Comments Posted By CMM
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9/11 TRUTHERS GUT PUNCHED BY HISTORY CHANNEL
I must admit this is almost a compulsion, rather like having to turn your head as you pass an accident.
A few things only because I would hate to leave without responding and seeming as if I am unable to.
A single story house, lets focus on typical 2x4@16" stud framing on sill plate, anchors @24", double cap plate and a preengineered wooden truss system (we can even skip the additional structural elements of hurricane straps etc as req'd in many us states).
a vehicle less than the height of the top plate (8' +/-) crashing through the wall would be expected to destroy the studs it impacts, the drywall and of course the face brick. the loss of integrity of the 1 story house makes it more likely to suffer a massive failure than a multi story wooden dwelling for a rather basic reason. the forces are distributed through a wider grid on a higher building. each floors framing distributes the load evenly (assuming proper design and the selection of appropriately sized lintels) over the floor below it.
basically and to use terms not too technical. if a vehicle goes through a 1 level residence then there is nothing above to hold up the roof other than the cap plates (worst case scenario of the vehicle hitting the wall perpendicular to the joists/roof truss) Now good design would expect that the trusses are supported over a median point (beam across width of structure or load bearing wall) when this happens the trusses are now supported at the undamaged end and the middle but not the damaged end. again, to give worst case the bearing median wall is insufficient and the joists begin to sag and eventually collapse over the damaged area. this still does not account or allow for undamaged trusses to collapse.
in the multi level structure the joists loads are still distributed as are the upper floor loads over the undamaged sections. for the upper floors to sag will require a loss of structural cohesion. you see, the entire structure is nailed/screwed together and this forms a building unit.
i suggest you experiment with scaled down models. take some balsa, glue a basic frame together and apply a load, if you have any books choose a heavy one (as yet unread or uncoloured) and sit it on top. now shear studs until you have failure. Now balsa is by far weaker than structurally graded spf or whatever is used in your region but it will do for a basic experiment. what you will find if you have displayed the barest amount of technical ability is that the more complex the structure the more distributable the loads are.
my comment about the fuel was in response to frankibc stating something to the effect of
'the crashing truck spills diesel fuel which catches fire'get a small can of diesel fuel and with adult supervision toss lighted matches into it. feel free to tell me how many lighted matches it takes to light the diesel fuel. if the matches keep going out in the diesel fuel don't be dismayed, you don't have defective fuel.
frank also made 2 different statements.
1. the wooden structure will flex and absorb more of the energy
2. they don't build skyscrapers out of wood for a reasonwood will not flex more than steel nor will it support more of a load than steel (lets not go on about glue laminated structures because even a neophyte will quickly accept the limitations compared to steel)
steel is used because it will flex and bend and tolerate a load better than wood will.
continuing franks diehard inability to understand anything he does not agree with he states that i believe there are only 2 options, to agree with truthers or to agree with good government. i started and maintain that the problem is that you are so busy defining sides you can look no longer than the end of your nose. the problem is that no one dares consider the views of the other side without scorn or ridicule.
you also state that you find it funny i see thought and logic as separate. they are you simple little man.
asimov writes science fiction. he has spaceships that cannot exist. he has thought about them but they are not logical.
so therefore logic and thought exist as two parts of the same process. the mind generates all these things and in that is the cohesion of self, but, all thought is not logical.steve-o drops everyone in the same bucket as delusional. agree with what you are told or you are delusional. accept or you are delusional. how simplistic and monochromatic.
and for the last post from troll feeder
--"Of course the government can do evil. Capability is not the same as actual doing. You understand that, right?"
yes i do. you can wrap your head around the fact that people in power can and will do evil cant you? i am not even saying they have, i am saying that the rose coloured glasses of total acceptance need taken off.
--"Did someone (other than yourself) equate the ignition of the fuel from the planes when they rammed the Towers to “spilled diesel fuel spontaneously igniting[?]â€"
yes it was frank who said diesel would combust
--"We are responding to your specific points. You just don’t like the answers. That is poor reason to attempt to insult us with your silly name calling."
i do not see specific points. i have asked questions and received belittling or pointless responses because i dare to disagree with certain (not all) facets of the official story.
--"Also, it completely gives the lie to your claim that we aren’t listening. We are listening; we are thinking about the points you raise; and we are systematically and thoroughly demolishing your claims with references and logic and stuff like that."
nothing has been demolished. certainly none of the basic structural allegations regarding time failure. i do admit i was mistaken when i first spoke of the central concrete core when in fact it was a series of massive columns
i started by asking a question that no one has been able to answer. this would probably resolve a lot of questions.
-what is the expected fuel amount to hit the buildingsfrom there a great deal can be calculated and i would have expected that such self-professed experts on everything would have been able to answer that without a moments hesitation.
this is my one big question that i came here with
the plane left with 'a' liters of fuel
it expended 'b' liters on the flight.
'c' liters would have been consumed in the initial fireball
'd' liters of burning fuel would have remained and been distributed across the available floor space evenly to allow for uniform failure as seen in the entire floor falling at once.I cannot find a single person who can give a reasonable answer to what 'd' was. this would define if there was sufficient fuel for the damage as described to occur. if there was then case closed. if not then what happened? ignoring any conspiracy issues is this a structural design issue that will exist in other large buildings and needs to be reviewed?
my question at the conclusion as at the start seems quite reasonable. excluding some of the more moronic responses that included such things as 'death rays' and other pointless hyperbole i never did even get a glimpse at a rational response other than 'figure it out on your own' from one of the obviously more enlightened repliers.
--"Like Dan and Steve-O and TomB and others have said or implied, we do this not for you, who are so willfully lost, but for the children. Doesn’t anybody care about the children?
Why, yes. Yes, indeed. We do"and here at your conclusion is the sort of response i have grown accustomed to on this anti-intellectual bastion. i have answered any question i have been asked without death-rays or children. the responders cannot say the same.
here are the basics.
large buildings are not supposed to fall like that ever or at all, period. if you think otherwise you are speaking from a total lack of structural knowledge regarding building design in the latter part of the century.
firemen rushed into the buildings and not a single one was capable of making a determination of the immediacy of the danger regardless of how many years experience they had in dealing with burning buildings. you may say that there is no way they could have known exactly what was happening and that is true. that said they did know what the rest of us knew. 2 commuter planes with fuel and passengers had hit the buildings.
at a rough guess and dealing with insufficient and fragmentary data there would not appear to be enough time or temperature for a catastrophic failure of 2 buildings in the exact same way in the exact same pattern and in an incredibly similar time frame.
so thats that. now i await the delusional comments and the death rays etc etc
Comment Posted By CMM On 4.09.2007 @ 23:30
I should be surprised by the immediacy of the moronic responses containing such things as fairies, magic, death-rays or my personal favourite, spilled diesel fuel spontaneously igniting, but I am not.
i started my comments by saying how the two sides were incapable of listening or rational discussion. I will end it by maintaining that stance. The responses from the witless only buttress the rest of the worlds view that Americans are more able to focus on this weeks Idol episode than anything else.
You are right Frank. Your government can do no evil, think no evil etc etc. Everything is rosey and Brownie's doing a helluva job. There were weapons of mass destruction, Cheney, I mean Haliburton is not stuffing its pockets with public funds and Iran is a threat to world peace. Thank god you have all the answers, if only the rest of us were as assured as you.
You remind me of Voltaire's story about the Brahman and the washer woman. He is tormented by questions where she hasn't a care in the world. He is amazed at her ability to be so free of thought and wonders if that freedom is worth the intellectual cost.
don't forget your soap boys
Comment Posted By CMM On 29.08.2007 @ 23:37
With time, temperature and force you can eventually destroy a diamond, and there's the rub. With the WTC collapse we had all three effects in place but none in sufficient ratios to effect what had occurred as quickly as it occurred. Now the steel alone did not hold up the towers, they are an intrinsic part of the structure but not the only part. We have 3 major elements in large buildings of this style. A solid central core, normally the elevator/stairwell centers. Extending from this core are the concrete floor slabs. these reinforced slabs are tied into this central column (and yes I am simplifying the column concept for all the non-structural types) with reinforcing rods buried within the concrete. Below these slabs are the steel joists, either solid or open web steel joists. These are connected to each other and to the concrete core. Now as for welds failing I am sure it would take little effort for the most dogmatic amongst you to find a welder who will tell you how often a weld fails before the surrounding steel fails. The answer is rarely. Except for especially poor welds you have multiple layers of steel joined together as a cohesive whole that tends to be stronger than the surrounding steel. Now the core, the slabs and the joists are given an additional stiffness in the case of the WTC by the vertical reinforcing stiffeners, those silver bars that ran vertically up the faces. Each part of the building works in conjunction with the other to form a structurally sound building.
All the discussions on the failure of the structures focuses only on one aspect of the structure while ignoring the cohesive nature of a building. If I drive a truck through one wall of your house it does not collapse the whole structure. You will need extensive restoration but, and finding pics of this on the net is easy enough, that gaping hole will exist while your house still stands. The reason for this is the cohesive nature of a structure. No one part is responsible for the support of the entirety.
That some joists failed does not explain why the slab, slab reinforcing, core, stiffeners and remaining joists also failed and all at the same time. If there is another architect, structural engineer or physicist who can correct me then I would be most willing to hear it.
To collapse a building in a precise and exact way requires weeks or months of planning and weeks of installation. However, if you are not quite so interested in the exact nature of a drop it can be done much more quickly and easily. If I was to drop a large building that was already under stress I would simply place a very large amount of high explosives in an elevator shaft and shatter the core. It is inelegant, clumsy and poorly done but it would cause a massive failure. The shattering of the core would allow the floors to drop and, as someone said before, gravity, gravity, gravity.
Without shattering the core what we should have seen were two giant columns left standing once the floors sheared off, the stiffeners failed and the whole thing dropped.
Sadly I do not see some great international conspiracy, some collection of genius that embodies true evil. I see something far more banal, basic and in that, depressing. I see a series of actions taken for nothing more than the accumulation of wealth and power. I see people making decisions 'for our own good' whether they are or not only history shall prove. And before you dismiss my reasoning please consider. Every day we hear of some poor soul killed for the sad contents of his wallet. $10, $20, hell 50 cents isn't just a vague nickname. If we know people will kill for so little why would we doubt they will do it for billions.
The part of the puzzle that needs answering is how, in direct contradiction to all modern structural concepts did three buildings collapse with such rapidity when we know from the design of them that they should not have. Why are there so many discrepancies in all the stories on all the parts of this horror. Why is no one willing to really listen or consider.
Comment Posted By CMM On 29.08.2007 @ 00:15
The same arguments, the same positions and no one listening or even considering anyone else's point of view.
There are aspects to the truthers point of view that is pointless and paranoid. There is a blindness and refusal to think of anything but the 'party line' in the right-wingers point of view.
That there has never been a truly useful or complete investigation into all the aspects of the 9/11 events is the biggest problem. Anyone who disagrees with the official line is a 'truther' or a conspiracy nut. As time progresses more and more questions have been raised that have never been asked or truly answered.
Instead of stifling debate why not try answering each part of this puzzle intelligently and as completely as possible.
I am an architect, I have worked on large multi-story buildings in steel. The tallest was only 67 stories so I cannot compare to the twin towers, but 67 is still tall enough to know the math. I have extensive experience in the curtain-wall construction methodologies and I have questions. Unlike the mechanical engineer of a previous post, I was very surprised when both buildings collapsed. Modern structures are not supposed to do that.
Until both 'sides' start and maintain a rational discourse on what happened and the many issues as yet unresolved, nothing will be accomplished.
Comment Posted By CMM On 28.08.2007 @ 17:27
Frank IBC
In response,
I asked if anyone could help me with the calculations. All available information only provides maximum capacities not actual capacities. If you ask anyone about actualities you get the typical vitriolic witless response of those who will brook no dissidence.
The earlier attack on the wtc was what? A car bomb. You have not diminished my argument but buttressed it. These masterminds in their greatest were able to pack a van with explosives and drive it under a building. Their lack of planning ability resulted in them not placing it close to any locations that would cause significant structural damage.
The Bojinka plots of 95 were the most complicated plots undertaken by these lunatics. That it failed can either be placed to coincidence or through their inherent lack of ability to organize anything that large.
CMM
Comment Posted By CMM On 23.08.2007 @ 22:58
The comments made show the inherent problem with any sort of rational review of anything in the modern USA. Everything is reduced ab absurdo, it is either one or the other and can never be a part of both. The over simplistic acceptance of either sides views leaves a great deal to be desired. On the one side we have the ‘conspiracy truthers’, everything to them is a dark malevolent process of some shadow organization and any attempt to show otherwise just proves ‘you are part of it’. On the other side of the coin are the ‘neocons’ who accept without any question the official storyline associated with 9/11 and anything else. If you disagree with the neocon line then you are just another ‘conspiracy nut’ to be dismissed. In between any two points of view one will generally find the truth. Now coincidental occurrences are always suspect. For one odd thing to happen is an anomaly, for several is a distinct curiosity and for more is questionable that deserves investigation. There are a great many coincidences and occurrences both before, during and after the attacks. There are a great many questions that need answered and yet, any attempt to find answers leads to the determination of ‘conspiracy nut’.
Here is one issue that I have never been able to have resolved, perhaps someone can help me with this. In all the reports of the burning fuel melting the building everyone reported the maximum fuel capacity of the aircraft. Now we all know that commercial aircraft do not fly ‘topped up’. It does not make sense to transport fuel so they carry what they need and a safety margin. So if we take that amount of fuel, subtract from it the amount used in flight we are left with an actual amount that could have burned within the towers. Now at the moment of impact we see, as expected, a rather huge fireball that extends several hundred feet outside of the building. This fireball is generated by the exploding fuel from the ruptured tanks and can be calculated as an approximate value to a ratio of consumed fuel in that fireball. If we take available fuel, subtract the estimated amount that would have been consumed in flight and deduct and approximation of how much was consumed in the initial explosion, we seem to have very little available liquid fuel left over. The residual fuel at the burning rate, and including evaporation constants modified also by heating of the liquid fuel, does not seem to allow a long enough or hot enough burn time to do all it seems to have done. If anyone can show me math to the contrary I would appreciate it. You see, I am not in search of a position but in search of rational truths. Once I know those truths then I can define a position based on the facts, not feelings.
And to salve any hurt ‘neocon’ feelings one must also understand that the collapse of the towers as ‘straight down’ is not unusual or indicative of anything. The centre of gravity on a horizontally aligned monolithic slab means that it would take a massive amount of energy to move that slab laterally causing a sideways fall.
Now from a terrorism standpoint there are other issues that have never been addressed. Osama Bin Laden was best known as a glorified car bomber. Very little planning or intellectual energy is required to fill a vehicle with explosives, drive it up to something and have the driver press a switch. His greatest success was the attack against the USS Cole in which he organized a car bombing, but with a boat. Same methodology, same effect, same amount of intellectual planning required. Suddenly we have him as a mastermind organizing an international, multi-month (or year), nationwide process of false identification, training, surveillance, deep-cover operatives, combined with the ability to defeat the efforts of the entire US government. This is akin to the kid who steals candy bars suddenly knocking over Fort Knox and making a clean getaway. It does not make sense and the answers given are pithy and repetitive.These are just two items that I find questionable that I cannot find reasonable and logical answers for. There are a great many more but of course they end up in the two moronic categories we began with. The dissenters who are obviously nuts or the accepters who are obviously sheep.
Is there no one left who can debate or review a topic without reducing it as such?
CMM
Comment Posted By CMM On 23.08.2007 @ 09:25
