors on the east side and producing the initial kink in the east penthouse roof, – the first indication of collapse as videotaped. As seen on the videotape, the west penthouse roof sank into the building five seconds after the east penthouse sank and indicates a horizontal collapse progression to the rectangular core, imploding the building.
I believe the collapse was unlikely to have started below the 5th floor, since the construction below the 5th floor was more conventional. These lower floors were reinforced with much lateral bracing and thick, reinforced membrane floors that would redistribute any lateral loads throughout the lower floors. The 5th floors to 7th floors were transition floors. There was speculation about the fire’s being on these floors and fed from oil-fired generators supplied from tanks on the lower floors. There was evidence for fire on the 7th and 8th floors.
The fire shown in photos 21 and 22 appears to be a very severe, but ordinary, office fire and was well above the area supplied with oil lines. There is a strong possibility that this building collapsed from this office fire alone. NIST was scheduled to complete its analysis of the cause of the collapse in late 2007. This report is my contribution toward the analysis.
(Copyright 2001. New York City Police Department. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Courtesy of NIST.)
Photo 22. The north side of Building 7. Fires are on the 7th and 12th floors.
Figure 21. The approximate fire location on the east side of floor 12. (Courtesy of NIST, modified by author)
Fire was first seen on the south side spreading east than photographed coming out of eight windows on the east side on the 12th floor. This fire must have dropped down to the 11th floor, since a later photo shows fire at four windows on the 11th floor. There was also fire showing at multiple 12th-floor windows on the north side and some windows on the 7th floor. This is a serious high-rise building fire that would have necessitated multiple alarms to control. There were various other fires on different floors. These photos were taken at around 2 p.m. Later photos show extensive numbers of windows burnt out apparently on the 11th and 12th floors and the 6th and 7th floors on the north side. The building collapsed about 5 pm, after the fire had burned out in most areas on the11th and 12th and 6th and 7th-floors.
Collapse Initiation Hypothesis
With a serious large area fire on the 12th floor, the two foot wide, long-span steel beams on the 13th floor, depending on the amount of fireproofing insulation installed, could have expanded and bowed, sagged or buckled downward and possibly twisted out or flopped over from the uncontrolled fire. The same scenario could have been happening on the 7th floor with fire weakening the steel on the 8th floor. Steel expansion and buckling would have deflected the floors possibly into suspension or the fire may have been burning long enough to weaken the steel causing additional sag. Unlike the bar-joist failure producing early pull-in forces, steel I-beam composite floors usually maintain push-out forces,- at least in the short-span configuration used in the standard frame construction,- caused by their expansion, during the fire, while the slab floors sag into tensile membrane action. It is unknown whether long-span floors act the same way. The large area of the concrete slab may have limited or increased tensile membrane action. As the steel beams first expanded from the heat, the studs might have pulled the slower expanding concrete into tension, possibly cracking it and removing some compression capabilities. This would have allowed the steel beams to bow or buckle sooner from the loads and thermal forces and the floor to sag and put torque on the connections to the girder supported by the three key columns on the east side. The sag could have also separated the wire mesh bond in the concrete over the girder. The girders themselves may have also been sagging.
As the sagging steel beams and girders cooled after burnout, they began to contract. Since they would have been seriously deflected downward, the beams would have been unable to overcome the inertia and lift the floor loads as they contracted, and strong pull-in forces would have developed. The office furnishing and equipment loads on the 13th floor (or the 8th floor) might have shifted down the slope toward the middle of the floor, increasing these pull-in forces. A question that needs to be studied is, what forces are developed by the shrinking of long span steel -beams and girders in relation to the sag and temperature change, and over what distance does this ‘pull in’ force operate when the floor begins contracting after burnout?
The increasing tension or torque in the 13th floor’s (or 8th floor’s) connections from suspension forces as the floor cooled and contracted after burnout could have started an edge detachment, or rip failure, detaching the beams along the north-south girder along the line of columns 79, 80, and 81. The “typical floor beam-to-girder and girder-to-core column connection was a single shear plate,” (2, Appendix. L, 7) but certain floors had reinforced connections. This tension or torque could have disconnected the west side of the east floor from the girder, allowing tension in the remaining portion of the floor to laterally displace one or more columns and break the column splices as the beams contracted. There were fewer beam connections to the west side of this girder than on the east side. The sinking of the east roof penthouse before any other visible failure indicates that one, two or three of the key columns (79, 80, and 81) were the first to fail. These were massive columns and most probably adequately fireproofed and would not have failed directly from heat.
The girder itself along the line of columns 79, 80 and 81 could also have sagged and detached from the remaining girder creating pull-in forces on the column(s) as the girder buckled from the heat and/or contracted from cooling
A less likely scenario is that the floor attachments to Columns 76, 77, and 78 initially failed. As the 13th floor (or 8th floor) sagged and contracted as it cooled, the floor could have initially detached at these east core columns. The loss of restraint could have allowed the remaining tension in sagging and contracting floors to laterally deflect one or more of the three key columns (79, 80, and 81). There was a layer of welded wire mesh reinforcement placed in the concrete over the girders along columns 79, 80, and 81; this additional reinforcement might have strengthened these connections and thus caused the connections to the core to fail first. There was also fire on the 11th floor, and possibly the 14th floor (and the 6th and 7th floors). This could have assisted the failure of Columns 79, 80, and 81 by producing additional lateral forces.
Vertical Progression
The failure of columns 79, 80, and 81 put all the long-span floors above into suspension.
Since the columns were widely spaced and floor spans were on the order of 50 feet, with a column failure, the floors would not have been able to effectively redistribute their loads to other columns, and the collapse would have progressed upward to the top of the building. A plastic hinge would have formed along the north-south girder because of the single-plate, bolted beam-to-girder connections. The tensile pull-in forces in all these upper buckled floors would have been great, since these floors were cool and there would have been no expansion to increase the sag thus reducing the tension. (See Part 3, Theory.)
Figure 22. East-West building section as viewed from the north showing column failure and resulting progression, putting all floors above in suspension; and the east roof shed is sinking. Darker floors are reinforced. (Diagram by author.)
This initial column failure was evidenced by the kinking and sinking of the east penthouse into the building’s roof and the simultaneous breaking of the windows on the east side of the north wall as it was pulled in by the suspended floors.
NIST studies have shown that because of the large floor areas, the failure of just one [key] column on any one of the lower floors would cause a vertical progression of collapse upward so that the entire section would come down. (NIST, S. Shyam Sunder lecture) This single-column’s failure initiating progressive collapse is a design defect noncompliant with the NYC codes. The buckling of these three key columns (79, 80, and 81) would have removed support for all columns directly above, putting all upper floors in immediate long-span suspension with eventual collapse. The breaking of the widows on the east side of the north face simultaneously with the buckling of the roof shed was evidence of this tension as the north wall was pulled and leaned in. This high tension in all the floors above could have failed the floor connections or buckled more columns, depending on the stresses and strains developed. As can be seen in the illustration, the floors would have been equally deflected in the initial collapse because of the geometry of the rigid columns pulling or pushing on the floors. This equal floor deflection along with the exterior walls leaning inward would have created increasing pull-in forces in the floors acting on the exterior walls and interior columns on the west side from the top floor downward.
If the connections had held, and because the 14th floor was still intact, even though sagging, the exterior and interior columns more likely would have buckled near that floor. The question that needs analysis is what connections would fail first and what connections would hold with all 35 floors in suspension? NIST reported that the information available indicated that the floor–to-column connections would fail under this scenario without seriously damaging the perimeter or interior columns. However, certain connections on Floors 19 and 20 were reinforced, and Floors 21 to 23 used heavier steel. (2,126) These floors could have developed a higher degree of column destabilizing tensile forces before connection failure cut off these lateral forces.
Horizontal Progression West
One of NIST’s hypotheses involving the horizontal progression is that the impact of the debris from the falling floors hit a transverse truss between Floors 5 and 7 and rotated the truss, which would have pulled a line of core columns eastward, collapsing the core. This is certainly possible and may have happened, but probably not until after the core had already started collapsing from the tensile forces from the floors in suspension.
Floors 21 to 23 had slightly heavier steel framing than the others (shown darker in diagram, Figure 22). Portions of Floors 10, 19, and 20 had reinforcing plates on the bottom flange, and certain connections were reinforced. If other floor connections failed, these strong connections might have held and pulled a line of core columns eastward, especially if impacted by falling debris from the collapsing floors above. The fact that Core Columns 76, 77, and 78 on all the floors would have been subjected to suspension induced ‘pull-in’ eastward with increasing ‘pull-in’ on the lower floors, should be figured in.
Figure 23. The buckling of Columns 79, 80, and 81 would have allowed the east side floors directly above these columns to go into suspension and would have produced these strains in the remaining structure on all the floors above the 13th. (Diagram by author.)
Tension in the suspended floors above the buckled columns could have put floor connections to the core columns under immediate severe lateral stress on all the floors above 13. These lateral stresses would be greater on the lower floors because of the exterior wall’s leaning inward more at the top. If the floor connections to Column 77’s connection held on any of the levels above the 13th floor, a middle line of Core Columns 77 to 62, and possibly 59, could have been pulled eastward on any floor under the lateral forces. This line of middle core columns would more easily have been pulled eastward, since there were elevator shafts along this line and there were fewer floors that could have restrained these columns and floor beams from deflection. The connections to columns 76 and 78 on any floor above the thirteenth would probably fail first allowing the connection to column 77 to hold and pull the line the line of core columns 77 to 62 and possibly 59 eastward.
The reinforced connections on Floors 19 to 23 could have made it more likely that these connections would have held and buckled the middle line of core columns destabilized the remaining core columns. As this middle line of columns deflected, they would have pulled the remaining core columns inward toward the middle line, possibly buckling all the core columns on a floor. Debris hitting the girders and beams might have assisted in deflecting this middle line of columns. Columns 78 to 63 and/or 76 to 61 could have been pulled inward more easily since the attached beams did not have shear studs connecting them to the concrete floors. The elevator shafts without floors would offer little resistance to this inward buckling. These core columns which probably had weak splices would have had to buckle on only one floor to collapse the core structure and implode the whole building.
Photo 23. Façade kink. (Courtesy of NIST)
The massive façade kink, which increased as the perimeter wall came down as a unit, was aligned with Columns 76, 77, and 78. This supports the idea that these particular columns were the first core columns to fail on one or more floors and were followed by the remaining core columns, pulling in the entire exterior facade.
The pull-in tension on a particular floor or floors could have buckled, say columns 76 to 61, This pull-in tension on the remaining core columns was possibly assisted by a floor or floors disconnecting from the girder along the east-west axis of the core, since “shear studs were not
indicated in the design drawings for the core girders” (NIST). A line or lines of core columns buckling would have collapsed the core and put all the west side floors above into suspension putting extreme lateral forces on remaining perimeter column connections on all the upper floors, buckling the entire perimeter wall.
Five seconds after the east penthouse failed, the west shed disappeared into the roof indicating that the core failed before the building began descending. The breaking of the vertical line of windows near Column 54 on the east side of the north wall simultaneously with the sinking of the east penthouse indicates that the wall was being pulled inward by the sagging floors above the buckled core columns.
Figure 24. As-built elevations. Building 7. (Courtesy of NIST.)
There were numerous diagonal braces in the core below the 7th floor. There were also thick reinforced concrete floors on the 5th and 7th floors. The 5th floor diaphragm was 14 inches thick and reinforced with imbedded steel “T” sections. The 7th floor was eight-inch reinforced concrete. This would have made it less likely that the initial failure started or progressed on these lower floors but, since the fire was also on the 7th floor, and the 8th floor was not reinforced and would have been receiving all the heat from the 7th floor fire, the 8th floor could have sagged and could have affected those columns.
The belt truss around the building at the 22nd to the 24th floors stiffened the perimeter wall and probably supported the outer frame and helped it come down as a unit above the buckling columns.
As the core failed, the perimeter walls were pulled inward, with the greatest deflection at the top floors. This “lean in” of the perimeter walls sequentially decreased the pull-in forces on each floor moving upward, and produced increasing forces on each consecutive floor moving lower. Various exterior columns and connections would have failed on the lower floors with the increasing tension. This perimeter wall’s buckling was not seen in the videos because it was below the line of sight because of the buildings in the foreground; it looked as though the building had just descended straight into the ground.
The evidence of dust expulsions from floor to floor upward from the southwest corner near the roof, said to be from “detonations,” would have been caused by the floors’ disconnecting sequentially in the corner as the tensions in the suspended collapsing floors increased after core failure. That these failures were sequentially upward shows that there were sequentially increasing tensions in lower floors due to exterior wall’s leaning inward.
The possibility that some weaknesses exist in high-rise buildings constructed with long-span floors and cores without lateral bracing and with weak column splices necessitates that all possible failure mechanisms be studied to determine the cause of failure and means to prevent such failure. NIST can do a computer analysis of the forces involved and connection strength to confirm or disprove the analysis and clarify this theory. With the increasing spans and size of floor areas of high-rise office buildings allowed by the use of steel, there is a critical need for new methods to test long-span floors to determine if they are, or can be, adequately protected from fire.
New methods should be developed for testing and determining the forces that affect these floors and their connections under collapse conditions. Long span ‘I’ beams may be affected by differential heating and expansion of different parts of the web or flanges causing early bowing, buckling or twisting, affecting structural integrity. Contraction of sagging steel beams of girders as they cool after the fire burns out may put extra pull-in forces on columns pulling them out of alignment and buckling them. If these long-span floors cannot be adequately tested and protected against progressive or global collapse, the spans should be reduced and the steel size and strength increased. Surely, lateral bracing of core columns on each floor should be required, the column splice strength increased and alternate load paths should be built in to handle floor loads in case columns fail. In situations where the failure of floor assemblies could affect the lateral stability of the columns, these floors should be considered part of the frame and should have the same degree of fireproofing protection as the columns.
Hi Arthur:
Welcome to the Suzie-Q blog! 🙂
It’s great to have you here and thank you for your comments.
Your book sounds very interesting!
http://www.llumina.com/store/fireintheskyscraper.htm
[…] If this article looks familiar you have to look no further than the comments on SuzieQ’s blog, where the above article was copied and pasted in it’s […]
I’d be skeptical of trusting Richard Gage, Steven Jones, or anyone in their group. They promote the Ground Zero molten metal myth, a myth that distracts people from other evidence.
Fact is, if there was molten metal at Ground Zero, there would have been multiple steam explosions whenever the FDNY sprayed water. And with all that rain the week after 9/11, the entire Ground Zero area would have been one humongous steam explosion. Molten metal and water cannot coexist with each other and the FDNY certainly know this. Spraying water on molten metal is a fire hazard and a risk of severe burns. See here for a full explanation the molten metal myth: http://tinyurl.com/yo9p92
Anyone interested in learning what really happened at the WTC should see Dr Judy Wood’s site, and the legal proceeding being undertaken by her attorney, Jerry Leaphart: http://drjudywood.com
Hi CB Brooklyn!
Welcome to the Suzie-Q blog! 🙂
Thank you for your comments and I hope to see you again soon.
Suzie-Q
Here is one for the engineers. If the Tower’s outer wall columns pealed out like a bananna at what point would they be able to break the connections to the floors without any impact from falling floors. In other words, would the weight of the wall columns pealing outward from the vertical be able to break the wall-to-floor connections without any impacts from colliding floors. If this is true than I believe that the connection failures could could have traveled down the sides of the buildings at a speed faster than free fall times.
I believe the exterior walls being pulled inwards by the bowing and buckling floors broke the spandrel connections at the lower part of the wall bow and and since the splice connections were still attached the weight of the upper wall sections pushed out the lower part of the wall and began breaking the wall-to-floor connections.. As the column splice connections broke the lower wall could have become free at its top and pealed out breaking the wall-to-floor connections by its own weight alone. The wall-to-floor connection failures could have traveled down the building sides faster than free fall times and in effect started the floors falling before they were impacted by the accumulating impacted floors above. What do the engineers think?
Hi Arthur! 😉
Excellent questions…
Engineers? What is your response on this?
Suzie,
For some reason my report on possible collapse mechanisms of Building 7 left out the pictures on your blog. It must be my computer but if you Google my name there is a PDF on Building 7 which contains the pictures.
Arthur
Arthur:
Sometimes WordPress is a pain in loading photos… it’s probably not your computer but WordPress.
Thanks for the letting us know where to find those photos! 😉
Suzie-Q,
Could you put up the following site.
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/
It has some compelling answers especially about the diagonal cuts on the columns.
Arthur
Hi Arthur:
I added it to my blogroll!
Thanks! 😉
S-Q
Hi,
I’m Enrico (Henry62) from Italy.
I saw you linked my personal blog
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com
English section:
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/04/english-section.html
Thanks.
I would very happy if Mr. Scheuerman could tell me something about my hypothesis of ups in the 81st floor of WTC2:
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/02/ups-on-81st-floor-of-wtc2.html
Thank you very much,
best wishes from Italy,
Enrico (Henry62)
Hi Enrico (Henry62)!
Welcome to the Suzie-Q blog!
Yes, your blog has some interesting information and I was glad to add it to my blogroll.
9/11 still has a lot of unanswered questions and as more discussion and information comes out, we can hope truth will prevail.
I’m sure Arthur will respond to your questions.
I hope to see you again soon! 😉
Enrico (Henry 62)
Your blog on the O2 cutting torches was excellent.
It will dispel some wild ideas about demolition cutting charges being used to cut the columns.
Your work on the 81st floor batteries is also excellent. If this is true, than since lead is heavier and melts at a lower temperature than aluminum, the flow from the WTC 2 window could have been either one or a mixture of both metals. The heavy lead could more likely have flowed to a depression in the floor and caused a deflection in the floor which allowed the metal to flow out the window.
Good work!
Arthur
Henry 62
Also the “dark area” on the north side just to the right of the 2 way corner section on the WTC 2 floors could have been Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) battery rooms. This is a more likely area for these rooms because the bar joist floors are stronger here than in the corners. That these ‘dark areas’ didn’t burn could be because they had no combustibles allowed in the battery rooms.
These UPS rooms were probably common in the Towers and Building 7 because of the presence of many computers in these occupancies. This could explain the presence of liquid metal in the debris pile. The lead from the batteries melts at a low temperature. It could also explain the damage done to the steel beams in some areas. An undetected acid leak over time could have caused some of the eroded steel beams found in the pile.
Arthur
Hi Arthur,
thank you very much.
Your opinion is very important for me.
I hope to publish soon a video about thermal cutting of steel.
Have you seen the 3 posts about fire (in Italian language, but with photos I think could be interesting)?
1) Effects of fire in tunnel – Saint Gottardo Tunnel:
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/08/effetti-dellincendio-nei-tunnel-il-caso.html
2) Effects of fire in a concrete structure – Windsor Tower in Madrid (have a look at S-shape deformation of H-section steel columns – all the upper steel structure of the building collapsed only for fire…):
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/08/effetti-dellincendio-nella-torre.html
3) Effects of fire on steel cable – Ostankino Tower in Moscow (there were collapsed of steel structural cables and thermal cutting of the steel elevator cable, with 4 victims):
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/08/effetti-dellincendio-sui-tiranti-di.html
I hope to translate soon these posts in English, expecially the “fire in the tunnel”, because I think it could be useful to understand fire in Ground Zero.
I publish in this post the time-temperature diagram of tunnel-test-fire, where we can see that temperature above 1300°C are usual.
Thanks again,
best wishes,
EnricoManieri (Henry62)
Hi Arthur,
speaking about WTC7, I found proof in Nist report of ups in the 13th floor.
Best wishes,
Enrico Manieri (Henry62)
About ups in Bldg. 7, Thanks for the info. I must ahve missed it.
About the fire in the tunnel, there is much spalling of the concrete due to water in the concrete turning to steam and exploding the concrete apart. This is common in severe fires. High performance concrete has shreded plastic mixed into the cement which melts early and provides space for the steam to escape.
The Madrid Tower had a concrete core which didn’t collapse and a steel outside ring which did collapse.
Hi Arthur,
you can find news about ups in the 13th floor of WTC7 in:
Nist Ncstar 1-1C – page 172 of pdf file (page number 118 in the document) – table 4-7
ups/lan room
floor: 13
tenant: The Standard Chartered Bank
structural engineer: The Cantor Seinuk Group
In Windsor Tower all the superior steel structure collapsed, but also the inferior concrete structure was severely damaged and the building had to be demolished.
It’s a great pleasure for me speaking with you!
Best wishes,
Enrico Manieri (Henry62)
Enrico,
Thanks for the excellent searches. I saw that UPS note in the NIST report,. Your right, but I still don’t see how you found it.
Arthur
The kooks have come out of their caves. All of a sudden everyone is an expert in structural engineering. That’s right, controlled explosives did it. Does anyone actually know what a controlled demolition of a steel tower looks like?
Who put the explosives in the towers?
When were they out there?
How were the set off to explode?
Why was no one caught on camera inside the building with explosives?
Why fly an airplaine into the buildings if you can simply explode it?
Why has Bin Laden admitted on tape that he was behind it?
What qualifies someone to know what a controlled demolition looks like?
Conspiracy theorists all have on thing in common. They are mentally ill.
Those who seek the truth find it through observation, not by asking questions to somebody they disagree with. If you have a preconceived idea, you will probably come up with a bogus answer.
Ask yourself all the questions and look at all of the information you can find. If you are looking for a credible source, look for an expert on the subject that you are researching.
It seems that the so called “conspiracy theorists” have the facts and the NIST is trying to cover them up…G:
Wordgeezer.Did you see this website.
http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm
Arthur
I just wrote a blog for a website. Here it is.
Those WTC Tower buildings were built with long span, bar joist floor trusses which can collapse into catenaries (cables in suspension) from the expansion effects of heat on the steel truss components. The differential expansion effects between the composite steel and concrete in the floors causes separation of the concrete and steel and buckling of the diagonal struts in the trusses. This collapse the trusses into catenaries over several floors along with the additional thermal bowing effect in some of the trusses, caused pull-in forces on the exterior wall columns which were shown in the photos taken by the Police helicopters to be bowing inward, on the long span sides of both buildings well before the buildings collapsed.
Added to the untested long span truss weaknesses present in the Towers was, lack of diagonal bracing in the core, the weak column splices in both the perimeter and core columns, one bolt connections of the truss to core columns, missing bolts in the exterior column splices, large open areas for fire growth, weak plaster board enclosures for stairways and elevator shafts, etc., etc.
Building 7 had all the same deficiencies present in the Towers except that the bar joist, trusses were replaced with long span I beams. There were large growing fires on several floors as well as damage from the exterior columns of Tower 1 which pealed away during its collapse and hit the southwest corner and the middle of the south side of building 7, gouging out large sections. In addition to this damage, there were problems with water supply and the Fire Department decided not to fight these fires and ordered every one out of the building and out of the collapse zone (which was a large area including buildings around building 7) as is the procedure when discontinuing interior firefighting operations. The anticipation of collapse was a brilliant conclusion and no lives were lost when the 47 story building collapsed about an hour and a half after the evacuation order was given. The BBC somehow misheard the orders to evacuate the collapse zone and reported the building had collapsed well before it actually did.
If you want to know how and why the WTC buildings collapsed read my book “Fire in the Skyscraper”
Arthur Scheuerman,
Retired Battalion Chief, FDN
Suzie, What happened to your website “Who is Arthur Scheuerman” I was having a conversation and suddenly the website is a “404” page, and I can’t axcess it. What’s a “404′ page?
Hi Arthur…I don’t know what a 404 page is either but I was directed to it more than once. Suzie moved the blog to the top of the page this morning, so it probably changed the url. This link should work.
Thanks for posting on this site…best regards…G:
404 is a standard response when a page is not found and it is because I moved it to the top of the blog.