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Old 03-09-2008, 11:25 PM  
hershie
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 4,642
Just shut up already and stop repeating the mantra about how can a fire bring down WTC 7. How convenient to ignore the structural damage outlined in the first NIST Report... There is no cover up; look at what they are working on right now: http://wtc.nist.gov/media/WTC7_Appro...ary12Dec06.pdf

From Wikipedia:

As the North Tower collapsed on September 11, 2001, debris hit 7 World Trade Center, causing heavy damage to the south face of the building.[3] The bottom portion of the building's south face was heavily damaged from debris, including: damage to the southwest corner from the 8th to 18th floor, a large vertical gash on the center-bottom extending at least ten floors, and other damage as high as the 18th floor.[3] The building was equipped with a sprinkler system, but had many single-point vulnerabilities for failure. The sprinkler system required manual initiation of the electrical fire pumps, rather than being a fully automatic system. The sprinkler floor level controls had just a single connection to the sprinkler water riser, and the sprinkler system required some power for the fire pump to deliver water. Loss of power to the fire pump or other damage to the structure would have meant no functioning sprinklers. Also, water pressure was low, with little or no water to feed sprinklers.[26][27]

After the North Tower collapsed, some firefighters entered 7 World Trade Center to search the building. They attempted to extinguish small pockets of fire, but low water pressure hindered their efforts.[28] A massive fire burned into the afternoon on the 11th and 12th floors of 7 World Trade Center, the flames visible on the east side of the building.[29][30] During the afternoon, fire was also seen on floors 6?10, 13?14, 19?22, and 29?30.[3] At approximately 2:00 p.m., firefighters noticed a bulge in the southwest corner of 7 World Trade Center between the 10th and 13th floors which was a sign that the building was unstable and might collapse.[31] During the afternoon, firefighters also heard creaking sounds coming from the building.[32] Around 3:30 pm, given that 7 World Trade Center was unstable and would possibly collapse, FDNY Chief Daniel Nigro decided to halt rescue operations, surface removal and searches along the surface of the debris near 7 World Trade Center and evacuate the area due to concerns for the safety of personnel.[33][31] At 5:20 p.m. EDT on September 11, 2001, 7 World Trade Center collapsed. The building had been evacuated and there were no casualties associated with the collapse.

In May 2002, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a report on the collapse based on a preliminary investigation conducted jointly with the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers under leadership of Dr. W. Gene Corley, P.E. FEMA made preliminary findings that the collapse was not primarily caused by actual impact damage from the collapse of 1 WTC and 2 WTC but by fires on multiple stories ignited by debris from the other two towers that continued unabated due to lack of water for sprinklers or manual firefighting. Structural elements were exposed to high temperatures for a sufficient period of time to reduce their strength to the point of collapse.[6]

The report did not reach final conclusions about the cause of the collapse, but listed several issues requiring further investigation. FEMA made these findings:

Loss of structural integrity was likely a result of weakening caused by fires on the 5th to 7th floors. The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue. [Ch. 5, p. 31.]

Plan view of collapse progression, with structural failure initiating on lower floors, on the east side of the building and vertical progression up to the east mechanical penthouse
Plan view of collapse progression, with structural failure initiating on lower floors, on the east side of the building and vertical progression up to the east mechanical penthouse

In response to FEMA's concerns, the Commerce Department?s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was authorized to lead a three-year, $16 million investigation into the structural failure and collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers and 7 World Trade Center.[34] The investigation, led by Dr S. Shyam Sunder, drew not only upon in-house technical expertise, but also upon the knowledge of several outside private institutions, including the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (SEI/ASCE), the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY).[35]
Few photos and video clips exist that show the damage sustained to south face of 7 World Trade Center on 9/11. From a news helicopter, ABC News captured footage of the south face of 7 World Trade Center, including a glimpse of a gash, extending approximately 10 stories.
Few photos and video clips exist that show the damage sustained to south face of 7 World Trade Center on 9/11. From a news helicopter, ABC News captured footage of the south face of 7 World Trade Center, including a glimpse of a gash, extending approximately 10 stories.

NIST has released a video and still-photo analysis of 7 World Trade Center before its collapse that appears to indicate a greater degree of structural damage from falling debris than originally assumed by FEMA. Specifically, NIST's interim report on 7 World Trade Center displays photographs of the southwest façade of the building that show it to have significant damage. The report also highlights a 10-story gash in the center of the south façade, toward the bottom, extending approximately a quarter of the way into the interior.[36][3] A unique aspect of the design of 7 World Trade Center was that each outer structural column was responsible for supporting 2,000 sq ft (186 m²) of floor space, suggesting that the simultaneous removal of a number of columns severely compromised the structure's integrity.[37] Consistent with this theory, news footage shows cracking and bowing of the building's east wall immediately before the collapse, which began at the penthouse floors.[3] In video of the collapse, taken from the north by CBS News and other news media, the first visible sign of collapse is movement in the east penthouse 8.2 seconds before the north wall began to collapse, which took at least another 7 seconds.[3][38]

A progress report was released in June 2004, outlining NIST's working hypothesis.[39][3] The hypothesis, which was reiterated in a June 2007 status update, is that an initial failure in a critical column occurred below the 13th floor, caused by damage from fire and/or debris from the collapse of the two main towers. The collapse progressed vertically up to the east mechanical penthouse. The interior structure was unable to handle the redistributed load, resulting in horizontal progression of the failure across lower floors, particularly the 5th to 7th floors. This resulted in "a disproportionate collapse of the entire structure."[40]

NIST anticipates the release of a draft report of 7 World Trade Center in 2008.[41] The NIST is utilizing ANSYS to model events leading up to collapse initiation and LS-DYNA models to simulate the global response to initiating events.[42] The investigation of 7 World Trade Center has been delayed for a number of reasons, including that NIST staff who had been working on 7 World Trade Center were assigned full-time from June 2004 to September 2005, to work on the investigation of the collapse of the twin towers.[43] In June 2007, he explained, "We are proceeding as quickly as possible while rigorously testing and evaluating a wide range of scenarios to reach the most definitive conclusion possible. The WTC 7 investigation is in some respects just as challenging, if not more so, than the study of the towers. However, the current study does benefit greatly from the significant technological advances achieved and lessons learned from our work on the towers."[40]
BMCC's Fiterman Hall was heavily damaged from the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, and is undergoing deconstruction.
BMCC's Fiterman Hall was heavily damaged from the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, and is undergoing deconstruction.

Some conspiracy theorists believe the building collapses on September 11, including that of building seven, were the result of controlled demolition.[44][45] NIST has "found no evidence of a blast or controlled demolition event". In its final report on building 7, they would "like to determine the magnitude of hypothetical blast scenarios that could have led to the structural failure of one or more critical elements".[43]
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