15 years of deception; 9/11 reviewed

[HoughMade]

All I know is that not a single Shabbos goy was on the job that fateful Tuesday and that can't have been a coincidence.

 

[Woobie]

I'll bite, because I never really believe what the government has to say because:

1. We know they lie or withhold the truth on a regular basis. This is because:
A. They often have to for national security reasons, and it's probably a habit.
B. It is politically expedient for the current regime.
C. Middle and upper level management are self-serving bureaucrats with no higher values than their own careers.
D. The desire to manipulate popular opinion to serve a particular agenda.

2. Large organizations are very inefficient at many things, including collecting and disseminating information.

3. Ineptitude of government employees. (If they were good, they would be making private sector money.)

4. The rush to get a narrative out to the media before all the facts are in.

So is the official narrative on 9/11 100% accurate? Unlikely. But I think most of it is mostly true. Where I think they have been misleading is the money. I think the Saudi's had way more to do with this than we are letting on. Al Qaeda had a lot of assets and cash, which they didn't acquire by setting up lemonade stands. That money came from a lot of places, but given OBL's links to The Saudi's, he certainly got support from someone there, which I think includes some of the royal family, only because half the country is part of the Royal family. But because of our very cozy relationship with the Saudi's, they didn't make it into the axis of evil.

Thats the kind of stuff I see as an issue. We had a crisis, and we capitalized on it. But I have no trouble believing a giant airplane traveling hundreds of miles per hour with dozens of tons of fuel can cause a building (even a very large one) to collapse. I'm also not convinced anyone in the government knew it was coming. You have to remember what Clinton did to the military and intelligence services. They just weren't ready to prevent an attack like that. Once again, ineptitude (at the top) readily explains the intelligence failures.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

.

 

[rhino]

I don't believe there is any cover-up with respect to what initiated the damage, why the buildings collapsed, or how they failed. The "official" story is entirely consistent with the principles that govern structures, materials, and how and why they fail. The allegations otherwise of which I am aware are not typically consistent with those aforementioned principles. Some present the failures of the smaller buildings as some kind of evidence to the contrary, but they neglect or fail to understand the magnitude of the pressure wave that would have propagated underground when the big towers pancaked.

If there is a cover-up, I find it far more likely that it revolves around the people who were responsible. And I don't think it's a matter of a different set of people, but rather how deeply into alleged US allies the responsible parties were and are.

 

[Alpo]

Mental masturbation, GP.

 

[rob63]

Be careful Rob....Everyone now knows you listened to short wave radio in the 90's....

Well, we all had to go somewhere after the CB radio craze ended.

If anyone is interested, here is an actual engineering approach to explaining what happened although it is admittedly not as interesting as the conspiracy theories. The key to understanding it is that in the design of the WTC all of the loads were supported by the external structure, sort of like how a modern car has a unibody/monocoque instead of a frame. It was designed that way to eliminate the vertical steel beams that are typically inside a structure because they create problems for using the space. Once that external structure began to weaken there was nothing else to support the loads.

Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation

 

[rhino]

<Deep breath>

Anybody wanna run the math on the energy of a 767-200 that weighs 250,000lb (70k of which is Jet-A) and is traveling at 400 knots?

The kinetic energy alone is about 2.41 JG = 2.41 BILLION Joules.

One ton of TNT releases about 4.184 GJ.

So the amount of energy just from the motion of the plane is more than half of a ton [STRIKE]​more than 2 tons[/STRIKE] of TNT. [oops. Failed the easy part - thanks to Alpo for the correction]

That doesn't count the chemical energy stored in the jet fuel plus any other combustibles that were present.

 

[Alpo]

math

 

[rhino]

My calculation:


KE = 1/2 * m * v^2 = (1/2)(250,000 lb X 1 kg/2.2 lb)(400 knots X 1.15078 mph/knot X 0.44704 m/s/mph)^2 = 2,405,939,457 Kg-m/s^2*m = 2.41 GJ


[fixed unit conversion error - thanks to woobie]

 

[Alpo]

I arrived at the same result with the online kinetic energy calculator. Look at your comparison with TNT.

 

[HoughMade]

In sum:

1) Ignore what eyewitnesses saw.
2) Ignore what you, yourself may have seen on TV.
3) Ignore the fact that principles of engineering support that the planes caused the building to collapse.
4) Remember the government cannot be trusted.
Therefore, even if what the witnesses, and we saw makes sense from a physics perspective, IF the government says that is what happened, it could not have happened that way.

Using this logic, I will ignore all future tornado warnings and watches if the National Weather Service is involved in any way.

 

[ces6508]

If (fill in the blank) blew the Towers, WHY?

 

[cosermann]

Jet fuel can't melt steel beams

In addition to post #32, I’ll add a personal story.

My dad owned a small manufacturing business back from around 1976 to the early 1990s when the business suffered a moderate fire.

The building was constructed of cinder block walls with steel i-beams across the top supporting the roof.
The fire was fueled mostly by wood (pine lumber mostly), and a bit of wood preservative.
Fire dept got it under control in good order, but it was very interesting to see how the steel i-beams supporting the roof in the area of the fire had softened and sagged like so much licorice or taffy. Roof was totally down in those areas. Weird looking.

This “fuel can’t melt steel beams” talk is all nonsense. It’s just not true. It's also smacks of being a bit disingenuous. We're not talking about melting steel. We're talking about softening steel the point it loses it's structural integrity.

I’ve seen it first hand with a pretty run of the mill kind of fire. Even a "regular" fire is plenty hot enough to soften steel to the point where it can't hold up a roof.

 

[Alpo]

American Airlines Flight 11 flew at a speed of 470 mph (210m/s) into the North Tower (WTC1) (fema.gov)
Flight 11 impacted the North Tower carrying 8,684 gallons (57,922 lb) of [Jet Fuel jet fuel] which is about 36% of capacity. (journalof911studies.com)
Flight 11 had a net weight of 177,079 lb plus 57,922 lb of fuel for a total minimum weight of 235,001 lb (106,594 kg).
The kinetic energy of Flight 11 was about 2358 MJ.

United Airlines Flight 175 flew at a speed of 590 mph (263m/s) into the South Tower (WTC2) (fema.gov)
Flight 175 impacted the South Tower carrying 7,415 gallons (49,458 lb) of [Jet Fuel jet fuel] which is about 31% of capacity. (journalof911studies.com)
Flight 175 had a net weight of 179,080 lb plus 49,458 lb of fuel for a total minimum weight of 228,538 lb (103,663 kg).
The kinetic energy of Flight 175 was about 3585 MJ.

Editors Note: The WTC Towers were designed to take the impact of a fully-loaded Boeing 707-340B (net weight 146,400 lb = 66,406 kg) traveling at 600 mph (268 m/s) with a fuel capacity of 23,000 gal = 71,300 kg = 157,189 lb for a total mass of 66,406 kg + 71,300 kg = 137,706 kg has a kinetic energy of .5*137706*(268^2)=4945297872 J or about 4945 MJ.

To summarize, the design of the WTC towers was specified to withstand a [The World Trade Center Twin Towers Were Designed For Jet Impacts impact energy of 4945 MJ] , 37% greater than Flight 175's impact energy and 109% greater than Flight 11's impact energy.

The WTC was an extraordinarily strong structure. The perimeter walls were, in effect a steel column. The building likely could have withstood the impact energy. But, heat was never factored into the original models.

 

[Woobie]

My calculation:


KE = 1/2 * m * v^2 = (1/2)(250,000 lb X 2.2kg/lb)(400 knots X 1.15078 mph/knot X 0.44704 m/s/mph)^2 = 2,405,939,457 Kg-m/s^2*m = 2.41 GJ

shouldnt the mass be (250,000 lb. X [kg/2.2 lb.])?

 

[rhino]

In addition to post #32, I’ll add a personal story.

My dad owned a small manufacturing business back from around 1976 to the early 1990s when the business suffered a moderate fire.

The building was constructed of cinder block walls with steel i-beams across the top supporting the roof.
The fire was fueled mostly by wood (pine lumber mostly), and a bit of wood preservative.
Fire dept got it under control in good order, but it was very interesting to see how the steel i-beams supporting the roof in the area of the fire had softened and sagged like so much licorice or taffy. Roof was totally down in those areas. Weird looking.

This “fuel can’t melt steel beams” talk is all nonsense. It’s just not true. It's also smacks of being a bit disingenuous. We're not talking about melting steel. We're talking about softening steel the point it loses it's structural integrity.

I’ve seen it first hand with a pretty run of the mill kind of fire. Even a "regular" fire is plenty hot enough to soften steel to the point where it can't hold up a roof.

That's why structural members in big buildings used to be wrapped with insulation (containing asbestos of course!) in order to delay effects of heat from a fire.

 

[HoughMade]

The WTC was an extraordinarily strong structure. The perimeter walls were, in effect a steel column. The building likely could have withstood the impact energy. But, heat was never factored into the original models.

Exactly....and we all know that if something was "designed to withstand" a certain force, it is absolutely, positively going to be able to withstand that impact.

...I will be sure to let my friends who do products liability defense know this.

 

[rhino]

shouldnt the mass be (250,000 lb. X [kg/2.2 lb.])?

Yes... I did it right on my scratch paper... made a goof when I typed it on screen.

250K lbs is about 114,000 kg.

Thanks! I'll fix.

 

[Woobie]

The WTC was an extraordinarily strong structure. The perimeter walls were, in effect a steel column. The building likely could have withstood the impact energy. But, heat was never factored into the original models.

Exactly. Which is born out in what we saw. They did not immediately collapse from the impact, but I dare say the structure in those areas was weakened. Then you get the steel nice and hot. It can only take that for so long.

 

[Woobie]

In addition to post #32, I’ll add a personal story.

My dad owned a small manufacturing business back from around 1976 to the early 1990s when the business suffered a moderate fire.

The building was constructed of cinder block walls with steel i-beams across the top supporting the roof.
The fire was fueled mostly by wood (pine lumber mostly), and a bit of wood preservative.
Fire dept got it under control in good order, but it was very interesting to see how the steel i-beams supporting the roof in the area of the fire had softened and sagged like so much licorice or taffy. Roof was totally down in those areas. Weird looking.

This “fuel can’t melt steel beams” talk is all nonsense. It’s just not true. It's also smacks of being a bit disingenuous. We're not talking about melting steel. We're talking about softening steel the point it loses it's structural integrity.

I’ve seen it first hand with a pretty run of the mill kind of fire. Even a "regular" fire is plenty hot enough to soften steel to the point where it can't hold up a roof.

The other night I was goofing around with a little blade I was making, and decided to do my own heat treat. I was able to get it up over 1425 degrees with a small propane torch. And propane doesn't burn that hot. Did I melt it? Of course not, steel melts at a much higher temperature. But it is exceptionally easy to bend at that temperature. All the jet fuel and other combustibles had to do was burn hot enough for the structure to become pliable. At that point, the millions of pounds on top of it does the rest.