Controlled Demolition Inc.'s phased CD of the Kingdome (with video)

[Contrite]

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/kingdome1.html

Same people who did "cleanup" of Ground Zero and are on the team "explaining" everything.

There is even a video of it on the last page.

Reposted for more to see this.

[salvorhardin]

1. What are you trying to say?

What is your assertion? Why do you think it's true? What evidence do you have to support your thesis? Of what relevance is this? What conclusions do you draw?

[Contrite]

2. Three things--on edit, actually, four

1. Done by CDI, same people "involved" with WTC clean-up and evaluation.
2. Controlled phased demolition, involving the whole structure rather than just the lower levels, with Phase I at the roof.
3. Remarkable resemblance of "dust clouds" produced from pulverized concrete to those of the WTC.
4. Small explosions fractured the rigid concrete allowing the structure to buckle and fall. The flexible rebar remained intact, acting like ropes to pull the columns toward the center.

Watch here:

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/images/client/kingdome.mpg

[hack89]

3. So what does this have to do with a steel framed building

with no structural concrete with rebar?

[Contrite]

4. This Kingdome was mostly reinforced cement, true.

The concrete columns were not entirely concrete but also contained steel rebar, so they did have "some steel". There were corrugated steel decks under the WTC concrete slabs if not rebar.

I think it is the sequence, the phasing, that is of most interest here, and the dust clouds of pulverized concrete.

[salvorhardin]

5. Why should dust clouds not look like dust clouds?

Why wouldn't you expect clouds of pulverized concrete produced by a building whose fall was initiated by controlled demolition to look the same as clouds of pulverized concrete produced by a building whose fall was initiated by progressive collapse brought about by severe structural damage and fire?

i.e. What would you have expected the clouds of pulverized concrete dust to look like? If you don't think there should have been any dust, or much less, then why do you think that? What scientific principles do you base your conjecture on and how would you test it?

[Contrite]

6. They had to explode the concrete, more than once, to turn it to dust

as they explained in the text:

"Phase 1 continued to fall, helping to pull Phase 2 in. Phase 2 was detonated several seconds later and collapsed and fell the same as Phase 1.

More explosions further fractured the concrete into smaller pieces."

[salvorhardin]

7. You didn't answer my question...

What should the pulverized concrete dust cloud around the collapse of the WTC towers have looked like if they fell as a result of progressive collapse?

[Contrite]

8. Show me some photos of that and we'll both know. n/t

[salvorhardin]

9. You seem to be deliberately missing the point

For some reason you attach some deep dark cosmic significance to the clouds of pulverized concrete dust and seem to be asserting that the similarity between the clouds of pulverized concrete dust is indicative of the WTC towers being brought down by controlled demolition.

Why?

Why should we not expect clouds of pulverized concrete dust to look like clouds of pulverized concrete dust no matter how they were produced?

And if you think they should look different, then why do you think they should look different? How should they have looked? You have to have a reason better than your hunch, and for you to know there should have been a difference, then you have to know how it should have looked beforehand.

[Contrite]

10. Here's a photo of a concrete building that collapsed during construction

See any "dust"?

[salvorhardin]

11. Was that building constructed like the WTC towers?

No. There were only two buildings in the world like that -- WTC 1 and WTC 2.

Nor is that a picture of clouds of pulverized concrete dust surrounding a building while it is falling.

Again, you did not answer the questions. Please answer my questions. This has been a nice conversation so far. So just try to answer my questions. What would you have expected the clouds to look like and why? How do you come about your expectations? What reasoning do you base them on?

[Contrite]

12. No, it was far, far weaker than either tower

In fact, the collapse of Ambiance Plaza demonstrated the weaknesses of lift slab construction--slabs warped because of the heaviness of other slabs above them. If WTC1/2 collapsed due to the weight of other structures above them, and the slabs were "warped" due to heat/expansion/contraction, etc. why indeed wouldn't the collapsed cement of the towers look similar to that of Ambiance Plaza?

Almost all of the concrete in the towers was pulverized into a very fine powder. The towers exploded into pyroclastic flows of dust. (NIST more or less said they couldn't judge the intensity of the pulverization because the dust clouds obscured the view. So we have governmental approval of the opinion that the forest is obscured by the trees.)

**********

Comparisons to the World Trade Center Collapses

Any comparisons of the L'Ambiance Plaza collapse to the collapses of WTC 1, 2, and 7 should note the following differences.

* The L'Ambiance Plaza building was under construction, whereas WTC 1, 2, and 7 were finished buildings that had stood for many years. Buildings under construction rely on temporary structures and do not employ the reserve strength ratios required for finished construction.
* Procedures in the construction of the L'Ambiance Plaza appear to have violated design specifications.
* The rubble of the L'Ambiance Plaza building contained clearly recognizable stacks of floor slabs, contrasting with the striking absence of a single photograph showing a piece of floor slab or even steel truss at Ground Zero.
* Photographs of the L'Ambiance Plaza rubble show none of the fine dust that was one of the most striking features of Ground Zero.
* Unlike the L'Ambiance Plaza building, the World Trade Center skyscrapers had robust core structures with independent flooring systems.
* Witness recollections of the L'Ambiance Plaza, unlike accounts of the Twin Towers' collapses do not include perceptions of explosions or controlled demolition.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/lambiance.html

[salvorhardin]

17. Don't you think relative mass and velocity had something to do with it?

Wouldn't you expect a building that massed several times what the L'Ambiance Plaza did, and underwent much greater acceleration (farther to fall = greater velocity) would nicely explain why the collapse of the WTC towers was so much more energetic? F=m•a.

You still have not explained why pulverized concrete dust clouds in one instance (controlled demolition) should be expected to look any differently to pulverized concrete dust clouds in another instance (progressive collapse).

Were the motion of the dust clouds really pyroclastic flows? No. They were not. This is a myth that is repeated ad nauseam in the truther community. When myths are deliberately repeated in order to sway someone's perception of truth, they become lies.

Pyroclastic flow debunked:

One of the more absurd arguments is the idea that there was a "Pyroclastic flow" during the collapse. This is easily debunked. You will note not one person was poached at ground zero. Pyroclastic flows are a minimum of 100C, or 212F.

The gas is usually at a temperature of 100-800 degrees Celsius. The flows normally hug the ground and travel downhill under gravity, their speed depending upon the gradient of the slope and the size of the flow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroclastic_flow

Not ONE person, even the ones trapped INSIDE the towers, complained of dusty air burning their skin. Trees were left green next to the towers. Paper floated around ground zero without being burned.

When I brought this up to one conspiracy theorist, he produced some photos showing burning cars and such. Yet I easily found photos which show their photo was being taken out of context.



Are the cars, papers and trees in this photo made of asbestos except for the ones on fire? If you think there was a pyroclastic flow and photos of fires at ground zero is your proof then that's exactly what you must think.

It's obvious that the collapse rained paper on fire and even hot steel which could easily explain the spotty fires. Unless the pyroclastic flow hopped from one place to another.

Critical thinking skills will tell the average person there was NO pyroclastic flow but since this was brought up by a "scholar," thinking seems to be optional.
http://www.debunking911.com/freefall.htm

[Contrite]

22. This physics professor doesn't think so

and NIST didn't "go there", so in the absence of evidence to the contrary we must assume the answer. Hoffman calculates that the energy required for this expansion alone (ignoring the energy needed to slice the steel and pulverize the concrete and other materials) exceeded the gravitational energy available by at least 10 times. NIST attributes these clouds to the ejection of air from compressed parts of the building. The clouds were once taken as an indication of the subsequently abandoned pancake collapse hypothesis.

http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/energia3.htm

In the following, I will examine the phenomena connected with the collapse of the North Tower by comparing the energy available with that needed. I am indebted to Jim Hoffman for his ground-breaking article "The North Tower’s Dust Cloud" version 3.0 which inspired me to make these calculations. Contrary to Hoffman, however, I am not trying to calculate the total energy needed to cause these phenomena. I think that is not possible with the data we have. But I will try to show that the gravitational potential energy of the tower is insufficient in quantity and poor in quality for explaining the phenomena seen. The physics used is of high-school level.

The Phenomena Seen

Preceding the collapse there was a fire triggered by the impact of the jet. First, the jet fuel burned up in a short time and the fires then continued as office fires on some floors until the collapse of the tower.

Then we saw how the skyscraper turned into powder and pieces of steel from top to bottom in a very short time. The powder, which consisted of concrete and other non-metallic materials, formed, with the gases apparently from inside the building, a cloud with clear boundaries, a phase of its own. The volume of this cloud expanded in a short time to a volume many times that of the tower.

The ruins mainly consisted of dust and pieces of steel. They cooled slowly and the smoldering of the debris lasted months.

According to the official explanation the energy source for all those phenomena was the gravitational potential energy of the skyscraper and the heat energy of the fires.

(snip)

The tower shattered from top to ground floor in fifteen (or fewer) seconds, which is amazing. In this kind of quick shattering the potential energy of the building is mainly left unused: The dust, one-third of the mass, does not press the structures under it while floating in the air! The steel bodies which start from rest after a collision with the falling structures do not have time to get to the next floor to break it because the collapse is so fast (4) . Because of the dust cloud we did not see how the central core was broken. Perhaps it started from the ground level; if so, its potential energy was fully used. As parts of the building did not collapse, the concrete powder remained afloat and steel components and portions of the outer walls fell to the sides, the estimated amount of potential energy that was available for the destruction of the building must have been clearly less than 50% of the total, ie. less than 50 000 kWh.

Potential energy is fully incapable of bringing about the causative phenomenon, the sudden increasing of the pressure, of the expansion of the dust cloud.

(snip)

Conclusions

I have calculated (and partly estimated) above that the energy needed to cause the observed phenomena is at least 200 000 kWh (pulverization + expansion work of the dust cloud). In addition to this, energy is needed to break the supporting steel structures and to increase the internal energy of the dust cloud. These unknown energy needs may be many times the calculated one.

But we have potential energy less than 50 000 kWh available for the destruction.

According to the calculations and considerations we can conclude that the potential energy was by far insufficient to account for the totality of phenomena observed and its quality was unsuitable for some of them.

I have examined the North Tower above because Hoffman’s findings of the dust cloud were about the North Tower’s collapsing. But the same conclusions are valid concerning the South Tower.

Collapses are not paranormal incidents. We can infer that the towers were pulled down using some form of controlled demolition.


About the Investigations

The conclusion of the FEMA report is vague: "With the information and time available, the sequence of the events leading to the collapse of each tower could not be definitively determined."

NIST (National Institute of Standard and Technology) is working on its study which was planned to be reported in December 2004. NIST promised then to report in January, then in the spring of 2005. In the latest briefing on April 5th 2005, they told us the report will come out in September (the drafts in June).

NIST emphasizes more than FEMA the office fires and the dislodging of the fireproofing as the causes of the collapses but in any case it is crucial that the following oddities irreconcilable with a gravitational collapse are explained:

* The totality, symmetry and the amazingly short time of the destruction.
* The high degree of the pulverization of non-metallic materials and shattering of the steel structures almost into the original pieces.
* The high temperature in the ruins.

Exactly these features are typical of or at least possible features in a controlled demolition. The report also ought to include the relevant energy calculations.

[salvorhardin]

41. Physics teacher, retired

Please don't lie. The person you quoted was not a physics professor, but rather describes themselves as a "Physics teacher, retired." This person does not list their credentials, and frankly, this paper is a piece of shit.

Conclusions
I have calculated (and partly estimated) above that the energy needed to cause the observed phenomena is at least 200 000 kWh (pulverization + expansion work of the dust cloud). In addition to this, energy is needed to break the supporting steel structures and to increase the internal energy of the dust cloud. These unknown energy needs may be many times the calculated one.

But we have potential energy less than 50 000 kWh available for the destruction.

Where!? I see no calculations. Where does he get this number from?

Now, let's take a real physics professor. Eduardo Kausel, professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. And let's take Robert Fowler, "senior engineer at the structural engineering firm of McNamara and Salvia. Fowler was then a junior member of the WTC's engineering firm of record, Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson, later renamed Skilling Helle Christiansen Robertson."* Fowler estimates the gravity load on each tower to be 500,000 tons. Kausel calculates:

With a mass of about 500,000 tons (5 x 108 kilograms), a height of about 1,350 ft. (411 meters), and the acceleration of gravity at 9.8 meters per second 2, he came up with a potential energy total of 1019 ergs (1012 Joules or 278 Megawatt-hours). "That's about 1 percent of the energy released by a small atomic bomb," he noted.
http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/sciam

Notice that the physics professor Kausel used the engineering professor Fowler's gravity loading estimate. As I understand it, gravity loading is a measure of the total load on a building. It includes not only the mass of the structure but also the mass of the materials inside or attached to the structure. I'm not an engineer though, so maybe one of our resident DUers who is an engineer can explain gravity accurately. At least with Kausel, I know that if I were to e-mail him I could get a reply back showing his assumptions and calculations.

The point being though, that your entire argument is a giant logical fallacy. It's an Argument From Ignorance. More specifically, it's an Argument From Incredulity. Just because you personally don't think the collapse of the towers should have happened this way, you don't think it happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Argument_from_personal_incredulity

[rodmant]

54. check my math - did this in a hurry

f = ma
fDx = work
ie force * deltaX = work

make silly assumption that all mass falls a distance of 1350 feet:

<18:03:08 Tue Feb 20 0j 21 1230 ~>
$ units
1948 units, 71 prefixes, 28 functions

You have: tons
You want: kilograms
* 907.18474
/ 0.0011023113
You have: feet
You want: meters
* 0.3048
/ 3.2808399
You have: joules
You want: megawatt-hours
* 2.7777778e-10
/ 3.6e+09
You have:
<18:04:16 Tue Feb 20 0j 21 1230 ~>
$ bc -l
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
scale=3
500*10^3*907.18474*9.8*1350*.3048/(2.7777778 *10^10)
65.848
--snip

ie 66 megawatt-hours

--
BTW "units", and "bc" are both fun/valuable GNU tools :->

[Contrite]

56. So what if he's retired? Ever hear of professor emeritus?

PEs are frequently called in as the true experts on any given subject so the fact of retirement does not invalidate his expertise.

He did provide the basis for his 50,000 kWh calculation, here:

"The potential energy of the tower was "more than 4 × 1011 J = 110 000 kWh" in relation to the ground level, says FEMA. I think that "more" may only mean a little more, not much more.

Because the sources mentioned above (and e.g. this one ) give very inconsistent data concerning the mass of the towers, it seems best to calculate the mass from the potential energy. As the masses of the support columns were manifold in the lower floors compared with the top floors, I deduced that the point of gravity was possibly at the height 160 - 170 m from the ground. The mass of the tower above the ground level is then 250 000 tons (2). I think I can reduce the building to consist of equal masses of steel and concrete.

A body will begin to fall when its support is eliminated. Its potential energy changes into kinetic energy. When it hits another body, both are probably broken, and the kinetic energy is converted into heat; the conversion is full once both stop. The associated increase of temperature is very small (3). As such, potential energy is capable of breaking steel supports and in part of pulverizing concrete, but it according to one article seems not to be suitable for the complete pulverization of concrete. Gravity-driven collapse of a building takes place in accordance with the principle of minimum resistance and breaks the building into large chunks. In this case one would expect that the top of the tower above the impact area would topple over as a whole and break when hitting the ground.

The tower shattered from top to ground floor in fifteen (or fewer) seconds, which is amazing. In this kind of quick shattering the potential energy of the building is mainly left unused: The dust, one-third of the mass, does not press the structures under it while floating in the air! The steel bodies which start from rest after a collision with the falling structures do not have time to get to the next floor to break it because the collapse is so fast (4). Because of the dust cloud we did not see how the central core was broken. Perhaps it started from the ground level; if so, its potential energy was fully used. As parts of the building did not collapse, the concrete powder remained afloat and steel components and portions of the outer walls fell to the sides, the estimated amount of potential energy that was available for the destruction of the building must have been clearly less than 50% of the total, i,e. less than 50 000 kWh."

(1) The FEMA report estimates that the maximum power of the fires was 1 - 1.5 GW. When the collapse began the fires were going down. When the floors where the fire was shattered in a very short time, perhaps in one second, the energy released by the fires during that time was very small, surely less than 1 GW x 1s = 1000 MJ = 280 kWh. That could have no significance. If the mean power of the fires is assumed to have been 600 MW and the burning time 1 h 43 min, we get the whole energy released: about 1 000 000 kWh. The structures absorbed 2/3 of it, less than 700 000 kWh.

(2) According to the FEMA report the walls of the columns were four inches thick at the ground level and only 1/4 inches in the top floors. So the whole mass of the columns at the base was over tenfold compared with the mass at the top.

(3) We can calculate that the mean specific heat capacity is about 0.7 kJ/(kg · ºC) using 0.46 kJ/(kg · ºC) for steel and 0.92 kJ/(kg · ºC) for concrete assuming their masses are the equal. When the potential energy is 4 x 10 11 J and the mass of the tower is 250 000 tons, we can calculate that the mean temperature raise is 2.3 degrees (ºC).

(4) The height of the 110-story building was 417 m. The floor height was 3.8 m. When the time of collapsing was 15 seconds, floor slabs shattered at 0.14-second intervals, seven slabs per second. We can calculate that if the body’s initial velocity is zero, it needs 0.87 s to fall onto the next floor slab. However, with the collapse speed observed the lower floor slab shattered at the time 0.14 s, when the body had only fallen 0.10 m

[hack89]

59. Who said he was a professor?

he describes him self as a physic teacher - no mention of a Phd or advanced degree.

[Contrite]

61. True. I looked for his curriculum vitae and couldn't find it.

So I don't know the extent of his training or where he taught.

He is listed as a "teacher" and not a professor.

But Dr. Jones IS a physics professor and the OCTers want to discredit him too, so I wonder how serious some are about a person's credentials vis a vis their credibility.

[hack89]

68. Until Dr Jones submits his work for peer review

it is reasonable to question his credibility. So far he has resisted.

[SidDithers]

44. "The North Tower’s Dust Cloud" version 3.0...

:rofl:

Is version 3 the final version, or are more coming?

Sid

[petgoat]

48. Some people revise their work and improve it, and some people are

easily satisfied and never get beyond argument-by-smiley.

[SidDithers]

52. Like Loose Change?...

Which version are we up to now?

Sid

[petgoat]

53. The third is due imminently. I hear it will be much improved. nt

[SidDithers]

58. 3rd time lucky, glad to hear it...nt

Sid

[petgoat]

26. Sal, you're framing the question dishonestly

"What should the clouds of pulverized dust looked like?"

There shouldn't have been any clouds of pulverized dust at all.
Any impact-pulverized concrete should have remained where it was,
restrained by the vinyl flooring and carpets that covered it.

[Bolo Boffin]

27. VINYL FLOORING AND CARPETS!!!!!!!

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!!

Thank you, petgoat, thank you. I just won fifty dollars off of salvor. He swore that no one could actually believe something so silly and I bet him that you could be made to say that within 30 posts of a CD thread.

Pay up, salvor! Ha ha!

[petgoat]

29. Vinyl flooring and carpets. Ridicule is not an argument in this forum.

This is not the pseudoscience group.


Let's see you make a model of a concrete floor covered with vinyl flooring
that pulverizes and blows the dust out.

Also, will you please explain the method of ejection of the dust?

Seems to me we've got

1. upper floor falls toward lower floor, pumping air out windows

2. upper floor impacts lower floor, allegedly pulverizing concrete

3. two floors together fall toward third floor, pumping air out windows

When is the concrete pumped out the windows?

[Contrite]

30. And how does pulverized concrete/steel

collapse what is below it?

[Bolo Boffin]

39. Who thinks the steel was pulverized? n/t

[petgoat]

43. Apparently Dr. Wood believes it was dustified, that there was

less steel in the debris pile than there should have been.

Another reason that identifying, photographing, and logging the
stamped ID number of each piece of steel as it came off the
pile would have been a good idea.

[Bolo Boffin]

45. Ok, anybody beside the dental engineer?

How long was she in that coma?

[petgoat]

47. I don't know about dustified steel, but the 4" slabs of concrete

alone should have made a stack 37 feet high. That's assuming the trusses under them
were crushed perfectly flat, and there was no debris interpolated between the plates,
and they were stacked neatly on top of each other.

[Bolo Boffin]

38. Your model assumes a precisely vertical fall of the upper sections.

Did the towers fall precisely vertically?

[petgoat]

42. Try drawing some pictures and you'll see you're wrong.

If the floors fell one-side-first, the leading edge would pulverize the
concrete it landed on, I agree--in an area about two feet wide. Then
the rest of the floor would fall. There is now no mechanism for pulverizing
the rest of the concrete and though you can rationalize the expulsion of
the two feet, that can not account for the dust clouds or the lack of
broken concrete at the ground zero site.

[Bolo Boffin]

49. Did the towers fall straight down without leaning? n/t

[petgoat]

62. Are you claiming it makes a difference? nt

[Bolo Boffin]

63. It would certainly invalidate your model if they did. n/t

[petgoat]

64. It certainly would not. Let's see some pictures. n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

65. Your model is of floors falling down on each other perfectly.

I cannot believe that you want me to post pictures of the top sections of the WTC towers leaning as they fall. I cannot believe that you require proof of that.

[petgoat]

66. I don't want you to post pictures of the tower leaning.

I can do that on my own.



I want you to post drawings showing how a leaning tower causes dust expulsion.

[jberryhill]

16. CDI is the best in the business

Why is it surprising that they would have been engaged for the WTC clean up?

They pioneered much of the field, and are the top experts in controlled demolition.

They are to CD what Red Adair's company is to oil well fires. Of course they were consulted on WTC clean up.

[Contrite]

23. Who said I was surprised they were hired? n/t

[sabbat hunter]

46. what rigid concrete

other than the footings, the only concrete in the WTC was lightweight concrete for the flooring. can hold weight of an office but not the pancaking of other floors on top of it.

[Contrite]

55. That concrete was embedded in the steel trusses

so that would make it stronger.

I think it is telling that NIST sidesteps this issue. If it is so easily explained, then why not explain it?

[sabbat hunter]

57. there was no

structural concrete/concrete core.

the only concrete was for the footings, floors in the WTC

[Contrite]

60. MIT said the column cores were reinforced with concrete

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20VI%20Materials%20&%20Structures.pdf

The towers were square in plan with sides of 63.7m (209ft). The structural height of
each tower was 415m (1362ft). The height to the top floor was 411m (1348ft). The towers
were built as framed tube cantilever structures with 0.45m wide built-up box columns (Figure
9) tied with 1.3m deep spandrel beams in the perimeter. The beams and columns were prefabricated
into panels and assembled on site in a staggered fashion by bolting and welding. The
perimeter member assembly made of 59 columns over the 63.7m-wide façade ensured the load
bearing capacity of the outer skin for gravity load, lateral load, and torsional effects. The
columns were spaced 1m apart and spandrels 3.6m apart. The 24m ´ 42m core was composed
of 44 box columns. The core comprises steel beams and columns with reinforced concrete
infill panels designed to share part of the gravity loads.

Structural and fireproofing materials
The major structural material employed in the towers was A36 structural steel, although higher
strength steel was used in the lower elevations of the structure. Except for some selected
floors, for which normal strength concrete was employed, the composite slabs were made of a
21MPa (3ksi) lightweight concrete.
Fire resistance of the perimeter columns was provided by a layer of sprayed concrete
around the three sides of each column. The concrete layer had a thickness of about 5cm and
included ceramic fibers in the mix.

For instance, shotcrete (that is
a sprayed concrete) has been employed in the WTC for fireproofing the façade columns.

Indeed, the use of reinforced concrete for
the column cores in the WTC would have surely improved the thermal stability of the columns.

***********
Also, I'd like to know what explains these:

http://cosmicpenguin.com/911/chrisbrown/corerefs/index.html

**********
John Knapton, Professor, civil and structural engineer, repeats this information:

THE CORE

The picture below taken in 1970 shows the construction of the North Tower. Four cranes mounted on towers running all the way down to the ground in lift shafts within the core erect the external columns in their prefabricated sections. The core comprises steel beams and columns with reinforced concrete infill panels. Unusually, the core resisted vertical load only, the horizontal forces being resisted by the perimeter columns and their connecting spandrels.

Below, we can see the cross section of a perimeter column. Fire resistance is provided by 2 inches of sprayed concrete including ceramic fibres around three sides of each column. The interior face of each column is fire protected with 2 inches of vermiculite plaster.

http://www.john-knapton.com/wtc.htm

John's cv:

http://www.john-knapton.com/jkcv.htm

[sabbat hunter]

67. sprayed concrete

of 3CM thickness is not structural, it is a method of fireproofing.


your name wouldnt happen to be christophera would it?

[Contrite]

69. I was filling in the blanks for where concrete actually was.

The central point is the concrete infill in the core columns.

I realize the sprayed concrete did not provide structural support; however, it did add to the thermal resistance of the steel.

And, no, I'm not Christophera (algoxy.com)--been asked that before.

[Contrite]

13. Here are some more "items of interest".

The Kingdome was collapsed in 2000. Here is an article from 3/27/2000.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/kingdome/main.shtml

The founder of Controlled Demolition Inc., Jack Loizeaux, whose sons conducted the implosion, did not want to miss the spectacle. He called the Kingdome a feat of engineering.

A key engineer behind the Kingdome's design was the late John Skilling, who had a hand in designing New York's World Trade Center. Another top engineer for the Kingdome, Jack Christiansen, was devastated by the implosion.

"It makes me sick," said Christiansen, who once stood on the Kingdome's roof to prove the stadium would not, as some had claimed, fall down. "Such a sad thing."

Ironically, the stadium's demise was sealed by forces that helped to create it: economics.

(snip)

"People see a building that has been around for a long time. It amazes them that something so permanent can turn to rubble in seconds," said Doug Loizeaux, CDI's vice president. He added that he thought some people would watch in anticipation for something to go awry.

But, the implosion was picture perfect.

The acupuncture-like placement of explosives in 5,905 holes turned the 250-foot Kingdome mountain into molehills of slab.

The blast crews approached the Kingdome with healthy respect for its engineering. The stadium had to be strong enough to withstand an earthquake in a seismically active region such as the Puget Sound area.

But it also had to be flexible enough to handle the motion created by the Earth or the shuffling of the more than 73 million visitors.

The construction was a marvel.

A tension ring, at the base of roof, packed 8 million pounds of pressure; and support columns, threaded with rebar, gave the building the equivalent of strong bones.

"It's a mind stretcher," said Mark Loizeaux. After he won the contract to implode the Kingdome last year, he drove his rental car to the stadium's parking lot and stared at it for four hours.

The Dome also was in the public eye because of money; the county still must pay $206 million for the Kingdome -- costs accrued from interest on original construction bonds, and for roof and ceiling repairs from five years ago. (The money, which will be paid by 2016, will come from a hotel tax and car-rental tax.)

"It's a one-of-a kind situation," said Kreisman, the architectural historian. "Here it is, we are destroying something, and it isn't even paid off!"

**************

http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/ControlledCleanup.shtml

The ties of Controlled Demolition, Inc. with the DoD are very old. In November 1978 through January 1979 CDI used both conventional and implosion methods to destroy former Soviet military's Large Phased Array Radar Facility in Skrunda,Latvia, under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Transatlantic Programs Center. Already in the 50s the father of the Loizeauz Brothers, Jack Loizeaux, "was blasting tree stumps for the U.S. Forestry Service in Georgia." He later would found Controlled Demolition. http://www.implosionworld.com/history3.htm About the vertically, rather than falling over collapse of the Twin Towers, his son Mark Loizeaux once answered: "I don't have a clue". http://www.enr.com/news/enrbld_091201a.asp+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Controlled Demolition had their first implosions in the 70s and worked several times for the US or local governments. In 1991 they imploded the Old Orlando City Hall in Orlando, Florida. http://www.controlled-demolition.com/cdi%20demolition.html In 1995 they imploded the Mendes Caldeira Building São Paulo Brazil(361 feet tall), as they say on their website, the "tallest standing concrete building ever felled with explosives". In 1998 they imploded a 439 feet, the "tallest structural steel building ever imploded" http://www.controlled-demolition.com/controlled%20demolition.html Controlled Demolition claims to have "a very small number of employees" and not much known is about their business profile. They work together with the The Loizeaux Family.

In February 2000, a federal grand jury indicted Mark Loizeaux, Douglas Loizeaux and Controlled Demolition, Inc. on charges of falsely reporting campaign contributions to the campaign of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.). The Baltimore Sun reported, that the illegal contributions allegedly occurred between 1996 and 1998. The Loizeaux brothers and CDI were acquitted in September 2000. http://www.xenophilia.com/zb/zb0002/links73.htm

[leftofthedial]

14. so, help me understand this

controlled demolition of the Kingdome, 250 feet at the apex of the dome . . . 20 seconds

"structural failure" of the WTC, 1368 feet at the roof . . . 15 seconds

[Bolo Boffin]

15. http://wtc.nist.gov

You're welcome.

[leftofthedial]

19. sorry, but isn't that a little like

a fundy quoting the bible to prove the existence of god?

[Bolo Boffin]

20. No, it isn't.

The NIST reports are scientifically based, soundly reasoned, and peer reviewed.

Completely the opposite of the Bible.

[leftofthedial]

21. wait a minute

the bible was peer reviewed

[Bolo Boffin]

25. Prove it. n/t

[leftofthedial]

28. I once knew a bored, simple-minded shepherd

who read the bible and thought it was pretty cool.

He'd had a couple of blasts of shepherd anti-freeze and it all made perfect sense to him.

[greyl]

34. "the bible was peer reviewed"?! Holy fucking Jesus. nt

[Contrite]

35. Actually, it was.

http://www.godsword.org/cgi-bin/gwstore.cgi?cart_id=&page=tteam.htm

[Bolo Boffin]

40. That's magnificent, Contrite.

Thank you for this fantastic example of the proper use of peer review.

The translation of this particular version was "peer reviewed." Who these peers were, I don't know. However, let us grant that these peers were people of learning and good standing in their field, i.e. the translations of ancient manuscripts, mastery of the various languages the texts have survived in, textual analysis, etc. I would be happy at this point to rely on their authority that this translation is a good example of the Biblical text in English.

The Bible would still not be an adequate authority to prove that God exists. You do see a difference in these two things, don't you?

[Contrite]

50. I think it's pretty funny actually

edited to add: I view the Bible largely as fable/urban myth

[leftofthedial]

37. what? you don't think other cultures have shepherds?

You don't think Buddha and Krishna and Allah and Gaia and The Flying Spaghetti Monster and Yahweh check each other out like studs at adjacent urinals?

[SidDithers]

18. Exactly...

controlled demolition is much slower than free fall, so either the towers fell at near free fall, or they were cd'ed. But not both.

Sid

Edit: :sarcasm: just in case readers are too thick to figure that out themselves.

[Contrite]

24. And progressive collapse through gravity is faster than what?

Faster than almost free-fall speed?

Incidentally, did you watch the video of the Kingdome collapse? How long did it take?

[leftofthedial]

32. 20 seconds from the first explosion

250 feet tall

[Contrite]

33. Again, that collapse is two phases that are nearly simultaneous

You are not seeing just the final collapse. You are seeing phase I and seconds later phase II.

How many phases were involved in the CD of the WTC towers? How long did they last? What did they knock out?

[Contrite]

31. How long did phase I take?

If portions of the structures were weakened in phases, and you don't know what comprised those phases, how long did it actually take? With the Kingdome, you are seeing the entire structure taken down in two phases that occurred within seconds of one another.

[leftofthedial]

36. the two structures are so dissimilar that I'm not sure how

you can compare them in specific detail

but the overall observation of a building more than 5 times as tall coming down faster than a controlled demolition of the shorter building raises my eyebrows.

If engineers contrive and calculate how to stage "phases" to bring down the Kingdome and it takes 20 seconds using conventional CD techniques, I'm more suspicious than ever of the collapse of the WTC towers.

[Contrite]

51. My point is that some phases might not be visible

being internal attacks--so you wouldn't know how long the CD actually took--you can only time the final, visible collapse event