OOOH boy. They must think we're really stupid. They're not even being subtle about it anymore...
But the buildings were able to redistribute loads away from damaged columns so well that they could probably have remained standing indefinitely if not for the fires
Correct. The steel in those buildings was so strong that they only swayed 3 FEET in powerful winds, miraculous considering they were about .25 miles high.
The ability of the two towers to withstand aircraft impact without immediate collapse was a direct function of their design and construction characteristics, as was the vulnerability of the two towers to collapse as a result of the combined effects of the impacts and ensuing fires
The first part is perfectly correct, but I choked on the second half of this sentence.
What is already clear is that the jet fuel played a role somewhat different, though still critical, than some experts had speculated. After the planes slammed into the towers, the fireballs that burst over Lower Manhattan consumed perhaps a third of the 10,000 gallons of fuel on board each plane, for example, but did little structural damage themselves, the report says.
Correct.
Like a giant well of lighter fluid, though, the remaining fuel burned within minutes, setting ablaze furniture, computers, paper files and the planes' cargo over multiple floors and igniting the catastrophic inferno that brought the towers down.
BS!!! That fuel would have evaporated so rapidly that there is now way the steel could have had enough heat applied to it to melt. In fact, other people have calculated that in order for this scenario to be correct, the buildings would have had to have had compressed O2 pumped into them. So get it straight right now - the Government of America wants you to believe that a paper/plastic fire in a few isolated offices brought down buildings with steel cores so strong they only swayed 3 feet in the wind. Lovely. Anybody here care to tell me exactly how hot paper and plastic burns? I'm sure it's a hell of a lot lower than the melting temperature of STEEL!
The report is also significant for what it does not include
Couldn't have said it better myself if I tried
With the exception of a few contorted steel beams from 5 World Trade Center, a nine-story office building that also burned and had localized collapses because the beams failed where they were bolted together, little evidence collected from the piles of debris contributed in a meaningful way to the report's conclusions.
Gee, no kidding!
That absence could intensify criticism of an early decision by the city to recycle steel from the trade center rather than make it immediately available for collection and analysis by the research team. About 60 pieces of trade center steel are being sent to the technology institute for the investigation, so future analysis could provide additional answers.
I wonder who'll be choosing exactly which beams of steel to send to the Labs? Yep - you guessed it.
The draft report also does not contain any discussion of what could become a contentious new issue in attempts to explain why the south tower, though struck after the north tower, fell first. That question involves a program, started after the 1993 bombing of the towers, to increase the thickness of the fireproofing on the lightweight steel joists that held up the floors.
POPPYCOCK!
Team members are carefully debating what role that difference may have played in the length of time the towers stood after impact: 56 minutes, 10 seconds for the south tower and 102 minutes, 5 seconds for the north. But there are several other possible explanations. The plane that struck the south tower was moving at least 100 miles an hour faster than the other one, heightening the energy upon impact. And it hit 10 floors lower, resulting in far more weight from above bearing down on the damaged area.
OK, I'll admit that this is a good point, but you've gotta remember that jumbos are basically giant cylinders of metal, paper-thin metal. Basically nothing except jet fuel and vapour hit the central columns by the time they finished slicing through the outer core of metal surrounding the WTC buildings.
Stripped of its fireproofing, a steel column heats up much more quickly in a fire. The hotter the steel, the less it is able to support loads, as it eventually becomes as soft as licorice. Investigators believe that the structural steel was also greatly imperiled because the sprinklers and standpipes supplying water for firefighting were almost certainly disabled, their supply pipes cut by debris sent flying in the initial crash.
The melting point of steel and the way it melts is quite different to what these people are saying. As I've repeated earlier, you'd need bottled O2 and a continuous fire to get this sort of melting.
Wide plates called spandrels tied the exterior steel columns together, creating a rigid surface that could resist hurricane-force winds.
Yep.
But the fires continued to burn. Black smoke poured from shattered windows on floor after floor, fresh oxygen sucked in from the gaping holes caused by the impacts. In the northeast corner of the south tower's 80th floor, where office furniture had been shoved by the plane, the fire burned so hot that a stream of molten metal began to pour over the side like a flaming waterfall.
DAMN! I was wrong! Steel melts so quickly these these O2-starved/evaporated jet fuel/plastic/paper fires that it turns into a magical waterfall of molten metal!
The apparent source of this waterfall: molten aluminum from the jet's wings and fuselage, which had also piled up in that corner.
AH, so I WAS right...whew...what a relief!
Unfolding at a slower pace, the disaster at the north tower will require study before it can be explained in such detail.
Yeah, it'll take a while to think up believable propoganda about THAT building, won't it?
The building stood for more than an hour and a half. Videos of the north tower's collapse appear to show that its television antenna began to drop a fraction of a second before the rest of the building. The observations suggest that the building's steel core somehow gave way first, pulling down the rest of the tower with it.
Great. So not only does jet fuel continue burning for 104 minutes, without forced external O2 input, under extremely low pressure (virtually sea-level pressure), but it can also rapidly melt the steel core of one of the strongest buildings in the world, and melt it for so long that it turns into liquourice. YEAH BABY.
Long post, I know, but I needed to set the record straight.
[SYN], UADA - Unseen Apostate Directorate of Africa - For Great Justice!