AE911 Truth's WTC7 Evaluation Computer Modelling Project

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Is anyone aware of any rationale for the choice of Dr. Hulsey for this project?

I see a lot of work with bridges on his resume, but not much that would explain why he would
be among the better candidates for an inquiry into WTC 7.
I'm not disparaging him, just wondering if any explanation has been given... (?)
Fame and fortune, perhaps. Some like to be exposed, no matter if in a good or bad manner.
 
Is anyone aware of any rationale for the choice of Dr. Hulsey for this project?

I see a lot of work with bridges on his resume, but not much that would explain why he would
be among the better candidates for an inquiry into WTC 7.
I'm not disparaging him, just wondering if any explanation has been given... (?)

I think the rationale is that he was probably one of the few professors associated with a major accredited University who was wiling to both buy into the AE911 narrative of the collapse (something he has obviously done based on his preliminary lectures) and one where the University was willing to support the research knowing the controversy and emotional reactions and attention it will bring to the school.

He did say he was a forensics expert so that gives him some credibility as far as studying failures of structure. I think structural analysis at the level he and his students are working at doesn't necessarily require experience in skyscraper design. Of course it would help, but the models and finite element analysis work for just about any structure, the rules and physics are the same. It is one of the most solidly understood engineering disciplines, but like most things the devil is in the details. Lets hope he is able to accurately model the complete failure without resorting to the AE911 explosives narrative. My guess is due to the complexity of the problem and the many unknown factors that he, like NIST, will only be able to come up with some probable failure modes.

One thing that is often overlooked in the discussion is the potential faults and errors made in the construction phase of the building. Rarely are huge engineering projects built exactly as the engineers designed them or how the drawings portray them to be built. Shortcuts and omissions are often made due to some of the oldest of all the motivations, profit and laziness. But I digress since these things are unfortunately difficult to prove at this point without forensic evidence.
 
I think the rationale is that he was probably one of the few professors associated with a major accredited University who was wiling to both buy into the AE911 narrative of the collapse (something he has obviously done based on his preliminary lectures) and one where the University was willing to support the research knowing the controversy and emotional reactions and attention it will bring to the school.

He did say he was a forensics expert so that gives him some credibility as far as studying failures of structure. I think structural analysis at the level he and his students are working at doesn't necessarily require experience in skyscraper design. Of course it would help, but the models and finite element analysis work for just about any structure, the rules and physics are the same. It is one of the most solidly understood engineering disciplines, but like most things the devil is in the details. Lets hope he is able to accurately model the complete failure without resorting to the AE911 explosives narrative. My guess is due to the complexity of the problem and the many unknown factors that he, like NIST, will only be able to come up with some probable failure modes.

One thing that is often overlooked in the discussion is the potential faults and errors made in the construction phase of the building. Rarely are huge engineering projects built exactly as the engineers designed them or how the drawings portray them to be built. Shortcuts and omissions are often made due to some of the oldest of all the motivations, profit and laziness. But I digress since these things are unfortunately difficult to prove at this point without forensic evidence.
Sounds reasonable. It just seems that if I'm AE9114T, I might claim that he's well qualified because ___________.

(If I have anything to point to, rather than just "he's got the min. quals and will do it" which isn't real catchy...)
 
NIST has a lot of information about the structure etc. which I assume is where he is getting the structural plans etc. from.
Makes sense.
The other input aside from the structure itself would be the damage report from the collapse of 1wtc and some information about the fire load and the fire suppression "systems". He will have to decide somehow where the fire started etc... Where will this information come from? What about the Jennings and Hess report of an explosion below them which blocked the stairwell???
That assumes that he will be looking at the issue that deeply. I suspect he will not. That he will simply focus on the beam expansion and forces on the girder. Not where the fire started, not how long it burned, not how hot it got. That the heat input will simply be the arrived at temperature that NIST used, data he will get via his students or via AE911T(after all he does not want to read the reports)

It would not hurt to review all the work out there done about the collapse, FEMA did some, Nordsenson did some and of course NIST did a lot.
Agreed, care to make a wager on whether or not anyone on this team will be tasked to do this research?(no money just and "Ah-ha, I was right" thing)

Ironically his pitch uses AE talking points and so it's not as if he decided to do this himself.... because he was unsatisfied with NIST. If AE is supplying the money... could he bite the hand that feeds him?
I do hope that he is not another truther simply seeking nothing but confirmation of a favoured prejudice.
 
Is anyone aware of any rationale for the choice of Dr. Hulsey for this project?

I see a lot of work with bridges on his resume, but not much that would explain why he would
be among the better candidates for an inquiry into WTC 7.
I'm not disparaging him, just wondering if any explanation has been given... (?)
Seems to have some relevant credentials. Not too many steel bridges that catch fire though, even fewer in which the fire is contained within structure and not an open air burn.
 
AE911T has a new site layout. Under "What you can do" - "Membership", I found the following:
www.ae911truth.org/membership-2015/

Be part of our ambitious 2015 agenda

1. New Research Initiatives - Read More >>

• Conduct sophisticated computer modeling of World Trade Center Building 7 to demonstrate, first, the impossibility of the collapse initiation mechanism put forth by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and, second, that a controlled demolition controlled more readily replicates the observed destruction.
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If anyone gets a chance to ask Dr. Hulsey about his project, I'd be very interested in how he reconciles his characterization of his research with the description given above by AE911. They quite clearly only want to demonstrate that their theory is correct.

That description is still on their web site today.
 
I can see one BIG problem: what other high rise buildings have been demolished by controlled demolition with explosives? What I see is that they have the faith it looks like a controlled demolition and, IIRC, there hasn't been a demolition of a building of 100+ stories ever.
 
If anyone gets a chance to ask Dr. Hulsey about his project, I'd be very interested in how he reconciles his characterization of his research with the description given above by AE911. They quite clearly only want to demonstrate that their theory is correct.

That description is still on their web site today.

Curious if you've heard back from them in response to your application to be on the review committee?
 
I said EXPERIMENT. You know, the foundation of the scientific method. Think you've found the explanation? Prove it. That's more than NIST could do: they simply said collapse was inevitable. But it really wasn't. Just like NIST's WTC7 theory, these ideas have to be tested and validated, which is exactly what Prof Hunsley's model should do.
okay........so tell me, how could you prevent the collapse? most buildings would have a hard time standing if you destroy 8 or so floors of it pal.
 
okay........so tell me, how could you prevent the collapse? most buildings would have a hard time standing if you destroy 8 or so floors of it pal.

I suspect they will attempt to show that those 8 floors did not collapse. Their big things for the last two years has been that the "initiating events" suggested by NIST could not have happened, due to various discrepancies (generally all a matter of inches).

So I imagine the focus of this study will not be on what happens if 8 floors collapse.
 
I said EXPERIMENT. You know, the foundation of the scientific method. Think you've found the explanation? Prove it. That's more than NIST could do: they simply said collapse was inevitable. But it really wasn't. Just like NIST's WTC7 theory, these ideas have to be tested and validated, which is exactly what Prof Hunsley's model should do.
I hope I'm not straying the thread too much with this: not long ago (a few years), a newly built apartment building collapsed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra (not too far from where I live). Hours before the collapse, a couple of columns showed cracks and noises were heard of "explosions and creaking". They were reinforced concrete columns. The building's designer and constructor rushed to strut the failing columns. They seemed to have succeeded in the task. However, near 10 pm, the building came down, killing all those who were there, supervising and trying to save the building. A year later, photographs of the damaged columns were presented and they showed separation and displacement. I asked a fellow engineer about why it collapsed if the other columns were, seemingly, intact. He told me that a small displacement of the load can render a column or group of columns virtually useless. The load must be aligned with the column for it to work properly. If displacement or buckling or bowing is visible, get everyone out of there, that's going to fall.
 
I can see one BIG problem: what other high rise buildings have been demolished by controlled demolition with explosives? What I see is that they have the faith it looks like a controlled demolition and, IIRC, there hasn't been a demolition of a building of 100+ stories ever.
Nor those 47 storeys tall.
 
I hope I'm not straying the thread too much with this: not long ago (a few years), a newly built apartment building collapsed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra (not too far from where I live). Hours before the collapse, a couple of columns showed cracks and noises were heard of "explosions and creaking". They were reinforced concrete columns. The building's designer and constructor rushed to strut the failing columns. They seemed to have succeeded in the task. However, near 10 pm, the building came down, killing all those who were there, supervising and trying to save the building. A year later, photographs of the damaged columns were presented and they showed separation and displacement. I asked a fellow engineer about why it collapsed if the other columns were, seemingly, intact. He told me that a small displacement of the load can render a column or group of columns virtually useless. The load must be aligned with the column for it to work properly. If displacement or buckling or bowing is visible, get everyone out of there, that's going to fall.

Yes that's true, but also relatively easily replicated with structural computer models. Whats more difficult is to program the models with all the correct and accurate structural weaknesses and damage that happens in an event like what happened on 9/11. Things like beams being initially displaced by the falling objects and clear understanding of the fire damage and possible damage from explosions like were witnessed by people inside Bldg 7 (not insinuating CD explosions). Its the combination of so much damage that obviously requires assumptions and speculation that make any final determinations usually fit in the "probable" category instead of the "smoking gun" category, imo.
 
[Steel] is the material Prof Hunsley will model.
That's why I said "I hope I'm not straying this too much". Besides, both are bearing elements and can be abstracted to an element with a finite resistance, something that AE911 seems to have problems comprehending.
 
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There are some key differences between and steel and concrete framed building... one of the being the connections between structural members. Seems to me intuitively steel frames can "move", twist, distort and so forth much more easily that a concrete frame. This "ability" to move under heat stress is likely the undoing of the wtc high rise buildings.
 
There are some key differences between and steel and concrete framed building... one of the being the connections between structural members. Seems to me intuitively steel frames can "move", twist, distort and so forth much more easily that a concrete frame. This "ability" to move under heat stress is likely the undoing of the wtc high rise buildings.

Of course one of the biggest differences is the ability of steel to withstand both compression and tensile forces and the relative inability of concrete to withstand tension.
 
at 36:10, I cant tell what the kid is asking exactly. I can hear "what sort of debris" but cant make out the rest of the question. Do you know what he says?

I can't make out what he says but the instructor says he does not know and is still looking into that?

psik
 
....
He talks about the trapezoidal shape of the building in relation to coming down in a symmetrical manner.

It is really annoying how such obviously simple things get ignored.

psik
So, you claim that WTC7 came down "in a symmetrical manner"?

I think you should make out that claim in a separate thread. I think you actually cannot. You'd need a technical defnition that has been used and evaluated in other cases of structural failures. You know that never happened - "symmetry" is merely a buzz word here ;)

(Specifically, your problem is that you claim an inequality: That the observed degree of symmetry of the real collapse was GREATER THAN the degree of symmetry of all possibe collapses arising from fires that fit the observations of fires and smoke that day. Neither side of this inequality has ever been evaluated by anyone, the claim thus not made out. It is only "obviously simple" to a sufficiently biased gut.)
 
So, you claim that WTC7 came down "in a symmetrical manner"?

That is the term that is commonly used. Most of the visible fall was very straight. That is what they mean.

Personally I think the destruction of WTC7 is so obviously a controlled demolition that it is not even interesting to discuss.

I mostly pay attention to WTC1&2. I have sent an email to the professor about 1&2. I am curious to see if he responsds. If you want to quibble about the word 'symmetrical' you will have to find someone else.

psik
 
That is the term that is commonly used. Most of the visible fall was very straight. That is what they mean.
They - that would be the sufficiently biased fringe minority called "Truth Movement", and not the authors of standard engineering textbooks, right?

If you want to quibble about the word 'symmetrical' you will have to find someone else.
I take this as you admitting that you have not the slightest clue as to how "symmetry" could be usefully defined and evaluated, and that you merely go by your sufficiently biased imagination. Thanks for clearing that up :)

Let us know if the good Professor replies, for he sure enough would not reply to questions about the WTC7 project - such as why he fails to deliver on his promise to document every step of the project so that the public can follow the progress.
 
That is the term that is commonly used. Most of the visible fall was very straight. That is what they mean.

Personally I think the destruction of WTC7 is so obviously a controlled demolition that it is not even interesting to discuss.

I mostly pay attention to WTC1&2. I have sent an email to the professor about 1&2. I am curious to see if he responsds. If you want to quibble about the word 'symmetrical' you will have to find someone else.

psik

It fell backwards. There's only 1 or 2 VIDEOS that caught it falling, and they were all looking straight at it, so it would appear that it fell straight down. If you would have looked at it from the side, you would see it falling backwards on an angle.

However, a few pictures were captured from a different angle, and you can see what im talking about.



[off topic question removed]
 
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I take this as you admitting that you have not the slightest clue as to how "symmetry" could be usefully defined and evaluated, and that you merely go by your sufficiently biased imagination. Thanks for clearing that up :).

You can think I am admitting what ever you want. If something falls straight down the angles between the ground and the fall will be 90 degrees on each side. Assuming the ground is horizontal. 90 degrees on each side is symmetrical. If the object tilts the angles will become unequal. A video taken off to the right shows the building tilting backwards after it has fallen some distance. At that point it cannot be regarded as symmetrical.

Your clarity is quite impressive.

psik
 
90 degrees on each side is symmetrical.
No. Just no.
Thanks for confirming that you have no idea how to usefully define "symmetry" and merely make things up.

If the object tilts the angles will become unequal. A video taken off to the right shows the building tilting backwards after it has fallen some distance. At that point it cannot be regarded as symmetrical.
Ah. Great.
So the fall of WTC7 wasn't symmetric and Professor Hulsey was speaking nonsense in the video bit that you pointed us to :)
 
No. Just no.
Thanks for confirming that you have no idea how to usefully define "symmetry" and merely make things up.


Ah. Great.
So the fall of WTC7 wasn't symmetric and Professor Hulsey was speaking nonsense in the video bit that you pointed us to :)

Professor Hulsey either didn't read the reports, or was pushing his dishonest truther agenda. He clearly was missing some very important factors.
 
T
Personally I think the destruction of WTC7 is so obviously a controlled demolition that it is not even interesting to discuss.

I would expect some very obvious/strong/verifiable evidence to support such a position.....perhaps now, 15 years after the event, you can make it public??
 
Obviously the CD claim is made without evidence; and credibility is gone by using symmetry as a tag-line: WTC 7 was not symmetrical.
CD needs evidence. Blast effects, or thermite would leave so much evidence if it was CD. It was 19 terrorists in four planes. A complex plot? Not.

There is no evidence for CD - if the computer model done/sponsored by AE911T concludes CD, they failed again.
 
mehzooter has been banned for one week for repeatedly posting a video in volation of the no-click policy, after multiple warnings.
 
It's still not clear whether or not this project will ultimately come to fruition but it seems like an update is merited by the claims Prof. Hulsey made in the fall and the subsequent lack of public updates he and his team have provided. I had some limited contact by email with the two researchers (one a PhD candidate, the other a post-doctoral fellow) working with Hulsey over the last year and they seemed to be earnestly working towards completion, but they stopped returning my emails in January after I asked whether their work truly supported the claim that Hulsey started making in the fall of 2016 that their work up until that time had proved that WTC7 could not collapse in a fire. See, e.g., Hulsey's "testimony" to a mock commission of AE911Truth lawyers or his presentation to the Fairbanks chapter of the ASCE.

The key quotes from the above-linked videos are are as follows (with direct links to each excerpt):

Mock commission "testimony":

Panelist: On a scale of 1 to 100, how probable do you think it is--or how possible do you think it is--that this building could have collapsed because of the fires?

Hulsey: Zero
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Fairbanks ASCE presentation:

Hulsey: Did building 7 collapse from fires? And I'm going to say based on our calculations that we can't justify that that is the case. We have--so I would say--no, it did not collapse due to fire.
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Contrary to some conventional wisdom on fallacies, it is actually not impossible to "prove a negative" in certain circumstances; however, that said, proving a negative with respect to a very complicated engineering claim about which no one has perfect data (e.g., with respect to building 7, no one knows the exact fire loads in the building, the exact points of origin of the fires, or the exact route of progression of the fires through the building) is an extremely heavy lift. For Hulsey to claim there is zero probability that fires induced the collapse of the building, he has to know that for the entire range of possible fire/building condition scenarios consistent with what little observational data we have on them (and that range is essentially infinite), there is none that lead to the observed collapse of the building.

Notably, none of the three other publicly available investigation reports (by NIST, WAI, or the Aegis experts, respectively) reached the same conclusion as Hulsey and, in fact, each report identified distinct ways that the collapse could have been initiated given different assumptions about the fire scenario. (Note: though I know for a fact that Hulsey and his team of researchers have seen the WAI and Aegis expert reports because I emailed them copies and received responses from them, neither of these reports are addressed in Hulsey's presentation to date.) We really don't know much from Hulsey's presentation how he handled modeling fire scenarios, but it seems highly unlikely that he and his team did undertake the task of remodeling all of the scenarios used by NIST, WAI, or the Aegis experts, let alone the vast range of other reasonable scenarios not tested by those experts.

We also have another reason to be extremely dubious about Hulsey's claim from this fall: he began making his claim re the impossibility of fire induced collapse before his team had finished the work necessary to support it. And we're not talking about needing to put some final touches on or making tweaks to some of the elements in his building structure models or running more fire scenarios through those models, we're talking about not having run even a single fulsome simulation of the key connections around column 79 for even a single fire scenario.

How do we know this? Well, we certainly wouldn't know it from Hulsey's presentations themselves as they give every indication that his work is all but complete. But one questioner at the Fairbanks presentation exposed the truth in the following exchange:

Questioner: So I guess the NIST assumption is that those bolts sheered on the girder seat and [unintelligible] and then pushed it off...

Hulsey: Yah...

Questioner: Did you look at, you know, the sheer strength of those bolts along with the sheer strength of whatever sheer studs are on top of that girder--I mean, the amount of force you must have to take to sheer all of that off and displace that girder's gotta be pretty huge. You know--do those joistings have the capacity to displace it like that?

Hulsey: We're looking at that very issue today. Fong, who is my graduate with a PhD is looking at that today and in the last couple days he said those forces are huge but, uh, in reality that can't be the case because that's the most flexible piece, and so you gotta remember that's also connected to that floor system. And so, if it can't--if it's going to deform and it can't handle those forces--then it's gonna hand them off to something that can handle them. And so that model is being looked at to make sure that is being handled correctly. So I don't know the answer that yet, Pat, but I do know we're gonna check and see on how much movement actually occurred and where those forces get distributed to and who's carrying what. So we're gonna completely dissect that whole area and see what's happening.
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This is an incredible admission for someone who just claimed he had proven the inability of fire to induce the collapse of building 7. The Fairbanks presentation was on October 19, 2016, over a month after Hulsey told the AE911Truth mock commission on September 11, 2016 that there was zero possibility of a fire induced collapse. Not only had his team not done the work to prove that broader claim at either time he made it, his team had not even finished modeling the movement of the key elements of the building around column 79 under the NIST collapse scenario!

It's also worth noting that Hulsey's team has not kept its promise to maintain an open investigation where it shares all of its data in a timely manner. The website still reads "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." But, as of the time of this post, there haven't been updates of any kind posted in months and the research data hasn't been updated in over a year.
 
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It's also worth noting that Hulsey's team has not kept its promise to maintain an open investigation where it shares all of its data in a timely manner. The website still reads "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." But, as of the time of this post, there haven't been updates of any kind posted in months and the research data hasn't been updated in over a year.

It's also worth remembering that the stated goal of the study during fundraising was not "a completely open and transparent investigation into the cause of World Trade Center Building 7's collapse.", it was:

http://archive.is/ZR9S5#selection-1211.0-1243.144
Conduct sophisticated computer modeling of World Trade Center Building 7 to demonstrate, first, the impossibility of the collapse initiation mechanism put forth by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and, second, that a controlled demolition more readily replicates the observed destruction.
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i.e., not actually an investigation.
 
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