I have decided that this argument is invalid because it assumes that controlled demolition causes a building to fall at free fall. This is hardly ever the case. However, this particular argument gave me an idea on how to figure out if the rate of the Towers' collapses was consistent with demolition.
A free fall drop of 15 seconds would be from a height of approximately 3617 feet. The Towers were approximately 1368 feet tall. 3617/1368 = 2.64
Therefore, a 15 second free fall drop would be from a height approximately 2.6 times higher than either of the Towers. Now let's do this with buildings that are all known demolitions.
15 story building. 155 feet tall. Free fall time would be approximately 3.1 seconds.
Its actual fall time was about 6.25 seconds. How tall would the structure have to be to free fall in that amount of time?
629/155 = 4.05
A 6.25 second free fall drop would be from a height about 4 times higher than this building.
30 story building. 380 feet tall. Free fall time would be approximately 4.86 seconds.
A free fall drop in 7.375 seconds would be from a height of about 875 feet.
875/380 = 2.3
A 7.375 second free fall drop would be from a height of over twice that of this building.
31 story building. 376 feet tall. Free fall time would be approximately 4.83 seconds.
A free fall drop in about 10 seconds would be from a height of about 1640 feet.
1640/376 = 4.4
A 10 second free fall drop would be from a height over 4 times higher than this building.
24 story building. Approximately 288 feet tall. Free fall time would be about 4.23 seconds.
A free fall drop in 8.4 seconds would be from a height of about 1139 feet.
1139/288 = 3.95
An 8.4 second free fall drop would be from a height about 4 times higher than this building.
20 story building. Approximately 240 feet tall. Free fall time would be about 3.86 seconds.
A free fall drop in 6 seconds would be from a height of about 590 feet.
590/240 = 2.45
A 6 second free fall drop would be from a height about 2 and a half times higher than building.
So, to summarize:
(15 story building) 629 ÷ 155 = 4.06 About four times higher
(30 story building) 875 ÷ 380 = 2.3 About two and a third times higher.
(31 story building) 1640 ÷ 376 = 4.4 Almost four and a half times higher.
(24 story building) 1139 ÷ 288 = 3.95 Almost four times higher.
(20 story building) 590 ÷ 240 = 2.45 Almost two and a half times higher.
And for the Towers:
3617 ÷ 1368 = 2.6 About two and a half times higher.
It was seem that, based on the debunkers' own arguments, the Towers evidently did fall in time intervals that would be considered consistent with buildings brought down with controlled demolition. But this is extremely problematic because:
a) Both of the collapses started from the upper sections of the buildings, not the bottoms.
and b) Supposedly no explosives were used to bring the buildings down according to the official story.
The only other example of a steel structured building collapsing from top-down due to fire is the partial collapse of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. This building was a 13-story structure that burned for over 7 hours. A section of its facade collapsed from the fire. Here's how long it took to collapse.
10 seconds for 13 stories to partially collapse. (13 stories equals approximately 160 feet) How tall would the structure have to be to free fall in 10 seconds?
About ten times taller.
In conclusion, the rate of fall of the Twin Towers appears to be consistent with the rate of fall for buildings brought down with controlled demolition. At the same time, their fall rates are inconsistent with the rate in which other steel framed buildings have fallen top to bottom from fire. So ask yourself, "what is more likely to have destroyed the buildings? Fire or explosives?" You decide.
Update:
This is extremely problematic in the case of Building 7.
47 story building. 610 feet tall. Free fall time would be 6.1 seconds.
See: Clarifying the Collapse Time of WTC 7
A free fall drop in 6.6 seconds would be from a height of about 701 feet.
701/610 = 1.1
A free fall drop of 6.6 seconds would be from a height less than 100 feet shorter than the height of Building 7. In other words, NIST would have us believe that fire accomplished something that even explosives don't always accomplish.
Showing posts with label demolition freefall time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label demolition freefall time. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Collapse Rates of the WTC Consistent With Controlled Demolition
An argument against controlled demolition debunkers have raised is that the WTC did not collapse at free fall rates. It is well known that a free fall drop from the height of one of the Twin Towers would be about 9.2 seconds. I except that the Towers took closer to around 15 seconds to collapse, so to the layperson like myself the addition of a few seconds doesn't seem to make a huge difference. However, debunkers have noted it does in fact make a very big difference. They point out that in order for an object to free fall in 15 seconds, it would have to be dropped from a height more than twice that of either Tower.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Debunker Verinage Fantasies are Bunk!
I was gonna make a video out of this but I couldn't be bothered. Also my camera battery charger is busted and I can't do any narration until I get another one.
There's been a number of posts the last few months on the JREF forum about a european method of demolition known as "Verinage". Basically this method involves weakening a few floors and displacing the weakened floors to cause the entire top section to slam into the lower section. The thermite deniers claim videos of this method of demolition prove that the upper floors of the north tower could have destroyed the rest of the building at a rate comparible to freefall, since the time it takes for these buildings to fall is comparible to a freefall time.
However, as I touched on briefly in my Fires, Explosions, Demolitions, Collapses, Crushdowns and the World Trade Center video, the Verinage demolitions actually seem to support our claims because in all three of the videos I could find, the rate of fall appeared to slow down after the upper section impacted the lower section.
I never actually measured the rate of fall of these buildings though. Well I have now. One evening when I was making my pop culture video, I had a bit of a mad moment and decided to use Adobe After Effects to depict the Queen stealing Miley Cyrus' soul! My crude 70s Sci-Fi FX aside, in order to make that I had to learn how to use motion tracking.
When I found out that After Effects even makes a speed-time graph of the motion, I decided to motion track some points on these Verinage videos to see how the speed changed over time.
ABC Tower, Balzac, Vitry-sur-Seine
February 14, 2007
Three points were tracked and the three tracks were averaged. The graph below is the speed-time graph of the average.
Glacis, Belfort
February 21, 2008
Five points were tracked and the five tracks were averaged. The footage was stabilized first. The graph below is the speed-time graph of the average.
Broca Tower, Argenteuil
August 22, 2007
Five points were tracked and the five tracks were averaged. The footage was stabilized first. The graph below is the speed-time graph of the average.
Now I don't claim this to be in any way scientific. All three videos are at an angle and the graphs are speed-time graphs, not velocity-time graphs, so obviously there's gonna be some accuracy issues, but still I think this gives you a fairly good idea of what a section of building falling on another section of building should look like. Notice how in all three cases there's an initial acceleration and then upon impact the acceleration abruptly ceases and a deceleration trend begins. This is exactly what we would expect using basic physics and common sense. The tracks go a bit wild towards the end because of the dust clouds getting in the way, that's why I did several and averaged. Now let's look at the north tower ...
Three points were tracked. This was a bit more difficult because of the smoke. The graph below is of all three tracks together.
I think that's pretty clear! Just like Chandlers' analysis and MacQueen & Szamboti's analysis, my tracks have produced a reasonably straight line. For at least two seconds the north tower accelerated constantly, further proof of the lack of jolt.
The three Verinage demolitions are perhaps the closest real-world examples we have for comparison to the North Tower, and they clearly behave differently. The fact remains that what happened to the north tower was unprecedented, regardless of how much you wanna exaggerate the tilt!
See Also:
Einsteen, Szamboti and Greening's analysis of the Balzac-Vitry demolition
(From here)
What a Gravity-Driven Demolition Looks Like
by David Chandler
Lack of Deceleration of North Tower’s Upper Section Proves Use of Explosives
by Tony Szamboti
There's been a number of posts the last few months on the JREF forum about a european method of demolition known as "Verinage". Basically this method involves weakening a few floors and displacing the weakened floors to cause the entire top section to slam into the lower section. The thermite deniers claim videos of this method of demolition prove that the upper floors of the north tower could have destroyed the rest of the building at a rate comparible to freefall, since the time it takes for these buildings to fall is comparible to a freefall time.
However, as I touched on briefly in my Fires, Explosions, Demolitions, Collapses, Crushdowns and the World Trade Center video, the Verinage demolitions actually seem to support our claims because in all three of the videos I could find, the rate of fall appeared to slow down after the upper section impacted the lower section.
I never actually measured the rate of fall of these buildings though. Well I have now. One evening when I was making my pop culture video, I had a bit of a mad moment and decided to use Adobe After Effects to depict the Queen stealing Miley Cyrus' soul! My crude 70s Sci-Fi FX aside, in order to make that I had to learn how to use motion tracking.
When I found out that After Effects even makes a speed-time graph of the motion, I decided to motion track some points on these Verinage videos to see how the speed changed over time.
ABC Tower, Balzac, Vitry-sur-Seine
February 14, 2007
Three points were tracked and the three tracks were averaged. The graph below is the speed-time graph of the average.
Glacis, Belfort
February 21, 2008
Five points were tracked and the five tracks were averaged. The footage was stabilized first. The graph below is the speed-time graph of the average.
Broca Tower, Argenteuil
August 22, 2007
Five points were tracked and the five tracks were averaged. The footage was stabilized first. The graph below is the speed-time graph of the average.
Now I don't claim this to be in any way scientific. All three videos are at an angle and the graphs are speed-time graphs, not velocity-time graphs, so obviously there's gonna be some accuracy issues, but still I think this gives you a fairly good idea of what a section of building falling on another section of building should look like. Notice how in all three cases there's an initial acceleration and then upon impact the acceleration abruptly ceases and a deceleration trend begins. This is exactly what we would expect using basic physics and common sense. The tracks go a bit wild towards the end because of the dust clouds getting in the way, that's why I did several and averaged. Now let's look at the north tower ...
Three points were tracked. This was a bit more difficult because of the smoke. The graph below is of all three tracks together.
I think that's pretty clear! Just like Chandlers' analysis and MacQueen & Szamboti's analysis, my tracks have produced a reasonably straight line. For at least two seconds the north tower accelerated constantly, further proof of the lack of jolt.
The three Verinage demolitions are perhaps the closest real-world examples we have for comparison to the North Tower, and they clearly behave differently. The fact remains that what happened to the north tower was unprecedented, regardless of how much you wanna exaggerate the tilt!
See Also:
Einsteen, Szamboti and Greening's analysis of the Balzac-Vitry demolition
(From here)
What a Gravity-Driven Demolition Looks Like
by David Chandler
Lack of Deceleration of North Tower’s Upper Section Proves Use of Explosives
by Tony Szamboti
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
