Study Backs Up Feds' Theory of Why World Trade Center Collapsed on Sept. 11
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS — A computer simulation of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks supports a federal agency's findings that the initial impact from the hijacked airplanes stripped away crucial fireproofing material and that the weakened towers collapsed under their own weight.
The two-year Purdue University study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, was the first to use 3-D animation to provide visual context to the attacks, said Christoph Hoffmann, a professor of computer science and one of the lead researchers on the project.
(snip)
The animation, intended in part to help engineers design safer buildings, begins with a map of lower Manhattan as it appeared on Sept. 11, 2001. The video then shows a plane slicing through several stories of the World Trade Center's north tower and follows the disintegrating plane through the interior and out the opposite side.
The report concludes that the weight of the aircraft's fuel, when ignited, produced "a flash flood of flaming liquid" that knocked out a number of structural columns within the building and removed the fireproofing insulation from other support structures, Hoffmann said.
The simulation also found that the airplane's metal skin peeled away shortly after impact and shows how the titanium jet engine shafts flew through the building like bullets.
I suppose it's too much to think the crazies will disappear into the woodwork finally, but maybe they'll have to quiet down and regroup for a while.
Nah, probably not.
posted by Paddy @ 8:50 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Booga booga.
The crazies??? The same group that our esteemed Law & Order candidate, Fred Thompson, likened progressive bloggers to?
Thank God, about time we squelched the speculation that this administration is competent enough to pull this off and keep it secret.
Anyone who didn't believe the earlier reports will probably not believe this report either due to who funded it. And in all honesty, some computer simulations are of high quality and some are little more than cartoons.
I can't really blame the conspiracy theorists, this Administration has handled the various investigations horribly, have bungled everything they have touched, and has shown how corruption for money and for politics effects every aspect of their governance. In an atmosphere like that it is almost more rational to believe there was a conspiracy than not.
On the scientific and public issue, I would actually like to see not a computer simulation, but a physical recreation of enough of a portion of a trade center like structure so as to be able to study an actual explosion. I'm not talking 110 stories of full blown WTC, but perhaps a 10 - 30 story structure of some size meant to answer the question: how fast does a pancaking building actually fall. And perhaps another structure meant to study the question: what were the temps inside, and can the steal fail at the those temps. It would be good to have such structures built in an open environment.
Seeing is believing and unlike with JFK, we can recreate much of this.
I have a hard time believing the government could cover something of this magnitude up, but there have been some very intriguing questions posed, and the goverment can't have handled the whole thing any worse.
Total obfuscation. I have a civil engineering degree with a major in structures. My problem is WTC7.
Somebody is missing the point, I think.
Consider this. I'm not saying I believe everything I read or hear. I'm just not buying it because of my training.
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