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Leaked FEMA/ASCE Draft Report On WTC Collapse
securitas writes "The New York Times obtained a copy of the World Trade Center draft report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Society of Civil Engineers about the engineering failures that caused the towers to collapse. Among the findings: 'Fireproofing, sprinkler systems and the water supply for hoses were all disabled and the fires generated heat equivalent to the energy output of a nuclear power plant' reports the NYT (Yahoo link). Amazingly, if it wasn't for the fire (or another secondary catastrophic force), the towers would have remained standing."
if it weren't for the 767s, massive fires, tens of thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel, and the abliteration of the several floors worth of the buildings' structural cores, the towers would have remained standing. But, shhh, this is leaked info. Don't tell anyone.
I recently watched a well known (in the UK) documentary series called "Horizon" on the WTC disaster. It basically stated in no uncertain terms that the disaster was caused by the use of drywall for all the fireproof walling. The theory was that the explosions caused by the planes basically blew away the drywalling and so the heat from the flames which would have otherwise been slowed down by the drywall, would have been dramatically slowed down.
I wasn't sure whether to entirely believe the program or not, but it seemed fairly plausible. However I came away asking only one question: "So what would have been better?"
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
I think most of us in the construction industry (architecture) were concerned about this as events were unfolding, even before the first tower collapsed. But the saddest part was finding out later that concessions had been made during design/construction in the sizing and configuration of sprinkler systems including the abscense of a rooftop water supply.
Who knows if it really would have helped, but having to second guess now is hardly comforting. As in most things, those that focus on stupid quantitative evaluations of design (cost per square foot for example) are doomed to come up short when all the chips are really down.
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On this site there was an Interview done with an engineer who had some knowledge on the World Trade Center. He stated that the airplanes could have not brought them down seeing that buildings of a lesser, equal, or greater size get the same sort of impact daily with the force of winds.
It is said that the airplanes caused an impact of equal or lesser force than what it would experience from day-to-day wind.
I don't recall if it is supposed ot be NOVA or Frontline, and will have to wait a few days for the promo to show up on the websites. The are still in the march schedul
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Pity that:
- The WTC was a public building only "sold" a few months prior to the attack. It was built and owned by the Port Authority of NY & NJ.
- There are likely no other buildings in the world (possibly excepting the Great Pyramid) that could have held up as well/as long to the assault as the WTC did.
So 2 for 2 you were wrong; now please crawl back to your dark corner.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
One of the contributing factors is the lack of Asbestos fireproofing above the 70th floors. New EPA laws were enacted during the construction of WTC that prohibited the spray-on fireproofing that was applied to the I-beams. With the fireproofing, the I-beams could withstand an esimated 2000 degree fire, and without they would lose temper and bend at approx. 1200 degrees.
The jet fuel burned at an excess of 2000 degrees,
so it's likely the towers still would have collapsed, but some extra time would have allowed further evacuation efforts.
Burning kerosine swims on water. No sprinkler system would have put out that fire. Halon would have been needed, but this surely would have been too expensive for the whole building to be equipped with. Nevertheless it surely would have delayed the colapse for a certain time if the sprinklers had worked and cooled the fire.
The report seems not to say anything about the fact that the WTC was a steel construction and thus rather unprotected against fire as opposed to ferroconcrete which is safer but would have needed the buildings to be smaller. This is the cause why there are not similar high buildings in Europe where regulations demand ferroconcrete.
Didnt the article say that there was spray on fireproofing on the steel columns?
Perhaps you could take your anti-capitalist rhetoric elsewhere, comrade. If you had any decency, you'd know that in the time period the towers were designed and constructed in they were paragons of efficiency and safety. Far from cutting all costs and maintenance, the towers were meticulously designed to withstand all manner of natural forces, fires, and other disasters. They were even designed to withstand the impact of a fully loaded 707 jetliner, the largest then available. Alas, a 767 is much larger and carries more fuel. Even then, the towers would have stood had it not been for the fire, and the impact and explosion were far more than any designer could've ever dreamed would happen.
My friend, you appear to have a huge chip on your shoulder that is clouding your judgement. People died because madmen hijacked two jetliners and deliberately slammed them into skyscrapers full of thousands of innocent human beings. Corporate greed and stockholders had nothing to do with it, and it is callous, irresponsible, and shallow of you to even suggest such a thing to further your obvious hatred of corporate America.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
In the future, we'll just have to build all really tall buildings underwater. Maybe Kevin Costner could offer up some good advice.
He stated that the airplanes could have not brought them down seeing that buildings of a lesser, equal, or greater size get the same sort of impact daily with the force of winds.
Well, this may be true, but when you consider that the airplanes *did* down the two buildings, one must realise that there is something flawed about that statement. I would accept that most skyscrapers are pummeled with the strength of an airplane crash daily, except that the force is spread across the entire structure, or at least one entire face, of the building. Consider what it might feel like if you were walking down the street and suddenly the entire energy of the ~50mph wind gusts that you normally can easily withstand were channeled at a 1cm^2 section of your chest, or even your skull. Wouldn't that at least completely knock the wind out of you? I haven't the time to properly do the math myself right now, but it may work out that such an energy release over such a small space would be enough force to pierce skin and possibly break bones.
And that is what made the difference, aside from the fire and explosions that are discussed elsewhere in the thread.
Problem is though, all that force was concentrated into a very tight area, only a few floors, thus putting the building under great stress. Plus the floors were ripped apart by the impact, a thing that would not happen with wind.
They ran an hour long program where they interviewed two key people ... the mechanical engineer who built the towers and a forensic mechanical engineer who was looking at the wreckage.
Each had unique viewpoints. The designing mechanical engineer is haunted to the core over this. Most of his sentances trailed off as he was reliving what happened.
The forensic scientist identified the fact that the fireproofing material was blown off from the original impact. This hastened the collapse. He also commented that the support structures for the floors were the first things to fail.
My question is did anyone really think they were going to fall? Remembering back to the day no one in the media raised the question. None of my friends or family I was talking to that day even thought of it as a remote possibility.
This raises a very interesting question about our expectations vs. reality. After the shuttle disaster I think this stands as one of the most shocking slaps in the face to us concerning technology.
Of course the buildings weren't going to survive, but our faith in technology made us think that day that the buildings collapsing wasn't a possibility.
Think for a few moments before posting.
- These buildings received Certificates of Occupancy, had been tested in the prior attack, their systems and procedures were as good as any other in the world.
- There is NO evidence of cost-cutting, sub-standard materials or equipment, etc. This was a public building owned until recently by the Port Authority of NY & NJ and by all reports kept in exemplary condition.
- These were not slip-shod towers built overnight in some 3rd-world country without reviews, standards, or regular inspections.
- Aside from their unusual tube-design (which appears to have been their greatest asset) and height there is nothing special about WTC towers that would separate them from tall buildings around the world. This includes materials.
Finally, before you post realize that 3,000 humans died horribly in this disaster. Perhaps before you post your Monday-morning-quarterbacking, rumor-spreading & conspiracy theories you might show a bit of respect for those folks and the ones they left behind.A little courtesy and respect is appreciated.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Fizban, why do you subscribe to this hated view of things? There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever than anyone is profiting from this disaster, unless you count the heartless scumbags that are claiming to have lost family in the Towers but in fact did not. What perks and bonuses are you talking about? You have no idea, do you? Nobody is making money off this incident, save perhaps the lawyers who will sue anyone and everyone in sight. To blame those with "millions in the bank" shows that you haven't given the matter much thought.
If you're looking for blame, heartlessness, greed, and a lack of pity or remorse, you have to look no further than a man in a camouflage jacket with an AK-47, running around somewhere in the hills of Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iraq. He's the one who's happy about this.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
For that reason entirely, the towers actually did have water tanks up on the 100th floor for putting out fires. Witnesses describe water rushing down the stairways. So in some way, they were prepared for this sort of thing
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
I think it's worthwhile to point out that even if corporate America had nothing to do with the buildings being unable to withstand the impact Corporate greed and stockholders still had something to do with it. It was infact the madmen's hatred of corporate America and execs with millions in the bank and still try to get more money out of starving nations while they starved that likely drove them mad and inspired them to do what they did.
I stole this Sig
Didn't stop Cameron making up details (and lots of them) for "Titanic"; how long does something have to be in the past before no one cares I wonder. Probably a question Yassir Arafat is asking himself about now...
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Apparently this type of construction is despised by firefighters because when they're inside a building during a fire the floors are likely to collapse at any moment.
Another famous New York Landmark also suffered an airplane collision. Now granted the airplane that hit the side of the Empire State Building was not the same size as the two that hit the World Trade Center, the B25 did quite a bit of structural damage. Enough damage in fact, that if simply the collision caused the Trade Center collapse, then the Empire STate (the plane did hit somewhere between the 78th and 79th floors)building should have also collapsed. In actuality the reason that the Trade Center collapsed and the Empire State building did not, is one of metallurgy. The thousands of gallons of jet fuel that were burning in the Trade Centers got hot enough to anneal the structural steel. When that happened the sheer mass of the floors above the impact zone collapsed triggering the chain reaction. Had the Jets that hit the Trade centers been nearly empty of fuel (ie. getting ready to land, instead of just taking off) the buildings would have survived the impact.
The following excerpt is from "Empire: A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and the Battle for an American Icon", copyright © 2001, available from John Wiley & Sons. It describes the impact of the B25 that hit the Empire State Building in 1945.
"Army Lieutenant Colonel William Smith Jr., a 27-year-old veteran of 34 bombing missions over Germany, had been flying a twin-engine B-25 bomber from Bedford, Massachusetts, to New York's LaGuardia Airport, and had secured permission to continue to Newark, New Jersey.
The fog was blinding. When he dropped down out of the clouds, he found himself approaching a forest of skyscrapers. In a panic, he banked away from the Grand Central Building, then from another tower on Fifth Avenue, only to find himself bearing down on the biggest one of all.
In desperation, he pulled up hard, twisting. The 10-ton (9-tonne) bomber plowed into the office of War Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Conference on the 78th and 79th floors, 913 feet (278 meters) off the street, tearing a gaping hole in the Empire State Building's north side."
The full article describing the impact in 1945 can be found here: Empire State Building Collision.
It depends on whether the building's steel will melt in a fire. We can't make skyscrapers out of tungsten. The Empire State Building is loaded with steel, a lot more than the towers were. Even with no relief from fire safety systems, it might have enough thermal mass to absorb and conduct away a trillion watt-hours of heat energy without reaching the softening point of steel.
It would be a real shame in either case. Art deco rules!
The WTC was designed to withstand the impact of the largest airliner of its time, a Boeing 707. A 757/767 isn't much more massive than a 707, but obviously the real problem is the tremendous amount of fuel that a cross-country flight carries.
In fact, it probably wouldn't have mattered what fire suppression system the building used...jet fuel is basically kerosene and it is much lighter than water. You can't effectively extinguish a kerosene fire with water. That's why you see aviation firefighers using something called aqueous film-forming foam. It floats on the kerosene.
Maybe to the layman the fact that the buildings survived the impact was amazing, but in fact it was simply a matter of good, purposeful design. Unfortunately, it's asking an awful lot to expect structural steel to survive the kind of intense temperature that is generated by an aviation fuel fire, particularly when the fuel supply is effectively limitless.
-h-
Calling the WTC's collapse an engineering failure is kind of like taking C4 to slashdot's servers and saying that the code failed somehow. You just can't reasonably have expected them to anticipate this. Expecting a building of similar requirements (e.g., height, usable space, windows, etc) to withstand both the impact of a modern airliner and the jet fuel may well be an impossible task, especially when trying to do it within any reasonable budget. Please think about what you are saying and try to be a little less arrogant. Thank You
How's this. You know that a 5 inch magnifing glass can easily burn you in the sun.
Imagine a magnifier that had the same surface area as your exposed skin, focusing that energy on you, it would quickly burn you to the bone.
A more easily quantifiable analogy for your argument.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The Twin Towers had large emergency water tanks as high as the 110th floor. But they were damaged in the explosion, and water dumped uselessly down the stairwells and elevator shafts. Even if the firefighters had reached the fire floor, they wouldn't have had water. We're probably going to see more redundancy required in high-rise standpipe systems because of this. Extra pipes and one-way check valves are needed, but that's not a big deal.
It's not impossible to put out a fire that big with water, if you start early. Aircraft hangars and aircraft carriers have deluge systems that can do the job. We may see systems like that required in skyscrapers. A big problem is making sure they don't go off because of a smoky wastebasket or something.
Then why WAS the fire suppression system disabled? Surely it's more cost effective to not pay for a working system provided the structure doesn't collapse in a big huge fire... and what are the odds of that happening, really? Even if there WAS a big huge fire that somehow brought down the towers (yeah right) it's all covered by insurance, right?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
16 days after Sept 11th, I received this in an email from my father, (who happens to be a Mechanical Engineer):
- Professor Thomas Mackin, who currently teaches Failure Mechanisms in Engineering Materials class, made this short presentation (attached) after the World Trade Tower tragedy. This presentation was made in response to the
Chancellor's request for teachers to discuss with their classes the recent events. Mackin was clearly as shaken up about the events as were the rest of us. He only had a short response to his final question: "As engineers, what can we do to prevent this from happening. - Nothing."
There was simply too much energy put into the buildings. bin Laden knew that, the engineers know that... it's a damn shame we're back to the accusations, finger-pointing, and blame-placing that so much plagues our culture.Attached was a .PDF file, "ME 346 - Engineering Analysis of Tragedy at WTC."
The engineers did their job. They did it well. World Trade Center 1 & 2 were good buildings -- I stood on top of one just over 10 years ago. I can hardly believe I never will again.
Osama bin Laden and his cronies are the ones -- the ONLY ones -- responsible for this outrage. Please, let's try to remember that.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
My friend, you appear to have a huge chip on your shoulder that is clouding your judgement. People died because madmen hijacked two jetliners and deliberately slammed them into skyscrapers full of thousands of innocent human beings. Corporate greed and stockholders had nothing to do with it, and it is callous, irresponsible, and shallow of you to even suggest such a thing to further your obvious hatred of corporate America.
1. Corporate America was the reason for these dubiously large towers' existence in the first place as well as the only entity who at the time could have funded their construction; as one would expect, the vast majority of the dead workers were direct participants in Corporate America.
2. The reasoning behind the terrorists activity is a hatred of the spread of economic colonialism and Corporate America at the expense of what Corporate America labels "more primitive" traditional or religious lifestyles.
3. Cutthroat competitiveness in the airline industry (i.e. Corporate America) is the reason for the lax security which allowed hijackers to board the planes which hit the buildings. The consumer demanded faster security, takeoffs, and landings at airports and the consumer got them. Market demand, my friend.
4. Corporate America has lobbied the government and the INS heavily over the past decade to loosen immigration restrictions and slow-downs, especially from the east, from which many tech workers have come. Apparently, some of them were terrorists.
Anti-capitalist is not an insult. At least I don't take it as one.
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder as well.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Tom Clancy beat you to that one.
I think it was "Executive Orders"
- Crazy lunatic terrorist crashes 747 into joint session of Congress which the president is addressing
- Hero Jack Ryan (appointed VP for some reason, I forget...) is the most senior to survive, becomes President
- Jack Ryan 'strongly encourages' voters to elect non-politicians to refill the House of Representatives and the Senate (Woo Hoo!!!)
Sound familiar?"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
i mean seriously, is another september 11th even possible in today's climate? what group of airplane passengers would stay in their seats for a repeat occurence? september 11th seems like a one-time deal to me.
As for planes crashing into buildings, that won't happen again. Even the UAL flight that crashed in Pennsylvania is an example of this; if passengers know that they are doomed, they won't go down without a fight. Unfortunately, though, we now have to start looking out for other things, like WMDs.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
It is said that the airplanes caused an impact of equal or lesser force than what it would experience from day-to-day wind.
Keep in mind that when calculations are done to measure the force of wind on a building, it is measured as the wind force distributed against the ENTIRE surface of the building.
The airplanes caused an equivalent force to a much smaller area on the side of the building. Thus, this smaller area experienced an impulse far greater than it would normally feel from wind. Compare apples to apples, people. Please.
Common sense: If in fact you really think that wind force did equal plane force on the WTC's over the same area, then tell me this: how come those windows aren't caving in and a huge hole ripped due to wind? They did cave in under force of the plane.
...the report more or less concludes that the buildings collapsed because of the way they were designed, but withstood the damage for as long as they did before collapsing because of the way they were designed. Talk about, "Damned if you do, damned it you don't."
The worst-case disaster scenario for those towers was a 707 accidentally blundering into one, not a bunch of crazy religious-zealot, martyr-wannabe motherfuckers purposely plowing a much larger, fully-fueled aircraft into it at full speed.
If anyone who lost someone in the collapse even thinks of trying to sue anyone involved in the design or construction of the twin towers, they ought to be drawn and quartered. Sure, they could build a building that could stand up to worse than the WTC got, but proofing it against everything would cost a mint and leave a few phone booths' worth of usable space per floor. Don't forget that there wouldn't be any windows. The rent would be so expensive that nobody would be able to afford to put an office in it.
IMHO, when you step back and look at the big picture, you simply cannot fault the design of the buildings for the fact that they catastrophically failed in the face of an unprecedented, unimagined, deliberate action that was well beyond the scope of their design.
~Philly
These events were "inspired" by people just as evil as the corporations who indoctrinate children with the idea that it's glorious to kill people for "jihad."
Yeah it's just a typo but I'll point it out here so someone else doesn't start flaming.
Now to the point in hand. I see your point and agree with it to a certain extent. I wasn't saying that their actions were justified I was merely pointing out how it can be seen how they were driven to such extremes. I suspect the fact that most of the terrorists come from Saudi Arabia is due to the fact they are the ones who have the funding to carry out the activities, from what I know there is a much stronger sense of nationalism(can't think of a better term) between Arab nations than others in the world. Evil and powerhungry people exist everywhere but it's my belief that forgien policy decisions by the US (i.e. backing Israel and basing most forgien policy decisions on how to maximize American profits regardless of the affected countries) are what gave these terrorists the neccessary popular support to justify terrorist attacks against the US. Also regardless of who caused it I'm sure you can't argue that there wasn't wide-spread famine in Afgahnistan, you can be sure that they wouldn't feel kindly to the weight loss industry in the US for example. Whether the US's forgeign actions (both corporate and government) are right is not the whole point, it is that those actions are what gave these terrorists an excuse to attack and they will continue to do so unless changes are made. It might be necessary for the US to start leading by example and spreading the wealth because they can't expect the rest of the world to suddenly forget the predjudices they have against the US. On an interesting side note for a while now the US's police action or whatever they are calling it in Afghanistan has now claimed more civilian lives than Sept. 11, although I don't know if those numbers include the non-soldiers from Al-Queda.
I stole this Sig
Why would anyone die of suffocation from Halon? That seems to be a very common myth... Halon doesn't do its thing by keeping oxygen away from the fire (and humans)--it works by reacting with free radicals in the flame and stopping the chain reaction of a flame. The concentration of Halon needed to extinguish a fire is low enough that there's still plenty of oxygen to breathe. Of course, the byproducts of Halon's reaction with the fire are rather nasty and toxic, but the consensus seems to be that they're no worse than the products of burning plastics and whatnot. I.e., it's better to put out the fire and make a bit of HBr in the process than to let the fire burn for an extended period of time (Halon puts out a fire pretty much instantly. I've heard it can even stop an explosion in progress).
Hmmm ... I didn't know that asbestos came from trees. The things you learn on slashdot ...
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
The main propulsion system of every vehicle is a weapon. Military and civil defense planners need to learn this lesson.
It's an *easy* decision: the Twin Towers should be rebuilt. In Riyadh.-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Of course, you could design a server to withstand a pound of C4, just like you could design a skyscraper to withstand a 757 fully loaded with fuel.
It's just terribly expensive.
And next time it will be a lawfully purchased surplus 747 on an approved flight path that crashes into a nuclear power plant somewhere.
Come to think of it, with a large cargo plane, it would be easy to make it into a shaped charge (think RPG-7 warhead). It would be more expensive to buy the plane, but the proof of concept necessary for the investors has now been done.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Debt of Honor.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
AIDS is funny to whom?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Then why WAS the fire suppression system disabled?
Uh, maybe because a 767 cut through the pipes, disabling them?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Ah. Thank you.
Appears my aging memory combined events in "Debt of Honor" and "Executive Orders". Crash happens at the end of the first book, political maneuvering happens in the second.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Ok, so it wasn't cheap-ass executives in NYC real estate, it was cheap-ass executives in Airline risk management who decided that it was more cost effective not to build sturdier crew cabin doors or buy tighter security, or to let hijackers take a plane rather than fight back. What exactly is your point?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
You are correct, the character was a Japanese fellow who felt he'd been dishonored. That doesn't make him any less of a terrorist, and I'd argue he certainly qualified for the "lunatic" adjective. Even considering the choice of a 747 as a weapon, he stole a fueled, but otherwise empty, one. No hijacking, no passengers, no coordinated acts, etc. Prescient as Mr. Clancy was, he didn't go THAT far.
- "...it hacks me off that people out there really do believe money replaces a life and are willing to sue airlines/governments/anyone who might vaguely be responsible for letting this happen."
DAMN skippy. 'Nuff said.As far as Tom Clancy's reaction to Sept. 11th...
- "First we crippled the CIA. Then we blamed it."
I would like to know his thoughts about writing something, then (very nearly) witnessing it. It's probably out there somewhere -- I just haven't looked hard enough to find it."...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Your first three points have good merit and I agree with them for the most part (there's a lot of agruments either way). However I disagree on the final point. I want you to think about this statement, " we'd have been happy if the Afghanistan government or people would have just turned bin Laden over to us with no bloodshed whatsoever." Why should they have turned over Bin Laden, think about it from their point of view. A massive terrorist attack is committed against the most powerful nation in the worl, a nation that much of your country also despises as the "Great Satan". Now on circumstancial evidence this nation now demands you turn over what is almost a national hero, a terrorist albeit, but a very popular figure. The US had basically convicted Bin Laden within days of the attack (innocent until proven guilty out the window), from the Taliban's point of view regardless of your personal relationship with him or your involvement with the attack you cannot turn over Bin Laden. To do so would not only be an admittal of guilt when you see no evidence but also a huge sign of weakness. The US essentially invaded a country and destroyed a government on a hunch.
On an interesting note I wonder what would of happened if some of the terrorists involved were found in Canada. You can be sure that the US would want the death penalty and we have a law that does not allow us to hand over a prisoner to a country where they could face the death penalty (maybe we could give him over on a lesser charge like they did on Law and Order:).
As to the fact of the US's policy of massive interventionism I believe this comes from the first two world wars. I've basically heard it stated that the US was late for the first two world wars so decided to be early for every other one.
Still on that note it's interesting to note some of the similarities between recent events and the assasination of Arch Duke Ferdinand (heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne) was assasinated in Serbia by a Serbian which was the spark that set off WWI.
boy these debates are fun! anyone else want in on the action just hit reply!
I stole this Sig
I thought at the time that it would be probably prudent to have parachutes in tall buildings.
That surly, authority challenged twenty-something that likes to jump off of buildings, bridges, etc, would have counted his blessings as he hurled himself out a window complete with parachute. Makes you think, eh?
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
The Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor in December 7th weren't suicide pilots, so I don't understand the point of your statement.
You need foam, not water, to effectively put out burning jet fuel.
There's a difference between putting the fire out, and keeping it from damaging the structure. I'm not aware of any solution that would bring a sprinker-like foam system to office buildings.
However, a flow of water droplets is major deterrant against both flash-over and heat damage. In the wake of the Piper Alpha disaster (an off-shore oil rig that burned out of control), British Gas did some life-sized experiments with sprinkler and found that starting the sprinkler as early as possible slows down the fire, as well as cooling it (which prevents flash-over).
Classic sprinklers just dump a lot of water. Modern sprinklers saturate the air with tiny water droplets. The modern ones are very effective.
In the wake of september eleven, I hope that sprinkler will get the attention it deserves. And that includes trying to figure out how to get enough water from smaller tanks on each floor, rather than from huge tanks with vulnerable pipes.
I'm not a fire safety engineer, so take my opinions with a grain of salt, but all footage I've seen of fire control with modern sprinkler at least convinced me.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
(see here and
here. )
It seems insurance companies will need to charge higher premiums for buildings that house CIA, US Secret Service, IRS and Securities & Exchange Commission files, now that they have a propensity for spontaneous collapse.
(see here and
here. )
If I was a terrorist, I would hijack a 747 cargo plane. Lots of potential for causing damage and no passengers to deal with.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
For many of us, South Park notwithstanding, still feel every day the loss of friends & lovers & family to that disease. Furthermore many of us watch yet more friends, family & lovers continue to fight for their lives, every day.
That many somehow believe that the epidemic is over or that they are somehow safe from it is only more disheartening and even more tragic.
So unless you've lost ones close to you to HIV, or to the events of September 11, 2001, please don't take it upon yourself try and tell the rest of us what we should find "funny" or not.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
What part of "the jet fuel did not directly cause the collapse of the towers" do you not understand? Is it the "directly" part? Let me clear this up for you: The fire caused the fall of the towers. The fire was started by jet fuel. But the jet fuel ran out just minutes after the crash. After that, the fire that was still burning heated up the structure and caused the collapse. The chain of events was like this: Fuel fire -> ordinary fire -> collapse. Note that the fuel did not directly cause the collapse. The ordinary fire did, which was my point. The fire that caused the collapse of the towers was an ordinary (although large) fire, which did not require abnormal fire-fighting chemicals and was not abnormally hot from the heat of jet-fuel combustion, as everyone seems to think.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
It is (more likely, was) official policy, possibly set out by the government, to give in to hijacker demands. This was based on the logic that allowing them to have their way was better than having them kill a few passengers. Of course, that was back when "their way" did not include the unthinkable.
Oh, I am perfectly willing to accept the possibility. However, possibility itself doesn't justify bombing the shit out of people.
As far as acceptable proof, I will accept what would be acceptable proof in a (legitimate) courtroom. It must stand up to criticism (cross-examination). Also don't forget that the burden of proof is on those who seek to demonstrate his guilt.
You're using her as bait, Master!
In the History Channel's WTC documentary, they showed large backup generators whose purpose was to briefly power the entire complex in an outage. There were also large tanks of diesel fuel to supply the generators. I'd say it's likely that setup was in 7 WTC or one of the other ancillary buildings.
And now a quick Google search reveals this: Engineers Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center.
~Philly
That many somehow believe that the epidemic is over or that they are somehow safe from it is only more disheartening and even more tragic.
Tell me how I'm not safe from it. I don't have HIV, neither does my girlfriend, (yes we're sure), and since we're both responsible, there aren't really many ways for us to be infected. (I should include that we've been dating exclusively since we were 15) Yes, I know that nobody is completely safe from anything, but it's hardly tragic that I am responsible for my own actions and my health reflects it.
So unless you've lost ones close to you to HIV, or to the events of September 11, 2001, please don't take it upon yourself try and tell the rest of us what we should find "funny" or not.
OK. Honestly, I don't find deadly viruses or the diseases they cause incredibly hilarious. I did, however, find the South Park episode that I was referencing hilarious.
People deal with things different ways.
Maybe it's my sick sense of humor, but nothing is really sacred to me. Make fun of whatever you want, whether it's affected someone close to me or not... Guess I'm just insensitive.
That's why I like South Park to begin with; they don't hold back at the request of people who might be easily offended by the subject matter.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
What I am trying to say is that the people who are thinking "the sprinklers couldn't have been expected to put out the fire because jet fuel was keeping it burning" and "the building collapsed because the fire was especially hot from the burning jet fuel" are wrong, because the jet fuel was gone long before the building collapsed. The sprinklers had a chance to put out the fire after the fuel was gone, but they didn't. The heat that caused the collapse came not from jet fuel, but from combustion of ordinary items. The argument about directness was only tangential to my real point.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Did you see the tapes of Bin Laden released after the bombing? He seemed to indicate that they were suprised the towers totally collapsed.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Perhaps, but then, we're dealing with two separate heads of the same beasts, aren't we?
Aren't the executives in the corporate world cut from the same cultural cloth as the executives (and legislators) in government?
Do they not go to the same select colleges, by and large?
Are they not bought with the political donations of industry?
Even if everyone in the system is not corrupt and actively tries to make good, intelligent decisions, beaurocracy ends up making them inefficient, dumb, and counterproductive. Throw in just a tiny bit of greed or even just self-interest and mistrust in the perceived opposition, and you end up with shitbrained regulations and broken government and industries that can't regulate themselves.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
That's a scary thought. If you think about it, they could maybe hide people inside the cargo containers, and then have them emerge from the containers to overtake the plane. I'm sure security on these planes is quite lax compared to commuter planes.
I don't know if that's totally possible... I'm sure the cargo containers are stacked quite deeply. I'm sure lots of containers are effectively buried under others.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Well... Osama bin Laden is responsible, but so are the people (or entities) which provoked him and his cronies to do it.
I don't know why they did it -- nor does it really matter -- but they had to have a good reason (to them) to put in the high amount of time and effort.
Yes, and someone put *them* up to what they did, and someone put *them* up to that, and so on.
But that's doesn't change the fact that Al Qaeda actually did it.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
And with my idea if anyone can implment it, then hell that's great and all the power to you. I lost one of my best friends at the WTC, they just recovered his body a few days ago. Anyway, the fire was the problem the building design itself from an architechtual standpoint was brilliant.
Therefore, to solve the problems with the fire we need a fuel that will either burn very very slow when NOT under pressure, or not burn at all unless it's under pressre, ala + 350-450psi.
Slam a jet into the building and you'll have a fire that burns very slowly or no fire at all. And as I said, if someone can make this happen then I'll be happy for you. You'll save some lives.
Om, nomnomnom...
The existence of the jet fuel, in the few seconds for which it existed in the fire, assured that the fire would be unstoppable and most definately not of the ordinary nature that one could expect a firefighting system to be able to stop.
It's not "Fuel fire -> ordinary fire -> collapse, as you claim. It's "Fuel fire-> really huge gigantic fire in an instant with every flammable material available in flame all at once, which would not normally happen in a normal fire -> collapse.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I would tend to disagree, particularly to the phrase 'ordinary' fire. The jet fuel, even though burned off rapidly, was the catalyst to a catostraphic and intense fire vs. an 'ordinary' fire. An experiement (and I'm not suggesting you do this) is take two equal piles of trash/wood. Start one with a match, douse the other with kerosene, and light. The second one with the ignited kerosene will have a much more intense and energy producing blaze because the fire was started with a higher heat and over a much larger surface area. It will burn out sooner, but during the time it's buring, it will produce much more intense heat vs. a 'normal fire' allowed to spread at its own rate.
Umm. .
The point of the fact is that the fireproofing material, regardless of what type it was, was shocked off the surfaces they were supposed to protect by the impact explosion. So it wouldn't have mattered if it was made of asbestos or donkey shit.
Oh, except, if the world was run by brain trusts of your caliber, then when the towers came down and sent up that huge cloud of dust which covered the entire city, (and which subsequently caused lung problems among hundreds of thousands of people), it would have instead been a cloud of asbestos filled dust.
Yeah, the world really needs your two cents on the next city planning committee.
At some point the selfishly destructive people of the world might become aware that those 'dirty no good tree huggers' actually aim to protect the intrests of all living things, up to and including ignorant & short-sighted dipshits like you.
-Fantastic Lad
Wouldn't it be 'funny' if those two towers came down as an indirect result of the very philosophy the terrorists were protesting?
Not that I'm condoning the actions of lunatic fringe Islam, but there is an interesting sort of irony present nonetheless.
-Fantastic Lad
Perhaps ordinary wasn't the word I was looking for. "Fire consisting of everyday materials (not jet fuel) burning" would have been more accurate. My point was not that the fire was not affected by the fuel at all, my point was that it was not jet fuel burning. Therefore, the burning jet fuel did not heat up the metal causing the towers to collapse. Fires started by the jet fuel caused the towers to collapse later.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Built in a rush before WWII.
In a swamp.
On pilings.
W/O word getting out.
To this day.
Riiiiight. It's where they hide "The Greys".
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Read the report, please. Sez jet fuel only a factor in setting rest of building contents and plane cargo ablaze, and alone would not have caused structural failure. Addtionally sez approximately 1/3 of the fuel payload caught fire. Fire control systems not intended to extinguish fires, only to keep building cool enough to remain standing until fire consumes available fuel. Like I said, you might want to try reading the actual report.
Okay. Here's a little science project for you. Unfold a paperclip. Put 50 pounds of tensile force onto the wire. This simulates the structure of the WTC. Measure the length of the paperclip. Now, go to the hardware store, get a gallon of kerosene, and light it under the paperclip. After everything is cooled, measure the paperclip. Compare. The jet fuel is significant.
There's not much stuff in an office which will burn as hot as kerosene - paper is about the only thing. The problem, however, with a liquid fuel is that it gets *everywhere*. A burning filing cabinet stays mostly where it was. 300 gallons of burning kerosene tends to spread out and share the warmth. As more liquid puddles out, more of it is exposed to air, and more of it can therefore burn at once.
The amount of paper in an office building, let's face it, is rather insignificant compared to a waterfall of burning kerosene. I'm wondering if part of the purpose of this report is to help quell panic about the inexorability of such a disaster. Note that Trump just sold the Empire State Building for $57 million - it cost $17 million to build in 1930s, that's not such a good return on a real estate investment or a national landmark...
My experience in the matter comes from melting iron to make my own castings, for fun. I burn kerosene (jet fuel) in a furnace blower, and it's quite hot enough that I can melt iron and steel very easily. I've also got a welder which will make a 3/8" thick piece of plate steel glow red hot in a few seconds, using only 120V at 15A. P = I x E. Compare that to the *gigawatts* cited in the article.
Marty McFly could've gotten home off that kind of energy.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The fact that the fire was large, along with the damage caused by the full-speed impact, meant that it was especially hot and especially hard to put out.
It dosn't need to be especially hot. More significent would be the lack of fire protection and fire supression.
What I am trying to say is that the people who are thinking "the sprinklers couldn't have been expected to put out the fire because jet fuel was keeping it burning" and "the building collapsed because the fire was especially hot from the burning jet fuel" are wrong, because the jet fuel was gone long before the building collapsed.
IIRC quite a bit of it escaped from the buildings unburned.
The sprinklers had a chance to put out the fire after the fuel was gone, but they didn't.
They didn't because the sprinklers in the most damaged areas had no water supply due to impact and explosion.
It's even possible that working sprinkers above the impacts could have hastened collapse, by ensuring that the upper floors stayed structually sound.
There's no way in hell that I'm going to call a fire that goes from nothing to instant inferno "ordinary".
You don't, however, need jet fuel (or even any exotic accelerants) to create an "instant inferno". There have been cases of building fires travelling faster than people could run which involved only "ordinary" materials.
You're trying to spin this like a normal fire could have brought the buildings down. No Way. A normal fire would have been suppressable because it wouldn't suddenly appear everywhere all at once.
Not the case, sprinkler systems scale very well. Problem is they don't survive explosions very well. You really need the sprinkers on prior to a fuel/air explosion. Which results in a lot of energy which would have been doing damage simply creating steam.
If I was a terrorist, I would hijack a 747 cargo plane. Lots of potential for causing damage and no passengers to deal with.
You' also want to hijack it at its nearest point to your intended target...
But if more spray on asbestos had been used, and more had not been removed, the steel would not have lost its strength as fast, giving everyone more time to get out. Asbestos has a melting point far in excess of 1000 degrees.
If the steel had been coated with spay on asbestos it would still have been blown off the steel by the explosion. You might as well have used shaving foam...
Asbestos has a melting point far in excess of 1000 degrees. Substitutes for asbestos have lower melting points.
The thermal properties don't matter a bit when the insulation is no lonver even on the steel.
There are materials which are considerably more insulating than asbestos. e.g. the materials used on the space shuttle. Of those about the only ones with major structual strength are the graphite nose and wing leading edge coverings.
Perhaps you could take your anti-capitalist rhetoric elsewhere, comrade. If you had any decency...
Nice personal attack, McCarthy; unfortunately, you have failed to address maintenance issues. Your argument is quite patriotic making assumptions about character issues and supporting these assumptions with unrelated obvious facts about the disaster. An ad hominem argument if I saw one. You see, I am in maintenance. Coincidently, I once was offered a job as a telecommunications technician at the WTC ten years ago. The salary was less than half of what I make now. So I felt compelled to share my experience with how buildings are maintained.
I get to see what budget cuts can do to safety. Am I insensitive or anti-captialist? I am often told by management I am the best at what I do. Ethics are recognized by those in the field, but they do have a fixed budget.
Also, I might add my dad acting as a dance instructor for Aurthur Murray was at the Hyatt Regency here in Kansas City when the catwalks collapsed. He saw many people crushed. Oh, the fire system on the catwalks were operational: the dance floor had a foot of water and blood. If the WTC had that much water in their buildings, the combustibles might not have had a chance to create a high speed, high temperature blast.
Its easy to believe thoroughly engineered structures can survive on a fixed budget. Hope you feel safe while the mouths of maintenance personel are squelched from your condemning patriotic speech. I'm sorry my experiences do not qualify as decent.
I don't know what information vacuum you've been living in but there were a significant number of innocent victims in the bombing campaign who had nothing to do with bin Laden, in fact, they were victims as well. By the way, bin Laden is still at large and suprise! suprise! Nobody seems to care about him anymore. This is looking less and less like a "war on terrorism" and more like a war of imperialism.
You're using her as bait, Master!
And you're going to get yourself a ticket on a cargo plane how? Oh, I suppose you could commandeer it on the ground, but by the time you get in the air, five fighters have already scrambled.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
There are many things that could have been done. To say that we just have to accept failure is ridiculous.
Like I always say: NEVER speak in infinitives....
1. If the steel beams had been coated with cement, the buildings would have been standing.
2. If the water supplies had been spread about the building they couldn't have been cut off, and the firefighters and sprinkler systems could have cut down the fire.
3. If the US military had been protecting the US (which happens to be their actual jobs) this wouldn't have happened (or at least only would have happened once instead of 3 or 4 times).
4. How about if the FAA had been doing their jobs and had air marshals and stronger cockpit doors?
There are many ways this could have been prevented... Several solutions fall on the part of the engineer. There is nothing more damaging than claiming "it's impossible, so just don't try".
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
And you, as a citizen, have the right and the responsibility to use your voting power to alter the government, the legislators, and (by proxy) the executives that you so despise. You DO vote, don't you?
And while we're at it, what cloth are YOU cut from, comrade?
The previous poster had it right: the lax airport/airline security was a direct result of conventional thinking by EVERYONE. Most terrorist hijackings up to 9/11 had been resolved without massive loss of life. Pilots and crew were trained not to resist, which is precisely what they did on 9/11. Castigating them, their bosses, or legislators for this policy is pointless as most terrorists had an agenda other than slamming planes into buildings. Now we're dealing with a different kind of animal, and our policies have changed. It is a rare plan that works in all situations for all time.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I didn't say that it was perfectly healthy to inhale for extended periods of time. I said that the concentration required to extinguish a fire leaves more than enough oxygen to breathe. It won't suffocate you. No, you won't die if a Halon system goes off when there's no fire. Yes, as I said, the decomposition products when there is a fire are quite nasty, but the decomposition products of the fire itself are probably even worse.
Nice unsubstantiated claim there...
(speaking as one who is trained to fight fires including the use of installed Halon systems)
Oh, appeal to authority too... good one! Got Documentation(tm)?
- Exposure to 7% halon for 8 hours produces no ill effects.
- Since low concentrations of Halon 1301 are required to extinguish most fires, and as the agent has a low degree of inhalation toxicity in its natural state, it can be successfully used to attack fires quickly in normally occupied areas.
- Halon 1301
... a medium for extinguishing fires by inhibiting the chemical chain reaction of fuel and oxygen.
- Most authorities agree that the Halon acts as a chain breaker.
(And as I posted above, people have been in an accidental Halon dump (no actual fire) and sufferred no ill effects).The way Halon puts out a fire, quite simply, is to smother it
If that were the case, how does it manage to work in such low concentrations? It shouldn't be any better than flooding the room with CO2, nitrogen, or some other gas that doesn't support combustion. Tell me, what's the minimum concentration of CO2 needed to put out a fire? At least 34%, perhaps? How about Halon 1301? 5% or so.
But I'll oblige you once more, not that I think that It'll alter your narrow-minded view of the world.
l a- 110501mood.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/
http://www.progress.org/afghan03.htm
Pardon me all to hell if my sources are too "lefty" for your liking. What do you expect when innocent people are dying and the mainstream media doesn't give a shit.
You're using her as bait, Master!
They took unarmored planes into close combat against highly-defended targets, often crashing their planes into those targets, and only had enough fuel for a one-way trip. The mission was certain death. If that doesn't make them suicides, I don't know what the word means.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Not arguing about gravity (tho I've always wanted a room with all the furniture attached to the ceiling :) Rather, was essentially noting that there was very little "spray" effect, and that the portion above the impact point didn't seem at all inclined to sideslip or sheer off at an angle even tho the structural damage probably wasn't 100% symmetrical.
:)
I've seen news footage of planned demolitions that went awry and had pieces shearing off in all directions, and considering this was not exactly a planned demolition...!!
Maybe it'll start a trend in the demolition industry -- after all a worn-out aircraft and a load of jet fuel may well cost less than hiring a for-really bonded/insured demolition crew to carefully place those structural explosives!
(I'll put myself away now
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Three problems. First of all, planes are routinely restored to good-as-new condition as part of regular, government mandated maintenence. As this is less expensive than building a whole new plane, planes really are never "worn out" though you may get models that are out of date and not worth using anymore. These planes will be OLD though, things like 707s.
Second, have you been to ground zero? The parking meters for a good block or so away from the hole actually have the plastic faces melted off. Though it may look tidy now, I would guess that there was far more collateral damage than would really be permitted in a controlled demolition.
Finally, it's very difficult to find pilots willing to sacrifice their lives just so you can get your demolition project done quicker :)
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
In response to your points...
1) Maybe it'd be a good use for the cargo planes mouldering in gov't boneyards. Do minimal repairs and never mind the safety checks. After all, they only need to get airborne *once*.
2) I doubt anyone is mourning the parking meters!
3) What better way to get rid of budding suicide bombers than to offer them a job?
:)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I am trying to be sympathetic to your point of view - I am trying to approach this with an open mind - but it seems to me that you didn't carefully read my post. Here is an example of what I mean:
You said:
and if you think that afganistan children and civilians don't get killed, well, maybe you should open your fucking eyes.
You said that in spite of the fact that I said:
We (America) do our best to kill only those who would harm us.
Terrorists on the other hand seek out innocent bystanders.
Did you catch it that time?
We (America) do our best to kill only those who would harm us.
By contrast:
Terrorists seek out innocent bystanders.
One more time... We try hard not to kill kids. Terrorist try hard to kill kids.
Given that my point is: We try not to/they try to Do you still think that "and if you think that afganistan children and civilians don't get killed, well, maybe you should open your fucking eyes" is a valid and reasoned response? Because I think that response is evidence that you didn't read my post.
Once we get past this we can move on to the other points you made. You did make some valid points, but I refuse to move on until we come to terms on the above point.