peer reviewed paper: WTC downed via demolitions

Well I laid out several questions in the post you responded too.Why was anyone surprised by the 9-11 attack?How many other obvious points of weakness are also not being considered?There are other issues and questions that I'd like to see addressed.

• Now that we are committed to wasting precious resources in Iraq and Afghanistan, how are we going to afford to do the things that need to be done?
• What needs to be done to inspect 100% of the air cargo containers that overfly the US?
• What needs to be done to inspect 100% of the marine cargo containers that enter the US?
• What needs to be done to inspect the more than one hundred thousand trucks that enter the US just through Laredo?
• How can we quadruple the resources available to the Coast Guard?
• How do we confirm and investigate the tens of thousands of translators we need?
• What use was made of the Daytona System and Database?
• Why are hundreds of Arabs being smuggled across the Texas/Mexico border using Greek Passports?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I haven't seen it, no. To tell you the truth I don't like to watch things like this. I'd rather see the evidence in print, so that I can assess it clearly absent the emotional impact of visual media. It's important to realize that "al-queda" (English spellings vary, I'm not trying to correct you here) isn't an organization or a group; it's Arabic for "the movement" and all it refers to is, basically, loose affiliations of terrorist cells that cooperate sometimes, and sometimes work independantly, and sometimes work at contrary purposes. It's like referring to "the left." It's people with a certain idea, not an organization with members and chapters and second-in-commands. Nobody commands al-queda.Were the people who did this part of that movement? I think that's a forgone conclusion. Did Osama bin Laden plan the whole thing, as some kind of mastermind? I agree with you that's up for debate, but we'll never know short of being able to read his mind. What he certainly did do was take credit for it.There's a number of unanswered questions about 9/11, and as much as people like Jar like to shrug and say "we'll never know", these aren't questions like "what were the last words of the people on United 93?" or something. These are very real questions about the extent of the government covering up its incompetence - or even worse, its complicity. And they deserve very real answers, and very real punishment for those who deserve it. I mean, if this is just something Jar and those like him can just shrug and dismiss into the mists of unknown history, how can they believe in punishing any criminals at all?

Hooray, someone acknowledges that we need answers.

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I think that's a forgone conclusion. Did Osama bin Laden plan the whole thing, as some kind of mastermind? I agree with you that's up for debate, but we'll never know short of being able to read his mind. What he certainly did do was take credit for it.
  —crashfrog

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I would suggest watching the last third-ish of it because there is a scene showing the infamous "confession" tape with someone claiming to be Bin Laden. They show the FBI report saying that he is left handed while the video clearly shows him writing with his right hand. He can also be seen wearing a gold ring...it is claimed that is against his religion, but I don't know if it is or not.Also, the person in the video looks nothing like the later videos with Osama. However people who deny the conspiracy will probably just say that Osama had one of his look-alikes make the tape to protect him.______________________________________Okay, so we have covered that there are questions that need to be answered. Crash, what kinds of questions do you feel should be addressed that would lead to a better understanding of the "truth?"

It's my recollection, without doing any research to prove it right now, that bin Laden has taken credit for 9/11 in many subsequent tapes. He certainly knows the US blames him, and he's never denied to to my knowledge.But I don't speak Arabic. Hardly any Americans do. There's every possibility that the government is lying about what he's saying in the tapes.

crashfrog Well, well well crashfrog what took you so long? I would love to know such things but being as your federal government cannot even keep sexual liasons of the president secret I doubt they are capable of maintaining any thing more secret than the latest office gossip for longer than it takes to cross a room.I had a question concerning the somewhat silly hypothesis of explosives being used to bring the building down at the very point of impact the plane made. I have watched those tapes many times over from all the closeups and varying angles and there is something lacking that is a death knell for the claim. If you remember that the WTC was enveloped in smoke from the burning of jet fuel and the interior portions of the building.When a large explosion occurs {which would have to be an enormous one to destroy a system of girders that were 14inch by 14 inch columns spaced at 3feet 4 inch on center around the entire periphery of the building} there is a shockwave that proceeds the ignition of the atmosphere that would have been clearly visible as the smoke would have made this wavefront visible.That a coverup is possible is not the issue here. The quality of the evidence is though,and this has not been forthcoming at all IMHO.This message has been edited by sidelined, Tue, 2006-05-09 12:23 AM

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Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation . . .Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.Richard Feynman

Ah, right. The old "our dumb ol' government can't keep a secret."Except that they have kept secrets. Like the Tuskedgee Experiment, in which the government and major research institutions, constituting over a hundred different researchers with full knowledge of the project, withheld effective treatment from hundreds of African-American men with syphillis, resulting in the deaths of somewhere between 3-400 men, women, and children over the course of four decades, during which it was a secret from the public the whole time.The idea that Clinton's ridiculous sexual escapades constitute proof that the government can't hide a conspiracy to kill hundreds or thousands is ludicrous to anybody who's ever opened a history book and seen the government doing exactly that.And why would it be so hard? People don't want to know. They're terrified to know. And when they see any indication that might be going on, they get angry at the messenger, just like you're doing now. I imagine if I had come to you with evidence of the Tuskegee study in, say, 1960, you'd have reacted much the same way you did now. "This government, that couldn't even keep it a secret that JFK is fucking Marilyn Monroe? No way. Now, would you please leave me the fuck alone?"

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When a large explosion occurs {which would have to be an enormous one to destroy a system of girders that were 14inch by 14 inch columns spaced at 3feet 4 inch on center around the entire periphery of the building} there is a shockwave that proceeds the ignition of the atmosphere that would have been clearly visible as the smoke would have made this wavefront visible.
  —sidelined

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Are you sure about that? There were reports of multiple explotions, even the ground shaking (and registering as a 2.8 earthquake) 12 seconds before the building STARTED to fall. There is also the fact that buildings collapsed at freefall speed, meaning they hit nothing on the way down to slow the fall (like other floors). This tells me that the building fall was very controlled.how many large (steel constructed) buildings have ever come down because of fire, before 9-11?None that I have ever heard of.Just because you didn't see a shockwave doesn't mean there wasn't an explosion.People heard it. And people recorded an explosion.

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Well I laid out several questions in the post you responded too.

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Why was anyone surprised by the 9-11 attack?

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How many other obvious points of weakness are also not being considered?

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There are other issues and questions that I'd like to see addressed.

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Now that we are committed to wasting precious resources in Iraq and Afghanistan, how are we going to afford to do the things that need to be done?

​

What needs to be done to inspect 100% of the air cargo containers that overfly the US?

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What needs to be done to inspect 100% of the marine cargo containers that enter the US?

​

What needs to be done to inspect the more than one hundred thousand trucks that enter the US just through Laredo?

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How can we quadruple the resources available to the Coast Guard?

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How do we confirm and investigate the tens of thousands of translators we need?

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What use was made of the Daytona System and Database?

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Why are hundreds of Arabs being smuggled across the Texas/Mexico border using Greek Passports?
  —jar

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one more to add to your list jar, how come in 2001 prior to 9-11 there were more then 90 planes intercepted and identified with an average response time of 18 minutes? Yet these hijacked planes were never intercepted. The incopetence goes all the way to the top.

If they were falling at "freefall speed" then the top would have accelerated at 32 ft per sec per sec. I have watched the videos a number of times and the fall seems to be at a constant velocity after the first second or so. This is merely from naked-eye viewing, though. Could you produce a source that provides a measurement of the velocity as the towers fell? What is the expected rate of fall if the floors were in place as compared to the rate of fall that was observed? Better question: How many buildings of that type of construction have ever come down because of a jet fuel fire. I don't know about steel buildings but the USS Forrestal had deck plates melting because of a jet-fuel fire that migrated into her hanger bays. Do you have access to those explosion recordings? How did those people distinguish that what they heard were explosions and not reverberations of the upperfloors pancaking into one another? Were they munitions experts?

Note that all of these points are taken from the Loose Change v2 video.With regard to free fall:
deltaT = sqrt( 2 * Distance / Accel ) (assuming 0 initial velocity)
deltaT = sqrt( 2 * 1400 / 32 ) (1400' = height of towers, 32 = grav)
deltaT = 9.35s if the buildings fell in free fall.Watching the tape with a stop watch gives a time of about 10 seconds. Almost complete freefall. There have only ever been 3 steel skyscrapers brought down by fire. All three were at the WTC. Buildings 1, 2 and 7. I can actually buy that 1 and 2 were brought down by fire due to their unique construction but 7 was built using standard techniques and to boot it wasn't hit by a plane or any significant debris. Things just don't quite add up. I'm not sure if any of them were munitions experts, but they were firefighters and police officers that reported hearing multiple explosions and smelling cordite at the scene.

References for the smell of cordite, please.

The 'cordite' smell reference is right out of the movie. I'll have to watch it again and get you a time stamp reference if that's what you want.As for the validity of the movie references, well, I can't say. Everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

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If they were falling at "freefall speed" then the top would have accelerated at 32 ft per sec per sec. I have watched the videos a number of times and the fall seems to be at a constant velocity after the first second or so. This is merely from naked-eye viewing, though. Could you produce a source that provides a measurement of the velocity as the towers fell? What is the expected rate of fall if the floors were in place as compared to the rate of fall that was observed?
  —LinearAg

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Distance = 16.08 x seconds squared1362 = 16.08 x 84.7seconds = 9.2 seconds.The building fell in just about ten seconds. This means that the building itself was falling at about freefall speed. It wasn’t meeting very much friction on the way down.As for the jet fuel . (this has been taken from http://guardian.150m.com/wtc/how-hot.htm )

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[jet fuel] comprised of hydrocarbons with a carbon range of C9 - C17. The hydrocarbons are mainly alkanes CnH2n+2, with n ranging from 9 to 17.

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It has a flash point within the range 42 C - 72 C (110 F - 162 F).

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And an ignition temperature of 210 C (410 F).

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Depending on the supply of oxygen, jet fuel burns by one of three chemical reactions:

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(1) CnH2n+2 + (3n+1)/2 O2 => n CO2 + (n + 1) H2O

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(2) CnH2n+2 + (2n+1)/2 O2 => n CO + (n + 1) H2O

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(3) CnH2n+2 + (n+1)/2 O2 => n C + (n + 1) H2O

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Okay, so the flash point is 110 - 162.

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Reaction (1) occurs when jet fuel is well mixed with air before being burnt, as for example, in jet engines.

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Reactions (2) and (3) occur when a pool of jet fuel burns. When reaction (3) occurs the carbon formed shows up as soot in the flame. This makes the smoke very dark.

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In the aircraft crashes at the World Trade Center, the impact (with the aircraft going from 500 or 600 mph to zero) would have throughly mixed the fuel that entered the building with the limited amount of air available within. In fact, it is likely that all the fuel was turned into a flammable mist. However, for sake of argument we will assume that 3,500 gallons of the jet fuel did in fact form a pool fire. This means that it burnt according to reactions (2) and (3). Also note that the flammable mist would have burnt according to reactions (2) and (3), as the quantity of oxygen within the building was quite limited.

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Since we do not know the exact quantities of oxygen available to the fire, we will assume that the combustion was perfectly efficient, that is, that the entire quantity of jet fuel burnt via reaction (1), even though we know that this was not so. This generous assumption will give a temperature that we know will be higher than the actual temperature of the fire attributable to the jet fuel.

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We need to know that the (net) calorific value of jet fuel when burnt via reaction (1) is 42-44 MJ/kg. The calorific value of a fuel is the amount of energy released when the fuel is burnt. We will use the higher value of 44 MJ/kg as this will lead to a higher maximum temperature than the lower value of 42 (and we wish to continue being outrageously generous in our assumptions).

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For a cleaner presentation and simpler calculations we will also assume that our hydrocarbons are of the form CnH2n. The dropping of the 2 hydrogen atoms does not make much difference to the final result and the interested reader can easily recalculate the figures for a slightly more accurate result. So we are now assuming the equation:

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(4) CnH2n + 3n/2 O2 => n CO2 + n H2O

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However, this model, does not take into account that the reaction is proceeding in air, which is only partly oxygen.

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Dry air is 79% nitrogen and 21% oxygen (by volume). Normal air has a moisture content from 0 to 4%. We will include the water vapor and the other minor atmospheric gases with the nitrogen.

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So the ratio of the main atmospheric gases, oxygen and nitrogen, is 1 : 3.76. In molar terms:

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Air = O2 + 3.76 N2.
Because oxygen comes mixed with nitrogen, we have to include it in the equations. Even though it does not react, it is "along for the ride" and will absorb heat, affecting the overall heat balance. Thus we need to use the equation:

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(5) CnH2n + 3n/2(O2 + 3.76 N2) => n CO2 + n H2O + 5.64n N2

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From this equation we see that the molar ratio of CnH2n to that of the products is:

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CnH2n : CO2 : H2O : N2
= 1 : n : n : 5.64n moles
= 14n : 44n : 18n : 28 x 5.64n kgs
= 1 : 3.14286 : 1.28571 : 11.28 kgs
= 31,000 : 97,429 : 39,857 : 349,680 kgs

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In the conversion of moles to kilograms we have assumed the atomic weights of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are 1, 12, 14 and 16 respectively.

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Now each of the towers contained 96,000 (short) tons of steel. That is an average of 96,000/117 = 820 tons per floor. Lets suppose that the bottom floors contained roughly twice the amount of steel of the upper floors (since the lower floors had to carry more weight). So we estimate that the lower floors contained about 1,100 tons of steel and the upper floors about 550 tons = 550 x 907.2 500,000 kgs. We will assume that the floors hit by the aircraft contained the lower estimate of 500,000 kgs of steel. This generously underestimates the quantity of steel in these floors, and once again leads to a higher estimate of the maximum temperature.

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Each story had a floor slab and a ceiling slab. These slabs were 207 feet wide, 207 feet deep and 4 (in parts 5) inches thick and were constructed from lightweight concrete. So each slab contained 207 x 207 x 1/3 = 14,283 cubic feet of concrete. Now a cubic foot of lightweight concrete weighs about 50kg, hence each slab weighed 714,150 700,000 kgs. Together, the floor and ceiling slabs weighed some 1,400,000 kgs.

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So, now we take all the ingredients and estimate a maximum temperature to which they could have been heated by 3,500 gallons of jet fuel. We will call this maximum temperature T. Since the calorific value of jet fuel is 44 MJ/kg. We know that 3,500 gallons = 31,000 kgs of jet fuel

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will release 10,850 x 44,000,000 = 477,400,000,000 Joules of energy.
This is the total quantity of energy available to heat the ingredients to the temperature T. But what is the temperature T? To find out, we first have to calculate the amount of energy absorbed by each of the ingredients.

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That is, we need to calculate the energy needed to raise:

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39,857
kilograms of water vapor to the temperature T C,
97,429
kilograms of carbon dioxide to the temperature T C,
349,680
kilograms of nitrogen to the temperature T C,
500,000
kilograms of steel to the temperature T C,
1,400,000
kilograms of concrete to the temperature T C.

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To calculate the energy needed to heat the above quantities, we need their specific heats. The specific heat of a substance is the amount of energy needed to raise one kilogram of the substance by one degree centigrade.

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Substance
Specific Heat [J/kg*C]
Nitrogen
1,038
Water Vapor
1,690
Carbon Dioxide
845
Lightweight Concrete
800
Steel
450

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Substituting these values into the above, we obtain:

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39,857 x
1,690 x (T - 25)
Joules are needed to heat the water vapor from 25 to T C,
97,429 x
845 x (T - 25)
Joules are needed to heat the carbon dioxide from 25 to T C,
349,680 x
1,038 x (T - 25)
Joules are needed to heat the nitrogen from 25 to T C,
500,000 x
450 x (T - 25)
Joules are needed to heat the steel from 25 to T C,
1,400,000 x
800 x (T - 25)
Joules are needed to heat the concrete from 25 to T C.

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The assumption that the specific heats are constant over the temperature range 25 - T C, is a good approximation if T turns out to be relatively small (as it does). For larger values of T this assumption once again leads to a higher maximum temperature (as the specific heat for these substances increases with temperature). We have assumed the initial temperature of the surroundings to be 25 C. The quantity, (T - 25) C, is the temperature rise.

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So the amount of energy needed to raise one floor to the temperature T C is

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= (39,857 x 1,690 + 97,429 x 845 + 349,680 x 1,038 + 500,000 x 450 + 1,400,000 x 800) x (T - 25)
= (67,358,330 + 82,327,505 + 362,967,840 + 225,000,000 + 1,120,000,000) x (T - 25) Joules
= 1,857,653,675 x (T - 25) Joules.

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Since the amount of energy available to heat this floor is 477,400,000,000 Joules, we have that

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1,857,653,675 x (T - 25) = 477,400,000,000
1,857,653,675 x T - 46,441,341,875 = 477,400,000,000

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Therefore T = (477,400,000,000 + 46,441,341,875)/1,857,653,675 = 282 C (540 F).

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So, the jet fuel could (at the very most) have only added T - 25 = 282 - 25 = 257 C (495 F) to the temperature of the typical office fire that developed.

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Remember, this figure is a huge over-estimate, as (among other things) it assumes that the steel and concrete had an unlimited amount of time to absorb the heat, whereas in reality, the jet fuel fire was all over in one or two minutes, and the energy not absorbed by the concrete and steel within this brief period (that is, almost all of it) would have been vented to the outside world.

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"The time to consume the jet fuel can be reasonably computed. At the upper bound, if one assumes that all 10,000 gallons of fuel were evenly spread across a single building floor, it would form a pool that would be consumed by fire in less than 5 minutes"

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Quote from the FEMA report into the collapse of WTC's One and Two (Chapter Two).

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Here are statements from three eye-witnesses that provide evidence that the heating due to the jet fuel was indeed minimal.

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Donovan Cowan was in an open elevator at the 78th floor sky-lobby (one of the impact floors of the South Tower) when the aircraft hit. He has been quoted as saying: "We went into the elevator. As soon as I hit the button, that's when there was a big boom. We both got knocked down. I remember feeling this intense heat. The doors were still open. The heat lasted for maybe 15 to 20 seconds I guess. Then it stopped."

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Stanley Praimnath was on the 81st floor of the South Tower: "The plane impacts. I try to get up and then I realize that I'm covered up to my shoulder in debris. And when I'm digging through under all this rubble, I can see the bottom wing starting to burn, and that wing is wedged 20 feet in my office doorway."

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Ling Young was in her 78th floor office: "Only in my area were people alive, and the people alive were from my office. I figured that out later because I sat around in there for 10 or 15 minutes. That's how I got so burned."

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Neither Stanley Praimnath nor Donovan Cowan nor Ling Young were cooked by the jet fuel fire. All three survived.

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Summarizing:

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We have assumed that the entire 3,500 gallons of jet fuel was confined to just one floor of the World Trade Center, that the jet fuel burnt with perfect efficency, that no hot gases left this floor, that no heat escaped this floor by conduction and that the steel and concrete had an unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat.

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Then it is impossible that the jet fuel, by itself, raised the temperature of this floor more than 257 C (495 F).

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Now this temperature is nowhere near high enough to even begin explaining the World Trade Center Tower collapse.

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It is not even close to the first critical temperature of 600 C (1,100 F) where steel loses about half its strength and it is nowhere near the quotes of 1500 C that we constantly read about in our lying media.

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"In the mid-1990s British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cardington to investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beams reaching 800-900 C (1,500-1,700 F) in three of the tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600 C (1,100 F), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments."

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Quote from the FEMA report (Appendix A).

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Recalling that the North Tower suffered no major structural damage from the intense office fire of February 23, 1975, we can conclude that the ensuing office fires of September 11, 2001, also did little extra damage to the towers.

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Conclusion:

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The jet fuel fires played almost no role in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

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I am sorry for the very cut/paste, but it all seemed quite relevant. And I decided not to risk mixing up any of the data. I looked over this for about the last two hours, and have yet to find any real error. The only problem seems to be that there are a lot of assumptions, but they seem to error on the side of being generous to the official story. The only place I can find fault is there seems to be some misconceptions of the construction of the buildings. But that doesn’t seem to affect the outcome.

I truly do not wish to become embroiled here. However, I do have one question on the calculations you posted: Are you sure that you copied this correctly? The aircraft that struck both WTC 1 and 2 were Boeing 767-400s. IOW, the fuel capacity of each aircraft is around 24,000 gals of jet fuel, not 3500. Since both aircraft were hyjacked almost immediately after take-off for trans-continental flights, and went fairly directly to their respective targets, we should be able to assume that they had a fairly full fuel load. Even if not, they would each have had at least 4-5 times the estimate used in this calculation. Since you have the article you cite, could you double-check those figures, please?

Sorry, I came in part way through the article, here...

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"The Boeing 767 is capable of carrying up to 23,980 gallons of fuel and it is estimated that, at the time of impact, each aircraft had approximately 10,000 gallons of unused fuel on board (compiled from Government sources)."

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Quote from the FEMA report into the collapse of WTC's One and Two (Chapter Two).

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Since the aircraft were only flying from Boston to Los Angeles, they would have been nowhere near fully fueled on takeoff (the aircraft have a maximum range of 7,600 miles). They would have carried just enough fuel for the trip together with some safety factor. Remember, that carrying excess fuel means higher fuel bills and less paying passengers. The aircraft would have also burnt some fuel between Boston and New York.

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"If one assumes that approximately 3,000 gallons of fuel were consumed in the initial fireballs, then the remainder either escaped the impact floors in the manners described above or was consumed by the fire on the impact floors. If half flowed away, then 3,500 gallons remained on the impact floors to be consumed in the fires that followed."

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Quote from the FEMA report into the collapse of WTC's One and Two (Chapter Two).

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so it looks like FEMA has estimated how many gallons were on those flights, and how much exploded in the initial fireball.