On August 21 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) kicked off its investigation of the 9-11 World Trade Center disaster. The resulting report, released in September 2005, concluded that the impact of commercial aircraft and ensuing fires led to collapse of WTC1 and WTC2, the North and South World Trade Center towers.

NIST acknowledges these structures were designed to survive the impact of a cruising 707. Comparing accounts of the towers' construction from the premier industry publication Engineering News-Record (ENR) with actual structural damage reported by NIST, it seems the towers should easily have withstood the impact of the 767-200ER airplanes. This supports the findings of a lone scientist, Abdolhasan Astaneh Asl, funded by the National Science Foundation, who noted "The impact did nothing to this building."

Although detractors have claimed the towers were not designed for the ensuing fires, John Skilling, of Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson, the Seattle structural engineering firm of record, noted "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be that all the fuel would dump into the building. [But] the building structure would still be there." [1]

Although NIST found little evidence that steel ever reached 600 deg. C, and the half strength critical temperature of steel is 650 deg. C., their report concludes column and floor assemblies softened due to fire, leading to "collapse initiation". This scenario contrasts markedly with the claim found in ENR that loads on perimeter columns could be increased by a factor of 20 before failing. [2]

According to ENR, the 47 core columns varied in thickness with floor height. Individual columns in the lower core measured 52 x 22 inches of almost solid steel that weighed up to 56 tons.

If columns and trusses in the impact area failed in a collapse fed only by gravity, what happened to those undamaged floors below impact, and in particular what happened to the massive lower core columns?

Incredibly, progressive collapse of the lower floors has been left out of the NIST collapse sequence computer models[3], which proceeds only up to "collapse initiation." [4]

In other words, the 10,000 page NIST report merely assumes the most important event, collapse of the structurally sound floors below the area of impact.

In dealing with the collapse sequence, NIST states repeatedly that energy of the downward movement of the building mass above the damaged columns exceeded the strain energy that could have been absorbed by the lower floors, so global collapse ensued. This is "progressive collapse" theory, and it has been assumed, not demonstrated.

Gordon Ross, of Scholars for 9-11 Truth, provided a momentum transfer analysis which showed that the momentum of falling floors above the impact area would be absorbed by the lower floors prior to column buckling, and therefore collapse would not proceed. Progressive collapse theory is not supported by this analysis.

From high school physics, a floor by floor gravitational collapse of the undamaged 90 floors of the north tower would take almost 80 seconds, not including the time delay to break the columns of each floor. But the towers collapsed entirely in 9-16 seconds, close to freefall speed. [5]

That the South Tower collapsed due to progressive collapse as described above makes no sense. The top 34 floors begin to topple, so there is no huge mass of material bearing down on the untoppled floors. The toppling 34 floors are in free fall; no crushing mass bearing down on them, so why did the building disintegrate into dust?

The top 34 floors of the South Tower began to topple sideways as the section under them turned to dust (top photo). The NIST study assumes progressive collapse through "pancaking", but that is not physically possible at the near free-fall speed of the actual collapse of the towers (side photo). The study does not attempt to explain why much of the mass of the building vaporized into fine dust.

The NIST investigation also omitted or distorted many important aspects of the collapses, including movement of the WTC1 antenna before the adjacent facade, the pyroclastic dust clouds, and pools of molten metal In the WTC basements weeks after the attacks.

NIST also failed to follow up on an unusual sulfur residue found during a previous study, which according to the NY Times, caused gaping holes that "shocked fire-wise professors." [6]

The NIST study is a product of the Bush administration. An enumeration of the inconsistencies of the NIST study is consistent with a long standing and well documented pattern of Bush administration abuse of the scientific method.

The House Committee on Government Reform found "numerous instances where this Administration has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings"

On February 18, 2004, over 60 leading scientists, including Nobel laureates, signed a statement that "The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease". Since then, over 9000 additional scientists and engineers have signed on. [7]

A clear example of distortion of scientific knowledge was seen in the subsequent declaration by EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman that the "air is safe" in Manhattan a week after the attacks. In fact, according to top scientists, the air at Ground Zero was highly corrosive, and a "significant threat to health." The White House Council on Environmental Quality directed the EPA to edit the scientific findings "based on how it should be released publicly."[8]

Credible challenges of NIST methodology and results need to be addressed with more than labels of "conspiracy wingnut." Otherwise, distrust will prevail, and the the 9-11 Truth Movement will continue to flourish.

Rodger Herbst has a bachelor degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering and a master degree in Mechanical Engineering.

REFERENCES

1. James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky; The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center p. 138

2. Engineering News-Record, April 2, 1964

3. http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NCSTAR1-6ExecutiveSummary.pdf p. lxii

4. ibid. p. lxiv

5. 9-11 Commission Report p 305

6. NYT Feb 2002

7. www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/scientists-signon-statement.html

8. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/136350_epa23.html

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