Mark Roberts vs Mark Gaffney.

[The Lone Bolt]

OK, Roberts has reproduced the e-mail exchange mentioned on another thread. Gaff's claims that Roberts corrected him on only one "minor point" seems inaccurate, but you be the judge.

One thing for sure, Gaff's claim that he didn't call Roberts a "disinfo agent" is only technically true. He called Roberts' site a "disinfo site", which strongly implies that Roberts is a "disinfo agent."

Originally Posted by The Lone Bolt
OK Gravy, would you accept this as written consent?

h**p://w*w.orangemane.com/BB/showthread.php?t=81807&page=6


Sure. I find it amusing that Gaffney, the author of several books, doesn't know about copyright law. Likewise, the JREF forum rules prohibit republishing personal communications without the author's consent. FWIW, here are our emails, with Gaffney's writing indented.

On Dec 29, 2007 5:32 PM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

Dear Mark Roberts,

I've been studying your site. I am a writer and have been
investigating 9/11 for more than a year.

I want to thank you for all of the information you have posted --
including the charts, the accounts, citations etc. which will prove
helpful to me.

However, your conclusions are mistaken. I posted a detailed review of
the NIST report a year ago:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article15970.htm

and have just spent the last few weeks reading even deeper into the
NIST report.

You posted a detailed review of the NIST report but you hadn't read it all? That's strange behavior.

This time through I have found no reason to question my
original conclusion: NIST failed to explain how the fires weakened
the core and perimeter columns -- leading to collapse. They presented
absolutely no empirical evidence for weakening. Faced with a
shortfall of evidence -- they resorted to a computer model, working
backwards, and tweaked it until the program spat out the desired
outcome.

Well, there's the evidence that you certainly didn't read the whole report. There's plenty of evidence that the trusses and columns were weakened by fire and damage. Are you aware of the pronounced inward bowing of the exterior columns where the collapses began, long before they began? You'll find a clip of the inward buckling of the south tower's east wall here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...85611926#1m10s

I recommend watching the whole video, which proves how nonsensical the conspiracist claims of explosive demolitons are, and exposes their dishonesty in disguising the audio of the tower collapses and of the demolitions they use as comparisons.

So if the fires didn't do it -- then what did?

You make two mistakes here: you draw a conclusion that is backed by no evidence, then speculate about other causes that are also backed by no evidence.

I have yet to see any mention of a crucial detail regarding the WTC
elevators. While I agree that jet fuel probably found its way down
two of the shafts to the lower levels

Not "probably." We know it did.

-- we also know that a number
of the local elevators were blown out in the main lobby.

Oh? Which ones? In the north tower, were they near the # 50 or 6/7 shafts? Or were firemen mistaking blown 6/7 elevators for locals, because they're in the same bank?

BTW, there is physical evidence that the janitors are correct that an
explosion happened BEFORE the plane impact.

One janitor makes that claim, and he didn't start making it until 2005. His supervisor, who was with him in the office, contradicts him. I suggest that you read my paper about William Rodriguez's massive problems with the truth.

Please check out the
paper by Furlong and Ross posted in September 2006 at
http://www.journalof911studies.com/

The utterly incompetent people who wrote that paper based their entire claim on their inablilty to read a simple graph timeline. And then that hilarious error passed "peer review" at the "Journal." (Not to mention the fact that not a single person or system reported or recorded such an event.) And after being informed of their error, Furlong and Ross left their paper online, uncorrected. These are your ever-honest "truth" leaders. Here's a JREF forum thread about that. "quicknthedead" is Craig Furlong. Note how he flees the thread when his error is pointed out: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...40&page=10#394

[MR note, July 14, 2009: subsequently Craig Furlong renounced the conclusions of his paper and joined the rationalist ranks. Gordon Ross? Still a laughable incompetent.]

Finally, are you aware that earlier this year (2007) Steven Jones
found thermate residues in the WTC dust? His paper on this is posted
in the same journal -- I believe in May of 2007. NIST failed to
search for residues -- because they assumed from the start that the
WTC collapse was caused by impacts/fires. This is no way to conduct
science.

Jones found no such thing. Nothing he found is consistent at all with thermate, and everything is consistent with residue that was expected to be there. You've been had by a fraud and a laughably incompetent hack, who doesn't give a damn about science or truth. Read more about this and Jones' other problems with the truth here.

I think you are guilty of the very thing you accuse Rodriguez of.

Interesting comparison, considering that I have pointed out numerous egregious errors and lies made by Rodriguez, and no truther has pointed out any of mine.

Please take another look at the evidence, and keep an open mind.

Sincerely for 911 truth,

Mark H Gaffney

If you're for the truth, you'll stop accepting demonstrable nonsense as fact. It's nearly 2008, and you people have gotten nothing right. You can't do any worse than that, Mark.

I hope the new year brings rationality to your life.

–Mark



*******

On Dec 30, 2007 12:45 AM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

Mark,

I doubt if anyone has read all 10,00 pages -- but I read more than enough.

Holy crap. What an astonishing statement by someone who says he's written a detailed review of a report he hasn't read. Not only have I read all 10,000 pages (as have others I know), I have read, studied, taken notes on, and discussed many sections of the report in great depth. You simply have no idea what you're talking about.

Please guide me to the section in the NIST report where they show that the trusses failed. There is no such section. The trusses failed in exactly none of the UL fire tests.

The fact that you don't know that the trusses didn't fail, but sagged, causing the inward pull on the columns, is all I need to know. The longest restrained truss that was built, fireproofed (with INTACT fireproofing), and installed to be most like the WTC trusses DID NOT meet its fire resistance rating in the UL tests, leading to surprise and reassessments about scaling issues in fire testing by researchers and structural engineers. It's amazing that you don't know that. And you should know that that was a 35-foot truss. The trusses connected to the walls that failed, leading to global collapse, were 60 feet long.

Please also cite the page where NIST shows that the core/perimeter columns were weakened. Believe me, there is no such page.


The inward bowing may or may not be real -- but even if it happened -- it does not prove the perimeter columns failed.

May or may not be real? It's plainly visible and was reported by people on the scene, for crying out loud! In the south tower, inward bowing of the east wall was visible within 18 minutes of flight 175's impact. You didn't even bother to watch the brief video clip I provided. What laziness.

As I explain in my paper -- the factor of safety of the outer wall on 9/11 was 5.7. This means the outer wall could support 5X the design load before incurring any damage. Even with the severed columns and one side bowed -- there was plenty of reserve capacity.

False. The factor of safety for the exterior columns for gravity load, in undamaged condition, was between 1.22 and 1.44. About 5% of the columns exceeded their demand-to-capacity ratios in as-build condition. You'd know that if you had read the NIST report.

I suggest you read my critique BEFORE you shoot from the hip.

Why would I read a paper by someone who has no idea what he's talking about, and is too lazy to learn?

Did you read the FDNY oral histories? 118 firemen and first responders reported explosions.

Not only have I read over 15,000 pages of first responder accounts, I've taken notes and developed spreadsheets on all of them. Why? To put their accounts in context, which you conspiracists desperately avoid doing. Grahame Macqueen, whose "118" paper you refer to, tells us that he's deliberately taking the quotes out of context. What a flagrant *******. What a miserable, dishonest thing to do to first responders.

Here's my analysis of MacQueen's listing of firefighters who said they heard something like bombs or secondary devices. It's linked on the home page of my site. See what happens when you put the accounts in context, Mark? Note that none of those 118 first responders claim that explosives were used in the towers. Using their accounts to insinuate otherwise is despicable behavior.

One of the firemen, Lt W Walsh, described the damaged elevators in the main lobby in detail. You can find his account posted on the NY Times web site. Walsh distinguishes between the express and local elevators.

If you paid attention or bothered to research, you'd know that Walsh and others are describing the area where the 6/7 express elevators and 50 freight elevator are: in the center of the building. Likewise, in the south tower, the 6 and 7 elevator doors were blown out in the lobby after those elevators fell. You can read all about that at my site.

You talk about being rational -- but you are plainly a hot head.

And yet you, like the other conspiracists, can't point out anything I get wrong, although I can easily point out what you get wrong, and I can back my claims with evidence. So who's the rational one, Mark? Are the rational ones the ones who get nothing right? Yup, deliberate ignorance like yours pisses me off. I think it's dangerous. Live with it.

You are also a fool to deny what Jones found. He knows the science cold. Once again, I suggest you read his paper BEFORE you shoot off your big mouth.

I'm the fool? I've read all of Jones' 9/11 work. If you had bothered to check the links I gave you, you'd know what an utterly incompetent, anti-scientific, and dishonest person he is, and that what he found bears no resemblance to thermate.

I've tried to lead you to water, Mark. Will you continue to be a sucker for your fraudulent leaders who flee like scared bunnies from a tour guide? Will you continue to respect liars? Or will you buckle down and do your homework? The choice is yours. Feel free to contact me again in a year, if you've bothered to get informed.

–Mark
[Bolding added]

******
Quote:
On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 2:45 PM Mark Gaffney wrote:

Mark,
If you read the report you know it's a tiered document. With a few summary papers and more detail provided in the supplementary material. Much of it is irrelevant anyway -- background and busy work that a small army of people put together -- why? Because they were hired to do so.

The biggest sag in the truss tests from what understand was something like three inches -- which is inconsequential -- not enough to cause the perimeter wall to buckle. In any event the tests were not designed to mimic conditions on 9/11. Why were they two hour tests, for example? The fire in WTC 2 lasted less than an hour.


I consulted with NIST about the factor of safety and they guided me to the appropriate info in the report. NIST ran the numbers for a representative perimeter column -- and for the core columns -- both in the impact zone. You will find the data here:


demand/capacity ratios for WTC 1 core columns NIST NCSTAR 1-6 p 233 -- The average factor of safety is 2.1


demand/capacity ratio for a rep perimeter column -- mentioned in NIST NCSTAR 1-6 p 100. The factor of safety of this column was 5.7


As these numbers show -- the WTC was vastly overbuilt.


By the way, the fact that 5% of the columns exceeded their demand capacity ratios is irrelevant -- as NIST admits. 87% of the steel NIST tested was stronger than expected. The steel in the perimeter columns, for example, was 10% stronger. Not good news for the official collapse model.


The idea that a Boeing impact on the 93rd floor caused a seismic spike is just not credible. The impact was mostly absorbed by the towers. Even the bomb in 1993 caused no spike because it was not coupled with the ground. That bomb was apparently left in a truck in a parking lot --


This means, of course, that the initial blasts in the basement on 9/11 were enormous -- and must have been planted in contact with the columns at the base. No doubt these blasts vented upwards through the elevator shafts into the lobby. You are probably correct that jet fuel from above also blew down -- but the damage described by Rodriguez is consistent with a blast from below.


The disparity in the timeline -- between the seismic spike and the time of impact is real. Nor has it been explained. It is like a red flag demanding an explanation. You are ignoring this because you want to believe that foreign terrorists did this to us. This is your psychological problem.


You've read all of Jones' work? Then you know he is a serious scientist. He is in fact a very sober and mild mannered individual -- not given to rash statements or exaggeration. Unlike you, in this respect, I might add.


MHG
Quote:
On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 3:56 PM Mark Gaffney wrote:

Because you have challenged MacQueen's paper on the eyewitnesses -- I am going to conduct my own review.

Be assured, I will report back. MHG
Quote:
On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 10:06 PM Mark Gaffney wrote:
Mark

Your numbers about factor of safety are are wrong. Please explain where they came from (below).

As a result -- you have vastly under estimated the reserve strength of the WTC. This is why you have overestimated the importance of the truss sag. Even if the eastern wall of WTC 2 did bow inward -- this does not mean it buckled.

Even if some of the columns did buckle -- this does not mean the wall collapsed.

The burden of proof was on NIST -- and they failed to explain how the transient fires weakened these columns enough to cause a collapse. This is the bottom line.

MHG
Quote:
On Mon, Dec 31, 2007 at 5:25 PM Mark Gaffney wrote:

Mark,

I just reviewed all 118 oral histories cited by Graeme MacQueen as references to explosions. In all of them I found a few cases that are borderline -- or questionable. But this is to be expected in any survey involving an element of subjective judgement. On the whole I thought MacQueen did a competent job -- and I agree with his conclusions.


I'll like to know how you counted only 31 references to explosions. Any honest person who looks at the histories will conclude that you are incompetent -- or worse -- a liar. I am going to mention your incompetence in my book about 911 -- now in progress.


I should mention that while conducting my own review -- I also found that a number of responders explicitly compared the collapses on 911 to controlled demolitions. Kenneth Rogers, for example, said that "it looked like a synchronized deliberate sort of thing." (9110290)


How come you fail to mention this on your site?


BTW I also had a look at your physcist Dave Rogers' attempt to debunk S Jones paper about thermate residues. Is Rogers a for real physicist? He clearly does not understand the well known phenomenon of a eutectic mix, where the presence of one element (i.e., sulfur) lowers the melting point of another (here, iron).


Do YOU understand it?


This is what Barrett and the other materials scientists from Worcester Polytech found. Their paper was appendix C of the FEMA report. Did you read it? Jones found evidence in the dust of the same phenomenon.


I am forced to the conclusion that your site is a DISINFO site -- the purpose of which is to muddy the waters, confuse the public, and smear the reputations of various leaders of the 911 truth movement. You attack people because you can't handle the message.


Yours is a pathetic calling. The truth will eventually out - and you will be exposed for what you are.


Mark H Gaffney

[Although I had sent Gaffney away for a one-year remedial learning period, I felt compelled to respond to part of his above email. Remember, he's agreeing with Graeme MacQueen's conclusion that 118 firefighters and other first responders were "persuaded" to change their minds about what they really thought killed their brothers. What a sicko. My reply:]

If you had bothered to read what I wrote, you'd know that I was reviewing Graeme MacQueen's most dramatic category: people who used the words 'like a bomb" or "secondary device," etc. The list of 31 (30, since he got one wrong), is his, not mine. You'll find more information here: http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/whattheyheard.

In other news, someone nominated you for a Stundie Award at the JREF forum:

"In August 2002 the US Congress authorized the National Institute for Safety and Transportation (NIST) to investigate the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11."

http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle18999.htm

Yup, you should be taken seriously. Just....WOW.


[End of communications]

Afterword: in June, 2008 I got an email from someone who'd been debating online with Gaffney about his same old thermate/Rodriguez-heard-explosions-before-planes-hit claims. He'd repeatedly directed Gaffney to scenes in my "World Trade Center Not a Demolition" video, which Gaffney said he couldn't watch because he only has a dial-up connection. My correspondent asked for a DVD version of that video, but my DVD burner was on the fritz at the time. I hope Gaffney has broadband by now: all those Loose Change versions await!

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=135322&page=2

[Spider]

meh , splitting hairs ...... ****ing waste of time

[Garcia Bronco]

I'd be happy to in part fund a lawsuit against MGaffney.

[The Lone Bolt]

Originally Posted by Gaffney

demand/capacity ratios for WTC 1 core columns NIST NCSTAR 1-6 p 233 -- The average factor of safety is 2.1


demand/capacity ratio for a rep perimeter column -- mentioned in NIST NCSTAR 1-6 p 100. The factor of safety of this column was 5.7

I looked in NIST NCSTAR 1-6: http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-6.pdf

and couldn't find the information you are citing here on the pages you referenced. Do you have the correct page #s?

[footstepsfrom#27]

The Jews did it.

[mhgaffney]

Lone Bolt,

It's clear from the above exchange that Mark Roberts did not read the NIST Report.

The information about factor of safety is there in the report -- as I stated. In fact, the NIST scientific team actually guided me to that table. However the data is expressed as demand/capacity ratios instead of factor of safety.

However, the data is the same. It's like the difference between conductance and resistance. Both express the same idea in a different way. Same deal here.

If you simply express the demand capacity ratio in decimal form instead of as a fraction you have factor of safety.

All of this was explained to me by Ron Hamburger, one of the nation's leading structural engineers. I call him up to consult -- and he was most helpful. Hamburger helped author the FEMA study of the WTC collapse.

The core columns had a factor of safety on average of 2.1. Mark Roberts got this totally wrong. His numbers are funny. I have no idea where they came from.

This means that on average any column could support more than twice the anticipated design load (2.1 times to be exact) BEFORE reaching the yield point, where damage and deformation could begin to occur. Notice, this does NOT mean that once the yield point is reached you get a collapse.

No, steel is so resilient that even if the yield point is exceeded it has reserves of strength. You would get a slow gradual deformation. Not a general collapse. Its why structural steel is such a terrific building material.

BTW, the outer perimeter wall had a factor of safety of 5.7. This was a phenomenally strong wall -- On 9/11 -- because there was almost no wind -- the outer wall could support almost 6 times the anticipated design load before damage would begin to occur.

The WTC was incredibly strong -- vastly overbuilt.

[mhgaffney]

The demand/capacty ratios are given in the NIST report here:

NIST NCSTAR Investigation 1-6 Figure 8-9 p. 233

[mhgaffney]

As I stated on the other thread -- Lone Bolt and others are like Denver's LB Nate Webster last year whiffing at runners across the middle.

They flee from the paper I just posted -- because they can't deal with the implications and instead chase phantoms like this one.

Fact is, I had no reason not to agree to post the exchange with Roberts -- which happened more than a year ago -- other than it was off message -- an attempt at distraction.

By his own statements Mark Roberts shows he either did not read or did not understand the NIST Report.

[SoCalBronco]

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

As I stated on the other thread -- Lone Bolt and others are like Denver's LB Nate Webster last year whiffing at runners across the middle.

.

I admit that I haven't read EVERY thread involving a debate between yourself and Lone Bolt, but I have read many of them and I cannot think of a single time when Lone Bolt's helmet came off during your debates with him.

[mhgaffney]

So Cal,

Well, you are a drive by shooter. That's all you do. I have never seen any post of substance by you. So, nothing to comment about. Congrats. You are one of the many zeros.

As for Lone Bolt, his posts had no influence on my WTC research. He did make a god point about the Pentagon hit -- way back -- when he posted the link below - which I had not seen. For the record -- that is the only point he ever made about 9/11 that influenced my thinking.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...cy/q0265.shtml

[Dukes]

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

So Cal,

Well, you are a drive by shooter. That's all you do. I have never seen any post of substance by you. So, nothing to comment about. Congrats. You are one of the many zeros.

As for Lone Bolt, his posts had no influence on my WTC research. He did make a god point about the Pentagon hit -- way back -- when he posted the link below - which I had not seen. For the record -- that is the only point he ever made about 9/11 that influenced my thinking.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...cy/q0265.shtml

Uh oh, you said the naughty word.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Spider

meh , splitting hairs ...... ****ing waste of time

QFT.

Lone Bolt: Still covering Bush's flank - even when Der Chimp has already left the building.

Too funny.

[Dukes]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

QFT.

Lone Bolt: Still covering Bush's flank - even when Der Chimp has already left the building.

How is that any different than continuing to attack him? You're a real piece of work LA

[The Lone Bolt]

Wow. I never mentioned bush once in this thread. Gaff's debate with Roberts has nothing whatsoever to do with bush.

You really need to get over your obsession with dubya LA, he's no longer President.

[The Lone Bolt]

It sems you have a great deal of respect for the opinion of Ron Hamburger.

Well here's what Hamburger, "one of the nation's leading structural engineers" (according to you), had to say about the collapse of the WTC towers:

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Those twin towers, which were completed in 1973 were 110 stories tall, 1,360 feet. They were the tallest buildings in New York City, roughly 50,000 people work in them. They were designed to be a hub for international trade and were part of a seven-building complex, which was completed in 1988. In addition to the twin towers, one other of the seven buildings in the World Trade Center complex also collapsed late this afternoon.
For more on the buildings we turn now to two structural engineers, Ron Hamburger, chief structural engineer at UQE, an engineering firm, and Hassan Astaneh, professor of engineering at UC Berkeley who is helping develop guidelines for the American Institute for Steel Construction, guidelines that would help structures withstand terrorist attack. Ron Hamburger, you've seen the video and the plane hitting. You've seen the fires and the collapse. What do you think happened?

RON HAMBURGER: Well, incredible as it may seem, the buildings survived the aircraft attack. Both of them were able to stand for the better part of two hours after the crash. What they just were not able to survive was the incredibly intense fires that ensued from all of that burning jet fuel. Structural steel, these buildings were steel billings. Structural steel when it gets hot loses strength. The steel elements that held up the building where the crash occurred got hot from the fires at about the 90th floor. They were supporting 20 floors of building above it. And when they lost the ability to support that, all of that mass, like another building, came down on top of the rest of the structure like a pile hammer and just essentially drove the rest of the building into the ground.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, we don't know for sure, do we, that, Mr. Astaneh... We don't know for sure that there wasn't some kind of a bomb. But you didn't think there had to be a bomb for this happen?

HASSAN ASTANEH: That's exactly case. We are not sure, of course, what was in those planes but the amount of fuel that came and was delivered to this building was enough, in my opinion, as I agree with Ron, that the cause of this collapse and tragedy was really what we call progress of collapse. What happened here was the initial impact did not cause much damage; it just ignited the fire. The fuel was supplied. The fire on almost four hours - and at that time the temperature of the columns - they have reached the critical level which is 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, and when steel reaches that level of temperature, it loses its strength, and of course the upper floors, the weight of those upper floors completely collapsed on the lower part and hammered it down and collapsed it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Astaneh, was it important where the aircraft hit the towers?

HASSAN ASTANEH: Exactly. What was really amazing to me this morning watching the footage was that actually - I don't know by design or by accident - but they really hit the worst part of these towers. If you hit these towers at the top, very top, you might lose several floors, but that will not collapse the whole, entire building. If you hit them at the base, the columns at the base are so strong, as we saw during the past bomb attack on this building; that really those columns will not collapse. You hit in the middle, these columns are not very strong as the base but at the same time they have very heavy weight of upper floors on them. So this was the worst combination of strength reduction and increased weight on them.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Hamburger, anything to add to that?

RON HAMBURGER: Well, not really. I think Dr. Astaneh said it very well. Really the terrorists picked the perfect place to strike these buildings.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us about the buildings. Were they more or less vulnerable than other tall buildings like them? I read that the structural engineer that designed them said they were designed to take a hit from a 707.

RON HAMBURGER: That's correct. These buildings actually were very strong. The steel columns that support the building were spaced at about three feet apart all around the perimeter of the building. Typically on a building like this, you'll see column spacings on the order of three to four times that. So this was an exceptionally strong building. As I said, it did actually survive the impact of the aircraft both towers did.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: They even survived the impact going right through it. You saw that picture of the aircraft going through it.

RON HAMBURGER: Yes, that's right.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Anything to add about the buildings themselves?

HASSAN ASTANEH: All I can tell you is if there's any positive thing here today is that actually the fact that these buildings were steel structures. When we had the Oklahoma City tragedy, that structure was concrete. When it happened the concrete could not tolerate the impact and the columns were pretty much collapsed and the whole building collapsed and there was no time for people to get out of the building. In this case, because the structures were steel structures, the columns were able to tolerate easily the impact. Even they could tolerate the fire if we were able to reach the fire and extinguish the fire. But since it wasn't possible, the fire was too intense, and then the steel lost its strength and collapsed after one hour. But that one hour apparently was enough for many people, as I heard, in fact, from Ron when we were sitting outside, that his firm had people in that building and they were able to evacuate from the 91st floor after the fire started. So they were out before the collapse. So one positive thing I see is that at least we were lucky in a sense that the collapse actually happened in a progressive way, not in a very sudden, immediate after attack. So I see a very, very positive point in the design of these buildings that they were really strong, as Ron mentioned, and they were really designed well. But unfortunately they could not tolerate that intense fire due to the jet fuel perhaps.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Could any building designed in the future in a different way-- I'm really asking what needs to be done in the future-- have withstood the heat of that fire.

RON HAMBURGER: Well, really, I don't think you would have to do much to the design of the structure -- what you would have to work with would be the protective coatings that are put on the steel to guard them against fire.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: There won't those protective coatings on this steel.

RON HAMBURGER: They were there but they're designed for the type of fire you would have in an office building: Burning paper, carpet or furniture not burning jet fuel. They're designed to resist that for a period of two or three hours. It would be possible to put additional coatings on the steel that would allow them to survive such a fire. But you'd have to weigh the cost of that against the likelihood of the repeat of such an occurrence.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You're designing guidelines, which are supposed to help prevent such a building from collapsing if there's a terrorist attack. Structural engineers worry about these things, right?

HASSAN ASTANEH: Yes. Basically, the American Institute of Steel Construction, that organization develops guidelines and design recommendations for profession to design structures for everything. Now since Oklahoma City collapse, the Professional and American Institute of Steel Construction has started a committee and I'm a member of that committee and our work is to develop guidelines and provisions that structural engineers can use in order to prevent what we call progressive collapse -- which means if you... for either due to car attack, car bombs or rocket attack or other means, if you remove a column or part of a building, can you prevent the full collapse of a building? These guidelines are in the process and hopefully they will help in the future to prevent progressive and catastrophic collapse.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Hassan Astaneh and Ron Hamburger, thanks very much for being with us.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/milit...ture_9-11.html

Once again, in the words of "one of the nation's leading structural engineers."

Umm . . . lemme guess. Suddenly he's not so credible anymore.

[ElwayMD]

Stop assaulting Gaff with the truth! He's going to run out of lamebrained ideas soon enough if you keep this up!

[Requiem]

I just wonder what this Gaffney fellow looks like.

[mhgaffney]

When I spoke with Hamburger we did not discuss his opinion about the collapse. We talked about the principle of "factor of safety."

I'm pretty sure the data about the WTC's factor of safety -- and how strong it was -- was not known to Hamburger when he authored the FEMA report on the WTC collapse. When that interview was probably done. I suggest you check the date. It was probably 2002.

We have learned a lot since then.

It's clear that NIST's own data failed to support the official conspiracy theory about 9/11.

No doubt, it's why NIST buried the demand/capacity ratio data for the WTC deep in its report. You'll never find it unless you know where to look. Mark Roberts obviously never knew about it -- until I told him. But he did not listen. He is a typical knee jerk.

Just like you clowns.

[The Lone Bolt]

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

When I spoke with Hamburger we did not discuss his opinion about the collapse. We talked about the principle of "factor of safety."

I'm pretty sure the data about the WTC's factor of safety -- and how strong it was -- was not known to Hamburger when he authored the FEMA report on the WTC collapse. When that interview was probably done. I suggest you check the date. It was probably 2002.

We have learned a lot since then.

It's clear that NIST's own data failed to support the official conspiracy theory about 9/11.

No doubt, it's why NIST buried the demand/capacity ratio data for the WTC deep in its report. You'll never find it unless you know where to look. Mark Roberts obviously never knew about it -- until I told him. But he did not listen. He is a typical knee jerk.

Just like you clowns.

So you're sure Hamburger has changed his mind since then? What if he hasn't? Should I e-mail him and find out?

And I checked the pages you cited. Look again Gaff, the figures are not there.

P 100 starts with: "Figure 4-34 shows the finite element model . . . " This page discusses the buckling of a one-story high exterior column in room temperature vs 700 degrees celcius.

P 233 starts with: "8.2.2 Model Modifications. The validated ANSYS models . . ." This page contains mostly computer graphics and a paragraph about their computer model and modifications thereof.

Neither page says anything about demand capacity ratio of core or perimeter columns.

[mhgaffney]

I will find that page and post it. I have it in my notes. Hopefully I can pull it off the NIST site.


If not -- maybe I can scan it. I have a new scanner -- but I'm not sure about the file size.

[mhgaffney]

Lone Bolt,

It is tricky running down citations in the NIST report because there are so many parts -- and each part has BOTH an executive summary and a full report.

It was no less than the NIST scientific team that guided me to the data about demand/capacity ratios. So again it's their data. The NIST scientific team was -- set up to respond to questions from the public.

[mhgaffney]

OK.

Here is the link for the demand/capacity ratios for the core columns. Don't ask me why they included this data in project # 6. I did not organize the NIST Report. Scroll to page 233

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-6Draft.pdf

The average ratio is .484

Which translates to an average ~2.1 factor of safety. (Simply divide .484 into 1.0.

[Florida_Bronco]

Originally Posted by Requiem

I just wonder what this Gaffney fellow looks like.

[orinjkrush]

“Of several acceptable explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is preferable, provided that it takes all circumstances into account.”

[mhgaffney]

As for the perimeter wall -- NIST studied a representative perimeter column from WTC one (Column 151 between the 93rd and 99th floors)

The demand capacity ratio of this column was .18 -- which gives a factor of safety of 5.7 --

This column could support almost 6 times the anticipated load -- before showing any signs of damage.

For a diagram of this column see Fig 4.34 and 4.35 on page 101

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-2Draft.pdf

You will find a discussion of demand/capacity ratios starting on page # 65. In retrospect it is a pathetic discussion. NIST seems to make a big deal of the fact that many of the steel components -- cross beams etc -- had a demand capacity ration of less than 1.0

It's garbage science since the function of these other elements was simply to tie together the columns -- which bore the weight.

NIST confirmed to me a=in an email that the representative perimeter column did have a factor of safety of 5.7. The number is correct - though NIST doesn't mention it in the report. At least, not that I can find.

I can guess why they did not mention it. A whopping 5.7 factor of safety blows to hell the official story.