12/10/06
(click on pictures twice to enlarge)
Steel frame before loading. This has three outer walls intact revealing the inner core and a few floors. The fourth wall has not been attached yet:
Complete loaded tower. This is a 1:200 scale model-- 1 foot wide by 6.5 feet tall. It only has 22 floors though:
The frame is about 30 pounds of steel wire, it was loaded with 50 pounds of sand in bags and 35 pounds of ceramic tile-- the weight was fairly evenly distributed.
"Plane" damage-- severe case-- about 1/3 of the core is severed:
side view:
To mimic fire damage, all the columns on one side were cut along with all the columns of half of the core. The tower was quite stable with this damage:
I could get the tower top to lean over if I pulled on it VERY HARD:
The tower was NOT going to fall down on the "impact side"-- but I could tilt the tower on the other side of the "plane damage" more easily. The tower here was stable-- in no danger of collapsing:
I cut some more of the core columns, and the top leaned at a 90 degree angle:
I cut all of the core columns and the top fell some more:
A very unexpected result!!!!! This thing was stable as could be!
Finally I cut all the columns on one floor and the top fell to the ground. Surprisingly (joke), the top stayed intact after falling!
Steel frame before loading. This has three outer walls intact revealing the inner core and a few floors. The fourth wall has not been attached yet:
Complete loaded tower. This is a 1:200 scale model-- 1 foot wide by 6.5 feet tall. It only has 22 floors though:
The frame is about 30 pounds of steel wire, it was loaded with 50 pounds of sand in bags and 35 pounds of ceramic tile-- the weight was fairly evenly distributed.
"Plane" damage-- severe case-- about 1/3 of the core is severed:
side view:
To mimic fire damage, all the columns on one side were cut along with all the columns of half of the core. The tower was quite stable with this damage:
I could get the tower top to lean over if I pulled on it VERY HARD:
The tower was NOT going to fall down on the "impact side"-- but I could tilt the tower on the other side of the "plane damage" more easily. The tower here was stable-- in no danger of collapsing:
I cut some more of the core columns, and the top leaned at a 90 degree angle:
I cut all of the core columns and the top fell some more:
A very unexpected result!!!!! This thing was stable as could be!
Finally I cut all the columns on one floor and the top fell to the ground. Surprisingly (joke), the top stayed intact after falling!
posted by spooked at 8:33 AM
16 Comments:
So, how many columns are bearing the total load in your model?
How are those columns connected to the structure?
What is the scale of the total mass per floor in your model?
How thick is the wire and what is its tensile strength? How does that scale to the WTC?
That was good satire of the 9/11 "Truth" Movement. That group would actually take your model seriously.
Like hey man I mean, this is like the best special effects I've seen thi side of Oneonta!
Boxcutters, ha ha ha!
Next time wear an airplane costume and run into it. Then set it on fire. If it doesn't collapse, then CONGRATULATIONS! you've debunked the debunkers :).
Democrat, it seems that the impact energy of the bucket relative to the resistance of tower is far more than than energy of the top floors falling 3 meters.
NIST seems to give magical qualities to impact energy as opposed to static energy. Your experiment seems to prove that wrong -- as I would expect based on common sense is that upper block would remain intact and be deflected after a few floors (3-20?), rather than pushing the lower floors down to the bottom.
Spooked, have you dropped the upper block onto the lower block?
"why through 80 untouched floors instead of falling down next to the remains after incurring resistance from the intact structure below? It puzzles me."
Especially since the upper blocks appear to have partially if not largely disintegrated before the "single gravitational collapse sequence" started moving downward.
"Single gravitational collapse sequence" is the phrase of Brett Blanchard, Protec demolition editor, in his paper. Blanchard says neither building failed "at any point in advance of the "Single gravitational collapse sequence" and that "all lower floors remained completely intact until they were consumed by the collapse above."
What I want to know is what energy was driving the collapse sequence once it began advancing downward, because until that point the lower block had offered enough resistance to destroy part if not most of the upper block, yet suddenly gave way to reduced weight, with the thicker floors below unable to halt the "collapse."
It just does not make sense.
Popular Mechanics has scientifically debunked all of the “truthers” 9/11 conspiracy theories. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
I hope this is some kind of parody. If not, you may want to consider a few classes in engineering, maybe a couple in architecture and a couple in physics.
To compare so little model to the millions of tons they real thing actually was is just stupid.
Its like the ant be impressive and 100's of times stronger than man by scale. If an ant was as large as a man, it couldn't live. It just doesn't scale.
The top of the building swings down, by chance lets say it does. It wieghs in the neighbor hood of 50,000 tons. As it accelarates down, lets just call it 100 feet to make it easy, how many million ft-lbs of force is the momentum?
Your structure does not come close to modeling that.
I hope this is some kind of parody. If not, you may want to consider a few classes in engineering, maybe a couple in architecture and a couple in physics.
To compare so little model to the millions of tons they real thing actually was is just stupid.
Its like the ant be impressive and 100's of times stronger than man by scale. If an ant was as large as a man, it couldn't live. It breaths through its exo-skeleton and can only do so because its so small.(I am a bio-chemist, this isn't an exact explanation but its close) It just doesn't scale.
The top of the building swings down, by chance lets say it does. It wieghs in the neighbor hood of 50,000 tons. As it accelarates down, lets just call it 100 feet to make it easy, how many million ft-lbs of force is the momentum?
Your structure does not come close to modeling that.
Do you people have any clue how completely INSANE you sound to normal, rational people?
Has any of you ever been within 500 feet of a structural engineering textbook?
I really worry when I think about folks like you, because you clearly are not getting the mental health care you so clearly need.
Really, you're ill. Get help, please!
shaneh, perhaps English grammar and syntax lessons are in order for you.
I'd ignore the bluff and bluster of some of the more moronic and stupid comments posted here. Wire frame models are nothing new in the world of simulation except they're usually modelled on computers. Unfortunately "wire-frame" on a PC occasionally has undeserved kudos. Theoretical stress modelling quote often approximates and concentrates only on critical or "interesting" factors or uses rule of thumb (heuristic). A model is only as good as the rules and data input which pretty well rules out the official models such as those emerging from the US government which attempt to portray the strength of the building in the skin rather than the core. No one seriously putting forward any scientific model whether virtual or real wire-frame would claim it any more than a rough approximation within the bounds of it's own design. I doubt if any of the critics have been within 100 feet of a public library or English dictionary let alone a structural textbook. The model is interesting but clearly not intended as a 100% accurate stress model which makes any derision utterly pointless.
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but now i think about it, your model would have to have denser concrete and denser steel than the wtc to represent the towers according to my idea! LOL.. There were bombs in those buildings, thats for sure. Perhaps you should get some c4 and see how it goes, i reckon you might get a more accurate simulation :D
My model isn't about the collapse. It is about distribution of mass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0kUICwO93Q
psik
I didn't build my model to collapse, but to demonstrate the relevance of distribution of mass.
WTC MIT
psik
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