An examination of the two opposing hypotheses for the destruction of World Trade Center 7 rules out the official explanation of fire-induced collapse.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), videos of the collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center 7 on September 11, 2001 show the building succumbing to a fire-induced progressive collapse. Many independent researchers and scientists, however, including over 1,400 professional architects and engineers who have signed a petition calling for a new investigation, disagree, pointing to evidence that it was deliberately brought down in a controlled demolition.
Despite the dramatically different conclusions drawn, there does exist widespread agreement on both sides on a number of important questions. Proponents of both hypotheses agree that the damage to WTC 7 sustained from the impact of debris from the collapse of the north tower (WTC 1) was not an initiating or determinative factor in the collapse. Both sides also agree that the system of transfer trusses and girders in the building that allowed it to be constructed above the Consolidated Edison New York electric power substation played no role in the collapse, that hypothetical fuel oil fires from tanks stored in the building for emergency generators was not a causal factor, and that the office fires did not result in any significant loss of strength of the building’s load-bearing steel columns.
While NIST initially denied that the building achieved gravitational acceleration during its collapse in its draft report for public comment, it was forced to acknowledge that this was indeed the case in its final report after high school physics teacher David Chandler submitted his own analysis showing that the building collapsed at free-fall for approximately 2.5 seconds, and that there was a sudden onset of free-fall. According to NIST, the period of free-fall was 2.25 seconds.
To illustrate, what this means is that for 8 stories, or more than 100 feet, the building fell at the same rate as would a bowling ball dropped from the same height and falling through the air.
Proponents of the controlled demolition hypothesis argue that elementary laws of physics rule out the fire-induced collapse hypothesis. They point out, for example, that the law of conservation of energy dictates that free-fall means all of the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means there was no energy remaining to do the work of buckling the columns, as is required by NIST’s hypothesis. The corollary is that there must have been some external source of energy acting on the columns for this free-fall to have occurred.
NIST argues in its final report that the rate of collapse was consistent with its computer models. However, language that the collapse was consistent with physical principles that existed in the draft report, in which NIST denied free-fall, was removed from the final report, in which free-fall is acknowledged.
Independent researchers point to other evidence that NIST failed to account for in its hypothesis, such as the presence of active thermitic material in the dust from the collapses of the World Trade Center buildings, consistent with nano-thermite. This material was found in four separate samples of the dust collected from four separate locations following the collapses. An international team of scientists issued a paper of their study of these red/gray chips found in the dust in the peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal in 2009, though to date, there remains a blackout on the topic in the mainstream U.S. media.
The material found in the dust is not a naturally occurring substance, but a manufactured material of highly advanced technology. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, has released a paper noting that by controlling the composition of energetic materials at the nanometer scale, a more efficient chemical reaction can be produced, with applications for making explosives. The thermite reaction is specifically cited as an example. A publication of the U.S. Department of Defense has similarly pointed out that energetic materials produced on the nanoscale, such nanothermite, has applications for “high-power, high-energy composite explosives”.
The ability of thermite to cut through steel has long been known. It involves a chemical reaction between aluminum and iron oxide, which produces aluminum oxide and molten iron. When sulfur is added to the thermite mixture, it is known as thermate. Conventional thermite, however, is an incendiary, while nano-thermite, or super thermite, results in a much more efficient chemical reaction, with much more explosive results, as noted by the Departments of Energy and Defense.
Also a “signature” of the WTC dust is the presence of iron-rich microspheres, which shows that the iron must have been molten prior to or during the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings, with the surface tension of the liquid forming a sphere before cooling and solidifying in that shape. Yet NIST itself points out that fires did not burn at anywhere near the temperature required to melt iron or steel. Such spheres are a known byproduct, however, of the thermite reaction.
And while NIST claims that no steel was recovered from WTC 7, it could not have been unaware of a sample that was recovered and studied by a team from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The steel had been severely corroded, showing signs of intergranular melting and sulfidation, with a “swiss cheese”-like appearance. The New York Times referred to this piece of steel as “Perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation”, and the team’s findings and recommendations for further study were published as Appendix C of the report of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Although NIST was tasked with carrying out the recommendations of the FEMA report, it ignored Appendix C altogether and implicitly denied the very existence of this steel.
Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, who headed up a separate effort with funding from the National Science Foundation to investigate the steel and recover important evidence, also recovered a piece of steel from WTC 7. He described steel flanges that “had been reduced from an inch thick to paper thin” to the New York Times. “Parts of the flat top of the I [of the “I-beam”], once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized,” he observed.
The reason so little steel was recovered from WTC 7 is that it was quickly destroyed after having been removed from the site during the search and rescue operations. Engineers across the country were outraged by the destruction, prompting Bill Manning, editor-in-chief of Fire Engineering magazine, to write an editorial lambasting the official investigation under FEMA as “a half-baked farce”.
In stark contrast, in testimony at the Hearing Before the Committee on Science in the U.S. House of Representatives, the head of the FEMA investigation, Dr. Gene Corley, expressed little concern about the destruction of evidence and denied that it hampered the investigation.
Corley’s insouciance about the destruction was further contrasted by Manning’s prescient conclusion that “if they continue in such fashion, the investigation into the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer-generated hypotheticals.” Indeed, the NIST report itself observes that its WTC 7 investigation was conducted with no physical evidence, and its hypothesis relied entirely upon computer models.
While the removal of debris from the site of the World Trade Center disaster, or Ground Zero, was normal and necessary, the destruction of evidence from a crime scene is a felony offense under U.S. law. Yet no government or law enforcement agency has sought to hold anyone accountable for the destruction of the steel and other evidence from the WTC.
Another unsolved mystery about the collapse is the prolonged fires that burned under the rubble for months afterward, despite a number of rainfalls and the round-the-clock efforts of firefighters to extinguish them. Many credible witnesses, including scientists and engineers, reported seeing molten iron or steel at the site.
When asked about this phenomenon, NIST investigator Dr. John Gross responded by denying not only that there was molten iron or steel, but that he had even heard any such reports. Yet one witness who described seeing “hot spots of molten metal” at Ground Zero was Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolitions, Inc., who was contracted to remove debris from the site and was also a consultant for the NIST report. Dr. Astaneh-Asl was also among those testified to having seen “melting of girders”.
While the official response to this and other testimonial evidence is to dismiss it, proponents of the alternative hypothesis have suggested the possibility that ongoing chemical reactions from the use of thermitic materials might help to explain why the fires could have burned for so long, despite several rainfalls and firefighters’ best efforts, and how such temperatures could have occurred in the oxygen-starved environment under the rubble.
There are other holes in NIST’s hypothesis apart from its failure to account for the physical and testimonial evidence. It requires, for example, that fires were raging in the northeast area on the 12th floor, and it input data assuming this scenario into its simulations. Yet the NIST report itself states that fires only burned in any given area for 20-30 minutes before moving on, and NIST extensively documents the fires from photographic and video evidence, showing that the fire had burned through this area and already moved on, burning towards the west end of the floor at the time of the collapse at 5:20 pm.
Apart from the unscientific approach of inputting data according to an assumption contradicted by their own evidence, NIST also assumed its own worst-case scenario for maximum fire temperature and duration, and carried only that scenario forward into its final computer analyses. NIST has also refused to release its computer data for others to verify and reproduce their results — a remarkable rejection of the scientific method for an agency claiming to have used science to prove the fire-induced collapse hypothesis.
Ph.D. chemist F. R. Greening, who does not accept the controlled demolition hypothesis and has debated it with its proponents, stated in comments on the NIST draft report, “The main problem with the NIST fire simulation appears to be the calculated duration of the fire on the 12th and 13th floors of WTC 7…. In view of the fact that NIST appears to have overestimated the intensity and duration of the fires in WTC 7, particularly on floors 12 and 13, it follows that the heating of the structural steel is also overestimated in the WTC 7 Draft Report. This is fatal to the overall validity of NIST’s collapse initiation hypothesis….”
The NIST hypothesis is that fires on the 12th floor caused thermal expansion of 13th floor beams in the northeast of the building. As a result of this thermal expansion, shear studs, which make the beams composite with the metal decking and concrete floor slab above, failed. The expanding beams then pushed a girder spanning between the core and perimeter columns, causing its welds and connections to fail and the girder to rock off its seat where it was attached to the northeastern-most core column, number 79. This failure resulted in the local collapse of the 13th floor. The floors below, where beams were also weakened due to heat from the fires, could not sustain the impact, and so a cascading series of floor failures resulted. Column 79, unsupported laterally over nine stories, buckled. Column failure then progressed through the core, from east to west, and, as load was transferred to the perimeter columns, the entire building began to move downward as a single unit.
This is what one may witness in videos of the collapse of WTC 7, according to NIST. The FEMA report noted that the building “imploded”, and NIST lead investigator Dr. Shyam Sunder stated that because the core failed first, due to fire, followed by the perimeter columns, “you get the impression it was like a controlled demolition”.
Many architects, engineers, scientists, firefighters, scholars, and other groups of independent researchers calling for a new investigation argue that the alternative hypothesis better explains all the available evidence. They offer a perhaps simpler explanation for what one witnesses in videos of the collapse: it appears to be a controlled demolition because it was.
Thanks Jeremy Hammond, for penning yet another sober, well-researched piece. I discovered FPJ six months ago and it has become a must-read.
I highly recommend the Kurtis Hagan (Professor of Philosophy, SUNY) article on ‘conspiracy theories’, entitled “Is Cognitive Infiltration Justified?” – written in response to Sunstein’s call to undermine 911 discussion. Please read it – I believe it has been posted at 911blogger or 911truthnews. Important for all to get grips with what he calls the ‘epistemic shenanigans’ used against researchers, blocking them out of mainstream media and labelling them nutty conspiracy theorists.
Thanks, aussie. You may be interested to know I have another website solely for my own writings, http://www.jeremyrhammond.com.
Thank you for writing this concise compilation of evidence regarding the fate of WTC 7, which is certainly the weakest part of the official story. It is essential for the survival of democracy in the West, and for the cessation of the wars in the Middle East, that everyone become aware of the TRUE story about Building 7. This is the wedge that can be used to pry open the many other false accounts of what happened on September 11, 2001.
http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm
So I read your article sincerely hoping it was reasonable. But then, as a skeptic, I searched. Note the site above. Note the use of experimentation, science (predicting amounts of material needed…), note the attitude.
So, I, attempting to look for a reasonable analysis am stuck. I have the present article that presents no mathematics, nor reproduction of findings, nor experimental evidence and another article that does. Who do I believe? Not the current article. I could be wrong. The other side might be making it all up, but then so could this side.
Navin, please quote which statement from my article you think is unreasonable, and explain why you think so.
Many thanks.
Hello Navin
We are all skeptics here, but when it comes to lazy and dismissive remarks, the self-appointed ones always take the biscuit don’t they.
The premise of the article is that buildings are not designed to, nor have ever, imploded comprehensively due to impact or fire damage no matter what the extent. No mathematics required then, to make the hypothesis that explosives were used (albeit they are required to follow it through). Official investigations never made this hypothesis in the first place – hence the widespread scepticism that this was a political desicion and not a scientific one. I don’t see what’s so unreasonable about that.
Jeremy
You perhaps misunderstand me. I am not a right wingnut. I believe the US government is not going to tell us the full details of what and why things happen in our world. Nor do I believe any other government – nor should. That is a philosophical position that diplomacy and negotiation is not 100% on the table kind of a thing. It is not commonly efficient to be honest with liars.
But I consider myself reasonable and that is why, of all the articles on this topic in this journal I liked yours most. But, as I said, I then went looking for another perspective. That is what, I believe, a reasonable person does. So I encountered the article tagged in my previous note. That directly refutes at least most, if not all, of the claims in your article. As I said, I am not a structural engineer… I must then look at the data and expert analysis and as a reasonable person I choose the set of data that looks most convincing in methodology and reproduction.
It would be silly of me to say no conspiracy existed to bring down the WTC. There was a conspiracy, it was self affirmed, and it was evidenced. Whether islamists are shooting off the nose of the Sphinx, blowing up statues of the Buddha, tearing down temples of Hindus, destroying all idols but their own in Mecca, or blowing up buildings in the US – they are on a program to oppress human freedom and anything they can do, they will. Bin Laden has confessed to the conspiracy, the plane hijackers were not random events, the celebration in the islamic world was not a random event (though it was a populist one). There was a conspiracy.
Was Bush involved in the conspiracy? Was Dick? Was the king of Saud? was Ahmidinejad…. those are worth pursuing, try not to get me wrong in this. Truth is worth the search.
The article I posted has scientific refutation of points made in your article. I welcome scientific refutation of that article.
Again, I appreciate your article and even I appreciate that international relations SHOULD be viewed from outside the US vision. I hope you and this journal are seeking something of an objectivity (though frankly, many of the article can be summarized as “the US is bad, everybody else is good”). That seeking is what I am seeking and that is partly why I come back to this site. If, though, the counter US vision is merely speculative counter vision, it is not useful. If it is evidenced (investigative reporting perhaps), if it is attempting objectivity (to which standard we must all fail), then it is useful and valuable.
The article you attached to you post does not address sudden structural collapse at free fall which is not possible unless all structural components fail at the same instant on each floor. This is not a characteristic of failure due to fire but is characteristic of controlled demolition (CD). As the author correctly explained, NIST originally indicated free was fall not possible and further did not occur during the collapse WTC7. Only when confronted by David Chandler that free fall had occurred and could be simply proven did NIST modify their results to include free fall. They don’t explain it, they just include it as part of the total time of collapse. One might call it scientific fraud. If you really want to understand why WTC7 didn’t collapse from fire google AE911TRUTH and you’ll have you answer.
Navin, I didn’t misunderstand you. You said, “I read your article sincerely hoping it was reasonable.” So, again, please quote which statement(s) from my article you think unreasonable.
You claim info at your link “refutes at leat most, if not all, of the claims in your article.” Please quote even a single statement I made that you think that link “refutes”.
Thanks.
Why would Ahmadinejad’s involvement in a 9/11 conspiracy be “worth pursuing” in your opinion? In 2001, he was a civil engineering professor at the University of Science and Technology in Tehran. In June 2003, he became Mayor of Tehran and two years later was elected President of Iran.
Iran plays no part in the official 9/11 story, researched and peer-reviewed skeptical analyses, or any other of the myriad conspiracy theories about what really happened that day. Ahmadinejad, who had no role in the Iranian government at the time of the attacks, is certainly not implicated in anything having to do with 9/11.
If your comment was meant as an off-hand example of “hey, anything’s possible,” it is thereby unconvincing due its absurdity and ignorance.
I asked you to identify what I wrote, specifically, that you think is incorrect, and would merely observe that you haven’t done so.
Navin,
You cited “debunking911.com/thermite” website. This website was created around late 2007.(Keep in mind that this is a website)
This paper: http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.htm was published in 2009. (it’s not a website, nor a blog site) written by 9 scientists who found active thermitic material. Till this day, there are no peer-reviewed papers published which contradict their findings or their conclusions.
W and P, thanks.
I’ve been to the bentham site. It is just the abstract I can get to the paper itself. As to the AE site, note the figure on p23 of the republic magazine. It suggests that velocity should be linear as the building falls. Acceleration, and thus resultant velocity, is nonlinear in free fall. The data points indicate a slow acceleration at first, then a constant acceleration, then a slowing down of the acceleration. That make full sense of a building collapsing and then slowing the acceleration as it hit other structures. Most of the referenced articles appear to be opinion, not scientific data finding and crunching (though they raise questions).
I remain open to the idea that conspirators timed an attack on the US to coincide with the attack from / with Bin laden. But I remain unconvinced of the scientific foundation of that idea. I certainly will talk to my physicist and engineering friends as well.
Though the web site is just a website, it still provides mathematical models, estimates, and reproduction of results that are testable. I appreciate that integrity.
Navin, the Open Chemistry Physics Journal is an open journal. Not only the abstract, but the full paper is available free of charge:
http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.htm?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
As for acceleration, as I pointed out in the article, to the resolution of the video, acceleration can be observed that is indistinguishable from free-fall for at least 2.25s (8 stories, 105 ft). Free-fall means all the potential energy of the mass of the building was converted to kinetic energy. Which means there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns required under the fire-induced progressive collapse hypothesis. Which means that the energy required to do the work of undermining the structural integrity of the columns must have come from elsewhere.
That’s not debatable. It’s the law of conservation of energy.
Jeremy, great article. I concur with you on your analysis. Elizabeth is exact in noting that bringing the perpetrators of this complex operation to trial will go along way to stop this cabal from creating more terrorist attacks in order to build the police state apparatus that is now forming in the U.S. and around the world. Dick Cheney stood down our air defense system as noted by Norman Mineta at the air command center on 911. Silverstein admitted that “we had to pull it” describing the command to initiate demolition. How such men as these (I hesitate to call them men) are still free in this country and have not been tried for murder, boggles my mind. I can assure you, that if three buildings were demolished in my town, the perpetrators would be held accountable. This doesnt bode well for the People of New York whom have not demanded a trial. That these people continue to do business in this country is scary and reflects on us all. Doug , A/E 911 Truth
Fantastic article! The mainstream media needs to do reporting and investigative science such as this instead of being lazy and relying upon liars such as Popular Mechanics, History Channel, and Discovery Channel. The government and mainstream media propaganda on 911 is absolutely laughable.
I appreciate the link to the ariticle. Now that is reading science. Thanks. As to the acceleration, that same graph, if you look closely, you will see pulses (elasticity). The slope or free fall is a regression line without a correlation coefficient.
So I pulled up the NIST report – note the details – science at work. Note the suggestion of explosion and analysis including looking for witnesses. They suggest that it was not the fire itself but the sustained fire and lateral thermal shifts on support structures designed appropriate to old codes. ..
Let us assume there was a consipiracy with in the US to destroy WTC7. Why wait until the planes? How do you plan it with the planes. I would not suggest the US as the likely culprit rather someone working with the Taliban: Pakistan, Iran, Iraq that would develop the material (or buy it) and then choose to attack a primary target (WTC7) while terrorists attack the towers. Thus the plane attack is a cover up for a direct attack from the middle east on critical information stored in WTC7 – coordinated with Bin Laden and his nut case friends. Perhaps this is the missing connection that Bush knew that we can’t know between the planes and the war in Iraq. Whose conspiracy do we go to next?
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince people of global warming using the science of the IPCC. All people will believe what they want to believe. Oh well.
1) The NIST report is not “science at work”. NIST rejects the scientific method in numerous ways. They refuse to divulge their data. They input data into their fire development software contradicted by their own evidence. They fail to explain free-fall. They refuse to examine evidence that doesn’t suit their hypothesis. They don’t explain existing evidence that contradicts their hypothesis. This is all unscientific.
2) Before getting into other details, I’d like to come to terms with free-fall. Free-fall means all the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns, which means there must have been another source of energy acting on the columns to do the work required to completely and instantaneously undermine their structural integrity. If you reject the controlled demolition hypothesis, by what other means do your propose that this occurred?
3) I have no absolutely interest in getting into matters of pure speculation. Stick to the facts and science.
Jeremy, your replies to Navin are on the mark.
In an era of cognitive infiltration, one is going to find very reasonable-sounding argument with one or two items of nonsense, deeply embedded.
I’m not implying anything here Navin – just using your posts as a useful example.
Whether misinformation is intentional or not, it has the same effect.
Those of us observing this closely need to pick out inconsistencies and stick to facts and science.
Speculation and hand-waving are always bad news.
Yes, whether misinformation is intentional or not, it has the same effect. The same is true of strawman arguments, red herrings, and other logical fallacies.
Star Wars fans (the originals) will recognize the reference: “Stay on target.”
Thanks.
This is interesting.
Honest mistake or historical revisionism?
National 911 Memorial uses incorrect picture of WTC 7 on its new interactive timeline – which sits better with its incorrect caption about ‘raging fires cause total collapse of building’. In fact, the photo is of WTC Building Five which did suffer engulfing fires but – surprise! – did not implode.
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-02-24/interactive-911-memorial-timeline-uses-wtc-5-photograph-wtc-7-and-claims-raging-fire#comments
http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11063#11063
They most definitely falsely claim those fires are WTC 7 when in fact that is WTC 5. Probably an honest mistake, because if they wanted to, they could easily have produced a photo of raging fires in WTC 7.
What they could not easily have produced is any photograph of any fires in the northeast on the 12th floor, as required under NIST’s hypothesis.
Great article. Thank you.
Here’s a great short video on deficiencies of the 9/11 investigation:
Firefighters for 9/11 Truth – Erik Lawyer Speaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vI1DVjQ0M
Yes, thanks, Eric. I also highly recommend to readers to watch Mr. Lawyer’s presentation.
I completely accept your right to argue about 9/11 but don’t you think its a tad close to 9/11 to write about it?
It’s still a very traumatic event for millions of people.
No, I don’t agree at all that the fact that it is near the anniversary means it shouldn’t be written about. Quite the contrary.
So five years later and there are still no answers? It seems to me that ever since Bill Clinton, the american government has been controlled by foreign influences. When will we get the real America back? In the meantime, Obama is doing his level best at provoking Russia and China and helping the islamic jihad to attack America and Europe etc. This remains the quickest way to destroy america and I have come across more than one muslim waiting in expectation for this to happen.
–The material found in the dust is not a naturally occurring substance, but a manufactured material of highly advanced technology–
This mystery of 9/11 seems to be shrouded — most probably permanently. Simply put America to survive should restrict its foreign policy — be non-intrusive as much as possible and concentrate on its own problems.
Nevin tells us “I am not a right wingnut”. and then delves into right wing Islamophobic statements. Seems to be totally confused with hidden motive.
As a Muslim who has had to suffer the collective guilt for the execrable act perpetrated in the name of Islam which generated the endless so called ‘global war on terror’, I am struck that while posing as an impassioned intellectual seeker of the truth, how well Navin seems programmed to lean so heavily on the cast-iron role role of Bin Laden and his coterie in executing the barbarity of 9/11. That Islamophobia trumps science is not lost upon Nizar