Why little to no analysis of steel from WTC7?

Status
Not open for further replies.

jaydeehess

Senior Member.
Cube radio wrote:
How can a forensic investigation that doesn't so much as mention physical evidence from the building - in particular the steel from the building that an earlier preliminary investigation said should be analysed further because of its mysterious condition - be described as "first class"?

There was a ' mysterious condition' of very few samples of steel from WTC7 and this 'erosion' was not observed in steel from the towers. It is also not consistent with high temperature melting such as by the use of thermite or similar substances.
NIST did not investigate the steel of column 44 or column 79 , nor the girder connecting the two at the 12/13 floor.

The girders were identical on several dozen floors and , unlike the towers, did not have definite identification indicators on them. Thus it was not possible to positively identify which girder in the rubble of this 47 storey building would have been the one in question. In addition, much of the steel remained in the rubble while fires burned in the debris. It would not be possible to determine whether heating effects were caused by the standing building's office fires and that caused by the same content mix burning in the rubble.

Column 44 does not enter into the debate of how collapse initiated.

Column 79 failure would see it buckling and bending but it would be very difficult to determine what damage was done to this column at collapse initiation and what would have occurred due to it being within a 47 storey structure that fully collapsed.
 
There was a ' mysterious condition' of very few samples of steel from WTC7 and this 'erosion' was not observed in steel from the towers. It is also not consistent with high temperature melting such as by the use of thermite or similar substances.

Could you elaborate on this bit please? What's the 'mysterious condition' and can you maybe give some reasoning as to why it's mysterious?
 
Could you elaborate on this bit please? What's the 'mysterious condition' and can you maybe give some reasoning as to why it's mysterious?
The steel wasn't marked. They couldn't id the steel as being from wtc7. This has been discussed in countless WTC7 threads here and the NIST WTC7 faqs.
 
Could you elaborate on this bit please? What's the 'mysterious condition' and can you maybe give some reasoning as to why it's mysterious?
There were a few samples that had thinned in an odd way. More like an acid erorsion than melted.

As Mick points out this is discussed elsewhere. Both Cube and I missed that.
 
Read the thread Mick pointed to. Also the NIST FAQ.

They must of surely known the steel was from building 7 even though they couldnt ID exactly what parts were what, no? So they could of still investigated it more fully. Rather than using simulations. Simulations can prove anything you want them too.
 
They must of surely known the steel was from building 7 even though they couldnt ID exactly what parts were what, no? So they could of still investigated it more fully. Rather than using simulations. Simulations can prove anything you want them too.
Really? All the rubble from multiple building failures? Why don't you read the thread Mick pointed to and select a point you disagree with. Please support your points with evidence.
 
It's "very difficult to determine" how column 79 would respond and the WTC7 model is taken to be only generally explanatory; despite this releasing all the input data for the model would allegedly "jeopardize public safety" by giving terrorists an idea about exactly where to light office fires if they want other steel framed high rise structures to globally collapse.
 
I was under the impression the only effect it had was that it caused the fires, not that it contributed to the actual structural failure.

There was significant damage caused to the structural integrity, and it was alarming enough to the experts on-scene to prepare an exclusion zone perimeter around the building, in anticipation/fear of a possible collapse.
 
There was significant damage caused to the structural integrity, and it was alarming enough to the experts on-scene to prepare an exclusion zone perimeter around the building, in anticipation/fear of a possible collapse.
But I thought that exclusion zone was set up due to the possibility of collapse by structural failure, from the fires.
 
But I thought that exclusion zone was set up due to the possibility of collapse by structural failure, from the fires.

The actual sequence of events and activities are complex to separate out (removing the fallacies and hyperbole that have arisen since, and singling out the facts). I've only coalesced my impression of the event from some years of reading (at other sites) about the "debate", so am no expert on the details. However, a quick search uncovered this:

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/911/building-seven/#damaged

While it is claimed that the WTC7 suffered no significant damage during the collapse of the towers, evidence from after the collapse shows that is actually untrue. Unfortunately because of most cameras being trained on the towers themselves, there are not many clear images of WTC7 and the collapse. So we must talk about what was seen afterwards. Here is a quote from Battalion Chief John Norman[15]:

"From there, we looked out at 7 World Trade Center again. You could see smoke, but no visible fire, and some damage to the south face. You couldn't really see from where we were on the west face of the building, but at the edge of the south face you could see that it was very heavily damaged."
Content from External Source
And I believe the NIST FAQs were already posted, in-thread:
http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/faqs_wtc7.cfm

Just a personal opinion/observation, but there is simply no evidence to suggest a deliberate CD of WTC7.
 
Not sarcasm, but representing the genuine reasoning used to withhold the models input data, sad to say.

It seemed to be a disingenuous and misleading attempt to imply or infer that "office fires" alone could be initiated by "terrorists" in order to precipitate any building's collapse.

There is the additional fact that the internal water sprinklers for fire suppression were also not operational.
 
@WeedWhacker
From NIST's FAQ you linked to (I've read through it multiple times prior lol)
I did bold a part in the answer that's sort of relevant to how the debris contributed, but NIST's conclusion is no, the debris was not necessary for collapse, just the fires.


21. Did debris from the collapse of WTC 1 cause damage to WTC 7's structure in a way that contributed to the building's collapse?

The debris from WTC 1 caused structural damage to the southwest region of WTC 7—severing seven exterior columns—but this structural damage did not initiate the collapse. The fires initiated by the debris, rather than the structural damage that resulted from the impacts, initiated the building's collapse after the fires grew and spread to the northeast region after several hours. The debris impact caused no damage to the spray-applied fire-resistive material that was applied to the steel columns, girders, and beams except in the immediate vicinity of the severed columns. The debris impact damage did play a secondary role in the last stages of the collapse sequence, where the exterior façade buckled at the lower floors where the impact damage was located. A separate analysis showed that even without the structural damage due to debris impact, WTC 7 would have collapsed in fires similar to those that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. None of the large pieces of debris from WTC 2 hit WTC 7 because of the large distance between the two buildings.
Content from External Source
 
Did the debris contribute to the collapse? I was under the impression the only effect it had was that it caused the fires, not that it contributed to the actual structural failure.
WTC 7 suffered some very significant structural damage to its south face, including the complete loss of the SW corner column over a span of 12+ floors. While it was determined that this structural damage was not the immediate cause of the failure that led to global collapse, it did contribute to the manner in which that collapse occured.

NIST ran computer FEA on WTC 7 structure in which the building had no south side damage and another in which they included known south side damage. In the former case the structure twisted much more during collapse than it did in the later run.
They must of (sic) surely known the steel was from building 7 even though they couldnt ID exactly what parts were what, no? So they could of(sic) still investigated it more fully. Rather than using simulations. Simulations can prove anything you want them too.

While much of the steel would be obviously from WTC 7, that would primarily be the exterior columns on the top of the rubble. These are pretty much useless in a forensic examination as to the cause of a collapse that begins deep within the struture. If one wishes to do an analysis of what occured in a specific area then one absolutely needs to be able to know for certain that the steel being examined actually comes from that area.
In addition, steel within the rubble pile was subject to heating due to the fires within the debris. That would make it ambiguous as to whether or not heating effects on any sample were due to this post collapse heating or pre-collapse heating.
Why is that not patently obvious? Computer Finite Element Analysis is very well accepted in the engineering community both in construction and in forensic analysis. For one thing it allows one to do exactly what I described above, they ran this both with and without south side damage.
Physical modeling has its own limitations. Obviously its not possible to reconstruct an entire 47 storey building and then test it and most certainly not possible to do it multipe times. Even modeling just a few floors and imposing approximate loading that would stand in for the rest of the structure takes a great deal of time ad money EACH time you run it. It is quite ironic that I have seen truthers complain about the length of time it took to get the final WTC 7 report done and then also complain that physical modeling should have been done rather than computer modelling.
 
Last edited:
WTC 7 suffered some very significant structural damage to its south face, including the complete loss of the SW corner column over a span of 12+ floors. While it was determined that this structural damage was not the immediate cause of the failure that led to global collapse, it did contribute to the manner in which that collapse occured.

NIST ran computer FEA on WTC 7 structure in which the building had no south side damage and another in which they included known south side damage. In the former case the structure twisted much more during collapse than it did in the later run.


While much of the steel would be obviously from WTC 7, that would primarily be the exterior columns on the top of the rubble. These are pretty much useless in a forensic examination as to the cause of a collapse that begins deep within the struture. If one wishes to do an analysis of what occured in a specific area then one absolutely needs to be able to know for certain that the steel being examined actually comes from that area.
In addition, steel within the rubble pile was subject to heating due to the fires within the debris. That would make it ambiguous as to whether or not heating effects on any sample were due to this post collapse heating or pre-collapse heating.
Why is that not patently obvious? Computer Finite Element Analysis is very well accepted in the engineering community both in construction and in forensic analysis. For one thing it allows one to do exactly what I described above, they ran this both with and without south side damage.
Physical modeling has its own limitations. Obviously its not possible to reconstruct an entire 47 storey building and then test it and most certainly not possible to do it multipe times. Even modeling just a few floors and imposing approximate loading that would stand in for the rest of the structure takes a great deal of time ad money EACH time you run it. It is quite ironic that I have seen truthers complain about the length of time it took to get the final WTC 7 report done and then also complain that physical modeling should have been done rather than computer modelling.

Very true. Thanks for your answer. I am not the most academic person but I know right from wrong. People seem to be getting trapped in semantics and ego, in society in general. There are things as bad or worse than 9/11 in terms of human suffering that doent need to be proven as they are obvious but there is not the mystery factor so people dont bother talking about it as much as they maybe should. This forum has done me good like that. It has helped me get my priorities in order better.
 
Ignoring the only physical evidence allowed investigators to ignore the imperative to find the source of the elemental sulfur that penetrated the steel, which only an organization as execrably stupidifying as the BBC could claim was from drywall; the imperative to be scientifically transparent and release input data to what is claimed to be forensic computer analysis is similarly ignored on grounds that no-one with any intelligence can defend, given the extraordinarily approximate and brief representation of the onset of "fascia collapse" NIST achieved.
 
Ignoring the only physical evidence allowed investigators to ignore the imperative to find the source of the elemental sulfur that penetrated the steel, which only an organization as execrably stupidifying as the BBC could claim was from drywall;


I'm sorry, could you source this please?

And, it seems to be steering back to the thread topic, which is a nice trend. However, I'm a bit lost on the specifics, and would like to learn a bit here. Think of me as a student, if you will.

Thanks.
 
Elemental sulfur penetrated the steel with intergranular melting according to initial analysis by FEMA in 2002; the BBC claimed the source of this sulfur was drywall from the building released in rubble fires in a programme called The Third Tower, ignoring the fact that sulfur is bonded into gypsum (in other words, it is a safe building material) and would require precise temperatures and a catalyst to release.
 
Elemental sulfur penetrated the steel with intergranular melting according to initial analysis by FEMA in 2002; the BBC claimed the source of this sulfur was drywall from the building released in rubble fires in a programme called The Third Tower...

Sounds very interesting. I enjoy many BBC documentaries. Any chance you can find a link to the one you describe? As always, I tend to soak up all the information I can, in order to help me understand a topic.
 
I should add that the mystery is not just the source of the sulfur, but the means by which it penetrated the steel to weaken it; I trust all further mention of FEA is banished from this thread "for reasons of public safety"
 
...I trust all further mention of FEA is banished from this thread "for reasons of public safety"

And I "trust" that such an attempt at "hand-waving" away significant discussion will not be "banished" from THIS thread.

Because, I expect that much clarity will ensue.....
 
It's on YouTube.


Please, can you now link the relevant YouTube videos? It is not difficult.

GO TO the YT video, and then "Copy" the URL. Come back to this thread, and "PASTE" what you copied and make it a "Post" in this thread. Write a bit to accompany it, and you're done!
 
I merely observe that no-one is foolish enough to attempt to defend or justify withholding input data from a supposedly forensic computer animation; as I said, the extraordinarily approximate and brief representation of the onset of "fascia collapse" defies the meaningful application of the term "model" to NIST's efforts.
 
lease go to YouTube and type in the words

Oh, wait...it was done, just above, by member 'Pete Tar"

I ask member "Cube Radio"....was that so difficult?

ETA: Even that particular YT video of a BBC production? I think that sometimes people tend to only read a "HeadLine", or watch a few minutes, and then make "snap judgments".
 
Last edited:
I'm posting from an old smartphone: it makes things like copying and pasting quite difficult; the link Pete has posted is the correct one, and the suggestion gypsum was the source of the elemental sulfur that mysteriously penetrated the steel so deeply comes at the end.
 
Ignoring the only physical evidence allowed investigators to ignore the imperative to find the source of the elemental sulfur that penetrated the steel, which only an organization as execrably stupidifying as the BBC could claim was from drywall; the imperative to be scientifically transparent and release input data to what is claimed to be forensic computer analysis is similarly ignored on grounds that no-one with any intelligence can defend, given the extraordinarily approximate and brief representation of the onset of "fascia collapse" NIST achieved.
I'm a little confused by your theory.
Despite your unhelpfulness re. the source you were semi-trying to cite, I eventually found what you are referring to.

Why do you refer to the expert opinion of Professor Richard Sisson of Worcester Polytechnic University as a BBC claim?

And if you have expert opinion that contradicts Sisson's testimony re. the sulfur, please cite it, rather than using silly language like "execrably stupidifying."
 
Naturally then you would still have to explain how the sulfur penetrated the steel in an "intergranular" way: but that is not necessarily a question for you; rather it is a question NIST avoided.
 
I should add that the mystery is not just the source of the sulfur, but the means by which it penetrated the steel to weaken it; I trust all further mention of FEA is banished from this thread "for reasons of public safety"
There is no reason to ban the mention of the FEA unless one wishes to ignore that fact that this is an accepted form of modelling.
AGAIN, if AE911T wishes to "verify" the results that NIST got, they are quite welcome to do it themselves.
This is not a case in which a lab tries to replicate an experiment. Its a computer model. If AE911T was given the input data and obtained a license for the same FEA and ran the programme there is no reason at all to expect a computer to get a different result (I know my calculator gives me that same result for the same input, every time all the time).

That is unless the person redoing it is simply on a witch hunt and wishes to look for malfeasance, for instance in the input data being published as one thing but entered as something else.
 
Ignoring the only physical evidence allowed investigators to ignore the imperative to find the source of the elemental sulfur that penetrated the steel, which only an organization as execrably stupidifying as the BBC could claim was from drywall; the imperative to be scientifically transparent and release input data to what is claimed to be forensic computer analysis is similarly ignored on grounds that no-one with any intelligence can defend, given the extraordinarily approximate and brief representation of the onset of "fascia collapse" NIST achieved.
These were the only samples of such erosion found. It was certainly not a widespread phenomena. It was a curiousity. It also, in no way at all, resembles what would occur in a high temp thermitic melting.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top