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Showing posts with label collapse of WTC 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collapse of WTC 7. Show all posts
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Structural Aspects of Building 7’s Collapse: Why the NIST Report is Non-explanatory by Tony Szamboti
Submitted by Radical Pragmatist at 911blogger.com.
Related Info:
The Physics of WTC 7
World Trade Center 7: An Engineered Collapse
NIST's Admission of Freefall - Does It Matter?
The Ultimate proof NIST is lying about WTC7
Re: NIST Report on WTC7 debunked and exposed!
Scientists, Scholars, Architects & Engineers respond to NIST
The NIST WTC 7 Report: Bush Science reaches its peak
The NIST Analyses: A Close Look at WTC 7
Comments on the Draft Report NIST NCSTAR 1-9: “Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7”, issued by NIST August 21st, 2008
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
An Open Letter To Ryan Owens
Mr. Owens,
Let me start off by saying that the purpose of this message is not meant in any way to insult you as a researcher or as a person in general. The purpose of this message is meant to simply inform you of errors that you have made in your 9/11 research, and my sincere hope that you will correct such errors. This is not meant to be an argument of any kind, but merely one researcher offering advise to another researcher.
That being said, the reason for this message is largely due to a post you made on your Youtube channel, in which you claimed that if any 9/11 truther could point out anything you got wrong in any of your videos, you would either remove the video or fix the mistake.
I was initially shocked by this statement, as I had done essentially this with my updated "9/11 Un-debunked" series. To date, you have not responded to my videos at all.
I am well aware of how popular your videos are, as many of them are featured on prominent debunker sites. In fact, your work is apparently so good that the government itself is using your videos to discredit the Truth Movement. However, as popular as your videos are, I have found many errors in them.
Now, I happen to agree with many of your videos and their conclusions. For example, you have done a very correct debunking of Pentagon-no-plane theories. However, videos in which you discuss WTC collapse theories are greatly at issue. There are several dozen points I could raise here, but this would just undoubtedly lead to nothing but continuous debating back and forth. So, for this post I have simply listed the problems that I truly think are incorrect, and I feel that you should keep your word that you will fix these mistakes. But of course, if there are any points you believe that I have gotten wrong, feel free to point out where I am incorrect. For each point I will list one of your videos, a claim in that video, followed by my reasons why the claim is wrong on some level. I shall list a problematic claim as either False, Most likely false, Misleading, or possibly a combination of these three.
9/11 Debunked: Controlled Demolition Not Possible
Claim 1: The puffs of ejected dust were caused by pancaking floors.
Most likely false: Debunkers such as yourself have argued for years that these ejections were caused by pancaking floors falling onto one another. But this claim is contradicted by the fact that many of these ejections were isolated below the demolition wave. The video you show from the NOVA program shows a scenario in which the floors remain intact as flat plates, thereby allowing the pressure to be built up without allowing air to escape anywhere except the windows. But this obviously would not have been the case for the floors collapsing in the Twin Towers, as they were clearly pulverized before they had reached the areas of the ejections below the collapse front. To create the ejections below and at the collapse front, the floors would need to continuously fall as flat plates, as demonstrated by the NOVA simulation. If the floors broke apart as they fell, the falling mass would allow the pressure to be released upward. NIST’s “piston theory” is clearly contradicted by this. What’s more, Dr. Crockett Grabbe has calculated that the horizontal ejection rate of the puffs is disproportional to the vertical collapse rates of the Towers, making it highly unlikely that these ejections were caused by compressed air. Physicist David Chandler has also demonstrated that some of the ejections are in fact not coming out of windows at all, but out of the steel corner columns of the Towers. I would therefore ask you to reevaluate this claim, as evidence strongly goes against it.
Claim 2: The squibs shooting out of the southwest corner of WTC 7 were actually window blinds.
Misleading: While I do agree that the ejections at the southwest corner of WTC 7 are not squibs, your video fails to address the squibs that evidently are shooting out of Building 7 on the north face near the west side. NIST’s piston theory involved a scenario where the floors compressing air created the squibs shooting out of the Towers (see claim 1). But this explanation does not work for the squibs shooting out of the north face of Building 7, as these squibs formed at a time when the floors essentially did not move relative to one another. What’s more, these squibs are not addressed at all in NIST’s final report on Building 7. A search of their 729 page report turns up not a single mention of the word “squib” or “puff.” And the issue is also not addressed at the FAQ section for Building 7 on NIST’s website. I would therefore ask you to at least acknowledge the apparent squibs shooting out of the north face of WTC 7, as these ejections are far more visible than the false ejections you point to in your video. The official investigators have offered no explanation for the ejections, so the ejections are therefore still an unexplained phenomenon in the collapse of the building.
Claim 3: Explosions were not heard at the base of the buildings or from far away.
False: This issue is thoroughly addressed in the video Debunking 9/11 Debunking: Controlled Demolition IS Possible, which shows that the Towers did produce noises consistent with the roar of explosions continuously progressing down the buildings. It also shows that the noises, described as explosions by witnesses, were heard from far across the city. And sounds indicative of explosions have also been found in videos of WTC 1’s collapse and WTC 7’s collapse. Your claim that explosions cannot be heard in any of the videos of the WTC’s collapse is therefore wrong, and I would ask you to either rephrase this statement or remove it entirely.
Claim 4: The controlled demolition of the WTC buildings would have left behind remnants of the explosives used in the debris pile.
Misleading: In your video, you feature a statement made by Brent Blanchard of Protec. He has often claimed that objects such as det cord would have been found everywhere in the debris. However, he has also stated that controlled demolitions can be engineered to be radio controlled, which would eliminate the necessity of det cord. Wireless detonators have been commercially available for decades. And other parts of the explosives would also not necessarily be found, as pointed out by an explosives technician formerly from Controlled Demolition, Inc. He points out that explosives can be engineered to be self consuming, and therefore would not be found in the debris. Because of this, I would ask you to either add a disclaimer to your video, or remove this claim entirely.
9/11 Debunked: World Trade Center - No Free-Fall Speed
Claim 1: The core of the South Tower survived the collapse.
Misleading: While a section of the core did survive the collapse, video evidence appears to show that the remaining core of the South Tower included neither north nor west columns. You should make this clear in your video, as it contradicts the official explanations since the South Tower initially collapsed to the east.
9/11 Debunked: Flight 77's Pilot not a Terrorist
Claim 1: Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement have accused Charles Burlingame of being “some kind of terrorist.”
False: Of all your videos, this is the only one I have a particular personal problem with. Although it may be implied in Loose Change (which I don’t really think it is), it is incorrect of you to imply in your video that members of the truth movement in general believe this. You are right in saying Charles Burlingame did not work in the Pentagon when Loose Change claims he did. I have nothing against that. But the claim that he was actually one of the conspirators has never been a direct claim of any prominent member of the movement, and I would ultimately ask that you either remove this video entirely, or redo it.
9/11 Debunked: WTC 7's Collapse Explained
Claim 1: Building 7 was “less than 300 feet from the North Tower.”
False: The distance between the north face of WTC 1 and the south face of WTC 7 was actually about 107 meters, or 350 feet. You should correct this as it is a false statement and therefore also misleading to those who watch your video.
Claim 2: The structural damage to Building 7 contributed to the collapse.
False/Misleading: Although you do not specifically state in your video that the damage contributed to the collapse, you do, at the very least, imply it very strongly. But the official NIST report on the collapse of WTC 7 states that the structural damage played no role in initiating the collapse of the building. What’s more, new evidence has been presented which shows that the damage to Building 7 was not as severe as previously thought. I have no fault with you showing pictures of damage to Building 7, but you should make it clear in your video that the official explanation states that this damage did not contribute to the collapse. Otherwise, your video will mislead those do not know what the actual explanation is for Building 7’s collapse.
Claim 3: The fires in Building 7 were fed by a series of diesel generators.
False: Again, according to the official investigators at NIST, the diesel tanks did not play a role in the collapse. NIST states they found no evidence that the fuel lines contributed to the collapse, and that the building had only normal office fires. You need to clarify this, as it is simply not the official story for what happened to the building.
Claim 4: The collapse of Truss 1 initiated the collapse of WTC 7.
False: According to the NIST report, Building 7’s collapse was initiated by the failure of a girder connecting column 44 to column 79, which led to the collapse of column 79, and then the rest of the building. NIST does mention the collapse of the trusses in their report, but they do not claim that any of them failing initiated the “progressive collapse.” As you state in your video, this led to a “vertical” collapse to the roof. NIST claims it was an “east to west” progressive collapse. You should replace your current claim about the trusses with the official explanation about column 79.
Most of the claims you make in this video are incorrect, but admittedly this was before the report was released. However, now that the official report has been released, you should remove this video entirely, as it will undoubtedly give people unfamiliar with 9/11 the wrong ideas about what is supposed to have caused the building to collapse.
9/11 Debunked: "Molten Metal" Explained
Claim 1: The “aluminum” from Flight 175 could have been heated to 1800°F.
Most likely false: The idea that the fires in the South Tower could have reached 1800°F is extremely unlikely. It is very difficult for a diffuse hydrocarbon fire to reach these sorts of temperatures. Thomas Eager, who supports the official story and therefore cannot be accused of being a “conspiracy theorist,” has written that:
“In combustion science, there are three basic types of flames, namely, a jet burner, a pre-mixed flame, and a diffuse flame…. A fireplace flame is a diffuse flame burning in air, as was the WTC fire. Diffuse flames generate the lowest heat intensities of the three flame types…. The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1,000°C [1832°F]…. But it is very difficult to reach this maximum temperature with a diffuse flame. There is nothing to ensure that the fuel and air in a diffuse flame are mixed in the best ratio.” -Thomas Eager
One thing that we must agree on is that the fires in the South Tower were clearly weaker than the fires in the North Tower. Also, NIST has no evidence for these kinds of temperatures in either building. The idea that the fires in WTC 2 could have reached 1800°F is extremely unlikely which, as we will see, essentially refutes the entire notion of your video.
Claim 2: Aluminum glows “light orange” at 1800°F.
Misleading: Although aluminum does glow light orange at 1800°F, the color of the material at the front indicates that, if it was aluminum, it was heated to temperatures higher than this.
So even if this material was aluminum, it would still need to be explained what heated it to over 2000°F to get to glow that bright. You should make this clear in your video.
9/11 Debunked: World Trade Center's Collapse Explained
Claim 1: The fires burned up to 1800°F.
Most likely false: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: Molten Metal Explained.”
9/11 Debunked: WTC - Zero Hallmarks of Controlled Demolition
Claim 1: Controlled demolitions create bright flashes in a building.
Misleading: Bright flashes do not always occur in controlled demolitions, as these videos show:
Therefore, I would ask you to either add a disclaimer to your video, or remove this claim entirely.
Claim 2: The demolition waves are explained by pancaking floors.
Most likely false: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: Controlled Demolition Not Possible.”
Claim 3: Cameras did not pick up any sounds of explosions.
False: See Claim 3 for “9/11 Debunked: Controlled Demolition Not Possible,” and also this video.
Claim 4: The South Tower’s core survived the collapse.
Misleading: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: World Trade Center - No Free-Fall Speed.
Claim 5: The initial antenna drop of WTC 1 as seen from the north was actually an optical illusion caused by the rotation of the antenna to the south.
Most likely false: This video features a more westward shot of the North Tower’s collapse at minute 6:13. The antenna did rotate south seconds later, but the initial motion was almost entirely vertical. You should clarify this in your video.
Claim 6: Building 7’s collapse started with the failure of its three large trusses.
False: See Claim 4 for “9/11 Debunked: WTC 7’s Collapse Explained.”
Claim 7: Explosives would have caused the buildings to collapse at free-fall speed.
Most likely false/Misleading: In fact, it has been a misconception by both sides of the argument that controlled demolitions cause a building collapse at the rate of free-fall. Explosives rarely if ever cause a building to collapse at free-fall acceleration. The question that should really be asked is, “did the buildings fall in time intervals consistent with buildings destroyed with explosives?” And it turns out that they did. You should either add a disclaimer to your video or remove this statement entirely.
Claim 8: Controlled demolitions cause a building to collapse into its own footprint.
Misleading: Although demolitions usually do this, it is not strictly true that it always happens, as this video shows at minute 8:32. As for Building 7, the fact that it fell somewhat outside its footprint may have been caused by the simple fact that it was a particularly large building. No demolition company had ever demolished a building the size of WTC 7 before, so who’s to say how compact the debris pile would be if the building were brought down in a classic demolition fashion? The buildings it damaged were quite close to it. As this video shows at minute 7:42, buildings brought down by classic controlled demolition methods can fall outside their footprint. But the fact is, the debris from WTC 7 was almost entirely within the footprint of the previously standing building.
9/11 Debunked: Thermate Chemical Signatures Disproven
Claim 1: The elements noted by Dr. Jones were found in common materials in the WTC.
Misleading: Although the elements you list were abundant at the WTC, what you fail to note is that these elements were found in the iron-rich microspheres found in the dust, not the dust itself. The spheres show that the chemicals were formed due to melting and/or vaporization, which is due to surface tension. This indicates that the various chemicals found in the spheres were melted at the same time, forming spheres. The spheres found had the chemical signature of FE, AL, K, SI, and various additives and variations of thermate. Different aluminothermic reactions have different properties; some are faster reacting, like sulfur which reduces the melting point of steel. The idea of the spheres forming from an office fire is virtually impossible. Iron cannot melt in office fires and the melting points of these metals are so different that there would be a sizeable time delay from heating WTC common materials. Then they also have to cool together at the same time to form a sphere. Thermate, however, provides the solution to this question because the reaction is very fast. No other mechanism is known to provide spheres such as these. You should therefore clarify your statements about the elements that Dr. Jones has found.
Claim 2: The elements were not found in their correct quantities.
Misleading: In this case you are confusing Steven Jones arbitrary usage of the word thermate with military grade Thermate-TH3, which is 68.7% thermite, 29.0% barium nitrate, 2.0% sulfur. There are a wide variety of different types of thermite, thermate, and other aluminothermic reactions. So your figure of sulfur making up 2% of thermate is based on only one specific type of thermate. Also, it should be noted that the sulfur likely did not come the gypsum wallboard, as demonstrated here. You should correct this statement or add a disclaimer.
Claim 3: Barium nitrate and aluminum oxide needed to be found but weren’t.
False: As I have already demonstrated, barium nitrate does not have to be found. And as for the aluminum oxide, oxides of aluminum are common in the environment, and probably a major form of the aluminum found in the WTC dust. Because the thermite reaction generates aluminum oxide as an aerosol, it tends to disperse rather than clumping with the iron-rich initially-liquid residues. Note that the composition of residues of known thermites is a good match for the ignition residues that Jones, et. al. examined from the red-gray chips. So therefore, aluminum oxide also does not need to be found. You should correct these claims in your video.
Update: As it turns out, the USGS apparently did report finding traces of aluminum oxide in the WTC dust. Therefore, the claim that aluminum oxide was not present in the dust should be removed entirely from your video.
9/11 Debunked: WTC - No Pools of Molten Steel
Claim 1: The molten metal would have solidified and would not have still been molten 6 weeks later.
Misleading: The presence of the pools of molten metal after a thermate reaction would seem to indicate a continuous chemical reaction occurring in the pile, as documented by the peer-reviewed paper Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Material. You should clarify this in your video.
Claim 2: Temperatures of up to 1342°F were recorded in the debris piles.
False: Actually, the NASA thermal images show that temperatures of about 1377°F were recorded in the debris. But there are other studies which indicate even higher temperatures than this. According to the R. J. Lee report, lead had apparently become hot enough to volatilize (boil) and vaporize.
“The presence of lead oxide on the surface of mineral wool indicates the existence of extremely high temperatures during the collapse which caused metallic lead to volatilize, oxidize, and finally condense on the surface of the mineral wool.” –RJ Lee Group, WTC Dust Signature, 2004, page 12
Although the word “vaporize” was never used in the final version of the report, the 2003 version of this passage explicitly referred to temperatures “at which lead would have undergone vaporization.” (RJ Lee Group, WTC Dust Signature Study, 2003, page 5)
Lead does not boil and vaporize until it reaches temperatures of 1749°C [3180°F]. As the report indicates, therefore, the temperatures must have been not merely high, but extremely high. Other evidence also indicates the temperatures were far hotter than anything normal fires could cause. You should address these issues in your video or delete the claim entirely.
Claim 3: The initial fires were burning at 1800°F.
Most likely false: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: Molten Metal Explained.”
Claim 4: Pictures show glowing metal not flowing and is therefore not molten.
False: Close-ups of the crane shot show that molten metal is flowing off.
Claim 5: The pools of molten metal seen by the first responders and clean-up workers were pools of molten aluminum.
Most likely false: This argument is contradicted by the fact that pools of molten metal were also found in the debris of Building 7 as well. Building 7 was not hit by a plane, and it was also not clad in aluminum like the Towers were. But what’s more, the fact that the molten metal remained reddish-orange six weeks after the attacks indicates that the metal had fairly low heat conductivity and relatively large heat capacity. Therefore, it is more likely that the metal was steel or iron rather than aluminum. You should remove this claim and correct it in your video.
9/11 Debunked: The "First Time in History" Claim
Claim 1: The planes that hit the Towers were travelling at 490 and 590 miles per hour.
Misleading: The speeds you claim the planes were going at seem to come from the FEMA report. However, the NIST report states that the planes were travelling closer to 440 and 540 miles per hour. You should reevaluate this claim and fix it.
Claim 2: Building 7 was heavily damaged by falling debris.
False/Misleading: See Claim 2 for “9/11 Debunked: WTC 7’s Collapse Explained.”
Claim 3: There are many examples of steel-framed buildings collapsing from fires.
Misleading: As this video shows, your comparison of the WTC buildings with smaller steel structures is highly misleading. All I have ever seen debunkers compare the WTC buildings to are smaller steel structures that have collapsed from fire, but never other skyscrapers that have not collapsed from fire. You do feature the Windsor Tower, but ultimately its partial collapse supports our side of the argument. Others have attempted to show that other skyscraper fires are not comparable to the fires in the WTC. I have shown these claims to be incorrect and unfounded. Unless you can make better arguments, I would recommend removing the entire video, as it is highly misleading.
9/11 Debunked: On WTC's Design to Withstand 707 Impact
Claim 1: The Twin Towers were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 travelling at 180 mph, being also low on fuel.
Most likely false: For this particular statement, you offer no link or source. As this video shows, there were numerous pre-9/11 studies which showed that the buildings were built to withstand a 707 travelling at 600mph and filled with fuel. Even the Port Authority stated that the buildings could withstand a 707 going at 600mph. From the NIST report:
“An additional load, stated by the Port Authority to have been considered in the design of the Towers, was the impact of a Boeing 707, the largest commercial airliner when the Towers were designed, hitting the building at its full speed of 600mph.” -NCS NCSTAR1, p. 6
Claim 2: The planes were travelling at 490 and 590 mph.
Misleading: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: The ‘First Time in History’ Claim.”
Claim 3: Because the wingspan of a 767 is greater than that of a 707, a 767 would have severed more columns.
Most likely false/Misleading: Admittedly, the wings of a 767 are longer. However, there is another difference between the wings of these two planes, which are the engines attached to them. A 707 has four engines, while a 767 only has two. The engines of an airplane are undoubtedly the most solid part of the plane. The wings themselves are merely made of aluminum, and once they impacted the perimeter columns, it would have been more difficult to severe the thicker core columns. The planes’ engines would do quite a bit more damage than the wings once they started impacting core columns. Even if the wingspan of a 767 is larger than a 707, I think we can agree that a plane with four steel and titanium engines will do more damage than a plane with only two.
Claim 4: Fires were not taken into consideration when the Towers were built.
Most likely false: To back up this claim, you provide a quote from Leslie Robertson, who you incorrectly state was the chief structural engineer for the WTC. In fact, John Skilling is more likely to have been the lead engineer for the Towers. In a 1993 Seattle Times article, Skilling was described as the head structural engineer. Robertson was not mentioned there, nor in an article in the Engineering News-Record that discussed the design in 1964. In City in the Sky, Robertson is called the “rising young engineer with Skilling's firm” (p. 159). In Men of Steel, Robertson is referred to during the design phase as “one of the up-and-coming engineers on [Skilling’s] staff,” Skilling’s “young associate,” whom Skilling “assigned… to help him prepare a proposal” to the Port Authority’s board. Skilling’s firm was named Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson. Clearly, Skilling was a senior partner at the firm and Robertson was his subordinate. Therefore, the claim that Robertson was the chief engineer for the Towers is almost certainly false. John Skilling, however, stated that the buildings could have survived severe fires from a plane crash.
“Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire [but] the building structure would still be there.” –John Skilling, Lead structural engineer for the WTC
You should address these facts and correct your statements about the WTC design parameters and Leslie Robertson’s position in the construction of the buildings.
9/11 Debunked: WTC - No Small or Oxygen-Starved Fires
Claim 1: Roughly 7000 gallons of fuel remained in each of the Towers after the initial impacts.
Misleading: This appears to only be true of the North Tower, as NIST claims that approximately 6947 gallons of fuel remained in WTC 1, while only 5932 was in WTC 2. However, the idea that all this fuel remained within the impacted areas is contradicted by the FEMA report. In NIST’s most detailed quantitative report, NCSTAR 1-5F Computer Simulation of the Fires, the jet fuel estimates are provided for each of the impact floors, supposedly accurate to the gallon. In the report, it is stated that NIST used FEMA’s assumption that half of the fuel that the remained within the Towers flowed away from the impact zones. It states:
“Tables 5-3 and 5-4 present the predicted fuel distributions from the impact analysis. Of the total amount of fuel distributed to each floor, only 40 percent was used in the simulations. The reasoning behind this estimate followed that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) study (McAllister 2002). It has been estimated by various forms of analysis (Zalosh 1995; Baum and Rehm 2002) that roughly 20 percent of the jet fuel was consumed in the fireballs that were observed outside of the buildings within seconds of impact. The authors of the FEMA report suggested that half of the fuel not consumed in the fireballs could have flowed away, presumably down the elevator shafts and stairwells based on eyewitness accounts. Some additional discussion of the fireballs may be found in NIST NCSTAR 1-5A.
The jet fuel consumption estimate put forth by the FEMA team was used in the model because (1) no evidence or analysis emerged that significantly altered the FEMA estimate, and (2) the simulations were insensitive to both the amount and distribution of the jet fuel. Sensitivity studies showed that the amount of fuel spilled in the simulation only influenced the results of the first few minutes; the long-term behavior of the simulated fires was unaffected.” -NIST NCSTAR 1-5F, page 56
So, ultimately NIST assumes that half of the fuel in each of the buildings flowed away from the impact points, and therefore did not contribute to the fires that supposedly caused the buildings to collapse. That leaves 3474 gallons of fuel contributing to the fires in WTC 1 and 2966 gallons of fuel contributing to the fires in WTC 2. Of course, even considering that all the fuel NIST claims remained in the buildings stayed at the impact points, the amount of fuel in either Tower would have fit into an above ground swimming pool, hardly a large amount in ratio to the rest of the buildings. You should clarify these facts in your video and fix your statements.
Claim 2: Photographs show that Building 7 was almost totally engulfed in fire.
Most likely false: The pictures you show of WTC 7 show a large amount of smoke on Building 7’s south face. But this smoke was likely caused by a negative low air pressure acting on the building’s south side. This had the effect of drawing smoke up from the still burning WTC complex and causing it to cling to Building 7. Photos show that the exact same thing happened to the North Tower after the South Tower collapsed. Therefore, I would ask you to remove this claim from your video, as it is most likely incorrect. Also, it should be noted that, regardless of how big the fires were, there is serious doubt that the floors had enough combustible fuel and energy to reach the temperatures NIST claims the fires reached. Dr. Frank Greening, another supporter of the official story, has written that:
"NIST's collapse initiation hypothesis requires that structural steel temperatures on floors 12/13 significantly exceeded 300°C [570°F]--a condition that could never have been realized with NIST's postulated 32 kg/m2 fuel loading." -Dr. Frank Greening
In light of these errors, I would strongly encourage you to keep your promise and fix them. As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, it would be best of you to keep your other promise that you will not allow the history of 9/11 to be "distorted or rewritten." Real progress has been made in the name of 9/11 truth, and it would be regrettable if the errors in your videos misrepresented this progress.
With all due respect,
Adam
Let me start off by saying that the purpose of this message is not meant in any way to insult you as a researcher or as a person in general. The purpose of this message is meant to simply inform you of errors that you have made in your 9/11 research, and my sincere hope that you will correct such errors. This is not meant to be an argument of any kind, but merely one researcher offering advise to another researcher.
That being said, the reason for this message is largely due to a post you made on your Youtube channel, in which you claimed that if any 9/11 truther could point out anything you got wrong in any of your videos, you would either remove the video or fix the mistake.
I was initially shocked by this statement, as I had done essentially this with my updated "9/11 Un-debunked" series. To date, you have not responded to my videos at all.
I am well aware of how popular your videos are, as many of them are featured on prominent debunker sites. In fact, your work is apparently so good that the government itself is using your videos to discredit the Truth Movement. However, as popular as your videos are, I have found many errors in them.
Now, I happen to agree with many of your videos and their conclusions. For example, you have done a very correct debunking of Pentagon-no-plane theories. However, videos in which you discuss WTC collapse theories are greatly at issue. There are several dozen points I could raise here, but this would just undoubtedly lead to nothing but continuous debating back and forth. So, for this post I have simply listed the problems that I truly think are incorrect, and I feel that you should keep your word that you will fix these mistakes. But of course, if there are any points you believe that I have gotten wrong, feel free to point out where I am incorrect. For each point I will list one of your videos, a claim in that video, followed by my reasons why the claim is wrong on some level. I shall list a problematic claim as either False, Most likely false, Misleading, or possibly a combination of these three.
9/11 Debunked: Controlled Demolition Not Possible
Claim 1: The puffs of ejected dust were caused by pancaking floors.
Most likely false: Debunkers such as yourself have argued for years that these ejections were caused by pancaking floors falling onto one another. But this claim is contradicted by the fact that many of these ejections were isolated below the demolition wave. The video you show from the NOVA program shows a scenario in which the floors remain intact as flat plates, thereby allowing the pressure to be built up without allowing air to escape anywhere except the windows. But this obviously would not have been the case for the floors collapsing in the Twin Towers, as they were clearly pulverized before they had reached the areas of the ejections below the collapse front. To create the ejections below and at the collapse front, the floors would need to continuously fall as flat plates, as demonstrated by the NOVA simulation. If the floors broke apart as they fell, the falling mass would allow the pressure to be released upward. NIST’s “piston theory” is clearly contradicted by this. What’s more, Dr. Crockett Grabbe has calculated that the horizontal ejection rate of the puffs is disproportional to the vertical collapse rates of the Towers, making it highly unlikely that these ejections were caused by compressed air. Physicist David Chandler has also demonstrated that some of the ejections are in fact not coming out of windows at all, but out of the steel corner columns of the Towers. I would therefore ask you to reevaluate this claim, as evidence strongly goes against it.
Claim 2: The squibs shooting out of the southwest corner of WTC 7 were actually window blinds.
Misleading: While I do agree that the ejections at the southwest corner of WTC 7 are not squibs, your video fails to address the squibs that evidently are shooting out of Building 7 on the north face near the west side. NIST’s piston theory involved a scenario where the floors compressing air created the squibs shooting out of the Towers (see claim 1). But this explanation does not work for the squibs shooting out of the north face of Building 7, as these squibs formed at a time when the floors essentially did not move relative to one another. What’s more, these squibs are not addressed at all in NIST’s final report on Building 7. A search of their 729 page report turns up not a single mention of the word “squib” or “puff.” And the issue is also not addressed at the FAQ section for Building 7 on NIST’s website. I would therefore ask you to at least acknowledge the apparent squibs shooting out of the north face of WTC 7, as these ejections are far more visible than the false ejections you point to in your video. The official investigators have offered no explanation for the ejections, so the ejections are therefore still an unexplained phenomenon in the collapse of the building.
Claim 3: Explosions were not heard at the base of the buildings or from far away.
False: This issue is thoroughly addressed in the video Debunking 9/11 Debunking: Controlled Demolition IS Possible, which shows that the Towers did produce noises consistent with the roar of explosions continuously progressing down the buildings. It also shows that the noises, described as explosions by witnesses, were heard from far across the city. And sounds indicative of explosions have also been found in videos of WTC 1’s collapse and WTC 7’s collapse. Your claim that explosions cannot be heard in any of the videos of the WTC’s collapse is therefore wrong, and I would ask you to either rephrase this statement or remove it entirely.
Claim 4: The controlled demolition of the WTC buildings would have left behind remnants of the explosives used in the debris pile.
Misleading: In your video, you feature a statement made by Brent Blanchard of Protec. He has often claimed that objects such as det cord would have been found everywhere in the debris. However, he has also stated that controlled demolitions can be engineered to be radio controlled, which would eliminate the necessity of det cord. Wireless detonators have been commercially available for decades. And other parts of the explosives would also not necessarily be found, as pointed out by an explosives technician formerly from Controlled Demolition, Inc. He points out that explosives can be engineered to be self consuming, and therefore would not be found in the debris. Because of this, I would ask you to either add a disclaimer to your video, or remove this claim entirely.
9/11 Debunked: World Trade Center - No Free-Fall Speed
Claim 1: The core of the South Tower survived the collapse.
Misleading: While a section of the core did survive the collapse, video evidence appears to show that the remaining core of the South Tower included neither north nor west columns. You should make this clear in your video, as it contradicts the official explanations since the South Tower initially collapsed to the east.
9/11 Debunked: Flight 77's Pilot not a Terrorist
Claim 1: Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement have accused Charles Burlingame of being “some kind of terrorist.”
False: Of all your videos, this is the only one I have a particular personal problem with. Although it may be implied in Loose Change (which I don’t really think it is), it is incorrect of you to imply in your video that members of the truth movement in general believe this. You are right in saying Charles Burlingame did not work in the Pentagon when Loose Change claims he did. I have nothing against that. But the claim that he was actually one of the conspirators has never been a direct claim of any prominent member of the movement, and I would ultimately ask that you either remove this video entirely, or redo it.
9/11 Debunked: WTC 7's Collapse Explained
Claim 1: Building 7 was “less than 300 feet from the North Tower.”
False: The distance between the north face of WTC 1 and the south face of WTC 7 was actually about 107 meters, or 350 feet. You should correct this as it is a false statement and therefore also misleading to those who watch your video.
Claim 2: The structural damage to Building 7 contributed to the collapse.
False/Misleading: Although you do not specifically state in your video that the damage contributed to the collapse, you do, at the very least, imply it very strongly. But the official NIST report on the collapse of WTC 7 states that the structural damage played no role in initiating the collapse of the building. What’s more, new evidence has been presented which shows that the damage to Building 7 was not as severe as previously thought. I have no fault with you showing pictures of damage to Building 7, but you should make it clear in your video that the official explanation states that this damage did not contribute to the collapse. Otherwise, your video will mislead those do not know what the actual explanation is for Building 7’s collapse.
Claim 3: The fires in Building 7 were fed by a series of diesel generators.
False: Again, according to the official investigators at NIST, the diesel tanks did not play a role in the collapse. NIST states they found no evidence that the fuel lines contributed to the collapse, and that the building had only normal office fires. You need to clarify this, as it is simply not the official story for what happened to the building.
Claim 4: The collapse of Truss 1 initiated the collapse of WTC 7.
False: According to the NIST report, Building 7’s collapse was initiated by the failure of a girder connecting column 44 to column 79, which led to the collapse of column 79, and then the rest of the building. NIST does mention the collapse of the trusses in their report, but they do not claim that any of them failing initiated the “progressive collapse.” As you state in your video, this led to a “vertical” collapse to the roof. NIST claims it was an “east to west” progressive collapse. You should replace your current claim about the trusses with the official explanation about column 79.
Most of the claims you make in this video are incorrect, but admittedly this was before the report was released. However, now that the official report has been released, you should remove this video entirely, as it will undoubtedly give people unfamiliar with 9/11 the wrong ideas about what is supposed to have caused the building to collapse.
9/11 Debunked: "Molten Metal" Explained
Claim 1: The “aluminum” from Flight 175 could have been heated to 1800°F.
Most likely false: The idea that the fires in the South Tower could have reached 1800°F is extremely unlikely. It is very difficult for a diffuse hydrocarbon fire to reach these sorts of temperatures. Thomas Eager, who supports the official story and therefore cannot be accused of being a “conspiracy theorist,” has written that:
“In combustion science, there are three basic types of flames, namely, a jet burner, a pre-mixed flame, and a diffuse flame…. A fireplace flame is a diffuse flame burning in air, as was the WTC fire. Diffuse flames generate the lowest heat intensities of the three flame types…. The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1,000°C [1832°F]…. But it is very difficult to reach this maximum temperature with a diffuse flame. There is nothing to ensure that the fuel and air in a diffuse flame are mixed in the best ratio.” -Thomas Eager
One thing that we must agree on is that the fires in the South Tower were clearly weaker than the fires in the North Tower. Also, NIST has no evidence for these kinds of temperatures in either building. The idea that the fires in WTC 2 could have reached 1800°F is extremely unlikely which, as we will see, essentially refutes the entire notion of your video.
Claim 2: Aluminum glows “light orange” at 1800°F.
Misleading: Although aluminum does glow light orange at 1800°F, the color of the material at the front indicates that, if it was aluminum, it was heated to temperatures higher than this.
So even if this material was aluminum, it would still need to be explained what heated it to over 2000°F to get to glow that bright. You should make this clear in your video.
9/11 Debunked: World Trade Center's Collapse Explained
Claim 1: The fires burned up to 1800°F.
Most likely false: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: Molten Metal Explained.”
9/11 Debunked: WTC - Zero Hallmarks of Controlled Demolition
Claim 1: Controlled demolitions create bright flashes in a building.
Misleading: Bright flashes do not always occur in controlled demolitions, as these videos show:
Therefore, I would ask you to either add a disclaimer to your video, or remove this claim entirely.
Claim 2: The demolition waves are explained by pancaking floors.
Most likely false: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: Controlled Demolition Not Possible.”
Claim 3: Cameras did not pick up any sounds of explosions.
False: See Claim 3 for “9/11 Debunked: Controlled Demolition Not Possible,” and also this video.
Claim 4: The South Tower’s core survived the collapse.
Misleading: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: World Trade Center - No Free-Fall Speed.
Claim 5: The initial antenna drop of WTC 1 as seen from the north was actually an optical illusion caused by the rotation of the antenna to the south.
Most likely false: This video features a more westward shot of the North Tower’s collapse at minute 6:13. The antenna did rotate south seconds later, but the initial motion was almost entirely vertical. You should clarify this in your video.
Claim 6: Building 7’s collapse started with the failure of its three large trusses.
False: See Claim 4 for “9/11 Debunked: WTC 7’s Collapse Explained.”
Claim 7: Explosives would have caused the buildings to collapse at free-fall speed.
Most likely false/Misleading: In fact, it has been a misconception by both sides of the argument that controlled demolitions cause a building collapse at the rate of free-fall. Explosives rarely if ever cause a building to collapse at free-fall acceleration. The question that should really be asked is, “did the buildings fall in time intervals consistent with buildings destroyed with explosives?” And it turns out that they did. You should either add a disclaimer to your video or remove this statement entirely.
Claim 8: Controlled demolitions cause a building to collapse into its own footprint.
Misleading: Although demolitions usually do this, it is not strictly true that it always happens, as this video shows at minute 8:32. As for Building 7, the fact that it fell somewhat outside its footprint may have been caused by the simple fact that it was a particularly large building. No demolition company had ever demolished a building the size of WTC 7 before, so who’s to say how compact the debris pile would be if the building were brought down in a classic demolition fashion? The buildings it damaged were quite close to it. As this video shows at minute 7:42, buildings brought down by classic controlled demolition methods can fall outside their footprint. But the fact is, the debris from WTC 7 was almost entirely within the footprint of the previously standing building.
9/11 Debunked: Thermate Chemical Signatures Disproven
Claim 1: The elements noted by Dr. Jones were found in common materials in the WTC.
Misleading: Although the elements you list were abundant at the WTC, what you fail to note is that these elements were found in the iron-rich microspheres found in the dust, not the dust itself. The spheres show that the chemicals were formed due to melting and/or vaporization, which is due to surface tension. This indicates that the various chemicals found in the spheres were melted at the same time, forming spheres. The spheres found had the chemical signature of FE, AL, K, SI, and various additives and variations of thermate. Different aluminothermic reactions have different properties; some are faster reacting, like sulfur which reduces the melting point of steel. The idea of the spheres forming from an office fire is virtually impossible. Iron cannot melt in office fires and the melting points of these metals are so different that there would be a sizeable time delay from heating WTC common materials. Then they also have to cool together at the same time to form a sphere. Thermate, however, provides the solution to this question because the reaction is very fast. No other mechanism is known to provide spheres such as these. You should therefore clarify your statements about the elements that Dr. Jones has found.
Claim 2: The elements were not found in their correct quantities.
Misleading: In this case you are confusing Steven Jones arbitrary usage of the word thermate with military grade Thermate-TH3, which is 68.7% thermite, 29.0% barium nitrate, 2.0% sulfur. There are a wide variety of different types of thermite, thermate, and other aluminothermic reactions. So your figure of sulfur making up 2% of thermate is based on only one specific type of thermate. Also, it should be noted that the sulfur likely did not come the gypsum wallboard, as demonstrated here. You should correct this statement or add a disclaimer.
Claim 3: Barium nitrate and aluminum oxide needed to be found but weren’t.
False: As I have already demonstrated, barium nitrate does not have to be found. And as for the aluminum oxide, oxides of aluminum are common in the environment, and probably a major form of the aluminum found in the WTC dust. Because the thermite reaction generates aluminum oxide as an aerosol, it tends to disperse rather than clumping with the iron-rich initially-liquid residues. Note that the composition of residues of known thermites is a good match for the ignition residues that Jones, et. al. examined from the red-gray chips. So therefore, aluminum oxide also does not need to be found. You should correct these claims in your video.
Update: As it turns out, the USGS apparently did report finding traces of aluminum oxide in the WTC dust. Therefore, the claim that aluminum oxide was not present in the dust should be removed entirely from your video.
9/11 Debunked: WTC - No Pools of Molten Steel
Claim 1: The molten metal would have solidified and would not have still been molten 6 weeks later.
Misleading: The presence of the pools of molten metal after a thermate reaction would seem to indicate a continuous chemical reaction occurring in the pile, as documented by the peer-reviewed paper Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Material. You should clarify this in your video.
Claim 2: Temperatures of up to 1342°F were recorded in the debris piles.
False: Actually, the NASA thermal images show that temperatures of about 1377°F were recorded in the debris. But there are other studies which indicate even higher temperatures than this. According to the R. J. Lee report, lead had apparently become hot enough to volatilize (boil) and vaporize.
“The presence of lead oxide on the surface of mineral wool indicates the existence of extremely high temperatures during the collapse which caused metallic lead to volatilize, oxidize, and finally condense on the surface of the mineral wool.” –RJ Lee Group, WTC Dust Signature, 2004, page 12
Although the word “vaporize” was never used in the final version of the report, the 2003 version of this passage explicitly referred to temperatures “at which lead would have undergone vaporization.” (RJ Lee Group, WTC Dust Signature Study, 2003, page 5)
Lead does not boil and vaporize until it reaches temperatures of 1749°C [3180°F]. As the report indicates, therefore, the temperatures must have been not merely high, but extremely high. Other evidence also indicates the temperatures were far hotter than anything normal fires could cause. You should address these issues in your video or delete the claim entirely.
Claim 3: The initial fires were burning at 1800°F.
Most likely false: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: Molten Metal Explained.”
Claim 4: Pictures show glowing metal not flowing and is therefore not molten.
False: Close-ups of the crane shot show that molten metal is flowing off.
Claim 5: The pools of molten metal seen by the first responders and clean-up workers were pools of molten aluminum.
Most likely false: This argument is contradicted by the fact that pools of molten metal were also found in the debris of Building 7 as well. Building 7 was not hit by a plane, and it was also not clad in aluminum like the Towers were. But what’s more, the fact that the molten metal remained reddish-orange six weeks after the attacks indicates that the metal had fairly low heat conductivity and relatively large heat capacity. Therefore, it is more likely that the metal was steel or iron rather than aluminum. You should remove this claim and correct it in your video.
9/11 Debunked: The "First Time in History" Claim
Claim 1: The planes that hit the Towers were travelling at 490 and 590 miles per hour.
Misleading: The speeds you claim the planes were going at seem to come from the FEMA report. However, the NIST report states that the planes were travelling closer to 440 and 540 miles per hour. You should reevaluate this claim and fix it.
Claim 2: Building 7 was heavily damaged by falling debris.
False/Misleading: See Claim 2 for “9/11 Debunked: WTC 7’s Collapse Explained.”
Claim 3: There are many examples of steel-framed buildings collapsing from fires.
Misleading: As this video shows, your comparison of the WTC buildings with smaller steel structures is highly misleading. All I have ever seen debunkers compare the WTC buildings to are smaller steel structures that have collapsed from fire, but never other skyscrapers that have not collapsed from fire. You do feature the Windsor Tower, but ultimately its partial collapse supports our side of the argument. Others have attempted to show that other skyscraper fires are not comparable to the fires in the WTC. I have shown these claims to be incorrect and unfounded. Unless you can make better arguments, I would recommend removing the entire video, as it is highly misleading.
9/11 Debunked: On WTC's Design to Withstand 707 Impact
Claim 1: The Twin Towers were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 travelling at 180 mph, being also low on fuel.
Most likely false: For this particular statement, you offer no link or source. As this video shows, there were numerous pre-9/11 studies which showed that the buildings were built to withstand a 707 travelling at 600mph and filled with fuel. Even the Port Authority stated that the buildings could withstand a 707 going at 600mph. From the NIST report:
“An additional load, stated by the Port Authority to have been considered in the design of the Towers, was the impact of a Boeing 707, the largest commercial airliner when the Towers were designed, hitting the building at its full speed of 600mph.” -NCS NCSTAR1, p. 6
Claim 2: The planes were travelling at 490 and 590 mph.
Misleading: See Claim 1 for “9/11 Debunked: The ‘First Time in History’ Claim.”
Claim 3: Because the wingspan of a 767 is greater than that of a 707, a 767 would have severed more columns.
Most likely false/Misleading: Admittedly, the wings of a 767 are longer. However, there is another difference between the wings of these two planes, which are the engines attached to them. A 707 has four engines, while a 767 only has two. The engines of an airplane are undoubtedly the most solid part of the plane. The wings themselves are merely made of aluminum, and once they impacted the perimeter columns, it would have been more difficult to severe the thicker core columns. The planes’ engines would do quite a bit more damage than the wings once they started impacting core columns. Even if the wingspan of a 767 is larger than a 707, I think we can agree that a plane with four steel and titanium engines will do more damage than a plane with only two.
Claim 4: Fires were not taken into consideration when the Towers were built.
Most likely false: To back up this claim, you provide a quote from Leslie Robertson, who you incorrectly state was the chief structural engineer for the WTC. In fact, John Skilling is more likely to have been the lead engineer for the Towers. In a 1993 Seattle Times article, Skilling was described as the head structural engineer. Robertson was not mentioned there, nor in an article in the Engineering News-Record that discussed the design in 1964. In City in the Sky, Robertson is called the “rising young engineer with Skilling's firm” (p. 159). In Men of Steel, Robertson is referred to during the design phase as “one of the up-and-coming engineers on [Skilling’s] staff,” Skilling’s “young associate,” whom Skilling “assigned… to help him prepare a proposal” to the Port Authority’s board. Skilling’s firm was named Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson. Clearly, Skilling was a senior partner at the firm and Robertson was his subordinate. Therefore, the claim that Robertson was the chief engineer for the Towers is almost certainly false. John Skilling, however, stated that the buildings could have survived severe fires from a plane crash.
“Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire [but] the building structure would still be there.” –John Skilling, Lead structural engineer for the WTC
You should address these facts and correct your statements about the WTC design parameters and Leslie Robertson’s position in the construction of the buildings.
9/11 Debunked: WTC - No Small or Oxygen-Starved Fires
Claim 1: Roughly 7000 gallons of fuel remained in each of the Towers after the initial impacts.
Misleading: This appears to only be true of the North Tower, as NIST claims that approximately 6947 gallons of fuel remained in WTC 1, while only 5932 was in WTC 2. However, the idea that all this fuel remained within the impacted areas is contradicted by the FEMA report. In NIST’s most detailed quantitative report, NCSTAR 1-5F Computer Simulation of the Fires, the jet fuel estimates are provided for each of the impact floors, supposedly accurate to the gallon. In the report, it is stated that NIST used FEMA’s assumption that half of the fuel that the remained within the Towers flowed away from the impact zones. It states:
“Tables 5-3 and 5-4 present the predicted fuel distributions from the impact analysis. Of the total amount of fuel distributed to each floor, only 40 percent was used in the simulations. The reasoning behind this estimate followed that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) study (McAllister 2002). It has been estimated by various forms of analysis (Zalosh 1995; Baum and Rehm 2002) that roughly 20 percent of the jet fuel was consumed in the fireballs that were observed outside of the buildings within seconds of impact. The authors of the FEMA report suggested that half of the fuel not consumed in the fireballs could have flowed away, presumably down the elevator shafts and stairwells based on eyewitness accounts. Some additional discussion of the fireballs may be found in NIST NCSTAR 1-5A.
The jet fuel consumption estimate put forth by the FEMA team was used in the model because (1) no evidence or analysis emerged that significantly altered the FEMA estimate, and (2) the simulations were insensitive to both the amount and distribution of the jet fuel. Sensitivity studies showed that the amount of fuel spilled in the simulation only influenced the results of the first few minutes; the long-term behavior of the simulated fires was unaffected.” -NIST NCSTAR 1-5F, page 56
So, ultimately NIST assumes that half of the fuel in each of the buildings flowed away from the impact points, and therefore did not contribute to the fires that supposedly caused the buildings to collapse. That leaves 3474 gallons of fuel contributing to the fires in WTC 1 and 2966 gallons of fuel contributing to the fires in WTC 2. Of course, even considering that all the fuel NIST claims remained in the buildings stayed at the impact points, the amount of fuel in either Tower would have fit into an above ground swimming pool, hardly a large amount in ratio to the rest of the buildings. You should clarify these facts in your video and fix your statements.
Claim 2: Photographs show that Building 7 was almost totally engulfed in fire.
Most likely false: The pictures you show of WTC 7 show a large amount of smoke on Building 7’s south face. But this smoke was likely caused by a negative low air pressure acting on the building’s south side. This had the effect of drawing smoke up from the still burning WTC complex and causing it to cling to Building 7. Photos show that the exact same thing happened to the North Tower after the South Tower collapsed. Therefore, I would ask you to remove this claim from your video, as it is most likely incorrect. Also, it should be noted that, regardless of how big the fires were, there is serious doubt that the floors had enough combustible fuel and energy to reach the temperatures NIST claims the fires reached. Dr. Frank Greening, another supporter of the official story, has written that:
"NIST's collapse initiation hypothesis requires that structural steel temperatures on floors 12/13 significantly exceeded 300°C [570°F]--a condition that could never have been realized with NIST's postulated 32 kg/m2 fuel loading." -Dr. Frank Greening
In light of these errors, I would strongly encourage you to keep your promise and fix them. As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, it would be best of you to keep your other promise that you will not allow the history of 9/11 to be "distorted or rewritten." Real progress has been made in the name of 9/11 truth, and it would be regrettable if the errors in your videos misrepresented this progress.
With all due respect,
Adam
Monday, August 16, 2010
Debunking Joseph Nobles: Thermal Conductivity and Corroded Steel
Joseph Nobles' newest additions to his site--FEMA Steel and Wick The Heat Away-- attempt to address some of the issues of how the steel in the WTC was affected by heat. As we will see, Mr. Nobles' assertions are, once again, either false or misleading.
Wick The Heat Away
One of the primary faults of NIST's reports on the WTC is that they did not include the factor of thermal conductivity in their modeling. Mr. Nobles, however, has a different opinion on this.
Right. Because they say nothing about steel conducting and transferring heat throughout the building, obviously it's in the report.
Amazing that thermal conductivity would be so important, but at the same time NIST offers no detail about it in their report. They would do it for concrete, but not the steel.
Actually, someone already has put numbers to this assertion. Kevin Ryan, in his critique of the NIST report on WTC 7, wrote that:
"Structural steel has a thermal conductivity of 46 W/m/K, which means that any heat applied is easily wicked away. But if that value were set to zero, or near zero, any heat applied would allow the temperature to rise dramatically at the point of application."
Here is what NIST's report on WTC 7 had to say about their fire simulations of WTC 7.
"The major fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 in WTC 7 were simulated using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), version 4, in a manner similar to the simulations conducted for WTC 1 and WTC 2 (NIST NCSTAR 1-5F)."
NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1, page 4.
And what did NIST say about their fire simulations of the Twin Towers?
"The steel was assumed in the FDS model to be thermally-thin, thus, no thermal conductivity was used." NCSTAR 1-5F, page 20
"The interior walls [including insulated steel columns] were assumed to have the properties of gypsum board [0.5 W/m/K]." NCSTAR 1-5F, page 52
"Although the floor slab actually consisted of a metal deck topped with a concrete slab...the thermal properties of the entire floor slab were assumed to be that of concrete [1.0 W/m/K]." NCSTAR 1-5F, page 52
It is apparent that NIST went out of their way to include no thermal conductivity at all in their modeling.
Now let us turn to Mr. Nobles' section on the corroded steel from WTC 7.
The Pieces of Steel
Mr. Nobles presents what he considers to be conclusive proof that the steel was not attacked by thermate.
What Mr. Nobles seems to forget is that 1000°C is far hotter than the temperatures that NIST claims were in WTC 7. NIST states nowhere in their report that any of the steel in WTC 7 had been heated to 1000°C. Their most extreme claim is that the steel had been heated up to 675°C. And NIST has no evidence that any steel in the WTC had been heated up to 700-800°C.
As to why the steel was only heated to 1000°C, I cannot say for sure. But it's important to remember that, although thermate burns at temperatures much hotter than 1000°C, the steel would not necessarily have been heated to the exact temperature of whatever corroded it. For example, the NIST report on WTC 7 claims that the fires in the building were as hot as 2012°F, but that the steel only reached temperatures as hot as 1250°F (675°C). It is possible that the thermate that melted the piece of steel cooled somewhat as it reacted. But the main point is this: If nothing natural inside the building could have corroded the steel, then something unnatural must have been planted inside the building. This is the subject of the next part of Mr. Nobles' page.
Where Did The Sulfur Come From?
Like other defenders of the official story, Mr. Nobles offers several possible sources for the sulfur found in the WTC 7 steel, including rubbers, plastics, water, and gypsum wallboard. Wallboard has been cited most often by debunkers due to the fact that sulfur-based drywall was the third most used ingredient in the construction of the WTC complex. But as others have pointed out, calcium is also in drywall, and the sulfur and calcium are tightly bound into calcium sulfate. Because the piece of steel was found to be intergranularly melted, it means that the sulfur chemically entered into the steel. But calcium was found nowhere in the steel. Also, because it is calcium sulfate and not pure elemental sulfur, it could not have reacted in such a way that it would actually corrode the steel. Mr. Nobles closes this section with the following:
Unfortunately Mr. Nobles, these sources HAVE been ruled out.
In the last two parts of Mr. Nobles' page on the corroded steel, he acknowledges that the piece actually did come from WTC 7 (something that I in fact pointed out to him). But he claims that this piece has no real importance to NIST in their investigation. And contrary to what Mr. Nobles claims, the investigators did suggest it was "possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure."
Mr. Nobles' final statement is quite astounding.
In other words...
Wick The Heat Away
One of the primary faults of NIST's reports on the WTC is that they did not include the factor of thermal conductivity in their modeling. Mr. Nobles, however, has a different opinion on this.
Right. Because they say nothing about steel conducting and transferring heat throughout the building, obviously it's in the report.
Amazing that thermal conductivity would be so important, but at the same time NIST offers no detail about it in their report. They would do it for concrete, but not the steel.
Actually, someone already has put numbers to this assertion. Kevin Ryan, in his critique of the NIST report on WTC 7, wrote that:
"Structural steel has a thermal conductivity of 46 W/m/K, which means that any heat applied is easily wicked away. But if that value were set to zero, or near zero, any heat applied would allow the temperature to rise dramatically at the point of application."
Here is what NIST's report on WTC 7 had to say about their fire simulations of WTC 7.
"The major fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 in WTC 7 were simulated using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), version 4, in a manner similar to the simulations conducted for WTC 1 and WTC 2 (NIST NCSTAR 1-5F)."
NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1, page 4.
And what did NIST say about their fire simulations of the Twin Towers?
"The steel was assumed in the FDS model to be thermally-thin, thus, no thermal conductivity was used." NCSTAR 1-5F, page 20
"The interior walls [including insulated steel columns] were assumed to have the properties of gypsum board [0.5 W/m/K]." NCSTAR 1-5F, page 52
"Although the floor slab actually consisted of a metal deck topped with a concrete slab...the thermal properties of the entire floor slab were assumed to be that of concrete [1.0 W/m/K]." NCSTAR 1-5F, page 52
It is apparent that NIST went out of their way to include no thermal conductivity at all in their modeling.
Now let us turn to Mr. Nobles' section on the corroded steel from WTC 7.
The Pieces of Steel
Mr. Nobles presents what he considers to be conclusive proof that the steel was not attacked by thermate.
What Mr. Nobles seems to forget is that 1000°C is far hotter than the temperatures that NIST claims were in WTC 7. NIST states nowhere in their report that any of the steel in WTC 7 had been heated to 1000°C. Their most extreme claim is that the steel had been heated up to 675°C. And NIST has no evidence that any steel in the WTC had been heated up to 700-800°C.
As to why the steel was only heated to 1000°C, I cannot say for sure. But it's important to remember that, although thermate burns at temperatures much hotter than 1000°C, the steel would not necessarily have been heated to the exact temperature of whatever corroded it. For example, the NIST report on WTC 7 claims that the fires in the building were as hot as 2012°F, but that the steel only reached temperatures as hot as 1250°F (675°C). It is possible that the thermate that melted the piece of steel cooled somewhat as it reacted. But the main point is this: If nothing natural inside the building could have corroded the steel, then something unnatural must have been planted inside the building. This is the subject of the next part of Mr. Nobles' page.
Where Did The Sulfur Come From?
Like other defenders of the official story, Mr. Nobles offers several possible sources for the sulfur found in the WTC 7 steel, including rubbers, plastics, water, and gypsum wallboard. Wallboard has been cited most often by debunkers due to the fact that sulfur-based drywall was the third most used ingredient in the construction of the WTC complex. But as others have pointed out, calcium is also in drywall, and the sulfur and calcium are tightly bound into calcium sulfate. Because the piece of steel was found to be intergranularly melted, it means that the sulfur chemically entered into the steel. But calcium was found nowhere in the steel. Also, because it is calcium sulfate and not pure elemental sulfur, it could not have reacted in such a way that it would actually corrode the steel. Mr. Nobles closes this section with the following:
Unfortunately Mr. Nobles, these sources HAVE been ruled out.
In the last two parts of Mr. Nobles' page on the corroded steel, he acknowledges that the piece actually did come from WTC 7 (something that I in fact pointed out to him). But he claims that this piece has no real importance to NIST in their investigation. And contrary to what Mr. Nobles claims, the investigators did suggest it was "possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure."
Mr. Nobles' final statement is quite astounding.
In other words...
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Debunking Joseph Nobles: Other Buildings
Mr. Nobles’ latest addition to his website is a page attempting to show how other skyscraper fires are not comparable to the Twin Towers and Building 7. He focuses on the skyscraper fires featured in the AE911Truth power point. Because Mr. Nobles uses similar arguments for more than one of the listed buildings, for this post I will list an argument, state which buildings it applies to, followed by my response.
A quick note: I will be citing NIST several times in this response to refute many of Mr. Nobles’ arguments. Some may criticize me, saying things like “but if you disagree with NIST, why do you cite them?” I cite them because there are parts of their investigation that do seem to be backed up by empirical data and common sense. And this is supposed to be the official explanation for what happened to those buildings, so if anyone disagrees with NIST, they should complain to NIST and not me. I will also be pointing out several things that NIST does get wrong. But if anyone thinks they’re right, then explain why I’m wrong.
-No structural damage: East Tower, First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, Mandarin Oriental
Response: This detail can be seen as least significant, as NIST mostly blames the collapse of the Twin Towers on fire and entirely blames the collapse of WTC 7 on fire. Although it can be argued that the plane impacts greatly damaged the buildings, NIST seems to have exaggerated the amount of damage the buildings actually took. And given the fact that the initial tilts of both Towers were not in the direction of where most of the structural damage was, the loads the buildings had to take as they collapsed would not have been a major factor.
-Lower floors were not on fire: East Tower, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza
Response: This argument obviously applies more to Building 7 than the Twin Towers, as the fires were on the upper floors of Towers. While there were fires on the lower floors of WTC 7, the question is if these fires were severe enough to cause collapse in the first place. More on this will be discussed below.
-Fires were fought by firefighters and/or sprinklers: East Tower, First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza, Mandarin Oriental
Response: To some, the severity of the fires has been based on how much they were being fought. This, however, did not appear to be an important factor to NIST. NIST, in reference to the First Interstate Bank Building, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza, and WTC 5, stated that:
“[I]n each of the other referenced buildings, the fires burned out several floors, even with available water and fire fighting activities (except for WTC 5). Thus, whether the fire fighters fought the WTC 7 fires or not is not a meaningful point of dissimilarity from the other cited fires.”
Many debunkers have suggested that the partial collapse of WTC 5 supports the theory that fire could have brought down Building 7. In fact, if anything, it does just the opposite.
Debunkers also point to the firefighters' testimony. That is addressed here and here.
-Fire was always in “one place”: East Tower, First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza
Response: Again, NIST doesn’t seem to feel the floor locations of the fires were a huge point of dissimilarity to fires in other buildings, stating that:
“The differences in the fires were not meaningful for the following reasons. By the time that WTC 7 collapsed, the fires in WTC 7 had advanced well beyond the likely points of origin on multiple floors (i.e., south and west faces) and originating points of fire origin had no bearing on the fire conditions when the building collapsed (i.e., in the northeast quadrant).”
It is often claimed by debunkers that these photos show that Building 7 was almost totally engulfed with fire.
But as others have pointed out, the large amount of smoke on Building 7’s south face was most likely caused by a negative low air pressure, which caused smoke from the burning WTC complex to cling to Building 7. Multiple photographs show that the same thing happened to WTC 1.
NIST itself states that there were 10 fires in Building 7, with only 6 of them being out of control. Also, although the Mandarin Oriental did not burn as long as Building 7, the building was completely engulfed in flames, which meant it would have had an extremely low amount of thermal conductivity. Dr. Vytenis Babrauskas, an expert on fire temperatures, has written that:
“It is common to find that investigators assume that an object next to a flame of a certain temperature will also be of that same temperature. This is, of course, untrue. If a flame is exchanging heat with an object which was initially at room temperature, it will take a finite amount of time for that object to rise to a temperature which is 'close' to that of the flame. Exactly how long it will take for it to rise to a certain value is the subject for the study of heat transfer. Heat transfer is usually presented to engineering students over several semesters of university classes, so it should be clear that simple rules-of-thumb would not be expected. Here, we will merely point out that the rate at which target objects heat up is largely governed by their thermal conductivity, density, and size. Small, low-density, low-conductivity objects will heat up much faster than massive, heavy-weight ones.”
Although steel has somewhat lower heat conductivity than that of other metals, compared to non-metallic materials its conductivity is extremely high. If a fire does not consume the entire structure, the structure will conduct the heat away from the main source of the fire. This would not have applied to the Mandarin Oriental, as its entire structure was almost totally engulfed by massive flames. NIST did not even include thermal conductivity as a factor in the collapse of WTC 7.
In any case, NIST accepts that fires in other buildings were, at the very least, just as severe as the fires in WTC 7, stating in their FAQ page on Building 7 that:
“There are more similarities than differences between the uncontrolled fires that burned in WTC 7 and those that occurred in the following buildings: First Interstate Bank Building (1988), One Meridian Plaza Building (1981), One New York Plaza (1970), and WTC 5 (2001).”
And even in their report, they state that:
“NIST therefore concluded that the fires in First Interstate Bank and One Meridian Plaza were at least as severe, and probably more severe, than the fires in WTC 7.” (Page 341)
It should also be pointed out that the characteristics of the fires in other buildings were quite different than the fires in the WTC. In the other building fires listed, the fires produced extensive window breakage, exhibited large areas of emergent flames, and went on for several hours. The fires in the WTC towers did none of these things.
Ultimately, while blaming the fires in WTC 7 on the collapse, NIST claims that the significant difference between Building 7 and other building fires has more to do with the differences in design than the severity of the fires. This is discussed below.
-Different design and construction: East Tower, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza, Mandarin Oriental
Response: Admittedly, these buildings were designed and built quite differently than the Twin Towers and Building 7. However, this does not necessarily mean that they were stronger buildings. In particular, the East Tower and the Mandarin Oriental had the hollowness that the 9/11 Commission deceptively attempted to attribute to the Twin Towers. One of the main differences between the Towers and Building 7 and these other buildings is that many of these buildings had a concrete structure. But again, this does not necessarily mean the buildings were better. As 911research.wtc7.net points out:
•Steel is a good conductor and concrete is a poor conductor of heat. Thus in a fire, a steel frame will conduct heat away from the hotspots into the larger structure. As long as the fire does not consume the larger structure, this heat conductivity will keep the temperatures of the frame well below the fire temperatures. The same is not true of steel-reinforced-concrete structures, since concrete is not a good thermal conductor, and the thermal conductivity of the rebar inside the concrete is limited by its small mass and the embedding matrix of concrete.
•Fires can cause spalling of concrete, but not of steel. This is because concrete has a small percentage of latent moisture, which is converted to steam by heat. Thus, a large fire can gradually erode a concrete structure to the point of collapse, whereas a fire can only threaten a steel-framed structure if it elevates steel temperatures to such an extent that it causes failures.
NIST discusses the differences in design of WTC 7 and other building fires. One of the most crucial differences they claimed was the fact that Building 7 had no shear studs. According to NIST, shear studs would have provided lateral restraint to the girders in WTC 7. In discussing the differences between Building 7 and three other buildings-- the First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, and the Cardington Test Building-- NIST stated that:
“Non-composite girders in WTC 7 rather than composite girders (presence or absence of shear studs) in the other three buildings.” (Page 341, August 2008)
At first, this argument seems justifiable. The three buildings listed by NIST all had shear studs and none of them collapsed. Building 7 had no shear studs and it did collapse. It sounds like a good correlation. However, in NIST’s Final Report released in November of 2008, this passage was altered. It now states:
“Non-composite girders in WTC 7 rather than composite girders (presence or absence of shear studs) in two of the other three buildings.” (Page 341, November 2008)
So, NIST now admits that one of the three listed buildings also did not have shear studs, but it did not collapse. This greatly decreases the credibility of NIST’s arguments.
But there are even more problems with NIST’s shear stud argument. In 2004-- before NIST had developed a theory around the idea of girder failures-- it stated that shear studs did connect girders to the floor slabs. In its 2004 Interim Report on WTC 7, NIST stated:
“Most of the beams and girders were made composite with the slabs through the use of shear studs. Typically, the shear studs were 0.75 inches in diameter by 5 inches long, spaced 1 ft to 2 ft on center. Studs were not indicated on the design drawings for many of the core girders.” (Interim Report on WTC 7, L-6-7)
As this passage points out, many of the core girders in WTC 7 did not have shear studs. But the critical girder NIST claims failed-- the one connecting column 44 to column 79-- was not a core girder. It was in the building’s eastern region. Therefore, according to NIST’s Interim Report, this girder would have been anchored to the floor slab with shear studs. And because NIST stated that the studs were placed from one to two feet apart, and the girder was 45 feet long, there would have been at least 22 shear studs connecting the girder to the floor. However, NIST rewrote this passage for their Final Report, now stating that:
“Most of the beams were made composite with the slabs through the use of shear studs. Typically, the shear studs were 0.75 inches in diameter by 5 inches long, spaced 2 ft on center. Studs were not indicated on the design drawings for the girders.” (NIST NCSTAR 1-9, page 15)
It appears, therefore, that NIST, having developed a theory that would seem plausible only if the girders were not connected to the floors with shear studs, simply made those studs vanish. Any significant differences in the design of WTC 7 and other fire engulfed buildings that NIST and Mr. Nobles claim would seem to exist because of NIST’s falsifying of data.
The Towers And These Buildings
Mr. Nobles makes an amazing statement.
This statement is quite rich, considering that debunkers have tried to compare the WTC to things like high schools and badly constructed toy factories. To debunkers, if it’s made of steel and collapses from fire, it’s comparable to the WTC. This is complete nonsense. Even if there were some differences in design, if we can’t compare the WTC skyscraper fires with other skyscraper fires, then what can we compare them to?
Mr. Nobles offers three arguments for why the Towers were doomed to fail (my comments in red, some links).
The fires were never fought by any means in either building. The task of simply arriving at the floors proved to be too much for first responders to accomplish before the towers had fallen. Perhaps, but given the fact that neither of the Towers burned for even two hours, it is questionable how significant this would have been.
The fires were started over several floors simultaneously. Office buildings are designed to resist a slow-moving fire in one location. Fires were started in the WTC Towers simultaneously over several floors and over immense areas of these floors. And the floors, by the way, were the size of city blocks. Pictures show these fires burning entire lengths of the building in places. While this may have been true for the North Tower, the fires in the South Tower appeared to be going out shortly before its collapse. The fires did not even spread to the other side of the South Tower.
Strong fires tend to spread.
The fires were ignited with jet fuel as an accelerant. A large portion of jet fuel was consumed in the initial fireball on impact, but hundreds of gallons were left to help feed the fires in their first few minutes. In fact, the amount of fuel that remained in the Towers would have fit into a mid size U-Haul truck. The pictures you might have seen of weak or non-existent fires in these buildings were taken in the first few moments, when the fireball had robbed the fires of much oxygen. Again, very few flames were visible in the minutes before the South Tower’s collapse. The heat energy remained, however, and as oxygen returned through the immense holes left by the airplanes, the fires found plenty of jet fuel to reignite and start the massive office fires that resulted. But unfortunately, NIST has no evidence for high temperatures in either building.
World Trade Center 7′s (Alleged) Unrecognized Design Flaw
To show that WTC 7 was also doomed to fail, Mr. Nobles refers to a series of computer simulations NIST did of WTC 7.
Of course. When all else fails, use a computer model! NIST’s assertion that the failure of column 79 would have led to the total collapse of the whole building isn’t backed up by any independent verification. NIST has never released their modeling data, so it’s not open to peer review. As I have already shown, NIST has clearly distorted the data in their report. What’s more, NIST’s data shows that column 79 collapsed and accelerated at an extremely fast rate within only a fifth of a second, even though it was still supported by more than 30 floors of restraints. This would have been virtually impossible. The only evidence we have that column 79 was an “unrecognized design flaw” comes from NIST. Does that sound credible?
Mr. Nobles believes there is no comparison between the WTC and other building fires. This is obviously ridiculous. When one looks at things in perspective, it becomes obvious that the Twin Towers and Building 7 should never have collapsed because of the fires in them.
A quick note: I will be citing NIST several times in this response to refute many of Mr. Nobles’ arguments. Some may criticize me, saying things like “but if you disagree with NIST, why do you cite them?” I cite them because there are parts of their investigation that do seem to be backed up by empirical data and common sense. And this is supposed to be the official explanation for what happened to those buildings, so if anyone disagrees with NIST, they should complain to NIST and not me. I will also be pointing out several things that NIST does get wrong. But if anyone thinks they’re right, then explain why I’m wrong.
-No structural damage: East Tower, First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, Mandarin Oriental
Response: This detail can be seen as least significant, as NIST mostly blames the collapse of the Twin Towers on fire and entirely blames the collapse of WTC 7 on fire. Although it can be argued that the plane impacts greatly damaged the buildings, NIST seems to have exaggerated the amount of damage the buildings actually took. And given the fact that the initial tilts of both Towers were not in the direction of where most of the structural damage was, the loads the buildings had to take as they collapsed would not have been a major factor.
-Lower floors were not on fire: East Tower, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza
Response: This argument obviously applies more to Building 7 than the Twin Towers, as the fires were on the upper floors of Towers. While there were fires on the lower floors of WTC 7, the question is if these fires were severe enough to cause collapse in the first place. More on this will be discussed below.
-Fires were fought by firefighters and/or sprinklers: East Tower, First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza, Mandarin Oriental
Response: To some, the severity of the fires has been based on how much they were being fought. This, however, did not appear to be an important factor to NIST. NIST, in reference to the First Interstate Bank Building, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza, and WTC 5, stated that:
“[I]n each of the other referenced buildings, the fires burned out several floors, even with available water and fire fighting activities (except for WTC 5). Thus, whether the fire fighters fought the WTC 7 fires or not is not a meaningful point of dissimilarity from the other cited fires.”
Many debunkers have suggested that the partial collapse of WTC 5 supports the theory that fire could have brought down Building 7. In fact, if anything, it does just the opposite.
Debunkers also point to the firefighters' testimony. That is addressed here and here.
-Fire was always in “one place”: East Tower, First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza
Response: Again, NIST doesn’t seem to feel the floor locations of the fires were a huge point of dissimilarity to fires in other buildings, stating that:
“The differences in the fires were not meaningful for the following reasons. By the time that WTC 7 collapsed, the fires in WTC 7 had advanced well beyond the likely points of origin on multiple floors (i.e., south and west faces) and originating points of fire origin had no bearing on the fire conditions when the building collapsed (i.e., in the northeast quadrant).”
It is often claimed by debunkers that these photos show that Building 7 was almost totally engulfed with fire.
But as others have pointed out, the large amount of smoke on Building 7’s south face was most likely caused by a negative low air pressure, which caused smoke from the burning WTC complex to cling to Building 7. Multiple photographs show that the same thing happened to WTC 1.
NIST itself states that there were 10 fires in Building 7, with only 6 of them being out of control. Also, although the Mandarin Oriental did not burn as long as Building 7, the building was completely engulfed in flames, which meant it would have had an extremely low amount of thermal conductivity. Dr. Vytenis Babrauskas, an expert on fire temperatures, has written that:
“It is common to find that investigators assume that an object next to a flame of a certain temperature will also be of that same temperature. This is, of course, untrue. If a flame is exchanging heat with an object which was initially at room temperature, it will take a finite amount of time for that object to rise to a temperature which is 'close' to that of the flame. Exactly how long it will take for it to rise to a certain value is the subject for the study of heat transfer. Heat transfer is usually presented to engineering students over several semesters of university classes, so it should be clear that simple rules-of-thumb would not be expected. Here, we will merely point out that the rate at which target objects heat up is largely governed by their thermal conductivity, density, and size. Small, low-density, low-conductivity objects will heat up much faster than massive, heavy-weight ones.”
Although steel has somewhat lower heat conductivity than that of other metals, compared to non-metallic materials its conductivity is extremely high. If a fire does not consume the entire structure, the structure will conduct the heat away from the main source of the fire. This would not have applied to the Mandarin Oriental, as its entire structure was almost totally engulfed by massive flames. NIST did not even include thermal conductivity as a factor in the collapse of WTC 7.
In any case, NIST accepts that fires in other buildings were, at the very least, just as severe as the fires in WTC 7, stating in their FAQ page on Building 7 that:
“There are more similarities than differences between the uncontrolled fires that burned in WTC 7 and those that occurred in the following buildings: First Interstate Bank Building (1988), One Meridian Plaza Building (1981), One New York Plaza (1970), and WTC 5 (2001).”
And even in their report, they state that:
“NIST therefore concluded that the fires in First Interstate Bank and One Meridian Plaza were at least as severe, and probably more severe, than the fires in WTC 7.” (Page 341)
It should also be pointed out that the characteristics of the fires in other buildings were quite different than the fires in the WTC. In the other building fires listed, the fires produced extensive window breakage, exhibited large areas of emergent flames, and went on for several hours. The fires in the WTC towers did none of these things.
Ultimately, while blaming the fires in WTC 7 on the collapse, NIST claims that the significant difference between Building 7 and other building fires has more to do with the differences in design than the severity of the fires. This is discussed below.
-Different design and construction: East Tower, One Meridian Plaza, One New York Plaza, Mandarin Oriental
Response: Admittedly, these buildings were designed and built quite differently than the Twin Towers and Building 7. However, this does not necessarily mean that they were stronger buildings. In particular, the East Tower and the Mandarin Oriental had the hollowness that the 9/11 Commission deceptively attempted to attribute to the Twin Towers. One of the main differences between the Towers and Building 7 and these other buildings is that many of these buildings had a concrete structure. But again, this does not necessarily mean the buildings were better. As 911research.wtc7.net points out:
•Steel is a good conductor and concrete is a poor conductor of heat. Thus in a fire, a steel frame will conduct heat away from the hotspots into the larger structure. As long as the fire does not consume the larger structure, this heat conductivity will keep the temperatures of the frame well below the fire temperatures. The same is not true of steel-reinforced-concrete structures, since concrete is not a good thermal conductor, and the thermal conductivity of the rebar inside the concrete is limited by its small mass and the embedding matrix of concrete.
•Fires can cause spalling of concrete, but not of steel. This is because concrete has a small percentage of latent moisture, which is converted to steam by heat. Thus, a large fire can gradually erode a concrete structure to the point of collapse, whereas a fire can only threaten a steel-framed structure if it elevates steel temperatures to such an extent that it causes failures.
NIST discusses the differences in design of WTC 7 and other building fires. One of the most crucial differences they claimed was the fact that Building 7 had no shear studs. According to NIST, shear studs would have provided lateral restraint to the girders in WTC 7. In discussing the differences between Building 7 and three other buildings-- the First Interstate Bank, One Meridian Plaza, and the Cardington Test Building-- NIST stated that:
“Non-composite girders in WTC 7 rather than composite girders (presence or absence of shear studs) in the other three buildings.” (Page 341, August 2008)
At first, this argument seems justifiable. The three buildings listed by NIST all had shear studs and none of them collapsed. Building 7 had no shear studs and it did collapse. It sounds like a good correlation. However, in NIST’s Final Report released in November of 2008, this passage was altered. It now states:
“Non-composite girders in WTC 7 rather than composite girders (presence or absence of shear studs) in two of the other three buildings.” (Page 341, November 2008)
So, NIST now admits that one of the three listed buildings also did not have shear studs, but it did not collapse. This greatly decreases the credibility of NIST’s arguments.
But there are even more problems with NIST’s shear stud argument. In 2004-- before NIST had developed a theory around the idea of girder failures-- it stated that shear studs did connect girders to the floor slabs. In its 2004 Interim Report on WTC 7, NIST stated:
“Most of the beams and girders were made composite with the slabs through the use of shear studs. Typically, the shear studs were 0.75 inches in diameter by 5 inches long, spaced 1 ft to 2 ft on center. Studs were not indicated on the design drawings for many of the core girders.” (Interim Report on WTC 7, L-6-7)
As this passage points out, many of the core girders in WTC 7 did not have shear studs. But the critical girder NIST claims failed-- the one connecting column 44 to column 79-- was not a core girder. It was in the building’s eastern region. Therefore, according to NIST’s Interim Report, this girder would have been anchored to the floor slab with shear studs. And because NIST stated that the studs were placed from one to two feet apart, and the girder was 45 feet long, there would have been at least 22 shear studs connecting the girder to the floor. However, NIST rewrote this passage for their Final Report, now stating that:
“Most of the beams were made composite with the slabs through the use of shear studs. Typically, the shear studs were 0.75 inches in diameter by 5 inches long, spaced 2 ft on center. Studs were not indicated on the design drawings for the girders.” (NIST NCSTAR 1-9, page 15)
It appears, therefore, that NIST, having developed a theory that would seem plausible only if the girders were not connected to the floors with shear studs, simply made those studs vanish. Any significant differences in the design of WTC 7 and other fire engulfed buildings that NIST and Mr. Nobles claim would seem to exist because of NIST’s falsifying of data.
The Towers And These Buildings
Mr. Nobles makes an amazing statement.
This statement is quite rich, considering that debunkers have tried to compare the WTC to things like high schools and badly constructed toy factories. To debunkers, if it’s made of steel and collapses from fire, it’s comparable to the WTC. This is complete nonsense. Even if there were some differences in design, if we can’t compare the WTC skyscraper fires with other skyscraper fires, then what can we compare them to?
Mr. Nobles offers three arguments for why the Towers were doomed to fail (my comments in red, some links).
The fires were never fought by any means in either building. The task of simply arriving at the floors proved to be too much for first responders to accomplish before the towers had fallen. Perhaps, but given the fact that neither of the Towers burned for even two hours, it is questionable how significant this would have been.
The fires were started over several floors simultaneously. Office buildings are designed to resist a slow-moving fire in one location. Fires were started in the WTC Towers simultaneously over several floors and over immense areas of these floors. And the floors, by the way, were the size of city blocks. Pictures show these fires burning entire lengths of the building in places. While this may have been true for the North Tower, the fires in the South Tower appeared to be going out shortly before its collapse. The fires did not even spread to the other side of the South Tower.
Strong fires tend to spread.
The fires were ignited with jet fuel as an accelerant. A large portion of jet fuel was consumed in the initial fireball on impact, but hundreds of gallons were left to help feed the fires in their first few minutes. In fact, the amount of fuel that remained in the Towers would have fit into a mid size U-Haul truck. The pictures you might have seen of weak or non-existent fires in these buildings were taken in the first few moments, when the fireball had robbed the fires of much oxygen. Again, very few flames were visible in the minutes before the South Tower’s collapse. The heat energy remained, however, and as oxygen returned through the immense holes left by the airplanes, the fires found plenty of jet fuel to reignite and start the massive office fires that resulted. But unfortunately, NIST has no evidence for high temperatures in either building.
World Trade Center 7′s (Alleged) Unrecognized Design Flaw
To show that WTC 7 was also doomed to fail, Mr. Nobles refers to a series of computer simulations NIST did of WTC 7.
Of course. When all else fails, use a computer model! NIST’s assertion that the failure of column 79 would have led to the total collapse of the whole building isn’t backed up by any independent verification. NIST has never released their modeling data, so it’s not open to peer review. As I have already shown, NIST has clearly distorted the data in their report. What’s more, NIST’s data shows that column 79 collapsed and accelerated at an extremely fast rate within only a fifth of a second, even though it was still supported by more than 30 floors of restraints. This would have been virtually impossible. The only evidence we have that column 79 was an “unrecognized design flaw” comes from NIST. Does that sound credible?
Mr. Nobles believes there is no comparison between the WTC and other building fires. This is obviously ridiculous. When one looks at things in perspective, it becomes obvious that the Twin Towers and Building 7 should never have collapsed because of the fires in them.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Debunking Joseph Nobles: 7 Problems With 7 Responses
Debunker Joseph Nobles has recently made a new version of his site, although it is still very much incomplete. In his latest post he has decided to address the newest site on WTC 7 made by former NASA engineer Dwain Deets. Unlike Pat Curley, who decided to examine only a few of Mr. Deets' points, Mr. Nobles has attempted to address all 7 points. Guess how many mistakes I found with his response?
One
No plane struck the 47-story World Trade Center skyscraper (Building 7).
His Response:
"Who cares? A meteor didn’t hit it, either. King Kong didn’t use the building to attack Cloverfield. That’s not how the building fell down.
And while no plane struck the building, debris from the collapsing 110-story WTC 1 did":
It shouldn't have to be pointed out anymore, but since they keep bringing it up...
Regardless, the damage has been shown to be less severe than previously thought.
I'm sure Mr. Nobles is well aware that the official story is that fire alone brought the building down, but I find it misleading to still try to use the damage as a viable excuse.
Two
No evidence of fires in Building 7 for the first 100 minutes after being struck by debris from Tower 1. (Yet fire from the debris is the official explanation for building collapse.)
His response:
"And then there was plenty of evidence of fires for the next 321 minutes the building burned."
I agree on this to an extent, but the question is if the fires were severe enough to cause collapse in the first place. And truthers and debunkers have said NIST is simply wrong on their temperature calculations.
"raising those five floor beams to a temperature of 600°C would require an enormous amount of energy, far more than was available from the burning of the office furnishings underneath the floor beams." -Kevin Ryan
"NIST's collapse initiation hypothesis requires that structural steel temperatures on floors 12/13 significantly exceeded 300°C [570°F]--a condition that could never have been realized with NIST's postulated 32 kg/m2 fuel loading." -Dr. Frank Greening
Mr. Nobles closes this argument with the following:
"If Mr. Deets has an alternative hypothesis for the sources of these fires, he has yet to posit it."
Mr. Nobles, if you have better evidence than NIST that the fires were severe enough to cause the building to collapse, you have yet to posit it.
He also mentions Barry Jennings' testimony about explosions in this part too, and falsely states that he and Michael Hess got out of the building at 12:10 to 12:15.
Jennings was quite clear about what he experienced.
Three
A free-fall drop of 2.25 sec. is finally officially acknowledged. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) lead investigator explained months earlier that, had there been free fall, there would have been no structural components below.
His response:
"Yes, and this period of free fall acceleration confirmed the computer modeling already performed by NIST. The building had lost structural integrity over eight floors at that point of the collapse."
This has long been responded to.
Four
Mainstream media quickly transitioned coverage of the building collapse to a “feel good” spin, focusing on the building being vacant when it came down. Dan Rather and Peter Jennings were more candid with their immediate comments, relating it to the familiar demolition of buildings we all well know.
His response:
"So? Isn’t it a good thing no one was in the building when it collapsed, Mr. Deets?"
Um... I don't think he was suggesting there was something wrong with no people in the building. His point is that the building appeared to be a demolition to several people. And this includes experts as well here, here, here, here, and here.
Five
No mention of the collapse of Building 7 in The 9/11 Commission Report.
His response:
"There’s plenty of mention of the collapse of Building 7 in the NIST Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. That’s the actual scientific paper coming from the government on this matter.
Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission Report was about how the attacks took place and the official response to these attacks. Building 7 fell seven hours after WTC 1. Why should the 9/11 Commission Report have mentioned this event? So again, who cares?"
Quite a lot of people care about this and other related issues Mr. Nobles.
The Commission Report was not an engineering report, but they didn't know that fire was the official explanation for its collapse yet. Again, it goes back to assuming that fire brought the building down, which fire has never done before.
Six
The New York Times characterized as “perhaps the deepest mystery in the investigation,” a FEMA-report appendix about a steel specimen recovered from Building 7, rather like Swiss cheese, a product of extraordinarily high temperatures.
His response:
"And that mystery has been solved. The specimen is currently at the Worchester Polytechnic Institute. The scientists there have examined the specimen. Its corrosion is due to a eutectic mixture. As the Wikipedia article makes clear, when you hear the term “eutectic” you begin to think “lower temperatures than normal for physical changes,” because that’s what eutectic systems do."
I think this was well addressed in the previous post on the topic.
Seven
No mention in the NIST Building 7 Final Report of this mysterious steel specimen.
His response:
"There was no way to ascertain where in the building the piece had come from, if it had come from Building 7 at all. NIST had all the specifications for the steel that was used in building WTC 7, and used that extensive documentation to calibrate its computer modeling. Others have studied the actual piece and are on record as saying the damage suffered by this piece was not a factor in the fall of the building."
Actually, it was confirmed that the steel came from Building 7, because Jonathan Barnett pointed out that "They didn't use this particular type of steel in Towers 1 or Towers 2, so that's why we know its pedigree." NIST completely failed to address this steel at all, along with any other actual steel from Building 7.
Mr. Nobles closes with the following:
"Mr. Deets would do best to find another hobby for his retirement years."
Mr. Nobles would do best to find something better to do than try to outwit a NASA engineer.
One
No plane struck the 47-story World Trade Center skyscraper (Building 7).
His Response:
"Who cares? A meteor didn’t hit it, either. King Kong didn’t use the building to attack Cloverfield. That’s not how the building fell down.
And while no plane struck the building, debris from the collapsing 110-story WTC 1 did":
It shouldn't have to be pointed out anymore, but since they keep bringing it up...
Regardless, the damage has been shown to be less severe than previously thought.
I'm sure Mr. Nobles is well aware that the official story is that fire alone brought the building down, but I find it misleading to still try to use the damage as a viable excuse.
Two
No evidence of fires in Building 7 for the first 100 minutes after being struck by debris from Tower 1. (Yet fire from the debris is the official explanation for building collapse.)
His response:
"And then there was plenty of evidence of fires for the next 321 minutes the building burned."
I agree on this to an extent, but the question is if the fires were severe enough to cause collapse in the first place. And truthers and debunkers have said NIST is simply wrong on their temperature calculations.
"raising those five floor beams to a temperature of 600°C would require an enormous amount of energy, far more than was available from the burning of the office furnishings underneath the floor beams." -Kevin Ryan
"NIST's collapse initiation hypothesis requires that structural steel temperatures on floors 12/13 significantly exceeded 300°C [570°F]--a condition that could never have been realized with NIST's postulated 32 kg/m2 fuel loading." -Dr. Frank Greening
Mr. Nobles closes this argument with the following:
"If Mr. Deets has an alternative hypothesis for the sources of these fires, he has yet to posit it."
Mr. Nobles, if you have better evidence than NIST that the fires were severe enough to cause the building to collapse, you have yet to posit it.
He also mentions Barry Jennings' testimony about explosions in this part too, and falsely states that he and Michael Hess got out of the building at 12:10 to 12:15.
Jennings was quite clear about what he experienced.
Three
A free-fall drop of 2.25 sec. is finally officially acknowledged. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) lead investigator explained months earlier that, had there been free fall, there would have been no structural components below.
His response:
"Yes, and this period of free fall acceleration confirmed the computer modeling already performed by NIST. The building had lost structural integrity over eight floors at that point of the collapse."
This has long been responded to.
Four
Mainstream media quickly transitioned coverage of the building collapse to a “feel good” spin, focusing on the building being vacant when it came down. Dan Rather and Peter Jennings were more candid with their immediate comments, relating it to the familiar demolition of buildings we all well know.
His response:
"So? Isn’t it a good thing no one was in the building when it collapsed, Mr. Deets?"
Um... I don't think he was suggesting there was something wrong with no people in the building. His point is that the building appeared to be a demolition to several people. And this includes experts as well here, here, here, here, and here.
Five
No mention of the collapse of Building 7 in The 9/11 Commission Report.
His response:
"There’s plenty of mention of the collapse of Building 7 in the NIST Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. That’s the actual scientific paper coming from the government on this matter.
Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission Report was about how the attacks took place and the official response to these attacks. Building 7 fell seven hours after WTC 1. Why should the 9/11 Commission Report have mentioned this event? So again, who cares?"
Quite a lot of people care about this and other related issues Mr. Nobles.
The Commission Report was not an engineering report, but they didn't know that fire was the official explanation for its collapse yet. Again, it goes back to assuming that fire brought the building down, which fire has never done before.
Six
The New York Times characterized as “perhaps the deepest mystery in the investigation,” a FEMA-report appendix about a steel specimen recovered from Building 7, rather like Swiss cheese, a product of extraordinarily high temperatures.
His response:
"And that mystery has been solved. The specimen is currently at the Worchester Polytechnic Institute. The scientists there have examined the specimen. Its corrosion is due to a eutectic mixture. As the Wikipedia article makes clear, when you hear the term “eutectic” you begin to think “lower temperatures than normal for physical changes,” because that’s what eutectic systems do."
I think this was well addressed in the previous post on the topic.
Seven
No mention in the NIST Building 7 Final Report of this mysterious steel specimen.
His response:
"There was no way to ascertain where in the building the piece had come from, if it had come from Building 7 at all. NIST had all the specifications for the steel that was used in building WTC 7, and used that extensive documentation to calibrate its computer modeling. Others have studied the actual piece and are on record as saying the damage suffered by this piece was not a factor in the fall of the building."
Actually, it was confirmed that the steel came from Building 7, because Jonathan Barnett pointed out that "They didn't use this particular type of steel in Towers 1 or Towers 2, so that's why we know its pedigree." NIST completely failed to address this steel at all, along with any other actual steel from Building 7.
Mr. Nobles closes with the following:
"Mr. Deets would do best to find another hobby for his retirement years."
Mr. Nobles would do best to find something better to do than try to outwit a NASA engineer.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
An Irresponsible Response
For the last few days I was out of town enjoying an early 4th of July weekend with my family and didn't have any internet during that time. So imagine my surprise when I got back home today to find that I was sent a message from infamous debunker RKOwens4. Here is what he wrote to me.
"Hey buddy. Just wanted to say I noticed you took YouTube up on their profit sharing offer if they are allowed to post advertisements next to and on your videos. They have been sending me these offers for over a year, and my videos get way more views than yours (my total upload views are 2,500,000, yours are 30,800). Yet, every single time I've rejected this offer. Why? Because I'm only interested in spreading the truth, not making money. I've never accepted a penny for making my videos.
So, the next time you and your little truther friends talk about how us debunkers are being paid for doing what we're doing, just remember how hilariously hypocritical you are."
-RKOwens4
Unfortunately for Mr. Owens, his accusations were completely false. I responded with the following:
"I don't know what you're on about. First of all, I have never accused you or any other debunker of being "paid" by anyone to do what you do. I'm sure other truthers have accused you of it, but I have never thought that. Just because I'm a truther doesn't mean I believe everything all other truthers believe. Secondly, I've never accepted any offers from Youtube. The only reason I might have some ads on my videos is because I have some copyrighted material in them. Youtube did inform me of that, but they haven't offered to pay me and I haven't recieved a check yet. Like you, I could care less about making money off this. Next time watch what you say about my videos and motives."
Mr. Owens did apologize (sort of):
"Alright, if what you say is true then sorry."
-RKOwens4
I accepted his apology, and sent him this link to show what I said was true.
I found Mr. Owens' message very intersting because it showed his apparent strategy for how he would respond to my videos. It's been over three months since I released my updated "9/11 Un-debunked" series, and Mr. Owens has made no attempt to legitimately refute a single video. And he is fully aware of them. About two months ago I had a short debate with Mr. Owens about Building 7, and here was his summary of why the building could not have been a demolition:
I directed him to two of my videos, one of which was part of my Un-debunked series:
Sounds of Explosions- How Much Do They Matter?
9/11 Un-debunked Version 2.0: Every Characteristic Of Controlled Demolition
He only responded to the first of my videos discussing the "lack of sound" issue. He essentially criticized it, claiming that I had no proof the explosions featured in the video came from the WTC. He basically missed the whole point of the video, which is that the actual "sound" of an explosion is not neccessary to warrent an investigation into whether explosives were used or not.
I felt it odd that he did not bring up my other video, as it clearly addressed the issue of the lack of explosive flashes in all of the buildings. My video features these three demos that clearly produced no flashes.
Now I was willing to believe he didn't bring up the other video because he genuinely had no response for it, and therefore excepted that this was a misleading argument in the debate over the collapse of the buildings. However, I was shocked to see that about a month later he brought up the exact same arguments to another truther almost word for word.
It seems to me that Mr. Owens has simply chosen to ignore my videos, and instead has decided to make baseless accusations in an attempt to discredit me. Very similar to how debunkers have chosen to avoid any scientific debate over the nanothermite paper and have continuously tried to discredit the authors and the journal. I see a pattern here.
Mr. Owens, you are more than welcome to respond to my rebuttals of your videos, but I don't appreciate the empty accusations. But I'm not usually one to hold a grudge, and I did accept your apology, so I hope we can eventually get back to more civilized debates in the future.
I wish Mr. Owens and everyone else a happy 4th of July.
"Hey buddy. Just wanted to say I noticed you took YouTube up on their profit sharing offer if they are allowed to post advertisements next to and on your videos. They have been sending me these offers for over a year, and my videos get way more views than yours (my total upload views are 2,500,000, yours are 30,800). Yet, every single time I've rejected this offer. Why? Because I'm only interested in spreading the truth, not making money. I've never accepted a penny for making my videos.
So, the next time you and your little truther friends talk about how us debunkers are being paid for doing what we're doing, just remember how hilariously hypocritical you are."
-RKOwens4
Unfortunately for Mr. Owens, his accusations were completely false. I responded with the following:
"I don't know what you're on about. First of all, I have never accused you or any other debunker of being "paid" by anyone to do what you do. I'm sure other truthers have accused you of it, but I have never thought that. Just because I'm a truther doesn't mean I believe everything all other truthers believe. Secondly, I've never accepted any offers from Youtube. The only reason I might have some ads on my videos is because I have some copyrighted material in them. Youtube did inform me of that, but they haven't offered to pay me and I haven't recieved a check yet. Like you, I could care less about making money off this. Next time watch what you say about my videos and motives."
Mr. Owens did apologize (sort of):
"Alright, if what you say is true then sorry."
-RKOwens4
I accepted his apology, and sent him this link to show what I said was true.
I found Mr. Owens' message very intersting because it showed his apparent strategy for how he would respond to my videos. It's been over three months since I released my updated "9/11 Un-debunked" series, and Mr. Owens has made no attempt to legitimately refute a single video. And he is fully aware of them. About two months ago I had a short debate with Mr. Owens about Building 7, and here was his summary of why the building could not have been a demolition:
I directed him to two of my videos, one of which was part of my Un-debunked series:Sounds of Explosions- How Much Do They Matter?
9/11 Un-debunked Version 2.0: Every Characteristic Of Controlled Demolition
He only responded to the first of my videos discussing the "lack of sound" issue. He essentially criticized it, claiming that I had no proof the explosions featured in the video came from the WTC. He basically missed the whole point of the video, which is that the actual "sound" of an explosion is not neccessary to warrent an investigation into whether explosives were used or not.
I felt it odd that he did not bring up my other video, as it clearly addressed the issue of the lack of explosive flashes in all of the buildings. My video features these three demos that clearly produced no flashes.
Now I was willing to believe he didn't bring up the other video because he genuinely had no response for it, and therefore excepted that this was a misleading argument in the debate over the collapse of the buildings. However, I was shocked to see that about a month later he brought up the exact same arguments to another truther almost word for word.
It seems to me that Mr. Owens has simply chosen to ignore my videos, and instead has decided to make baseless accusations in an attempt to discredit me. Very similar to how debunkers have chosen to avoid any scientific debate over the nanothermite paper and have continuously tried to discredit the authors and the journal. I see a pattern here.Mr. Owens, you are more than welcome to respond to my rebuttals of your videos, but I don't appreciate the empty accusations. But I'm not usually one to hold a grudge, and I did accept your apology, so I hope we can eventually get back to more civilized debates in the future.
I wish Mr. Owens and everyone else a happy 4th of July.
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