Why did NIST decide WTC steel could not conduct heat?
by Loop Garou
This article is based on a comment LG posted on another 9/11 thread. We welcome replies and rebuttals, please send them to [email protected]”, marked “9/11”
The National Institute of Standards & technology (NIST) was engaged by Congress and by FEMA, shortly after the events of 9/11, to produce a report on the destruction of the three WTC towers.
While it did pursue some initial real-world experimentation (which should be discussed in turn), NIST built its conclusions on the collapse primarily on the basis of computer models.
It follows their conclusions can only be as good as those models.
Let me explain first how a predictive computer model works. It’s virtual reality. If you are building a model to predict anything from the stock market to building collapses you are essentially telling a computer a set of rules that enable it to construct a real-world simulation of your money markets or your building. The most important thing to understand is the result you get is only as reliable as the data you input, because computers are quick but not smart.
If you input garbage, you will output garbage. If you punch in wrong values a computer won’t realise they make no sense, it will just run its program with those values and produce a result that has no connection to the real world, and can even be downright ridiculous. There’s no fail-safe or common sense override. Punch the wrong data into your computer model and you will get “proof” cars can drive on water, or birds can fly through solid rock.
Any computer model of anything is only as good as the parameters fed into it.
NIST’s models can’t be assessed independently as a whole because NIST refuses to release any data about them. Their claimed reason for this is that releasing the docs might endanger national security.
However NIST did disclose some limited information about their parameters in the body of their reports, most perturbing and inexplicable of which is their acknowledgement they assigned all the steel in their WTC model a thermal conductivity of zero, or close to zero.
To explain to a non-science-based readership what that means, just consider what you would expect to happen if you placed one end of a steel bar in a fire and kept hold of the other end. Would you expect:
A) the end you were holding to gradually heat up to the point you could not keep it in your hand?
B) the end you were holding to remain cool no matter how hot the end in the fire becomes?
Believe it or not, NIST chose the second option. Here it is in their own words:
“The steel was assumed in the FDS model to be thermally-thin, thus, no thermal conductivity was used.” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 20
“The interior walls [including insulated steel columns] were assumed to have the properties of gypsum board [0.5 W/m/K].” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 52
“Although the floor slab actually consisted of a metal deck topped with a concrete slab…the thermal properties of the entire floor slab were assumed to be that of concrete [1.0 W/m/K].” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 52
You don’t need to be a professional scientist to know this is bunkum and a total disregard of basic physics.
Why does this matter? It matters a LOT. Changing the assumed conductivity of steel from its actual figure to zero would allow the model to produce much higher temperatures in the steel directly exposed to fire than would be possible in reality. It’s like calculating the amount of water you could get into a sieve at any one time by assuming the sieve has no holes. The model will show the sieve can be filled to the brim, but that is just so much garbage with no real-world application.
Just so with the temperatures of the steel. NIST needed to produce a model that allowed cool office fires of around 800deg to somehow produce enough heat in localised areas to weaken and buckle steel girders and struts. If they’d allowed the steel to behave normally and wick the heat away along its length they simply could not achieve this aim. Only by turning the assumed thermal conductivity to zero (the equivalent of assuming the sieve has no holes) could they get their model to create enough heat to do the buckling and weakening.
This is a huge problem. In fact it could not be a bigger problem. This bogus assumption that steel has zero thermal conductivity not only renders the NIST report as a whole deeply suspect, it entirely nullifies even the flawed basis for its “collapse by fire” hypothesis.
This is why so many scientists are calling for another investigation. They aren’t saying the gumment did it, they aren’t claiming a conspiracy, they just see huge errors in the previous investigation and want more work to be done.
Bottom line is NIST punched in false data that totally invalidated their model. The zero thermal conductivity issue alone is sufficient grounds for a new investigation.
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The first paragraph: “The steel was assumed in the FDS model to be thermally-thin, thus, no thermal conductivity was used.” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 20
Is called lumped body analysis, can be valid – as long as the body is small enough in the dimension of the thermal gradient, the usual example is for cooling of lead shot. It simplifies the number of variables in the partial differential equations required for the model and thus reduces computing expense. I am not saying it is valid for this case but it may not be as alarming as the author of this piece makes out.
Sometimes we need to be careful what we latch on to.
I am surprised that so many people have been prepared to even engage in communication with, what is obviously, government troll. His comments (his or written for him by his handlers?) clearly show lack of basic understanding of science and total disregard for facts. He also suffers from superiority complex and therefore will never be able to admit that he is wrong, that would forever ruin his life and his ego. Denial is his only way to not see himself for what he really is.
Therefore, I believe that he is just a waste of breath and not worth spending any energy on.
By the way, his claim of “handful of experts” shows his ignorance, there are over 2500 architects and engineers joined by firefighter (explosions) and many others and that number is rapidly growing.
Jerome Fryer says:
So? That’s the way science works. There ought to be contradictory hypotheses about an event that remains unproven.
That has literally nothing to do with anything I have discussed. You’re straw-manning.
Yes it is. Well, more precisely it’s a contest of hypotheses. NIST’s explanation is one hypothesis. It’s perfectly reasonable to have contesting hypotheses when proof is absent
In what lunatic dimension can Occam’s Razor possibly be adduced to claim an event that has literally never happened before is the simplest and most probable explanation?
Even if it turns out to be true (and yes it might), it is NOT and never could be the most probable explanation.. it’s one of the least probable that doesn’t involve aliens or space beams.
Holy hell, Jerome, quit with inventing fake arguments to rebut. I am not making extraordinary claims. I am saying NIST’s extraordinary claim needs more checking. I get you have an emotional block on the idea the official story just may not be true, but you have to get over that if you’re going to make any progress. You don’t keep coming here because you’re so damn sure you;re right. You’re coming here to try and deal with your doubts. You’re trying to find a good enough reason to be sure, and you can’t find one.
Questioning an unproven unprecedented hypothesis is NOT woo. And it won’t ever be woo. Make your peace with that, start debating a little more honestly, or give up and move on.
Jerome Fryer said:
You need a citation for the temp range of office fires? Holy hell, you really don’t know much about physical science do you?
This gives you the temps of flame in various open and room fires:
https://www.doctorfire.com/flametmp.html
This is NIST’s own study of fire dynamics that gives some temps and also gives some info about heat conductivity that might help you understand the basic physics:
https://www.nist.gov/%3Cfront%3E/fire-dynamics
Here’s a basic google search for typical house fire temps
https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=typical+temerature+of+room+fires&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=2ZrkV_O7Fa_A8gfQnZ6oCg#q=typical+house+fire+temperature
This is not controversial and not hard. Office fires/house fires are relatively cool fires compared to those you’d find in a blast furnace for example.
And before you get excited it’ important you remember a flame temp of 1000C will NOT produce a temp of 1000C in anything it contacts without very prolonged exposure. And (of course) the greater the thermal conductivity of the object exposed to flame the longer it will take to heat it up. Which is why a zero conductivity allows NIST to assume higher temps in the steel than would be achievable in real life.
The page 20 thermal conductivity quote was NIST setting up a simulation before an experiment, hence no effect on the results of the WTC and 2 collapse.
The p. 52 quote was for modeling gas temperatures inside the office space, and so set a thermal boundary. Since the concrete slab topped the floor, hence forming the immediate thermal boundary, it’s thermal properties were used instead of the underlying metal.
No duplicity here. What a tempest in a teapot.
You’re saying NIST assumed the combustion gases would be polite enough to stay within those concrete office spaces, and not go wandering off through the burning structure and contact any steel?
LOL!
This is as good as your progressively collapsing girders propelling the first eight floors of WTC7 to the ground symmetrically at – greater than free fall??
Well, Loop, you see, some of the girders were rocket propelled . . . which, as it happens . . .
What do you think would happen if the super-heated air and gas / particle mixture produced by the combustion did make contact with part of the steel structure?
Do you believe that steel has some magical property that would draw all of the heat (or even a significant amount of heat) from the gases? Do you have a citation for this astounding new addition to materials science?
“LOL!” indeed.
Because I know that you will both read it and understand it, Jerome, and pretty much contradicts everything that b1c1jones glibly spouts, especially that part about the complete absence of “duplicity:”
The NIST WTC 7 Report: Bush Science reaches its peak
Kevin R. Ryan
September 10, 2008
http://911review.com/articles/ryan/NIST_WTC7.html
I have already seen that article. Long on accusations, short on facts.
Well, that’s certainly weird. I wonder how NIST knew how to accurately model a steel beam? Must have just made something up on the spot, I guess.
Or that would be my guess if I were as dull as Kevin Ryan.
Can you figure out this mystery, Norman?
Yes, indeed, an inscrutable mystery to me, Jerome. I can’t figure it out. Unfortunately, I don’t have your brains. Can you explain it to me?
Maybe you should go and have a look at what NIST does.
Here’s a recent improvement for something or other. See if you can decipher what it may be related to.
https://www.nist.gov/node/796081?pub_id=919466
Also read points 14 and 15 in this FAQ:
https://www.nist.gov/el/faqs-nist-wtc-towers-investigation
It’s not hard Jerome. You just make it seem hard.
b1c1jones tries to explain NIST’s decision to assign zero conductivity to the steel in its thermal penetration model as being due to NIST’s belief that the concrete on the floor would prevent the gas from reaching the steel deck underneath it (I don’t know why he thinks NIST would do this, but this is his claim).
My response is a sarcastic inquiry as to how he imagines the gas could be made to remain in contact solely with the concrete, given the nature of gas and the nature of fire.
It’s irrelevant though, because the only way to make a realistic computer model is to program in real world parameters, and no one inputs unreal parameters in hopes of getting real results.
Think about it – what kind of rational scientist would say “well, we figure the gas won’t contact the steel directly because the concrete floor sits over the steel – so we’ll just give the steel the same thermal conductivity as the concrete and that shouldn’t mess things up at all”?
Any rational scientist would know that as soon as you enter unreal data in any part of your model then your model becomes invalid and unreliable.
You don’t deliberately input false parameters just because you assume they won’t matter. You deliberately input false parameters because you are trying to skew the results.
You simply don’t understand basic things, here.
What do you think happens if the gas (super-heated air and combustion products) comes into contact with the steel structure? They put fire proofing material on the steel precisely because it is not a good thermal conductor, and a point source of heat can quickly weaken the steel. (Think about how they cut steel — do you ever see a large region around the locality of the cut heating up?)
If you start with incorrect assumptions you’ll end up with incorrect conclusions. Look into your assumptions.
Cut the B.S., Jerome.
From the article “Steel Bar Joist Trusses And Steel C-Beams – Part 2,” posted a the website: “Fire House Expo.”
“[One of four] factors [that] determine[s] the speed with which unprotected steel will fail during a fire: [. . .] the fire size.”
“The size of the fire is the final factor that can affect steel failure. If a small-area fire comes in contact with a portion of a large steel beam, the steel will absorb heat and transfer it away from the flaming area to cooler parts of the structural element. A fire could burn for some time before it heats the entire steel beam to its failure temperature. On the other hand, a large-area fire in which flames involve much of the steel beam in a short time will heat the steel beam to its critical temperature more quickly. A “flash fire,” suddenly involving a large area with flame, can heat steel to its failure temperature rapidly.”
http://www.firehouse.com/article/10503674/steel-bar-joist-trusses-and-steel-c-beams-part-2
That quote contradicts,
“They put fire proofing material on the steel precisely because it is not a good thermal conductor, and a point source of heat can quickly weaken the steel.”
Unless your point source of heat is a oxy acetylene cutting torch, eh.
And before you accuse me of cherry picking, I pull that element out of the article I quoted because that’s the part relevant to this discussion.
About “Fire House Expo:”
“Firehouse Expo is the can’t-miss event for firefighting professionals. More than 10,000 firefighters, chiefs, captains, lieutenants and more will meet in Music City to hone their skills, become familiar with the latest gear and equipment and gain new expertise to advance their careers.”
Furthermore, there is a difference between what “a good thermal conductor is” and material that just readily absorbs heat.
“A thermal conductor is a material that allows energy in the form of heat, to be transferred within the material, without any movement of the material itself. ”
http://www.everythingmaths.co.za/science/grade-10/02-classification-of-matter/02-classification-of-matter-07.cnxmlplus
Steel absorbs heet, and the more steel you have relative to a fire, however localized, the more time it will take for that steel to reach its point of failure if its part of a load bearing structure. Okay, Jerome?
@Jerome Fryer
So your new theory is the fireproofing fell off of parts of the steel members, which then heated up to structural collapse temps – because the fireproofing stopped the heat being wicked away along the internal structure of the member?
You think fireproofing eliminates the intrinsic thermal conductivity of steel?
Hilarious!
You realise NIST never makes this ridiculous claim you are making?
Think about it – how in the hell would fireproofing applied to the surface of a steel member prevent heat being conducted within the body of the steel? once the fireproofing was breeched?
I’m sorry I don’t know what your point is about cutting steel. Yes, if you heat up one part of a steel member the rest of the member will also heat up. This is Physics 101, Jerome, not rocket science.
Now, for the love of humanity stop telling other people they “don’t understand” and then typing ever more embarrassing unscientific rubbish such as this.
Loop Garou: Your ‘love of humanity’ is evidenced and succinctly expressed.
That a ‘Jerome Frier’ persists only in shooting barbed arrows at the sanctity of true willing witness is perhaps a play on words. (The killing of St Jerome). However your lack of barbed response is a breath of fresh air and only more clearly illuminates both the nature of the points in discussion and the nature of the refusal to discuss or engage with them.
You see someone who doubts and seeks to overcome doubt – but if the purpose is to effect what has in fact been effected, then he has no doubt but to have succeeded – for the majority of visitors to the site will not follow a long thread of ‘argument’ that is not in fact what it seems – being a provocation in the form of an argument.
But it looks like an argument and operates to introduce or reinforce doubt and confusion in ways that are not indicative of doubt or confusion – but a deliberately executed strategy of attack upon the communication itself – as a way of denying or supporting a denial (official version) – that is being asserted as a truth that ‘others’ are framed as being in denial of.
Those behind such a denial may have their own self-justifications to act as they do – doesn’t everyone?
I don’t join on anyone’s ‘side’ – but in support of the sanctity of a genuine willingness for communication – because ‘facts’ in and of themselves can be misused – but outcomes arising from a genuine willingness for communication will always align to an honesty of being.
I saw evidence of buildings collapsing in a way that only controlled demolition can account for – however that was effected. My mind is open to accept that without having to buckle with the issue of who could – and how could such a thing be done and allowed to be done.
Brackets around what I am not able to accept completely are expandable and open to probabilities of consideration until and as I rest in a current sense of my own relationship with an event.
For as someone else wisely said on this thread recently – the purpose for our investigation can be lost light of if we merely fixate in rabbit hole tunnelling without purposeful context – which is perhaps an addictive fascination to be curious about rather than programmed to persist in without listening in at the ground of our being.
The mind can be set against a perceived evil or error in such a way as to feel validated by its opposition and unwilling to introspect or own its own investment. Examples are not hard to find – but the use of them to replicate the same pattern is a feature of the way energetics communicate. Hence a deliberate ploy in a contest is to bait an opponent into emotional reaction by which they lose focus and act in ways that can be used against them. And a designed attack can engage a variety of forms of baiting that target different triggers though this can happen. But the intent of the attack is to get the other to give up their position – or set it to be perceived as untenable or invalid. Schopenhauer wrote well on this – yet ironically but predictably his exposure of 28 tricks used to ‘win’ an argument without actually engaging in debating the issue – sells and is studied as a treatise in the dark arts of deceit. But of course the purpose to which we use anything is our own decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
or
http://www.mnei.nl/schopenhauer/38-stratagems.htm
Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth have gone through all this, chapter and verse…
Wanna know what these experts on building design and construction concluded…?
http://www.ae911truth.org/
If you want to know why the handful of ‘experts’ that AE911T represent are incorrect about their assertions:
http://ae911truth.info/wordpress/
If you were as motivated to actually investigate the years of investigations that these Architects and Engineers made – as you were to offer this Googled ‘response’ – I would have been happy to converse with you !
Motivated by cash, or a belief that I am a special snowflake that knows better than the vast majority of my peers?
Both?
You’ve been looking into this a while now. Have you not noticed the striking absence of genuine scientific rebuttal in any of these places you link to? Do you not see it’s all ad hom and sneering and general claims of fraud or stupidity which never get detailed and rarely specifically rebut anything?
Sooner or later you are going to have to go away and do some quiet thinking about what this absence shows.
Here is the latest thread on the Hulsey modelling project:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=311698
Explain why you believe that this type of discussion is inferior to the echo-chamber of tightly moderated group-think on the ‘truther’ sites. Maybe go to a site that supports something that you believe is nonsense, have a look at how they do their woo production, then compare.
I didn’t say anything about types of discussion. I said you must have noted the relative absence of coherent rebuttal.
You were recently looking for an explanation of why NIST zeroed the thermal conductivity of steel, but you cant find one, even when you ask directly. Neither can I or anyone. Why? Why isn’t NIST or NIST’s supporters explicating this? What does this absence tell us?
So, here’s some other things to try.
Try to find an explanation of why NIST didn’t even bother to examine the more likely possibility of controlled demolition but instead went straight to the unprecedented idea that fire brought down high rise buildings for the first time in the history of construction.
I predict you won’t get anyone to address this question. But try for yourself and see.
Try to get anyone to tell you how a gravitational collapse can find the additional energy to pulverise concrete and throw steel girders for blocks.
I predict you won’t find anyone to tell you. They’ll either deride the “truthers” some and tell you only idiots ask those kind of questions or talk obliquely about the potential energy in a standing building. But they WON’T give you a real solid answer.
Follow this up by asking if there s any video anywhere of any gravitational collapse that looks ANYTHING like WTC1,2 or 7 coming down.
I predict you will not get a straight answer to this either. No link to a comparable collapse. No discussion about the absence. Just silence and evasion.
Run the experiment and see for yourself.
I don’t need to ask those questions, Loop.
While hunting around to figure out what the present status of the ‘truther’ hypothese were (as there are still several, contradictory, versions), I have come across all of these misconceptions or examples of studied ignorance. I say “studied”, because you can put up video of smoke billowing from WTC 7 and get some assertion about dust being trapped in vortices at the back of the building. (As I did, with Norman providing the lunacy.)
This isn’t some sort of contest of opinions, Loop. Occam’s Razzor kills every one of the ‘conspiracy theories’ stone dead before they even manage to start making an argument.
When you are making extraordinary (and massively complicated, and exceedingly unlikely, and totally unecesssary) claims then the burden is on you to back up those claims with extraordinary evidence. Not paint chips processed by an imbecile and a bunch of woo.
I have followed this discussion for a couple of days now, and I suspect it will run and run.
I admit that I am not qualified to contribute on the technical aspects, but I know a man who can. Watch this presentation on the collapse of WTC7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxG4lYyitsI&feature=youtu.be
In strict laymans terms “on a scale of 1 to 100, what is the likelihood of this building collapsing due to fire?” answer “ZERO.”
As for NIST: Prof Hulsey had to respect professional boundaries – but when asked “if your student submitted this (NISTs’ analysis), would you flunk him?” answer “YES.”
Thats plain enough for me!
Please take up the tecnical aspects of this with Prof Hulsey over at Alaska Fairbanks (wtc7evaluation.org)
Caveat: This is not peer reviewed yet, but it soon will be. Its an open source review, register and you can have input. If he has got it wrong, tell him.
You know one man, eh?
The tobacco companies had hundreds of ‘men’ presenting their claims about smoking. The oil companies still have hundreds to contend that AGW isn’t proven.
What you have discovered is that AE911T can only scrape up a relatively small amount of money.
Science isn’t about consensus or majority rule. It’s about data. Back when every scientist agreed Creationism was a fact, that didn’t make evolution any less true.
Your reply is a weak straw man argument. You try to shift focus away from the content of his argument to the ‘one man’ bit. You’re weak dude, very weak.
Here is a fairly good, simple, explanation for the WTC towers collapse:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=11457394#post11457394
I have suggested that off-Guardian try reaching out to the ISL forums to see if they can get a simple encapsulation of what the generally accepted explanations for the physics of the collapses involve. This is a good example of what you could be using, if you were interested in giving a non-‘truther’ explanation.
Jerome, most Off-Guardian readers have a basic grasp of Newtonian physics and see the NIST report for what it is. They also note the mainstream media censorship around the issue and the ever-present official narrative apologists in comments sections.
I believe that the US government screwed up hugely, and nobody was held to account.
I also believe that the ‘truther’ attempt to add crazy, unnecessary, and anti-Semitic, elements to the physical events are unhelpful in attaining that goal.
Who pays the ‘truther’ bills?
You say “I also believe that the ‘truther’ attempt to add crazy, unnecessary, and anti-Semitic elements to the physical events are unhelpful in attaining that goal.” Oh, really? So according to you, the ‘dancing Israelis’ who were filming the WTC collapse on 9-11, cheering and holding a bic lighter up to the burning towers and giving each other high-fives is ‘anti-semitism’? Did you ever read anything about Urban Moving Systems? The fact the NYPD arrested these Israelis and handed them over to the FBI? That they had the same box cutter knives the alleged hi-jackers had? That forensic testing of their clothing and the van they were driving had explosives residue all over them? Don’t know about you, but their explanation to the FBI that “we are not your problem,the Palestinians are” and “we were in NYC to record and document the event”, i.e. the WTC terror attacks sure makes me wonder what they were doing there, filming the WTC collapses as they happened. Ostensibly for you all of this is ‘anti-semitism’? And the WTC attacks should be studied only in a physics vacuum devoid of any consideration of obviously damning facts as these danicing Isrealis, who were later discovered to be Mossad agents. Sorry: you are not at all convincing. Here, read this excellent article by Whitney Webb about Mossad foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks-
https://www.mintpressnews.com/newly-released-fbi-docs-shed-light-on-apparent-mossad-foreknowledge-of-9-11-attacks/258581/
I can already imagine your rebuttal: “Oh no! It’s more anti-semitic truther bullshit, waaaahhhhh! 😀
We have invited contributions from all sides. May I suggest you invite someone on the forum to submit to us. Or why not submit something for ATL yourself?
Since you seem very sure neither Steve Jones, Kevin Ryan, Pained Scientist nor Loop Garou can understand the basic science you must be at least as qualified as them to offer a rebuttal. Maybe consider a piece about why NIST was correct to assume the WTC steel had no ability to conduct heat?
I am not qualified to simplify the event in a way that can be grasped by people unwilling to apprehend it — try finding someone willing to try, or who already has done so. The ISL forums are a good example for somewhere you could ask. I just got registered there, so I’ll see if anyone is interested. (But be warned that you might start to get people posting even more comments that will upset your ‘truther’ posters.)
Nor is “Loop Garou”, and his source for the quote-mining in this article isn’t given. That you are happy to create an article from such is pretty appalling. Although the false impression given by the ‘Steve Spak’ video, and your accompanying editorial content, wins the prize so far. (It isn’t hard to find video and photos of WTC 7 that give the lie to that propaganda attempt. So why bother?)
“Maybe consider a piece about why NIST was correct to assume the WTC steel had no ability to conduct heat?”
Or maybe consider that your insistent on repeating this fallacy indicates serious editorial bias, or total incomprehension. Given the implied inability to understand the NIST report (and unwillingness to even read any part of it, apparently), it is pointless to expend the effort to write an article of any worth.
A conversation on this thread yesterday:
MORIARTY’s LEFT SOCK:
“Are you claiming it proves :
(1) NIST did NOT set the thermal conductivity of the steel in their models to zero? Or…
(2) They DID but they were correct in doing so?”
YOU:
“2) They DID but they were correct in doing so.”
We are inviting you to submit an article based on this statement of yours that NIST did set the thermal conductivity of the steel in their model to zero and were correct to do so.
What does “not qualified to simplify the event” mean? if you understand the event how can you not be “qualified” to simplify it?
Come to that, why do you need to simplify it? You expect people to understand you BTL, so why not ATL?
I think you’re scared of being shredded Jerome. Maybe because you don’t really understand the science. Maybe because you do and you know it’s so much bollocks.
Being able to reduce something that is relatively complicated (the NIST report is quite large) down to something easily grasped by the layperson is usually difficult. Whether you understand it yourself or not isn’t predictive on your ability to explain it in simpler terms (without botching it). You also have to consider the intended audience… and, frankly, I despair at that…
“I think you’re scared of being shredded Jerome. Maybe because you don’t really understand the science.”
You’re entitled to your opinion, and to ignore restored context and any explanation of what I take from “the science” (as distinct from wild conjecture backed by assertions). And to pretend that the video and photos showing WTC 7 seriously on fire (for hours) isn’t what your lying eyes would communicate to you. And that some form of explosives that produced no expected sound levels and / or light emission was used. And… And… And…
Indeed, you can choose to believe anything you wish. But you can’t prove any of it. That is what you require to shift something from conjecture (improbable), to plausible (possible), then finally to being the generally accepted explanation (highly probable, or ‘proven’ in layperson’s terms).
Far from ignoring the restored context, I gave an explication of how it makes the fact NIST were distorting physics even clearer than Loop Garou’s edited version.
I see you are still here Jerome, continuing to try to sell us your conviction that the ‘official’ collapse narrative is basically correct, in spite of abundant scientific opinion that it’s pure hokum.
Destruction of the building through controlled demolition is the only hypothesis which accounts for ALL of the features observed in the collapses of the twin towers and building 7. Repeat: controlled demolition accounts for ALL the features observed in the collapses.
Global building collapse caused by fire (the official NIST explanation) accounts for NONE of the observed collapse features. Repeat: demolition through fire accounts for NONE of the features observed in the collapses.
“in spite of abundant scientific opinion that it’s pure hokum.”
Citation?
Try this:
http://www.ae911truth.org/news/215-news-media-events-5-of-6-nist-fraud-5.html
Hucksters tha want to sell you stuff claim scientists all liars.
Shocking.
“Being able to reduce something that is relatively complicated (the NIST report is quite large) down to something easily grasped by the layperson is usually difficult. Whether you understand it yourself or not isn’t predictive on your ability to explain it in simpler terms (without botching it). You also have to consider the intended audience… and, frankly, I despair at that…”
I’m calling you out here on “false modesty,” Jerome. You can do this and you damn well know it. “Reduction” is your stock in trade if it isn’t your middle name. In addition, just look at the length and sheer profusion of your comments. All you have to do is go back through everything you’ve already thrown at us and cherry-pick what you think are your best and brightest moments and voilà, eh, you’d be done. Your piece would be a anthology of sorts, and you could claim copyright. No, no one who claims to be as inept as you here claim to be truly believes that about himself, especially in light an already shameless and prodigious and very public production of comments
It will be fun for everyone. Because then we ourselves could just go back through all of our comments and just re-post them all under your headline. It would certainly save us the time of having to invent new comments, and we could even polish up our existing stock.
So what do you say, Jerome? The world awaits your answer.
Now all we need is someone to stop talking round the issue and explain how progressive failure leads to simultaneous and symmetrical collapse. And why the diagram in this link (which is just another sourceless apology for NIST) looks NOTHING LIKE the real collapse.
There’s a reason why NIST won’t engage with the actual physics of the collapse itself.
Jerome, do you realise by the way that setting the thermal conductivity of the steel to zero is the same as assuming the steel can’t conduct heat?
Perhaps you should prove the assertion about ‘symetrical collapse’. Explain why Fitterman Hall got severely damaged by WTC 7 falling on it, for example, and why that still fits in with ‘symetrical’.
Perhaps look at the construction of WTC 7, and the modelled cascade of failures within the internal structure (the east penthouse drops in a full seven seconds before the outer facade starts to come down). There are several variants of NIST’s model for the collapse, and some alternate models. None require explosives or other additional sources of damage to explain the collapse.
The symmetrical collapse of all three towers is visible on video. Ie they collapse symmetrically across an almost perfect horizontal axis.
The fact other buildings were damaged by falling debris is beside the point. You would get that in even a perfect textbook controlled demolition, given the height of the Twin Towers and the proximity of other buildings.
Bear in mind also the Twins didn’t just fall down they literally exploded, hurling powdered cement and massive steel girders hundreds of feet. Bone fragments were found on the roof of the Deutsche Bank, nearly 300 feet away.
“The symmetrical collapse of all three towers is visible on video.”
Yet, when I put up video clearly showing how the WTC 1 collapse was not symmetrical in the least (having hit WTC 7), the argument was that the lack of symmetry must prove explosives.
You lot really need to get your story straight.
The comment you are replying to explicitly tells you that damage to nearby buildings does not argue against progressive collapse “given the height of the Twin Towers and the proximity of other buildings” It’s pointed out in that comment that WTC1 and 2 exploded while collapsing, hurling debris over hundreds of feet.
You don’t make any effort at all to respond to these points, you just repeat the same claim you made previously.
What’s the point if you don’t deal with what you’re being told? Are you here posting non-stop to convince yourself and silence your own growing doubts?
WTC 1 didn’t “explode” at all. Asserting that they collapsed “symetrically”‘ but also clearly didn’t is a contradiction.
You people need to get your eyes tested, and learn how to think. (Hence my suggestion that a series of articles on critical thinking would be more useful than posting debunked garbage.)
If the speedy and energetic decomposition of material that results in multi-ton steel girders being hurled hundreds of feet and powdered concrete, gypsum, marble and much else being thrown blocks in every direction isn’t an explosion – what is it?
The mechanically assertive lack of human relationship in the form of repeated refusal to engage in a two way willingness indicates a ‘communication breakdown’ from the very first.
However, once induced to invest in such a non relationship, one is to some degree entangled in trying to improve it – but all one does is sacrifice into an intent to feed off of one’s gift so as to devalue it.
However the extension of worth means that you have it – and having extended it, the gift remains an instance of an alternative to a lovelessness that recognizes none in others and believe to gain worth for itself or its cause thereby.
Blinded by science is of course using forms of scientific or rational discourse to other intent than the discovery or arrival at an appreciation of what is already true – or the understanding of something released from false framing presumption or intent.
Likewise in official responses there is no real receptivity to the call for true account – but an exercise in obfuscation, delay, diversion – the whole box of tricks. Now it may be there are salient facts that they feel unable to be revealed. If I had a gun of one sort or another at the head of my self and loved ones, I may feel unable to tell you what fear of such consequence forbids – and in one way or another the persistence in loveless evasive disintegrity speaks of a fear of loss of something treasured or deeply identified or invested in.
That a mistaken identity can be strongly asserted and defended is a call for correction – rather than to persist in supporting such an identity by engaging with it. And becoming defined in the same terms and agenda.
In any case when communication fails, the communication itself needs be addressed or persistence in futility detracts from and dilutes and perhaps corrupts the original purpose of sharing or uncovering through the act of communicating.
As I see it 9/11 ushered in a post truth politic in which the power to set the narrative was and is being openly declared – while all the confusions and divisions arising from it further weaken and divert to a lack of unified will or consciousness – that is effectively captured and directed mind. Whatever the forms of implementation, this is what I see as the agenda or purpose – rising from a misidentification with mind and a hence a mistaken sense of its true function; using it as a mask and a weapon to usurp the true to its own private creations.
And the modelled cascade failure doe NOT resemble the real-life physical collapse. Look at them side by side man.
Cite what model you’re looking at, and what video you’re comparing it to.
The NIST collapse model looks to be correct to me. What sources are you using?
The NIST collapse model shows visible crumpling and distortion of the exterior prior to collapse. No such visible crumpling and distortion is present in the videos of WTC7.
Show me your side-by-side video and NIST model.
Do the comparison yourself if you’re interested. NIST’s animation is available and so is video of WTC7, Or maybe OffGuardian could post them?
Quote: “if you were interested in giving a non-‘truther’ explanation”
You seem to have an obsession about “truthers”, whatever gruesome creatures they may be.
I am not interested in an “explanation” that is full of derogatory language and makes outrageous claims, like the ones you keep posting here. There are laws of physics that apply, even in the US, and any “explanation” that disregards those laws is of no use.
Well said
Here are the experts’ conclusions… http://www.ae911truth.org/
And here is a debunking website for the claims made by that handful of ‘experts’:
http://ae911truth.info/wordpress/
First thing we see is a hillbilly heating one end of a short, half-inch thick steel rod in a furnace to glowing red and bending it, to prove that an office fire on the 80th floor can soften 100.000 tons of structural steel in a skycraper and make it come down at near-free fall speed.
Really? That is your “debunking”? Can you have the hillbilly “prove” where he got all the energy for the collapse from?
Why do you think all of the structural steel needed to be softened? Are you under the impression that when they do use a controlled demolition to bring a building down, that requires all of the structural steel to be heated up?
I have no idea how you can manage to come up with such nonsense. Stop for a minute and think.
Honestly, who cares what this one guy thinks. There are countless documentaries on this site and all over the web by engineers and other professionals, architects etc questioning the official narrative and his rebuttal is “there is only one person”, or “citations?”. His head is buried in the sand. He is deliberately ignoring all of the research that has already been presented. He’s a quack.
Jerome, you invest a LOT of energy into dismissing everything but the official story, which I personally would require to be lobotomised before I could accept such utter nonsense…. So, the question arises…are you getting paid for your support of the official nonsensical story…? Seems to me like you have a lot invested in rubbishing everyone’s perspective if it does not align with yours.. Hmmmmm…..
You’re so unconvincing on this thread it is laughable. Never before 9/11 did sky scrapers made with massive steel support columns and concrete collapse from fires. Especially Bld 7, nothing ever hit it, and the video of it is plainly, obviously controlled demolition. Who am I going to believe, you are my lying eyes? You know the answer to that 😀
Najib Abboud has conducted an independent investigation into the WTC collapses (paid for out of an insurance dispute, by the looks of it).
https://www.stevens.edu/news/deans%E2%80%99-seminar-series-dr-najib-abboud
It will cost you real money to get the original presentations, though.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Najib_Abboud/publications
In any case, his conclusions agree with those of NIST.
Abboud didn’t do an independent investigation! How do you suppose he could do that even if he wanted to? The steel from the towers has all gone. NIST won’t release its model data. What would he be “investigating” exactly?
This from the “talk” this guy gave:
“In his talk, Dr. Abboud shared the results of the forensic engineering study that investigated the WTC collapses, explaining why the Twin Towers stood for as long as they did,”
What? They stood for around two hours! Is this guy suggesting a “more conventional” building would have just dropped straight down the minute a plane hit it like something out of a LoonyToons animation?
Additionally, Dr. Abboud discussed the series of analyses undertaken to quantify and study the response of and damage to each of the Twin Towers related to the multi-year dispute over whether the attacks had constituted one event or two under the terms of the insurance policy, which provided for a maximum of $3.55 billion coverage per event.”
Is this saying Abboud was being retained as an expert witness by one side of this dispute?
If the WTC towers didn’t have the hat trusses (installed to hold the antennas, not on the original plans), then they quite possibly would have collapsed pretty much immediately.
Or at least that is what seems to be the consensus. ‘Truther’ sources will, presumably, dispute that.
Yes, Abboud was retained to independently (can’t trust the gummint’, after all) assess whether the collapses were independent events or linked. To do this he had to prove that the aircraft and fire brought each down. (Nano-thermite and dancing Israelis excluded.)
Who retained hm? Silverstein or the insurers?
BTW, I’m not a conspiracy-theorist, and I think you’re mich more of an anti-gummint person than I am, judging by you other comments. Most scientists I know are on the fence about 9/11, because the science is equivocal and NIST’s behaviour is so bizarre. Many people support a new inquiry just to get to the bottom of what the hell has been going on with NIST and the 9/11 Commissions, not because we think the “gummint” did it.
One could ask why you think the “gummint” are Soros-controlled liars in every department except this one, where you trust them completely even when faced with clear evidence of duplicity.
There’s way more solid science to demonstrate NIST’s deceit or incompetence than for many of the “conspiracy” ideas of foreign policy you advocate.
“I think you’re mich more of an anti-gummint person than I am, judging by you other comment”
Possibly, but I’m not anti-reality as established through a scientific approach to testing it.
As to foreign policy, I go by history.
There is a six pages article on the collapse of the buildings on 9/11 entitled “15 Years Later: On the physics of high-rise building collapses” in the Europhysics News Magazine:
http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016-47-4.pdf
They already put this article up on “off-Guardian.”
I have a real life and can not spend all my free time reading what is published here nor in the comments.I also don’t have time to waste with a Pentagon shill! Please, move away!— [no ad hom please -OffG ed]Then don’t waste your time posting ad-hominem attacks.
You’re welcome, by the way.
You are defending/promoting the official conspiracy theory, you are an official shill! This is a fact, period! Now, tell us what you think of the five dancing mossad agents who tried to incriminate the Palestinians of being responsible of the 9/11 when they were arrested, and maybe, maybe I will change my mind and start thinking that you are not a shill, but and hasbara terrorist!
You need to see a psychiatrist.– [no ad hom – OffG ed]Helpful suggestion, I would say.
Presumably the second tirade isn’t ad-hominem, in your assessment? “Pentagon shill”, bad; “Hasbara terrorist”, plausible assertion?
Let’s also look at how quote-mining is used to deceive the reader.
Context for the partial quote from p 20:
(Emphasis mine.)
NIST NCSTAR 1-5G can be found here: https://www.nist.gov/node/599566?pub_id=101039
This document details the processes that were used to build the model for the flooring.
Here is what “FDS” is (p. iii of NCSTAR NIST 1-5F):
(Emphasis mine.)
The relevance of the emphasised sentence was covered in my earlier post.
Context for the partial quotes from p 52:
(Emphasis mine.)
So we find, simply from going to the source and reading the partial quotes in context, that the implication that NIST were either grossly incompetent or engaged in deception is actually a lie.
“Loop Garou” is only parroting what he has been fed from some other source, so the deception originated with that source. He doesn’t give his source.
How do you see the emphasised portions (or anything else in this document) changing the sense of the quote in the article? Are you claiming it proves :
(1) NIST did NOT set the thermal conductivity of the steel in their models to zero? Or…
(2) They DID but they were correct in doing so?
(2) They DID but they were correct in doing so.
The important part above is this:
You don’t seek to make a model more complex than required, especially when you have limited computational power and time to produce a report.
NIST got enormous criticism for not just producing a report immediately, but they are taking a proper, measured, scientific approach to the problem. They don’t merely invoke “controlled demolition” then rely on ignorance to propagate that assertion.
Well this is progress.
You admit – finally – NIST did set the thermal conductivity of the steel in its models to zero. It’s good to get that cleared up as you kept flip-flopping between implying they didn’t do it and calling anyone who said so a liar, and implying they did do it but that was justified.
But now we’re clear. You acknowledge NIST absolutely did set the TC of the steel in their models to zero or near zero, but that this was justified, because it would have made no difference to the results.
In support of this you quote a part of the NIST report you allege was deliberately left out of this article because it shows NIST was quite correct in what it did. Here is the section, with the section omitted in the article in bold :
“….Although the floor slab actually consisted of a metal deck topped with a concrete slab, for the purposes of modeling the gas temperatures, the thermal properties of the entire floor slab were assumed to be that of concrete. The interior walls were assumed to have the properties of gypsum board (thermal conductivity 0.5 W/m/K, density 1,440 kg/m^3, specific heat 0.84 kJ/kg/K).
Do you not see the missing section actually makes it more clear how egregious NIST is being, not less? The “gas temperatures” are a central part of its model for heat transfer and its eventual bizarre claim that cool office fires weakened steel to the point of failure. The hotter the gas temps the more plausible their theory becomes. But NIST artificially raises the potential gas temps by setting the TC to zero and thereby creating the parameter that the steel had virtually no ability to wick the heat way!
This bit is simply balderdash:
“The results were insensitive to the choice of the properties of the various materials. Their role in the model was merely to furnish reasonable boundary conditions for the gas phase calculation. The detailed calculation of the thermal penetration of the structural elements was performed separately using the Fire-Structure Interface developed by Prasad and Baum (NIST NCSTAR 1-5G), and the commercial finite-element software package ANSYS…..”
“The detailed calculation” about thermal penetration may have been done separately, but they used the “gas phase” data produced by THIS MODEL! (actually read NIST NCSTAR 1-5G!).
“This bit is simply balderdash:”
You didn’t explain why.
NIST detail the models used and how they inter-relate. If you think that NIST botched something up then try to explain the where and why.
“cool office fires”
Ever been in an office fire? Temperatures of near 800 degrees C are “cool”?
Crackpot claim.
It’s only a crackpot claim if you don’t understand the language of physics. An 800deg fire is a cool fire, and certainly not one usually thought capable of weakening steel. Which is why iron stoves and steel barbecues don’t collapse every time they’re used.
NIST had to try and find a way to explain how these cool fires could possibly have impacted so heavily on the steel, hence the mickey mouse with the thermal conductivity.
Making up stuff just makes you appear to be a liar. Or do you have a citation for the definition of a “cool fire”, in physics?
Do you understand the difference between Farenheit and Celcius? Your stove is not going to have a setting for 800 degrees C.
What in sam’s hill are you talking about Jerome?
The temp inside of a wood burning stove can get to around 1500F (800C) . The stove does not instantly break apart and collapse as a result.
An office fire is a relatively cool fire. Sorry, chum, it just is. Burning furniture and fittings in normal atmosphere is not going to generate temps of more than around 500-900C , and probably a lot less. But a fire of 900C in contact with a steel girder WON’T produce a steel temp of 900C, because the steel will be wicking away the heat through thermal conductivity. This is why an office fire – even a relatively hot one – simply does not have the fuel or oxygen available to heat steel to weakening point.
Which is why steel frame buildings have NEVER collapsed due to fire.
Remember, NIST was trying to build a model where office fires can heat steel to the point of structural failure, which has never happened in the real world , so it had to tweak and bend the physics to make the impossible happen. One way it tried to do that was to eliminate the wicking effect by setting the thermal conductivity of the steel in it models to zero.
How many friggin more times?
.
No citation for your “cool fire” claim.
That makes you look like a liar, Loop. Or perhaps just a slightly over-the-top fantasist.
NOTE FROM ADMIN: These links were provided by Loop Garou in a reply at the top of the page:
This gives you the temps of flame in various open and room fires:
https://www.doctorfire.com/flametmp.html
This is NIST’s own study of fire dynamics that gives some temps and also gives some info about heat conductivity that might help you understand the basic physics:
https://www.nist.gov/%3Cfront%3E/fire-dynamics
Here’s a basic google search for typical house fire temps
https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=typical+temerature+of+room+fires&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=2ZrkV_O7Fa_A8gfQnZ6oCg#q=typical+house+fire+temperature
They didn’t, so the headline is a lie. — [The NIST report clearly states in its own pages this is EXACTLY what it did (see ATL for the sourced quotations) – OffG ed.]
“off-Guardian: Because facts really should be sacred.”– [no content-free ad hom please – OffG ed.]But headlines? Meh. Why should they be factual?
(Are you sure that this isn’t just an exercise in plumping out a CV for getting a job in the mainstream media? I doubt The Graun would quite stoop to that level of misrepresentation in a headline). [no content-free ad hom please – OffG ed.]This is from the NIST report as quoted in the article:
“The steel was assumed in the FDS model to be thermally-thin, thus, no thermal conductivity was used.” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 20
What does Jerome think the phrase “no thermal conductivity was used” means?
Addressed above.
Just answer the simple direct question – what does the phrase “no thermal conductivity was used” mean?
It means exactly what is stated. They did not include that as a parameter for the purposes of the model.
As I made clear in the post above.
You’re falling for the deliberately evasive and obscurantist language NIST is using to cover some of their larger gaffs. They absolutely did NOT turn the thermal conductivity of the steel down to zero to save computer power! If they wanted to exclude parameters to save computing power they would simply have done that – exclude the parameter. But they specifically included the parameter. They set it to zero which is a parameter.
Don’t be bamboozled. Look, this is from the part of the report you posted as proof of “quote-mining” :
“Although the floor slab actually consisted of a metal deck topped with a concrete slab, for the purposes of modeling the gas temperatures, the thermal properties of the entire floor slab were assumed to be that of concrete…..”
Aren’t you curious about how setting the thermal conductivity of the steel to zero can make no difference to the temps of the gas circulating? Do you not realise the steel would wick the heat away from the gas and therefore cool it – unless its conductivity was set to zero?
Just one example of how you can’t punch in unreal parameters and expect to get a real result.
“Aren’t you curious about how setting the thermal conductivity of the steel to zero can make no difference to the temps of the gas circulating? Do you not realise the steel would wick the heat away from the gas and therefore cool it – unless its conductivity was set to zero?”
Did you see the graphs of surface temperature? Notice the wiggly lines labelled “(Exp)” and those labelled “(FDS)”? If the wiggly lines are very close together, then FDS is fit for purpose. (You can whinge all you want about what you think the model should be: it works as NIST built it.)
No, it doesn’t, and no, they did not. Here is your headline:
“Why did NIST decide WTC steel could not conduct heat?”
They did no such thing, thus your headline is nonsense.
“Why did NIST omit thermal conductivity from (some parts of) their models?” would be accurate, and not misleading (to put it mildly).
Your choice of articles, how you frame them with your editorial additions, headlines, and ‘moderation’ of comments all make it extremely obvious that you are not interested in the ‘truther’ assertions being debunked.
They didn’t “omit” the thermal conductivity. They set it to zero. Zero is a quantity. It’s a parameter. This means the thermal properties of the steel were programmed in to the model and did affect the outcome.
This is entirely different from omitting thermal properties. If you do that you have to omit ALL thermal properties. Not just some. If the model wasn’t concerned with thermal properties they simply would not have set any thermal properties at all, for anything.
Read their own words. They don’t say “we omitted this calculation.” They don’t say “we were not concerned with the thermal properties of the steel because this model did not consider heat distribution.” You know why they don’t say that? because the model was concerned with thermal properties – the thermal properties of the “gas phase.”
They modelled the potential heat present in the gases inside the combusting WTC 1 and 2. And as part of this they assumed the steel floors and trusses had no ability to conduct the heat in the gas!
You know what the inevitable result of this would be? It would be that the gas in the model became hotter than it could in real life. Because in real life the steel would be wicking away some of the heat, and in the model it won’t.
“They didn’t “omit” the thermal conductivity. They set it to zero. Zero is a quantity. It’s a parameter. This means the thermal properties of the steel were programmed in to the model and did affect the outcome.”
Didn’t affect the outcome — as determined by comparing the model to the physical tests.
The NIST NCSTAR 1-5F document referred to is here:
https://www.nist.gov/node/599776?pub_id=101420
The initial “real-world experimentation” (not mentioned further in the article) is critical to understanding how the models were created and proven.
This is a fairly complex document, but some important points concerning whether the models were fit for purpose can be extracted.
Chapter 3 — Model Accuracy Assessment – Steady Fires
…
Simulations of the experiments with the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) were performed before testing began to guide the design of the compartment and also to provide a baseline set of “blind” predictions. (p. 19)
3.6 SUMMARY
The purpose of the spray fire experiments and simulations was to quantify the uncertainty of FDS for a fire scenario in which the fire and compartment were very well characterized. Using a well-established correlation between the compartment temperature and the heat release rate of the fire, it was possible to propagate the uncertainty in the measurement of the heat release rate to the measurement of the upper layer temperature and then finally to the measurement of the heat flux to the walls and structural members. The FDS predictions fell within the uncertainty bounds of the gas temperatures, which implied that the model was accurate to within 10 percent of the measurements of upper and lower layer temperatures. This is important because in the analysis of the WTC fires, FDS was used to predict the gas temperatures in the vicinity of the floor trusses, and these temperatures were transferred, via the Fire-Structure Interface (FSI), to a detailed model of the thermal response of the structural components (trusses, columns, floor slabs).
…
Changes in various other physical parameters, like the thermal conductivity, also did not significantly change the results. This was important because the initial and boundary conditions in the WTC simulations were far less certain than those of these experiments.(p. 30, emphasis mine.)
Chapter 4 — Model Accuracy Assessment – Workstation Fires
…
4.4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Six experiments were performed within the compartment, of which five were simulated because Tests 1
and 2 were replicate tests. Figures 4–6 and 4–7 show pictures of an actual test and a corresponding
simulation. Both the heat release rate and the compartment temperatures were compared. Figure 4–8
displays comparison plots of measured and predicted heat release rates. Figure 4–9 displays the upper
layer temperature for Test 1 at four locations (clockwise from upper left: near window, between
workstations, behind workstations, rear wall). The measured and predicted temperatures for all the tests
were similar to those shown in Fig. 4–9. Peak temperatures near the compartment opening were about
1,000 °C, decreasing to 800 °C at the very back of the compartment. The trend was captured in the simulations. The decrease in temperature was important because in the simulations of the WTC fires, the only basis of comparison was the visual observations of fires around the exterior of the buildings. It was important to demonstrate that the model not only predicted accurately the temperature near the windows, but also the decrease in temperature as a function of distance from the windows. The temperature predictions for the other tests were similar and are included in NIST NCSTAR 1-5E.(p. 39, emphasis mine.)
…
4.5 SUMMARY
From a modeling perspective, the objective of the simulations of the single and multiple workstation fires
was to develop a simplified representation of the office furnishings found throughout the WTC, and then
demonstrate that the fire model was capable of reproducing the thermal environment of a compartment filled with these furnishings. Because of the magnitude of the simulations of the building fires, the model of the workstation had to be fairly simple. However, because of the many uncertainties in the initial conditions of the fire simulations, the lack of detail in the model was not considered to be a problem. The model fires had similar growth patterns, peak heat release rates, decay patterns, and compartment temperatures. All agreed with measurements to within about 20 percent, an accuracy that was sufficient given the uncertainty in the state of the building and its furnishings following the impact of the airplanes. The office workstation was considered a surrogate for a wide variety of furnishings found throughout the WTC. It would have been impossible to analyze and burn every item known to have been in the buildings, and even if it were possible to study more than just the workstation, the model would have still demanded that the items be represented in the form of simplified combinations of paper, wood and plastic materials. As will be discussed in the next chapter, the properties of the idealized office workstation were subjected to a sensitivity analysis to account for both the model inaccuracies and the narrow selection of test specimens.(p. 42-43, emphasis mine.)
Agreed. If you don’t understand what the model was, and ignore how it was proven, then you can (in your ignorance) focus on a detail that looks important but is, in fact, irrelevant.
Are you saying NIST’s physical tests proves steel has a thermal conductivity of zero?
If not, why did they set the thermal conductivity of the steel in the models to zero?
Because the models worked adequately with those simplifications.
They did real-world tests, then worked on their models until they replicated the real-world. At that point, the models are fit for purpose.
Really, you should just download and look at these documents. Even if you have no scientific background at all, you should be able to see the thoroughness of the approach that was taken.
The software they were using, by the way, is commercial software designed for the purpose of checking designs for fire-resistance prior to building them. One goal of the NIST study was to find the reasons for failure (the design flaws), in order that this not happen again.
What does “the models worked adequately” mean to you? If you mean the model resulted in a fire-induced collapse then yes, of course it did, because NIST tweaked the parameters to achieve that result.
The point you seem incapable of understanding is that the only way they could tweak it enough was by defying known physical laws and turning the heat conductivity of steel down to zero.
You really should read the NIST document, because you are simply showing a complete failure to understand the model and how it was developed.
What do you think NIST should have been doing? They performed physical tests (see the document), took the measurements from those physical tests, then adjusted the models until they replicated those test results.
Again:
Note the part in italics.
If you can’t understand this, then there is nothing further that I can add.
“like the thermal conductivity”
(Didn’t show up above.)
“Changes in various other physical parameters, like the thermal conductivity, also did not significantly change the results. This was important because the initial and boundary conditions in the WTC simulations were far less certain than those of these experiments”
If NIST won’t release all of the data and methodology it used for modelling the result it got, how can anyone VERIFY that “Changes in various other physical parameters, like the thermal conductivity, also did not significantly change the results.”
Do you have the necessary information to verify, Jerome? Did you do the verification? Do you know of anyone who did? Because you talk as if you do. And if you don’t, shouldn’t you just be quiet? Oh, but you’ve already said you have nothing further to add. Now that’s a start, eh.
If you are rejecting the NIST report, then do so in an intellectually honest manner. Just say that you don’t believe them because you don’t like the conclusion.
You are entirely free to read through their report and critique it. Pointing to something they Included as a methodological note (to help with understanding their process) and misidentifying that as a ‘flaw’ suggests that you’re going to have some problems.
The intellectually honest thing to do, Jerome, is to offer ‘reasons’ why you don’t like NIST’s conclusion if you have more than an emotion to go on, eh.
They want the world to believe that setting the heat conductivity of steel to nil doesn’t affect the output of their model. Unless you have the model in hand and all of the parameters that NIST used as inputs into their model, you have to take what they are saying in this particular respect on faith, eh.
Is this, for you, an example of intellectual honesty, Jerome: I can’t verify what they are saying, but I should believe them because they are NIST, and so I do? Or shouldn’t it rather be, if one is being intellectually rigorous and honest with oneself: I can’t verify their claim because they won’t release their data and methodology in detail, and so I don’t know that it is either true or false?
So which one of those examples, Jerome, is more fit as an example of “intellectual honesty?” The one that damns the limits of what one knows oneself not to know but accedes to belief regardless; Or the one that concedes to the limit of what one knows oneself to know and therefore suspends judgement until the matter can be actually be decided one way or the other?
Do you know what the phrase “intellectual honesty” even means, Jerome?
“They want the world to believe that setting the heat conductivity of steel to nil doesn’t affect the output of their model.”
No, they don’t. They want anyone able to understand their documentation to be able to see how they approached calibrating the model to their physical test results, and noted simplifications that they later covered.
Those parts, such as the section you have noted, but also this — “Changes in various other physical parameters, like the thermal conductivity, also did not significantly change the results.” — are useful to anyone reproducing the experiments. Rather than having a hopelessly complex model, you can try the simplifications and see if they agree with your own physical testing, then carry on (saving a lot of time and effort). If you did find a discrepancy, then you could go to NIST and ask them why your model has a discrepancy. If NIST didn’t note this sort of methodological short-cut then you’d simply not know.
“Unless you have the model in hand and all of the parameters that NIST used as inputs into their model, you have to take what they are saying in this particular respect on faith, eh.”
No. NIST isn’t a faith-based organisation, unlike the ‘truther’ movement. All of the professional criticism of the NIST models have suggested that they were too conservative — they under estimated the effect of the fires — but draw the same conclusions as to the collapse. No explosives of any sort are required.
Nobody disagrees with NIST who is not 1) already a committed ‘truther’, and 2) has demonstrated no understanding of the NIST documents (e.g. the source used for this article).
I could not have said it better myself:
“Nobody disagrees with NIST who is not 1) already a committed ‘truther’, and 2) has demonstrated no understanding of the NIST documents (e.g. the source used for this article).”
Well, maybe a bit better but without the least distortion of the meaning of what you have written, Jerome:
“Who is not a committed truther AND has demonstrated no understanding of the NIST documdents (eg. the source used for this article), disagrees with NST.”
Finally we agree on something, Jerome.
LOL. Now you got me writing like you!
Correction:
“Who is not a committed truther AND has demonstrated no understanding of the NIST documdents (eg. the source used for this article), agrees with NST.”
[not “. . . disagrees with . . .”]
There, fixed it for me.
Finally we agree on something, Jerome.
I’m not entirely sure that I understand your response, Norman.
It appears that you are saying that anyone trusting the international system of standards laboratories, and the rigorous processes that keep this system working, is being foolish.
They should place their trust in cranks who can’t even read a document.
Would that be a reasonable summation of your argument?
Dear Jerome,
I muffed up an opportunity to giggle a little at your expense but with you.
You wrote,
“Nobody disagrees with NIST who is not 1) already a committed ‘truther’, and 2) has demonstrated no understanding of the NIST documents (e.g. the source used for this article).”
Lets break this down into the two categories of people who, according to your statement, tend to agree with NIST on the issue of 9/11:
A) a person who “is not already a committed ‘truther'”
AND
B) a person who “has demonstrated no understanding of the NIST documents (e.g. the source used for this article)”
The slip up has to do with category B), as you yourself have defined it, and I have emphasized the detail I wish to call to your attention. It seems as though on an unconscious level, at least, your “intellectual integrity” is alive and well.
It’s okay, we all do it, and I just did it in my next to last reply to you, and thereby missed an opportunity simply to make you laugh at yourself a little, instead of just having others do it without your willing participation.
We might have laughed together, n’est-ce pas? That had been my hope. Alas, it was not to be.
“Yes” would have sufficed, Norman.
No, Jerome.
Metal that doesn’t conduct heat is up there with the ground in Shanksville, PA liquefying and swallowing up 200,000 pounds of Flight 93.
It’s amazing, simply amazing the number of violations of the laws of science that occurred only on 9/11, like the NIST warping the term, ‘thermal expansion’ and applying their new science to WTC 7, also stating that their new science could only be used for WTC 7 and shouldn’t be considered when investigating other building collapses due to heat, if they ever find any.
If we’re to believe that jet fuel, which is a form of enhanced kerosene, could generate enough heat to warp the steel in the WTC Twins to the point of collapse, I’m surprised some federal agency didn’t announce a recall on all kerosene heaters used in homes.
In a post-truth society all that is required is to align within the assertions of perceived power, regardless their truth – because the end-justified means are given faith and allegiance in continuance of the existing paradigm of self, world and power, which operates a segregative and separating exclusion of ‘mind-control’.
Those who hold that truth is something other than the power to set narratives of personal identity within conditioned patterns of survival, control and self-specialness are obliged to release their allegiances to a false power truly exposed as such.
Expecting or demanding a rational process of communication from the fear-defended is a mistake – but willingness to communicate from and honesty of being is a correction of mistake. However, willingness cannot force another to listen – but can bring witness to such willingness as is present.
Infiltration or corruption of ‘truth’ movements is evidenced in ‘justifying’ hate, anger and withdrawing of humanity and consequently withholding willingness for communication – and this ‘mindset’ is the ‘paradigm’ of the perpetrators of hate-crimes and deceits.
The ‘reasons’ put forward in support of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory are only given such status because of the power behind them.
It looked to me on recorded video as if steel girders can turn almost instantly to dust – but I have no way of verifying the videos for certain so I don’t rest my certainty there – but in observing what the event was and is still being used for. That a mass psychological operation has been carried out is not in doubt for me – even if the exact modalities of its various strands remain open to probabilities of conjecture.
As for what I myself choose to use it for – that is my freedom to explore and uncover – but reverse engineering of deceits – including psyops is a way of illuminating the way the mind is being employed and conditioned to be used. Because very few are willing to look within – very many are willing to react from conditioned identities in ways that further the splitting and weakening agenda of a ‘mind’ unlike our true nature – to which the true is sacrificed and predated upon by deceits willingly identified in and defended.
the NIST scientists must be shown to be fools who are completely ignorant of the physical properties of construction materials, or in the alternative complicit in terrorism. Otherwise they would get away with falsifying a crucial report, one that is of utmost importance to national security (traitors in the White House and CIA)!
Let that which is not true be seen as not true. And let that which is criminal be tried and law applied accordingly.
Framing in terms of showing people to be fools or terrorist accomplices is the overlay of a personal agenda that will be picked up on and used to justify denying such communication getting through.
I am focusing more on what is operating our minds unseen – because what we take to be our mind is already ‘hacked’ thinking.
But in simple terms be aware that most of us comply with the power that holds our sense of life and self hostage.
The lack of dissent or any critical challenge after 9/11 was not total – but was not far from it. Was that foolish or complicit – or was it a sense of survival necessity that then subsided to a capacity to re-evaluate? Is not that how life often happens?
I think it is most likely that the NIST scientists are smart and are not fools, and one assumes they must, at some level, retain some shred of scientific integrity. NIST is not a truly independent body since it is a part of the US government system, which makes these NIST scientists non-independent employees of the government machine. God knows what they were threatened (or bribed?) with to cause them to churn out this hokum, but it must have been something pretty big.
Reblogged this on Taking Sides.
Well worded. Good points.