READ BEFORE POSTING! World Trade Center Terror Attack?

[MHDIsHere]

There were no intense fires burning in the towers

OK, I've resisted posting here until now, but I'm not going to let this pass.

I work in Brooklyn. I went down to the East River after I heard about the planes hitting the WTC. I saw the damage to the towers. I saw the first one fall, after that it got a little too "real" and I left.

I'm calling BS on the statement quoted above. From Brooklyn, you could see huge, and I mean HUGE holes in towers 1 and 2. Those holes were FILLED with orange flames. The air around the towers was filled with PAPER caught in the updraft from the fires, I assume it was sucked out of the building. It looked like confetti. I'm just thankful I was too far away to see the people falling, at least too far to recognize them as people.

As for building seven, I couldn't see that one from Brooklyn, but I spent a lot of time around the WTC and can tell you it was close enough to the towers that when they came down I'd expect major structural damage to be done to it.

 

[Marko Kloos]

One of the major designs they built into the building (and this is what the origional egineers said back in the seventies) is that it was designed as a tube structure with most of the outer wall being a big part of the support.

On the WTC towers, the external walls were the support. The buildings were designed as "hollow tube" concepts in order to keep the weight of the buildings low and maximize the floor space. The floor trusses were suspended from the load-bearing outer steel columns, called Vierendeel trusses. Without the support of the outer walls, the floors would pancake onto another, which is precisely what happened on 9/11.

As to the "mysterious" lightly damaged building that later collapsed:

Anyone who thinks that you can set up a building for demolition without anyone noticing is simply divorced from reality. It takes weeks to prepare a demolition job of that magnitude...you can't just waltz into a building, slap a few charges in a few places, and hit a button. Support walls need to be knocked out, a whole lot of stuff needs to be removed, holes need to be drilled, and trusses need to be torch-cut. You basically have to do pretty severe surgery to a building before you can even place the charges where they'll actually bring the place down.

Now, whoever supports the demolition theory is trying to say that thousands of people worked for weeks in that building without anyone noticing demolition crews stripping walls, torch-cutting supports, and generally making a mess of the place.

Sorry, but those theories are directly contributable to a lack of education on the matter. Stop reading conspiracy sites on the web. Go to a library, and pick up a book or two on structural engineering, physics, and architecture.

 

[Overman]

Sorry, but those theories are directly contributable to a lack of education on the matter. Stop reading conspiracy sites on the web.

What's worst is that these theories divert attention from things which really do deserve an answer. People spend so much time discussing totally ridiculous claims that less outrageous things which really should be looked in to get ignored. Also what happens is that more credible issues get lumped in with the totally ridiculous claims and smeared with the same description: 'ridiculous conspiracy theories'.

 

[Fred Hansen]

It takes weeks to prepare a demolition job of that magnitude...you can't just waltz into a building, slap a few charges in a few places, and hit a button.

But I done saw 'em do that on the TeeVee. Blowed-up reeeeal good!

May the good Lord take a likin' to ya, and blow ya up reeeal soon!

 

[shootinstudent]

LAK,

Again, you're making this claim only because no one sent you the Airlines' passenger lists by registered mail. Some conspiracy website says "The 19 hijackers weren't on the passenger list!!!", and you believe it. Doesn't get much deeper than that.

A poster above addressed your point about the insider trading. There are now several posts explaining why your demolition theory is ridiculous.

I recommend, if you really believe all of this, that you renounce your Federal Citizenship in protest. Then, you can move to Syria, where you can find lots of people who openly accept your theories on the September 11th attack.

 

[mtnbkr]

I didn't know they made that BBQ by putting demo charges up the pig's butt.

Great, now I have a new project...

<boom!>

Boys, it's time to eat...

Chris

 

[redhawk41]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

 

[molonlabe]

On the WTC towers, the external walls were the support. The buildings were designed as "hollow tube" concepts in order to keep the weight of the buildings low and maximize the floor space. The floor trusses were suspended from the load-bearing outer steel columns, called Vierendeel trusses. Without the support of the outer walls, the floors would pancake onto another, which is precisely what happened on 9/11.

This is absolutely correct from an engineering standpoint. That is why I am posting it again read it carefully. Thank you marko Kloos. Of course we are not dealing with engineers here or any one who wants to be confused with facts that may contradict their already preconceived notions.

And here again, this is getting lost in all this noise.

And for those who still have a grasp on reality, I offer this rememberance as it still remains my moral compass.

http://attacked911.tripod.com/

 

[novus collectus]

This is absolutely correct from an engineering standpoint. That is why I am posting it again read it carefully. Thank you marko Kloos. Of course we are not dealing with engineers here or any one who wants to be confused with facts that may contradict their already preconceived notions.

Heeeeyy, I said it first. Marko Kloos just said it better.

He did get it slightly wrong though IMHO. It is the majority of support or the support relied upon by the engineers to offer some contribution. We have to know (or the engineers did) that the inner structure also participated where the elevator shafts and stairwells contribute to the integrity. Although, the shafts were not in a direct line with each other all the way down IIRC. They did however had to have holes in the floors and system of trusses that helped to keep the outside walls in place and so they have to have the walls of the shafts also act as support where they are (from what limited knowledge I have of construction). Some of the pictures on some of those websites LAK has alluded to show them building some kind of "inner structure" in the beginning phases of construction, but what they don't say is that they are most likely just for the elevators and were not the main support that they claim it is.

Btw, that is a sad link but a good one.

 

[Marko Kloos]

He did get it slightly wrong though IMHO.

The outer trusses of the WTC towers were the main load-bearing structure. The building core was the central point for the web joists that held the floors. Each Vierendeel truss (the main vertical steel beams that made up the WTC outer frame) was connected to the building core with a web joist measuring about thirty-three inches in diameter. In total, there were 244 web joists spanning from the outer trusses to the core on each floor. When all the web joists of a floor were connected from the outer frame to the core, they poured concrete on top, which then made up the floor. The outer frame was the main load-bearing member, while the core served as elevator shafts and connection point to hold up the other end of the web joists that held up the internal floors. Because of these construction ingenuities, the internal structure of the WTC towers was remarkably lightweight for buildings of that magnitude.

Anyone with even a basic understanding of engineering knows what happens when you anchor a steel beam supported floor on two points, and then break or weaken one of those points. The floor will collapse and smash onto the floor below, which will then collapse under the impact and extra weight of the floor above it, and so on. We saw the end result on live TV, unfortunately.

Some of the pictures on some of those websites LAK has alluded to show them building some kind of "inner structure" in the beginning phases of construction, but what they don't say is that they are most likely just for the elevators and were not the main support that they claim it is.

That "inner structure" was the building core, and its function was as described above. If "they" claim that the core was the main load-bearing feature of the WTC towers, then "they" are mouth-breathing booger eaters who are too dumb or lazy to afford themselves the simple education of going into any community college library and opening a book on structural engineering, or the works of the chief WTC architect, Minoru Yamasaki.

Look: many people died very real and nasty deaths in those buildings. I am sick and tired of having people with third-grade educations pee on their memory by alleging in all seriousness that their own *government* saw fit to wipe out almost 3,000 terrified people, ages 2 to 89, so the evil plutocrats could sell stocks at a profit. Enough already.

 

[novus collectus]

Look: many people died very real and nasty deaths in those buildings. I am sick and tired of having people with third-grade educations pee on their memory by alleging in all seriousness that their own *government* saw fit to wipe out almost 3,000 terrified people, ages 2 to 89, so the evil plutocrats could sell stocks at a profit. Enough already.

I agree totally.


What I was saying about the support is that although the walls probably act like one really big column, there is still "some" support garnered from other aspects of the structure. To me it would seem prudent for an engineer to utilise every aspect of the structure to contribute to support of the structure. Even the risers for the air supply should be incorporated into the support structure and contribute instead of just burdenning the structure with the risers weight. Hence the claim that you were "slightly wrong" claim I made about it being the "only" support of the towers but they really were the only support that really counts when talking about why they collapsed.

It was only mentioned by me as a side note and not to dissagree with that you said. On the contrary, I agree whith what you said (just added a trivial detail )

 

[LAK]

Novus Collectus

But you should know that in tall buildings like that (and almost every building larger than I guess five or so floors) just about every part of the structure (except for cosmetic aspects) contribute to the support.

In the overall sense, certainly. But the WTC tower cores were designed to support the entire gravity load. Bear in mind that there would have been a generous safety factor - probably double or more - as there were no complex computer models and programs for allowable slimmer margins for error and defects we have today when the towers were designed. In addition to an airstrike, the towers had to be able to withstand gusting winds, storms over the long term and hurricane force winds on demand. For the 1,300 ft pillar-like structures of the towers to withstand hurricane force winds from any direction they would have to be capable of handling extraordinary side loadings with ease to ensure longivity.

Even though the inner column and steel box core supported the gravity load and the outer mesh provided a calculated rigidity under wind loading - the outer mesh was intergrated via the connecting floor structures to the inner core. A sort of steel three dimensional mesh structure, and very strong indeed.

The trusses (that I am so familliar with and I helped install a few hundred) help to hold the walls in place by helping them resist the outward forces (not an engineer but this is easy for me to understand). The trusses are such a design that if you break one of the cross pieces you lose half (or a high percentage like half) of its structural integrity. The majority of the trusses that are damaged by fire and impact on one end would fail on both ends.

I keep reading about "trusses"; looking at photos of the tower constructions they look more like steel beams to me (see photo below).

The trusses (that I am so familliar with and I helped install a few hundred) help to hold the walls in place by helping them resist the outward forces

There would be only modest outward forces on the outer mesh since it was not bearing the gravity load. It would however transmit side loads to the steel column/box core via the flooring.

So going back to the side loadings; these "trusses" would have to of been able to withstand a considerable end-on force along with the 22 gauge steel and 4" light concrete flooring; since to suggest otherwise would be to say that a wind load - say a 120 mph storm wind - that flexed the outer wall inwards "would not compress" the flooring and trusses against the core. In other words the floor and whatever additional supports underneath would have to capable of bearing a hefty end-on loading without bending, or in the case of the concrete breaking up.

Yes the building may have been engineered to take a hit from a jet liner, but they were making that calculation on the untested and unforseen scenario where the blast would blow away the fireproofing that would have protected it

There was no "blast"; the fuel from the planes burned in fireballs - rather starved of oxygen by the look of them. For an explosive "blast" to occur there must be a fuel air mixture of certain proportions give or take.

Figures I have seen suggest both 767-200ER jets were carrying about 10,000 lbs of fuel each - less than half full capacity. The first plane struck the tower almost center and there was a considerable fireaball ejected behind it, and what burned inside was certainly oxygen starved.

The second strike was way off center and angled so that the largest portion burned outside the building in a rather spectacular fireball to one side of it.

 

[LAK]

Novus Collectus

ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) is about as powerful as 70%-90% dynamite. He used ammonium nitrate and nitromethane in Oklahome city which is even more powerful than ANFO. He did not use garden variety fertilizer, he used the pure product that farmers add to their fertilizer. IIRC he had about a ton or two in the truck. That is the same as having a ton or two of C2 explosives (which is the explosive used in C4 plastic). If a buzz bomb in WWII that had a ton of trinitrophenol (IIRC or it was TNT) could destroy half a block, then why couldnt two tons of dynamite equivalent destroy the front of a building? Besides the building was not properly constructed anyway because they did not tie in the front (spandriel?) beam that supported the front of the building to the columns properly. They did not connect the iron reinforcing rods within the concrete to it's columns.

Problem; this info is coming from the same sources that told us - insisted - that Timothy McVeigh conducted the actual attack on his own - when witnesses say there was a #2. The same source that also, for some strange reason, won't let go of approximately a dozen camera recordings of McVeigh pulling up in and leaving his Ryder truck "on his own".

But Gen. Partin provides a qualified technical explanation of why it was not so based on the information provided by the official mouthpieces. There are other facts that have been tossed down the Memory Hole in regard to the Murrah bombing. One is secondary devices; I have local news footage - different ones - from studio and on-scene that quote FBI and local police sources that definitively say two more bombs were found, the area is being cleared, people running away a second time, and a bomb disposal vehicle being vectored in to pick up the goods. Etc.

Someones is not telling the whole truth - or maybe not even half of it. And years later it is institutional "historical fact".

As far as the wind, ever been even a few hundred feet up unprotected? [etc]

Yep, over 9,000 feet at times. Bear in mind the planes struck the buildings fairly early in the morning on what was probably a typical NE "september day". The smoke and fume plumes didn't deviate much from straight up and actually merged at some height.

Best evidence I have seen of the low-intensity fires after the jet fuel burned off is color footage and stills taken from the tallest neigboring buildings and helos since one can see into the actual openings. The best indicator by far is a shot of a blond or light haired lady wearing light pants standing in one of the holes looking down. She literally looked like she was waiting for a bus.

It is noteworthy that one never sees these shots any more; they showed them "on the day", and for a few days here and there. Not now; all we usually see are the planes hitting the towers, and the towers falling down.

As far as the fire being smaller than the other ones you mentioned (that I have not personally seen yet), were they on somewhat cloudy days?[etc]

Best to see the pile of photos for yourself. Just run a google on Madrid fire Windsor. It burned for almost two days so you can see the different photos taken in daylight, night etc.

Bulding 7. It was not a new building IIRC and it had not been built to withstand an earthquake. When the trade center collapsed it would have traumatized anything near it and it would have been just luck or a fluke if there were building around it that were not damaged to some major degree

7 was built as part of the same project, and later than the towers. In between the nearest tower and bldg 7 was WTC 6 - the Customs building.

To ignore the physics that could have damaged building seven or even the trade center and to follow the people who jump to conclusions is not good IMO because although we do not need to blindly follow what the government says and we should question what they do, many of these people are perpetrating harm with their "theories" and have gone too far and have started using bits and pieces that do not fit together to justify their "intuition".

There is no structural damage in any footage of building 7. It mysteriously catches fire on two lower floors in a couple of small areas, then a few hours later it collapses controlled demolition style. You really need to find that footage and watch it a few times.

This ultimately is the problem with the official government lines; they contain many outright falsehoods and omissions, and ultimately are the most ridiculous and incredible conspiracy theories of all.

 

[novus collectus]

First let me say that when I looked at the quote of what I said, I see that it could be taken the wrong way. So let me add that I installed 100's of trusses in other buildings and not in the trade center building since I was just 7 when it was built.

Figures I have seen suggest both 767-200ER jets were carrying about 10,000 lbs of fuel each - less than half full capacity. The first plane struck the tower almost center and there was a considerable fireaball ejected behind it, and what burned inside was certainly oxygen starved.

I don't have time (once again) to answer the whole post, but I noticed that your theory contradicts itself with this quite. If there was a claim that the jet fuel burned off almost immediately, then by saying that there was not enough air for combustion of the fuel would suggest to me that there was plenty of fuel left to continue an inferno that would provide a lot more heat than 500 degrees F.

I don't know what that picture you linked means? First of all there is something called staging in construction which basically means that you deliver the materials for the next phase (or step) as you need it, or it also means that you store the materials in a particular place on the job site. The trusses for that floor just may have not been in the picture. Try to provide some better ones (please).

The fireproofing is usually a sprayed on concoction of papermache like material with a fire retardent in it. That stuff is so easy to knock off that it sometimes falls off itself when there is vibration. As far as the "blast", I was talking about both a detonating force (with the proper fuel air mix) and the fiery blast that is full of energy and dynamics. Both may have happened but the fiery blast sure as hell did. Unburning jet fuel alone surging at a few hundred miles an hour is more than enough to knock the papermache of the beams (IMO).

How can someone say that "all" of the fuel acted the like a perfect model when there are so many variables that are compounded by the air vertices flowing around the varied internal structure and the differing oxygen supply with numerous sources of ignition in such a dynamic circumstance? These so called experts who have made blanket statements sound like quacks and maybe if someone checks the validity of their claims against proven science, then one would stop using them for the theory, but then the theory would start to fall apart.

Then again it is part of the government's conspiracy to change all of the science books to make the conspiracy "experts" sound like quacks .

 

[LAK]

MHDIsHere,

You mean you didn't see the people standing in the gaping holes where the "intense fires raged"? If you didn't see it there - you could have seen it on national news.

As for building seven, I couldn't see that one from Brooklyn, but I spent a lot of time around the WTC and can tell you it was close enough to the towers that when they came down I'd expect major structural damage to be done to it.

WTC 6 was between the nearest tower and WTC 7. There is footage of WTC 7 being demolished that does not show any structural damage.

You'd think that structural damage 47 story steel building sufficient to cause a spontaneous three or four second and total collapse - from another falling building - would have left some visible signs now don't you?

 

[LAK]

Mark Kloos,

Demolition is very complex, and can't be set up in a matter of hours. Yes, plenty of people are aware of that.

But the idea that this can not be done unseen or un-noticed is naive - when you are speaking in terms of people who basically have total control over a target piece of real estate.

Before you can say it could not have been done, you must be able to say with certainty what every contracting business and workman, etc was doing on the property on any one given day.

So, precisely what was going on in WTC 7 during the entire 30 days before it went down? Who was in there the entire period? Which companies owned and run by whom? Which government agencies if any?

If you can not answer all these questions, you can not say with any certainty what could or could not have been done in there.

 

[LAK]

There are many sources referenced on this "popular" website WTC page; although it could be a conspeewassy theewee blogger in disguise.

"The structural system, deriving from the I.B.M. Building in Seattle, is impressively simple. The 208-foot wide facade is, in effect, a prefabricated steel lattice, with columns on 39-inch centers acting as wind bracing to resist all overturning forces; the central core takes only the gravity loads of the building. A very light, economical structure results by keeping the wind bracing in the most efficient place, the outside surface of the building, thus not transferring the forces through the floor membrane to the core, as in most curtain-wall structures. Office spaces will have no interior columns. In the upper floors there is as much as 40,000 square feet of office space per floor. The floor construction is of prefabricated trussed steel, only 33 inches in depth, that spans the full 60 feet to the core, and also acts as a diaphragm to stiffen the outside wall against lateral buckling forces from wind-load pressures.

http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildings/World_Trade_Center.html

 

[LAK]

Novus Collectus

If there was a claim that the jet fuel burned off almost immediately, then by saying that there was not enough air for combustion of the fuel would suggest to me that there was plenty of fuel left to continue an inferno that would provide a lot more heat than 500 degrees F.

No; higher concentration of fuel simply means it will burn slower at a lower temperature as opposed to a fuel air mixture that is explosive.

If you were to take a couple of gallons of gas, pour it into bowl and throw it against a wall that had an ignition source on it you would get for the sake of arguement a brief fireball. Take those same two gallons in a contained airspace where the air mixture is favorable and you get an explosion that has some destructive force in addition to heat.

Certainly with forced air, burning fuel or anything else, burns hotter; but the flame color and smoke in the towers does not indicate this took place even briefly.

I don't know what that picture you linked means? First of all there is something called staging in construction which basically means that you deliver the materials for the next phase (or step) as you need it, or it also means that you store the materials in a particular place on the job site. The trusses for that floor just may have not been in the picture. Try to provide some better ones (please).

I only see beams or girders - no "trusses". But on the subject of pictures, see if you can find any; all of a sudden pictures online of the WTC towers under construction detailing the floor construction and interface with the core are rather hard to find.

As far as the "blast", I was talking about both a detonating force (with the proper fuel air mix) and the fiery blast that is full of energy and dynamics. Both may have happened but the fiery blast sure as hell did. Unburning jet fuel alone surging at a few hundred miles an hour is more than enough to knock the papermache of the beams (IMO).

Blast, and fiery blast are not what came out of the side of the second tower strike - it was a fireball (see above comments)

How can someone say that "all" of the fuel acted the like a perfect model [etc]

This I agree with - and that terribly inconvenient second tower strike won't go away. If you do a side by side comparison with the first strike it is undeniable that the two were very different in area of impact, angle, and the amount of fuel that burned outside the building in each case.

 

[shootinstudent]

It's good enough to convince an MIT fellow:

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

and some civil engineers who aren't American at Uni. of Sydney:

http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/latest/wtc.php#why


But I guess LAK knows more about structural engineering than they do, based on his "layman's knowledge" of internet photos of the WTC.

 

[gburner]

Fellow TFL members...

I respectfully request that we leave this topic and declare LAK the winner; not because his theories are correct or his point of view spot on, far from it. His posts suggest that he experiences an alternative reality which escapes the rest of us. It has been my experience that folks who evidence similar belief systems will not be swayed by fact, logic, common sense, eyewitness accounts or the Socratic method.

Folks who live in this alternative reality will continue to fling excrement at the wall and call that which sticks fact, all the while soiling the memory of those who gave their lives. Any further 'discussion' only encourages them, feeds their ego and cheapens the random, tragic sacrifice of the victims. It will not alter their skewed sense of reality nor make their minds accept what is the simple, awful truth...that Arab hijackers used boxcutters to slaughter the crew of four transcontinental airliners, that they deliberately crashed them into the World Trade Centers two towers, The Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, that the stresses caused by the forces of the explosions and fires as well as the structural damage sustained by the towers as a result the crashes caused their ultimate collapse and the deaths of 3,000 of our fellow citizens.

Some folks cannot comprehend that these are the facts. We cannot give them the help they need here. Let's leave it be. Please.