The NIST NCST Committee on WTC7 held a public meeting on the progress of the WTC7 report. One of the public commentators was Richard Gage AIA.
The call contains a number of stunning admissions by NIST regarding the WTC7 fires, as well as interesting questions from NIST committee members and powerful statements from three citizen commentators.


Richard Gage's Comments (6MB): http://nasathermalimages.com/images/NIST_N...rd_Gage_AIA.mp3


Source: http://www.911blogger.com/node/13052

Unfortunately none of the links to the actual meeting seem to be operational at the moment, just the link to 911 Blogger.

Interesting that NIST has conceded the the diesel fuel lines played no part in the fires.

Apparently NIST is sticking to the belief that demolitions were not used and that the collapse was strictly a result of those nomadic 20 minute office furniture fires...incredible!

MM

Well the links are working now.

I've gotten about halfway through the main presentation.

NIST now admits that the destruction of building 7 had nothing to do with the diesel fuel.

NIST's "working collapse hypothesis" is that:

* An initial local failure occurred at the lower floors (below floor 13) of the building due to fire and/or debris-induced structural damage of a critical column (the initiating event) which supported a large-span floor bay with an area of about 2,000 square feet;

* Vertical progression of the initial local failure occurred up to the east penthouse, and as the large floor bays became unable to redistribute the loads, it brought down the interior structure below the east penthouse; and

* Triggered by damage due to the vertical failure, horizontal progression of the failure across the lower floors (in the region of floors 5 and 7 that were much thicker and more heavily reinforced than the rest of the floors) resulted in a disproportionate collapse of the entire structure.

NIST explains that "The working hypothesis for the initiating event sequence that characterizes the initial local failure is based on fire-induced failures initiating in the tenant floors:

* Floor beams, slabs, and connections heat more quickly and to higher temperatures than the columns.

* Elevated temperatures in the floor elements lead to thermal expansion, sagging, and weakening that result in failure of floor connections and/or buckling of floor beams.

* Sufficient floor component failures (connections and/or beams) result in at least one long unsupported column at the lower floors, which leads to the initiation of global collapse.

Which raises this question;

"How come office fires in other modern steel skyscrapers which burned much longer and hotter than WTC 7 didn't experience the same conditions of differential heating and local failures or -- if they did -- why didn't they collapse also?

It appears in the absence of aircraft impact damage, NIST are substituting "..floors 5 and 7 that were much thicker and more heavily reinforced than the rest of the floors.." as the weakness the office furniture fueled fires were able to exploit.

NIST now hopes to have a draft for public comment available by July, 2008!

MM

You gotta be kidding me!

wtc7 was a modern skyscraper, but we have to believe it was a one-off architectural freak. A construction that is extremely instable after minor damage, a kind of self-destroying construction triggered by asymmetrical expansions caused by bi-metals. A construction that implodes itself completely and fast and near symmetrical after some minor damage/fire. A construction that should be extremely stable because people have to work in it. Isn't it a purpose for architects to avoid that a building collapses ? Billions of investments, risk analysis and after some fire it's gone. I have to think about the Delta Works we have in the Netherlands, where some high-risk parts are engineered to fail once in 10,000 years, not after each storm.

NIST has a "working hypothesis" and by George they are going to make it stick even if they have to claim special high octane office furniture materials were responsible.

Just like with their 10,000 page toilet paper roll that supposedly explained the collapses of WTC 1 & WTC 2, NIST has pre-decided that "shock and awe" also caused the collapse of WTC7. "See all that smoke? That's suckers coming down!"

I suspect the biggest reason for the delay, other than the obvious political considerations, is that they haven't found a computer model that will produce collapse initiation without using "lies and assumptions" so great they wouldn't persuade a 3-year old.

MM

Richard Gage gave a powerful presentation.

Pulled no punches.

Say it like it is Mr. Gage!


The other two speakers pretty much wrapped it up.

After an hour of the same old s**t, they got quite an ear full.

I must commend the individuals responsible for allowing this to occur and be transmitted to the public.

Nist are never going to concede there was CD , how ever much evidence there is .

But the 'people' at NIST put enough truth in the reports to prove the official hypothesis is bunk with no actual evidence to support it.

Those guys are a lot smarter than you might think.