9/11 media happenings

[fela fan]

Of course, lihop or mihop are possible - but so far, the evidence is weighed very heavily against the former and heavily against the latter. I still think lihba is the most likely scenario.

What kind of evidence are you talking of here crispy? And i'm interested why you think that lihop is actually less likely than mihop.

Because for people like myself as soon as we accept that it was lihop, it then becomes more plausible that mihop was the case.

 

[MikeMcc]

The same as you. Just that I agree with Jazzz that the core should have been capable of bearing 100% of the load of the towers.

NOOOOOOO! Only that it could have supported an additional 40% (odd) of the load it was designed to support. It was never designed to support the outer columns, most of the wind loading, half the mass of the floor sectors or the dead weight that was supported by that half of the floor sections or half of the antenna mass and wind loadings (as pointed out before, these were distributed between the core and the perimeter columns)

 

[fela fan]

oops, wrong way round

I must admit i thought you'd done that!!

But i'd still like to know about this evidence you talk about that says it wasn't either of these two scenarios.

So far as i know there's no evidence in the public domain to say it was staggering incompetence, lihop, or mihop. Be good if you can put me right though.

 

[fela fan]

The biggest piece of evidence against lihop/mihop is that no one has talked in all this time.

I'm afraid that's actually not evidence mike. Just conjecture.

But in any case, plenty of people have talked.

 

[Roadkill]

Because for people like myself as soon as we accept that it was lihop, it then becomes more plausible that mihop was the case.

Why?

Okay, so the fact that people could be prepared to allow such a thing to happen might suggest they would entertain the idea of doing it themselves, but that doesn't make it any more likely that they actually did. Especially when there's no evidence to suggest they did.

Conspiracies of omission are far more convincing than conspiracies of commission, as a general rule...

 

[Paul Marsh]

Went to see the 9/11 Truth Movement's current "star" speaker, William Rodriguez speak last night in Docklands.

In case anyone is interested, here's a report of the meeting:

http://paulstott.typepad.com/911cultwatch/2007/02/william_rodrigu.html

 

[editor]

http://paulstott.typepad.com/911cultwatch/2007/02/william_rodrigu.html

Surely if someone comes all the way from the United States on a speaking tour, a few questions could be squeezed in?

Looks like the self proclaimed 'Truth seekers' don't welcome people in the audience trying to discover the truth for themselves.

 

[fela fan]

Why?

Okay, so the fact that people could be prepared to allow such a thing to happen might suggest they would entertain the idea of doing it themselves, but that doesn't make it any more likely that they actually did. Especially when there's no evidence to suggest they did.

Conspiracies of omission are far more convincing than conspiracies of commission, as a general rule...

There's no evidence in the public domain for any of the theories mate. All anyone here can do is use conjecture to side with whatever they believe happened.

If those in power in the US let it happen, then they realised it would suit their political purposes. And for that reason it would make more sense that they created the conditions for it to happen so that they could capitalise on the incident rather than hope they could capitalise.

I realise that's a fairly weak answer as it stands alone, but to be honest no-one can present any argument of any strength coz we don't have any evidence for any of the possiblities.

 

[Roadkill]

There's no evidence in the public domain for any of the theories mate. All anyone here can do is use conjecture to side with whatever they believe happened.

If those in power in the US let it happen, then they realised it would suit their political purposes. And for that reason it would make more sense that they created the conditions for it to happen so that they could capitalise on the incident rather than hope they could capitalise.

I realise that's a fairly weak answer as it stands alone, but to be honest no-one can present any argument of any strength coz we don't have any evidence for any of the possiblities.

Are you suggesting that all of the investigations into 9/11, the testimony of people who saw it happen, of the survivors, the calls made by people on Flight 93 etc etc ad infinitum does not constitute evidence? Or is a 'smoking gun' the only kind of 'evidence' you'll accept?

MIHOP just doesn't fit with the facts as we know them. I've read virtually all of the conspiracy theories advanced on here and a few esewhere, and not one of them is vaguely convincing. Most of it's second-rate science fiction stuff. Aside from anything else, no-one who would have had to have been in on these vast schemes has talked.

LIHOP? Well, there'd be fewer people to know about that so the fact not much has been said isn't strong evidence against it. But neither is it evidence for it.

LIHBA - and then tried to cover their incompetent backsides afterwards - is by far the most likely scenario.

 

[MikeMcc]

I'm afraid that's actually not evidence mike. Just conjecture.

But in any case, plenty of people have talked.

But not in any useful way, and that is in a country that has brought us McCarthyism, Watergate, the Iran-Contra Arms scandal...

 

[WouldBe]

NOOOOOOO! Only that it could have supported an additional 40% (odd) of the load it was designed to support.

Do we have a reliable source for the 250% mentioned in the 1968 building codes?

If so then the architects calculations are either

a) wrong

b) show the building was designed and built sub-standard.

 

[Crispy]

I'm looking for evidence for not against lihop or mihop. There's plenty of evidence for lihba - all the unheeded warnings, the confused responses on the day, the existence of a culprit with the motivation and the means to carry it out.

So far, the evidence I've seen for mihop is circumstatial at best. Lihop is a tricky one, as it looks like lihba at first glance.

Evidence for something is always preferable to evidence against as it is so much more useful in narrowing down what actually happened. Despite that, evidence against is not weightless. And there's plenty of that, as this thread has shown.

 

[fela fan]

MIHOP just doesn't fit with the facts as we know them. I've read virtually all of the conspiracy theories advanced on here and a few esewhere, and not one of them is vaguely convincing.

I'm not sure we know any facts mate.

As for conspiracy theories, i've personally no time for them at all. I've read tonnes of stuff too, not conspiracy stuff, real timeline stuff using only mainstream media quotes.

And on the other hand, i just don't find the staggering incompetence version plausible at all. That is just too much for me to accept.

And if it wasn't incompetence, it has to be one of the other two versions. My beliefs are based on my inability to accept such levels of incompetence.

 

[fela fan]

I'm looking for evidence for not against lihop or mihop. There's plenty of evidence for lihba - all the unheeded warnings, the confused responses on the day, the existence of a culprit with the motivation and the means to carry it out.

This is the best place i've come across in all my readings on the topic.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

You'll need an open mind, plenty of time, and then, well, see what you think!

You will quickly see that this is no conspiracy stuff, purely a timeline based on only mainstream media sources. And it nicely takes you through a bit of history that begins well before the year 2001.

I just have to say to you crispy that if you or anyone takes a goodly amount of time to explore the timelines on this site, it becomes very difficult to ignore the case for mihop, let alone lihop.

 

[fela fan]

But not in any useful way, and that is in a country that has brought us McCarthyism, Watergate, the Iran-Contra Arms scandal...

What constitutes 'useful' in your mind mike, and how can you back up what you say anyway?

 

[MikeMcc]

What constitutes 'useful' in your mind mike, and how can you back up what you say anyway?

That somebody actually did something or said something that can't be discounted. The CD arguement is shot through because there is no evidence of any preparations, no-one has said that they saw anything suspicious in the weeks leading up to 9/11, the number of people involved would have garanteed that somebody would have said something. Are seriously suggesting that a conspiracy involving hundreds or even thousands of people carrying out such a dreadful act wouldn't have produced at least one or two Shaylers? It certainly happened in various DoD programs, the F117, the B2, the nuclear weapons programs, the nuclear power industry. Why should this one event be so different?

 

[Roadkill]

I'm not sure we know any facts mate.

As for conspiracy theories, i've personally no time for them at all. I've read tonnes of stuff too, not conspiracy stuff, real timeline stuff using only mainstream media quotes.

And on the other hand, i just don't find the staggering incompetence version plausible at all. That is just too much for me to accept.

And if it wasn't incompetence, it has to be one of the other two versions. My beliefs are based on my inability to accept such levels of incompetence.

Staggering incompetence takes a lot less organising, and involves silencing a whole lot fewer people, than deliberately allowing something to happen, let alone actually making it happen.

I'm not getting into the 'we don't know any facts at all' thing. We know the WTC collapsed; we know planes were hijacked and flown into buildings; we can be pretty certain who was flying the planes. I'm not entering some crazy surreal world where everything is a puppet show being controlled by some shadowy elite for its own sinister purposes. That way lie paranoia and wild flights of fancy about controlled demolitions and holographic aircraft.

 

[fela fan]

That somebody actually did something or said something that can't be discounted. The CD arguement is shot through because there is no evidence of any preparations, no-one has said that they saw anything suspicious in the weeks leading up to 9/11, the number of people involved would have garanteed that somebody would have said something. Are seriously suggesting that a conspiracy involving hundreds or even thousands of people carrying out such a dreadful act wouldn't have produced at least one or two Shaylers? It certainly happened in various DoD programs, the F117, the B2, the nuclear weapons programs, the nuclear power industry. Why should this one event be so different?

For mihop you simply don't even need a dozen people to be involved.

And one must remember that there were many many less people in work that day than normal.

And then there was all that strange stock movements going on before the event.

And then i suggest you find time and look at the link i've just posted up.

Finally a mate of mine knew an iranian who predicted the exact event before it happened.

And even more finally, a drill for just such an event was taking place on the very morning that the attacks occurred.

It actually goes on and on and on in the same vein. These are just off the top of my head.

There is just so much stuff, reported in the mainstream media, that support mihop far more strongly than incompetence.

Trouble is that there are so many conspiracies out there to mix it all up. Not that surprisingly i might add...

 

[fela fan]

I'm not getting into the 'we don't know any facts at all' thing. We know the WTC collapsed; we know planes were hijacked and flown into buildings; we can be pretty certain who was flying the planes. I'm not entering some crazy surreal world where everything is a puppet show being controlled by some shadowy elite for its own sinister purposes. That way lie paranoia and wild flights of fancy about controlled demolitions and holographic aircraft.

Then don't go down that path. I've not. But if you're interested in getting more information on the topic, as printed in mainstream media, just take a peek at the cooperativeresearch site i linked to.

And i repeat, for mihop to happen, you'd not need more than a dozen people in america to set it in motion. This belief that hundreds or thousands of people were in on it is a myth. Where do such figures come from? I grant you that lihop would require a whole load, but mihop doesn't. The drills going on that morning would no doubt have confused many into the incompetence that occurred that day.

 

[Crispy]

So that would be a mihop scenario where the only people who knew what was going on were the planners of the plot, and the 4 brave volunteers who crashed the planes?

 

[editor]

And one must remember that there were many many less people in work that day than normal.

Could you back this up from a credible source, please?

And if you're suggesting that they were all tipped off, you've just added several thousand more people to the plot, all of who have remained miraculously silent ever since and who, apparently, felt no qualms in leaving their workmates behind to die.

And even more finally, a drill for just such an event was taking place on the very morning that the attacks occurred.

I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a drill going on somewhere in a building that size with tens of thousands of workers.

But could you furnish me with the specifics of this drill please (again, a credible source is needed here),

 

[WouldBe]

So that would be a mihop scenario where the only people who knew what was going on were the planners of the plot, and the 4 brave volunteers who crashed the planes?

and the people who took the day off
and the people who tipped the people to take the day off
and the people who organised and ran the evacuation drill
and the people who were doing dodgy trading on the stockmarket
and and and .

 

[Roadkill]

And i repeat, for mihop to happen, you'd not need more than a dozen people in america to set it in motion. This belief that hundreds or thousands of people were in on it is a myth. Where do such figures come from? I grant you that lihop would require a whole load, but mihop doesn't. The drills going on that morning would no doubt have confused many into the incompetence that occurred that day.

Haven't you got that the wrong way round?

LIHOP requires a few people in high places not to give the orders that might have prevented the attack. MIHOP requires the whole attack to be organised, resourced, co-ordinated and covered up. How could that be done with just a dozen people?

 

[WouldBe]

How could that be done with just a dozen people?

Multiple personality disorder and a teleport or a time machine.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Finally a mate of mine knew an iranian who predicted the exact event before it happened.

Now I'm totally convinced.

 

[Jazzz]

The Architect - sadly confused

This is going to be tiresome, but I guess I had better go through TA's attempted rebuttal point by point with commentary.

Ahh, such confidence. It almost seems a shame to have to bring us all back to planet Earth and point out the many, many ways which Jazz gets this all wong.

Firstly it may be helpful (not least for Jazz) if we briefly cover the mechanical properties of structural steel. In particular we need to understand the difference between yield point or strength (there are minor differences which ar enot particularly relevant to this discussion) and tensile strength.

Yield Point is the load at which a material begins to plastically deform. Prior to the yield point the material will deform elastically, returning to its original shape when the load is removed. However once the yield point is passed the deformation will be permanent. The yield point is vital when designing structural steelwrok since it generally represents the upper load limit.

A yield failure will not necessarily result in rapid structural failure, however resistance to buckling will typically decrease. As loads continue to rise beyond yield point, there is an increasing risk of wider failure.

Tensile Strength is quite different. As the name suggests, it is the maximum load which the material can sustain in tension before it fractures and fails. As steel approaches tensile failure it will deform, concentrating the tensile loads across a smaller area and increasing the risk of failure.

Indeed. So when considering the point at which the core would actually fail, we need to go above and beyond the yield point. In the case of the core, comprised of A36 steel, this means well above the yield point. This is referred in your earlier NIST quote

"After reaching the yield strength, structural steel components continue to have significant reserve capacity, thus allowing for load redistribution to other components that are still in the elastic range. "

All the information I can find suggests that steel behaves similarly whether in compression or tension, and so I am assuming that the compressive strength of A36 steel is similar to that of the figures NIST tells us for tensile strength, indeed wikipedia tells us "Compressive strength for materials is generally higher than that of the tensile stress". And for A36 we have a tensile strength much higher than the yield strength, 58-80ksi compared to 36ksi.

Amongst a long list other properties which we need to take account of are shear, where forces are acting parallel to the component (tensile and compressive forces being in the same plane). So, for example, bolt or splice failures might typically be due to shear.

Nice waffle but we're dealing with a simple case of gravity loading so let's not worry about that.

 

[Jazzz]

The steel specified at WTC typically had a yield value of 36ksi however like many materials it has a natural variability; depending upon quality of materials, manufacture, and the like there can be significant variations even within one component. 36ksi should therefore be considered as a minimum value.

NIST tested the steel recovered from WTC (which in itself is of interest, as CTers usually claim it was all whisked away to China with unseemly haste). NIST NCS STAR 1-3D (http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire05/PDF/f05158.pdf) confirms a range of actual values:

- Core webs ranged from as low as 31.1 to 41.9 ksi, ie. 86 to 116% of specificed strength.

- Core flanges ranged from 32.4 to a high 53.4 ksi, ie. 90 to 146% of specified strength.

Setting to one side the 31.1 and 32.4 ksi results, inasmuch as a small proprtion of columns below failure point are unlikely to lead to any wider problem, let's take the lower maximum of 116% specified value.

Now, the NIST Demand to Capacity Ratios (DCR) are based upon specified strengths and NIST themselves note that there is effectively spare capacity up to actual (but varying) yield point/strength.

Core columns in WTC typically had a Demand to Capacity Ratio (DCR) of 0.83, ie a safety factor of 1/0.83=1.20. Now let's assume assume that the steel has an additional 16% beyond minimum yield value. This would reduce the DCR to 1.16/.83=1.4.

In other words we could increase the loads in these areas by up to 40% before yield point was reached and plastic (permanent) deformation begins. Of course this figure has lots of variables - most of the steel webs did not have such a high yield factor, some areas had DCRs well in excess of 0.83, and so on.

This is where you are particularly confused and your calculation is simply WRONG. You are assuming that the 'capacity' in DCR represents the yield point of the steel. This is not the case. Allow me to refer you to NISTNCSTAR1-2A

"5.2 Calculation of Demand/Capacity Ratios

The DCRs were calculated by dividing component demands by component capacities, taken at unfactored (working) loads and at working stresses, not at ultimate loads or yield stresses... The component capacities were based on the nominal steel strength as specified in the original design documents..."

In other words, they have worked back by defining capacity = yield stress/steel strength, and then loaded up their model and calculated the actual demands on the steel members to give a DCR ratio. In some cases that gave a ratio greater than 1. But of course, that doesn't mean they would fail under the maximum design load.

What we don't do is then add an additional allowance for tensile strength because (a) yield failure is already occuring and (b) gravity loads will be compressive, not tensile.

Yes you do. You have to! How on earth can you actually work out how much weight the core could take before finally collapsing! You note earlier yourself that yield failure is not actual failure, and this is particularly the case with the steel used in the core which has a tensile strength far in excess of the yield point. Now tensile strength is the widely quoted figure, but as looked at earlier, it seems that compressive strength for A36 steel will be, if anything, greater than the tensile strength. If you evidence that it is less then you must give it.

One thing we also have to appreciate is that the structure of WTC is complex; in addition to dead and live loads, it will be dealing with (for example) transverse and shear loadings from the wind. There will be a degree of torsion due to differential loading. And so on. We would therefore have to look at the exact steelwork design in considerable detail before we could determine a safety factor for each. That's why engineers earn a lot of cash, and why complex modelling software was developed.

Well, let's assume a calm day. In any event, wind loading was handled to a great degree by the outside shell with little reliance on the core, as we well know.

Nevertheless it is clear that the actual capacity of the core is not going to be anything like 200% before irreversible damage and failure begin to occur.

It will in fact make it over 200% before irreversible damage starts to occur. But that point is quite different to the point of failure. Nice attempt at trying to blur the two!

So where does Jazz actually go wrong?

Well firstly there's no evidence (as far as I can see) that the designers would have added on an "extra" 15% to core loadings - it's just Jazz's guess, and little weight can be attached to the figure.

okay, but that was simply a speculative calculation towards a maximal figure which was as I said superfluous.

1/DCR is correct, which is more than can be said for yield point. Jazz has carefully ignored the test figures from the NIST report, which provide hard data.

No my yield point calculation was sound. I did make one mistake - I took the 1.9 from memory. In actual fact I guess it's the 1.67. Let me remind me of your quote, and your own quoted figures which you now ignore like a disowned child:

The allowable stress design criteria used at WTC had an inherent factor of safety for structural components. For example, the safety factor for yielding and buckling was:

• 1.67 and 1.92 for core columns in the original design and SOP cases, and for all columns in refined NIST estimate case.

Careless of me. I should have checked. So let's revise our calculation, but include your 16% to reflect the capacity above minimum specification - after all, you are happy with it:

Redundancy of core= (1/0.83) * 1.67 * 58/36 * 1.16 = 3.76 = 376%

Thereafter we lapse into a rather strange world where tensile strength is applied to a compressive load failure (ie. additional weight being transferred to the core columns).

As commented above, that's the figure we have for the job, and if anything it seems like an underestimate.

And that's before we notice Jazz's new (and unsubstantiated) claim that the purpose of the hat trusses was not to restribute wind loadings betwixt external envelope and core, but also to "hold up" the former when it contracted during cold weather.

Where does this take us?

- There is no substantiated for Jazz's claim of 600% core redundancy

- Jazz' revised calculations giving figures of 386% to 585% are wrong

Well 376% does quite nicely.

But in any event the above calculations all assume an intact core, and we know from the various NIST studies and eyewitness evidence that the cores suffered damage - around a third. This will obviously have reduced loadbearing capacity still further, and a simple pro-rata reduction of (say) 30% is likely to be wrong because the damage is concentrated in localised areas and hence these areas will be susceptible to accelerated failure under loads.

But that's not the question under dispute. You attacked my claim that the core could take the entire design load of the WTC as 'ludicrous'. Repeatedly. In fact you've been incredibly patronising. I am showing that my statement was quite sound and in so doing exposing you for the most tiresome blusterer you are.

I shall, as ever, await Jazz's next attempt to display his intuitive grasp of mechanics and structures with the greatest of interest.

I hope you enjoyed it.

 

[editor]

Jazzz: any idea how 'they' smuggled in all these explosives along with a full crew of demolition experts (all of whom have stayed strangely silent about their part in mass murdering their fellow citizens ever since) and why not a single soul in the WTC noticed these evil explosives experts drilling holes in the structure, tearing down partition walls and installing the charges?

 

[Andy the Don]

Jazzz: any idea how 'they' smuggled in all these explosives along with a full crew of demolition experts (all of whom have stayed strangely silent about their part in mass murdering their fellow citizens ever since) and why not a single soul in the WTC noticed these evil explosives experts drilling holes in the structure, tearing down partition walls and installing the charges?

As mentioned in yesterdays Monibot Guardian article. This conspiracy would have involved thousands of people & no one has come forward.. Why..?? Because there was no conspiracy.

 

[MikeMcc]

This is where you are particularly confused and your calculation is simply WRONG. You are assuming that the 'capacity' in DCR represents the yield point of the steel. This is not the case. Allow me to refer you to NISTNCSTAR1-2A

"5.2 Calculation of Demand/Capacity Ratios

The DCRs were calculated by diving component demands by component capacities, taken at unfactored (working) loads and at working stresses, not at ultimate loads or yield stresses... The component capacities were based on the nominal steel strength as specified in the original design documents..."

In other words, they have worked back by defining capacity = yield stress/steel strength, and then loaded up their model and calculated the actual demands on the steel members to give a DCR ratio. In some cases that gave a ratio greater than 1.

Yes you do. You have to! How on earth can you actually work out how much weight the core could take before finally collapsing! You note earlier yourself that yield failure is not actual failure, and this is particularly the case with the steel used in the core which has a tensile strength far in excess of the yield point. Now tensile strength is the widely quoted figure, but as looked at earlier, it seems that compressive strength for A36 steel will be, if anything, greater than the tensile strength. If you evidence that it is less then you must give it.

Well, let's assume a calm day. In any event, wind loading was handled to a great degree by the outside shell with little reliance on the core, as we well know.

It will be around 200% before irreversible damage starts to occur. That is quite different to the point of failure. Nice attempt at trying to blur the two!

okay, but that was simply a speculative calculation towards a maximal figure which was as I said superfluous.

No my yield point calculation was sound. I did make one mistake - I took the 1.9 from memory. In actual fact I guess its the 1.67. Let me remind me of your quote, and your own quoted figures which you now ignore like a disowned child:



Careless of me. I should have checked. So let's revise our calculation, but include your 16% to reflect the capacity above minimum specification - after all, you are happy with it:

Redundancy of core= (1/0.83) * 1.67 * 58/36 * 1.16 = 3.76 = 376%

As commented above, that's the figure we have for the job, and if anything it seems like an underestimate.

Well 376% does quite nicely.

But that's not the question under dispute. You attacked my claim that the core could take the entire design load of the WTC as 'ludicrous'. Repeatedly. In fact you've been incredibly patronising. I am showing that my statement was quite sound and in so doing exposing you for the most tiresome blusterer you are.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Just had a peek back in my pet reference book (Engineer in Training:Reference Manual (8th Ed) by Michael R. Lindberg, a reference for US engineers seeking to pass their PE exams). In ductile materials (such as steel) the compressive yield point is the same as the tensile yield point. This will be the point at which the component fails.