AE911 Truth's WTC7 Evaluation Computer Modelling Project

[Oystein]

In re-watching Prof. Hulsey's 2015 presentation, I noticed a few slides of background information:
...
The first two slides above are text directly copied and pasted (typos included) from a conspiracy theory blog found here. (Archived here.) [add: published 2005 ]

The text of these slides "In December 2007, it was acknowledged" of course was not published in 2005. It was added to this blog post at some point between 2008 and 2011 (the first instance of archive.org having snapped it). However, I found the same text in some forum comment, in Finnish apparently, from 2008/08/27 here: https://keskustelu.kauppalehti.fi/5/i/keskustelu/message.jspa?messageID=2748878

The two points on the third slide are text directly copied and pasted from another conspiracy theory blog found here. (Archived here.) [add: published 2010]

So, Dr. Hulsey, a university professor, established the main background facts regarding his study from two anonymous conspiracy theory blogs and, in fact, plagiarized those blogs without attribution. And this is all while he was claiming he was reading as little as possible about the event in order to maintain a neutral, scientific view. Hmmmmmmmm...

The original source of the third slide is not a conspiracy theory blog, but the BBC's program "Conspiracy Files", apparently, in July 2008:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/7434230.stm

These two corrections of course do not diminish the point you make - that Hulsey deliberately ignored scientific sources while presenting the unvetted, unscientific conspirasist angle without any discernible scrutiny or skepticism.

So: Excellent finds!

 

[Oystein]

I am going to address this to the last few posts collectively.

If UAF got it so wrong, how then did their model show results to within 0.4" of NIST when they ran a simulation with rigid outer walls and no composite floor system ?

I see two possibilities:

a) Coincidence - there are correct and incorrect ways to get "near" the same result.

b) The floor really wasn't composite any longer after several hours of fire history that Hulsey did not consider, and the exterior moment frame really was stiffer than Hulsey accounted for.

Hulsey did not model the heating of the floors below the 12th, so he can't account for all the tug and shove on exterior and interior columns that came from the deforming floor structures there. Any correct result he finds is best considered coincidental.


By the way: You have claimed several times that NIST didn't model the floors as composite. You will, after that episode with the beam-exterior connections, understand that I simply do not believe the claim, that in fact I believe it is false, until you show us evidence that NIST actually modelled non-composite floors in the Chapter 11 ANSYS model (the one that's relevant in the current context).

 

[Oystein]

There are countless videos of the actual collapse. Global collapse occurred when all remaining columns ceased to provide support simultaneously.

NIST agrees. From https://www.nist.gov/pba/questions-and-answers-about-nist-wtc-7-investigation:

What computer modeling data has NIST provided to support their claims? As far as I know, the answer is nothing. They have denied requests citing "public safety" as a reason.

Do their computer models match what was observed? No. It's not even close.

The question is, "What caused all remaining support columns to collapse at the same time?" NIST's answer is illogical, and it's based on incomplete or erroneous data.

In my opinion, all of this is off-topic. The topic of this thread is the Hulsey study, and I believe Hulsey has not even made a claim as to what caused the collapse, let alone demonstrated (let even more alone proven) it in any computer simulation. Perhaps you should redirect your questions at the Hulsey study.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

On what basis do you say Hulsey is grasping at straws? [...]

It is my belief that there is not enough accurate reliable data to model and simulate the collapse. If someone can produce a model/simulation which matches the collapse then we might accept their work. NIST didn't and I seriously doubt Hulsey can or will attempt it. He seems to be trying to discredit NIST and the conclude that it is impossible for fire to cause a (that) building to collapse. The conclusion based on his approach is absurd.

If fire could not collapse buildings there would be no sprinkler systems.

 

[Oystein]

That link has been modified. Do you have an archive of the original that matches what you have posted above?

Posted by deirdre already: https://web.archive.org/web/20150330080428/www.ae911truth.org/membership-2015

Based on the information found at wtc7evaluation.org, "WTC 7 Evaluation is a study at the University of Alaska Fairbanks using finite element modeling to evaluate the possible causes of World Trade Center Building 7's collapse."

I don't see any wording that says the purpose of the investigation was to disprove NIST. It appears that the true purpose was to evaluate the possible causes.

Well, suspose this is true, why then did Hulsey, and why do his defenders, bother with NIST at all? It seems that ALL Hulsey is doing is trying to disprove NIST, doesn't it? So the study so far is not actually living up to what you believe was its "true purpose", and you should thus be the first to protest that Hulsey broke the promises he made when MONEY was solicited by delivering a study different from what was promised.
Unless, of course, his study really contains more, and he is not letting us in on what else he is doing, in which case he breaks the promise of Transparency throughout the project.

A promise, by the way, that has been edited off of the wtc7evaluation.org project page. It reads today:

WTC 7 Evaluation is a completely open and transparent study. A draft report will be released in the fall of 2017 along with all data related to the study, and there will be a six-week public comment period.

But when they solicited MONEY, back in 2015, this passage said this:

WTC 7 Evaluation is a completely open and transparent investigation into the cause of World Trade Center Building 7's collapse. Every aspect of the scientific process will be posted here and on the university's website so that the public can follow its progress.

See how they droped the red part, which was a promise that has promptly been broken?

 

[Oystein]

This thread contains substantial scrutiny of Hulsey's research.

Why is the same level of scrutiny not being applied to NIST? It's clearly apparent there is an obvious double-standard being applied. NIST's findings are supported with minimal scrutiny. Hulsey's research is scrutinized to absurd levels.

Why is this?

Your perception is wrong, IMO.
NIST's study already went through a public-comment period where it was scrutinized by many parties, including world-leading structural engineering companies.
NIST's study has been endlessly scrutinized in many threads on many 9/11-related fora, including this one.

But this is all beside the point, as this thread is still NOT about the NIST report. Whataboutism and tu quoque fail to address the actual topic of the thread, which is the Hulsey study.

Hulsey's study comes to an conclusion that is absurd in its global negative wording: That fire did not cause the WTC7 collapse - a conclusion that Hulsey has previously, long before actually doing the simulations, said to be 100% certain. Do you see the absurdity in this claim?

Since that absurd claim is already being published by the study's financier, AE911truth, in widely spread headlines, it surely would deserve absurd levels of scrutiny.
I don't think however we are there yet.

 

[Oystein]

They ran a simulation based on NIST's values ...

No. This is, as has been pointed out many times, WRONG.

They ran a simulation based on only a very small subset of NIST's temperature values - those for only 2 of 16 floors, and ony parts of those floors, and only a static snapshot of these temperatures instead of the extensive temperature histories. A snapshot taken from an inappropriate point in time even.

Thus, Hulsey's simulation results cannot be validly compared 1:1 with NIST's.

 

[Oystein]

...when they replicated the building as per the drawings, ...

This is highly dubious, given the teams lack of experience, lack of study (Hulsey to this date does not even understand NIST's modelling approach, as his slides reveal) and known biases (being heavily primed by amateur Truthers while avoiding scientific studies).
At best, your assumption is void of skepticism. You haven't actually seen how they modelled any connection. The 3D drawings are only a depiction of a subset of the modelling input. They don't tell you for example if and how they treated failure conditions. You have not seen all the rest, and so you cannot know that any, let alone all, of it is "correct".

 

[Oystein]

This argument is moot because the UAF study used the NIST fire simulation temperatures. All Hulsey was saying there is the fuel was not unlimited.

Which would be a strawman.

Hulsey should have kept his mouth shut on this.

But by publicly speculating about the fuel load, doing it vaguely, and making it explicit that he believes that paper would be only either on desks or in safes in significant amounts, he allows a glimpse into his experience and knowledge of fire science: It is non-existent. He is talking dumbly out of his butt.

It is weird that you defend this obvious nonsense.

 

[Oystein]

So you should have no problem telling me in what way NIST were more accurate specifically with how their model was put together.

We do not have Hulsey's model. It has not been published. All we have are few slides with very partial information.
Thus, the comparison cannot be made. Repeating the question won't change that situation.

 

[Oystein]

On what basis do you say Hulsey is grasping at straws? [...]

Ok, can you explain what is a) relevant and b) correct about this statement, and how it sheds light on either what Hulsey studied, or what NIST did:

72:36 I don't believe people's investment
72:38 portfolios would be out on the tables
72:40 I think they'd be locked in a safe. So how
72:43 much paper was out there I just don't
72:45 see where there was a lot of combustibility

Since I expect that you cannot explain what is relevant and correct about this, why would Hulsey say it in the first place? What is, essentially, the message here? How do you interprete the message of that passage?

Or do you agree that Hulsey was talking dumbly out of his arse and had better not said this passage at all?

 

[Tony Szamboti]

It is my belief that there is not enough accurate reliable data to model and simulate the collapse. If someone can produce a model/simulation which matches the collapse then we might accept their work. NIST didn't and I seriously doubt Hulsey can or will attempt it. He seems to be trying to discredit NIST and the conclude that it is impossible for fire to cause a (that) building to collapse. The conclusion based on his approach is absurd.

If fire could not collapse buildings there would be no sprinkler systems.

Sprinkler systems were intended to eliminate or severely limit fire damage. They weren't about reducing collapses because there had been plenty of steel framed high-rise fires, but no collapses, before sprinklers were first introduced and started being installed.

It is hard to understand why you believe Hulsey's conclusion is absurd. The columns need to buckle for a collapse to occur. If the columns cannot be shown to be directly affected by fire to the point of buckling (which the fire simulations and engineering logic with heat transfer show), and cannot be shown to have their bracing removed by dislodgement due to heating (which Hulsey showed), there can be no collapse due to fire. It really is not as hard as you are alleging.

 

[Oystein]

If someone can produce a model/simulation which matches the collapse then we might accept their work.

Careful: It would of course be possible to replicate the outer appearance of the collapse with smartly placed explosive devices. One way to do so would be to knock out each connection in the same sequence that the fires actually did, and you would get a pretty close video copy of the actual collapse.

And that would not prove anything at all. For we know that there were fires, but there is really no evidence of explosives. To make such a simulation acceptable, you would also have to have a model of how the explosives were installed and operated, and how they survived the fires, and how they sounded, and how those sounds would have registered on the sound recording devices that we know of.
As a matter of fact, NIST did one short step in that direction and simulated a single blast to sever Column 79 - and found that this is incompatible with extant evidence of sounds.
If Hulsey were to present a simulation where, for example, he plays through Tony's favorite scenario (EP was knocked down high up, just below the roof, independently of the rest of the collapse; later, all interior columns were exploded), he would have to simulate all the effects the blasts have (including window shattering, recordably sounds), and the effects fires would have on charges and detonators. Since we know that he did no such study, we can rule out that Hulsey will present an "acceptable" CD scenario.

 

[Mick West]

Did Hulsey know that the NIST ANSYS and LSDYNA models were available without connection info? I don't remember him mentioning it.
https://github.com/medmond78/nist-wtc7

In particular there's:

• Node positions
• The time varying temperature data, seemingly on a per node basis.

Did they use this?

 

[deirdre]

The text of these slides "In December 2007, it was acknowledged" of course was not published in 2005. It was added to this blog post at some point between 2008 and 2011 (the first instance of archive.org having snapped it). However, I found the same text in some forum comment, in Finnish apparently, from 2008/08/27 here: https://keskustelu.kauppalehti.fi/5/i/keskustelu/message.jspa?messageID=2748878


The original source of the third slide is not a conspiracy theory blog, but the BBC's program "Conspiracy Files", apparently, in July 2008:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/7434230.stm

These two corrections of course do not diminish the point you make - that Hulsey deliberately ignored scientific sources while presenting the unvetted, unscientific conspirasist angle without any discernible scrutiny or skepticism.

So: Excellent finds!

sorry that was me who added dates to show they were prior to Husley... I saw the same pics so didn't google translate.

The third I just trusted the date on the blog. (as it was prior to Husley anyway)
Thanks! I will fix the original post.

 

[Oystein]

It is the columns which need to fail for collapse to occur, and there are only two ways to do it. If you can't do it either way by fire then a collapse cannot be caused by fire. That is sound logic regardless of your denying it.

Since deirdre did not allow me to continue with my previous metaphor, let me try another:

In the spirit of the OJ Simpson trial:
"If the glove does not fit, you must acquit."
Therefore, OJ did not murder his wife, and that is 100% certain.
Agreed?

I hope you don't agree. Because the logic is just wrong. The glove-argument probably wasn't even strong enough to debunk the prosecution's most probable murder hypothesis, but even if it were, there are other possible murder scenarios where the glove does not fit but OJ still is guilty. And even if the prosecution could not find any undisputable murder sequence at all, then OJ still is very likely the murderer, because there is just too much evidence for it, and not a single competing hypothesis on the table.

Your "two way to do it", at closer scrutiny, are each actually hundreds of ways to do it. Especially the "floor system failure" option is really hundreds of ways to do it, and we need to pick one single failure event, for in great likelihood, several or many failures occurred that compounded the situation and each moved the building closer to collapse.

Hulsey shines a tiny candle at one little spot, doesn't see what he already decided not to want to find, and comes to sweeping conclusions.
He implicitly assumes that everything outside this one spot is picture perfect, shiny, clean, strong and bright - but 7 hours of growing and uncontrolled fires had devastated the structure, so the implicit assumption is quite unreal.

 

[Mick West]

Oy has been banned for two days for a combination of posting inappropriate and impolite content and various prior infractions.

 

[Mick West]

Did Hulsey know that the NIST ANSYS and LSDYNA models were available without connection info? I don't remember him mentioning it.
https://github.com/medmond78/nist-wtc7

And on a slightly broader note, is anyone aware of anyone who has ever done anything with this data?

 

[Mick West]

This is not a general "How did WTC7 collapse" discussion thread. Please restrict discussion to Hulsey's study and directly related topics.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

This is not a general "How did WTC7 collapse" discussion thread. Please restrict discussion to Hulsey's study and directly related topics.

Mick, since you don't want any questions aside from the Hulsey study here I tried to create a new thread to discuss how people think WTC 7 collapsed, and kept getting an error message saying "please enter a valid message".

Is there a problem creating a new thread?

 

[Mick West]

Mick, since you don't want any questions aside from the Hulsey study here I tried to create a new thread to discuss how people think WTC 7 collapsed, and kept getting an error message saying "please enter a valid message".

Is there a problem creating a new thread?

There should not be.

However, "how people think WTC 7 collapsed" really isn't going to be a productive topic. We try to keep things focussed, and everyone chiming in with a wide variety of theories leading to endless discussions is unlikely to be helpful. There are other forums that allow that kind of thread.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

There should not be.

However, "how people think WTC 7 collapsed" really isn't going to be a productive topic. We try to keep things focussed, and everyone chiming in with a wide variety of theories leading to endless discussions is unlikely to be helpful. There are other forums that allow that kind of thread.

Some here have differing theories on how WTC 7 could have collapsed due to natural mechanisms as opposed to how NIST says it did. I think that would be quite focused. I can ask "Could WTC 7 have collapsed naturally in a different way than that espoused by NIST?"

ETA: The problem was that I didn't have anything in the text box as well as the title. I was only putting in a title of the thread at first. When I added something to the text box also it worked fine.

 

[False Flag]

https://web.archive.org/web/20150330080428/www.ae911truth.org/membership-2015

Thank you.

 

[False Flag]

I don't know if you're joking there.

In case not, by now you've seen the so-called "modified" copy linked to in post #744...
which one assumes would give you a less charitable view of how open-minded an "inquiry" it was.

The link is not opening for me. Could you please verify that the link points to the correct post? Thank you.

 

[False Flag]

When I've taken fire awareness courses, the risks identified regarding "loose" paper have always primarily been the ones on starting fires; discarded cig ends (back when smoking wasn't banned) in waste bins, things like that. Areas where there were large amounts of paper in concentration (archive rooms, libraries etc) were obviously identified as areas where fire could rapidly spread and grow.

So if we're talking about a fire that's already well established, not being fought and is consuming "normal office combustibles", which would likely in this case and era include lots of wooden desks, chairs, cubicle dividers, storage units, plastics, floor coverings and adhesives, suspended ceilings, how relevant is it whether there's paper on those desks?

I completely agree that those offices would contain paper, and very likely a lot of it, which is why I find Hulsey' statement so odd:

72:36 I don't believe people's investment
72:38 portfolios would be out on the tables
72:40 I think they'd be locked in a safe. So how
72:43 much paper was out there I just don't
72:45 see where there was a lot of combustibility

Given this was 2001, before digital agreements, when the primary means of distributing legal and financial documents was still hard-copy and offices had herds of laser printers and print rooms, stacks of manuals and files, what is he basing that on? Why would he think an office in 2001 wouldn't still contain lots of paper? Why would he make a point of bringing up sheaves of paper on desks when those desks themselves (and pretty much everything else) would be combustible?

It's such an odd statement on so many levels.

Ray Von

Can you provide a link to the video/presentation/document where you have extracted Hulsey's statements?

Thank you.

 

[False Flag]

It seems that ALL Hulsey is doing is trying to disprove NIST, doesn't it?

No. It appears that Hulsey is using highly complex modeling software to find out what really happened. The issue is that his findings, using two separate software programs, don't match the findings of NIST.

So the study so far is not actually living up to what you believe was its "true purpose", and you should thus be the first to protest that Hulsey broke the promises he made when MONEY was solicited by delivering a study different from what was promised.

Timelines change. Delays are normal. In this case, the delays (by themselves) prove nothing.

Unless, of course, his study really contains more, and he is not letting us in on what else he is doing, in which case he breaks the promise of Transparency throughout the project.

The final study has not been released, so it really makes little sense to criticize parts of it. I do agree that the initial phase has not been transparent. Updates have been few and far between. This is unfortunate, but it has no bearing on the final report.

A promise, by the way, that has been edited off of the wtc7evaluation.org project page. It reads today:

WTC 7 Evaluation is a completely open and transparent study. A draft report will be released in the fall of 2017 along with all data related to the study, and there will be a six-week public comment period.

But when they solicited MONEY, back in 2015, this passage said this:

WTC 7 Evaluation is a completely open and transparent investigation into the cause of World Trade Center Building 7's collapse. Every aspect of the scientific process will be posted here and on the university's website so that the public can follow its progress.

See how they droped the red part, which was a promise that has promptly been broken?

I agree. The transparency portion of the project has been lacking. That being said, it has nothing to do with the findings in the final report, which we have yet to see.

 

[False Flag]

Your perception is wrong, IMO.

I appreciate your opinion.

Hulsey's study comes to an conclusion that is absurd in its global negative wording: That fire did not cause the WTC7 collapse - a conclusion that Hulsey has previously, long before actually doing the simulations, said to be 100% certain. Do you see the absurdity in this claim?

His claim is not absurd. Your argument is that Hulsey made the claim that fire could not cause the collapse long before actually doing simulations. What proof do you have of this?

If you made the claim that Hulsey said that fires could not have caused the collapse before issuing the final report, you would be correct, that is not what you are saying. You are saying that Hulsey made his claims before doing any simulations. Please provide proof to support this claim.

 

[False Flag]

No. This is, as has been pointed out many times, WRONG.

They ran a simulation based on only a very small subset of NIST's temperature values - those for only 2 of 16 floors, and ony parts of those floors, and only a static snapshot of these temperatures instead of the extensive temperature histories. A snapshot taken from an inappropriate point in time even.

Thus, Hulsey's simulation results cannot be validly compared 1:1 with NIST's.

Do we have the final report yet? If not, I think this should be carried over until then.

 

[benthamitemetric]

I appreciate your opinion.



His claim is not absurd. Your argument is that Hulsey made the claim that fire could not cause the collapse long before actually doing simulations. What proof do you have of this?

If you made the claim that Hulsey said that fires could not have caused the collapse before issuing the final report, you would be correct, that is not what you are saying. You are saying that Hulsey made his claims before doing any simulations. Please provide proof to support this claim.

For everyone's sake, you need to read the entire thread as this point, and many others, are already addressed. If you still have questions after reading the thread, then please post them. If new participants don't read the whole thread, then we just end up repeating the same discussions every 5 pages or so.

 

[NoParty]

Do we have the final report yet? If not, I think this should be carried over until then.

Not to be argumentative, but by this standard couldn't any claim be supposedly shielded from
criticism by merely adding a footnote: "Interim: the real product will occur some time in the future" ?

 

[drommelsboef]

Personally I think (as Mick also suggested) it is a good idea to start with initiation at some point and see what the consequences are, i.e. check how the local defect propagates and whether it will prove if the building has any redundancy or was an architectural freak.

 

[Ray Von Geezer]

This argument is moot because the UAF study used the NIST fire simulation temperatures. All Hulsey was saying there is the fuel was not unlimited.

That's fine as far as the falsifying of NIST's report goal goes, but wasn't the second goal to show that CD was a more likely cause of collapse, which AE911 has claimed has been achieved by releasing that his work shows that "Fire could not have caused collapse"?

As many have already said, proving the first would not prove the second, that seems obvious. Even if NIST made an absolute hash of the report, it still wouldn't necessarily follow that CD would be a more likely cause than fire.

Is anyone in the team an expert in fire? Has any investigation into the fire been done other than using NIST's data? If not, then how can the second goal be achieved using only data from NIST, the validity of which must surely be at doubt if their report was shown to be incorrect as part of the first goal?

Basically my question is; if Hulsey meets the first goal, how can he meet the second using only data he's shown to be suspect? That looks like a difficult circle to square.

Ray Von

 

[Mick West]

Personally I think (as Mick also suggested) it is a good idea to start with initiation at some point and see what the consequences are, i.e. check how the local defect propagates and whether it will prove if the building has any redundancy or was an architectural freak.

What are you referring to? I don't remember saying that.

 

[gerrycan]

And on a slightly broader note, is anyone aware of anyone who has ever done anything with this data?

I haven't had the time to look closely enough at these yet to know if it would even be worthwhile using them.
The "tell" in them would be that according to the drawings that were released, a couple of floors had the column placements slightly out, which is an understandable error that would of in no way affected how the building went up, but rather would have been a paper anomaly rather than a steel one in reality.

This project didn't use them, they did it themselves. We know this because they discovered and highlighted the existing "paper" anomaly. And corrected it.

 

[drommelsboef]

What are you referring to? I don't remember saying that.

I was referring only to "Perhaps Hulsey should have started with that?" when I said what happend after c79 failed and indeed you didn't say the rest. I'm really wondering if the symmetry will follow from such a simulation. Nist has created two of them. With and without impact damage and the simulation is very short and twists.

 

[Mick West]

I haven't had the time to look closely enough at these yet to know if it would even be worthwhile using them.
The "tell" in them would be that according to the drawings that were released, a couple of floors had the column placements slightly out, which is an understandable error that would of in no way affected how the building went up, but rather would have been a paper anomaly rather than a steel one in reality.

This project didn't use them, they did it themselves. We know this because they discovered and highlighted the existing "paper" anomaly. And corrected it.

Is this something that you know Hulsey has accounted for?

 

[gerrycan]

Is this something that you know Hulsey has accounted for?

Yes. As I said it appears to be a copy of a sheet or two that was sloppy in the drawings that NIST decided to release.
I believe it is raised as an issue in the work diary somewhere, and the result would clearly be to have the columns concerned to align top to bottom.

Shows just how capable UAF are, and that they went through the original released drawings and in so doing shed light on this error in the drawings that NIST released.

I am sure you will join me in admiring their due diligence.

 

[Mick West]

Shows just how capable UAF are, and that they went through the original released drawings and in so doing shed light on this error in the drawings that NIST released.

I can't really imagine how you'd build a model with the wrong value in, so I'd assume NIST accounted for it, unless you have evidence otherwise.

 

[benthamitemetric]

Yes. As I said it appears to be a copy of a sheet or two that was sloppy in the drawings that NIST decided to release.
I believe it is raised as an issue in the work diary somewhere, and the result would clearly be to have the columns concerned to align top to bottom.

Shows just how capable UAF are, and that they went through the original released drawings and in so doing shed light on this error in the drawings that NIST released.

I am sure you will join me in admiring their due diligence.

Is the error in NIST's global model or did they correct it as well?

It's hard to think highly of Hulsey's "diligence" after discovering he plagiarized portions of his initial presentation from anonymous conspiracy theory blogs, including portions dealing with key subjects about which he is purportedly an expert--steel in fires (if not according to his resume and experience, then at least according to AE911Truth's puffery). His "diligence" also didn't stop him from apparently testing the wrong measure of displacement for column 79, nor did it stop him from making from making false claims about the how NIST modeled the exterior, connections in the LS-DYNA model, and side plates. Maybe his assistants were more diligent in the weeds on the project, but Hulsey has not done his due diligence on NIST's model and it seems he has led the project down some questionable paths as a result.

 

[gerrycan]

I can't really imagine how you'd build a model with the wrong value in, so I'd assume NIST accounted for it, unless you have evidence otherwise.
View attachment 28941

That's not the anomaly that you highlighted though. I remember going through the issue above with you in 2013, where some drawings give centre to centre measure, and some give the actual shop measure of the element. (remember, when we did the elongation estimate for thermal expansion - you thought that the length was wrong, because you took it from drawing E12/13 (C to C), instead of the shop drawing (actual). I could get you the link to the actual post in the thread if you like.
On the measure of displacement thing, I can see how that could perhaps be made more clear for an audience new to the topic, but I don't think it is an issue at all for anyone who is conversant in this issue.
What matters is what the model actually did. And you seem to be holding it to a far higher standard than you do NIST's model. And you should. Because we can't let UAF away with the kind of shenanigans NIST got up to.

On the centre stiff point issue. Where do you think NIST's was in terms of any of their models. I can't even think of actually hearing of them ascertaining it's location in the building. Can you ?

ETA, I thought your pic was of the girder length being questioned. Looking at it a bit closer, it's the column (28). Actually could still be the centre to centre issue with the floor plan though.
If your objection, if you have one, is substantial, I will certainly go and look at it.