With All the Buildings Crashing Down It s Armageddon Again

What changes accept been made as a result of the World Trade Eye (WTC) investigation conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)?  Are alpine buildings around the world safe from the adventure of global collapse due to fire every bit described by the official explanations?

In 2008, NIST began claiming that its investigation would help ensure the safe of future buildings.  NIST said that such buildings "should be increasingly resistant to burn down, more than easily evacuated in emergencies, and safer overall" equally a upshot of the WTC investigation.  Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, the Bush Administration cabinet member in charge of NIST at the time, said –

"The lessons learned from the tragic events of nine/eleven have yielded stronger building and fire codes for a new generation of safer, more robust buildings across the nation." [1]

Is this true?  If so, nosotros should be able to run across improvements being made to the design and construction processes for alpine buildings around the earth.  We should also await that existing buildings would exist evaluated for design problems and retrofitted in an urgent manner to ensure that fires practice not bring buildings crashing down as they did on 9/eleven, killing thousands of unsuspecting victims.

Unfortunately, there are no signs that such design evaluations and retrofit projects accept occurred. This is a stiff indication that the international edifice community has not taken the NIST WTC reports seriously.

In a few stunning instances, the NIST findings were never considered at all prior to building design and structure.  An example is the new WTC building 7, which was fully completed in 2006. That same year, NlST spokesman Shyam Sunder was saying "Nosotros've had trouble getting a handle on building No. 7."[2]  To clarify, in 2006 NIST had no idea what happened to the original WTC vii, a 47-story skyscraper that was non hit by a airplane nonetheless collapsed into its own footprint in a matter of seconds on nine/xi. Therefore the new, fifty-fifty taller, WTC seven could not accept incorporated any design or construction changes resulting from the NIST investigation. Apparently people still use the building, yet, and do non seem bothered past the risk.

How about for other buildings in New York City and elsewhere, including the widely publicized replacement for WTC ane existence completed this year?  In order to answer that question, we should review a little history behind the NIST WTC investigation.

The NIST WTC Investigation

According to NIST, the original Twin Towers were built to run across the 1968 NYC building code requirements.[3]  This code required iii hours of burn down resistance for the steel column components and two hours of fire resistance for the flooring assemblies.  A startling discrepancy here is that the south tower was said to be completely destroyed less than one hour afterwards the fires began.  And what people often don't realize is that fire is the chief explanation for failure of all three WTC buildings.

NIST did not explain this discrepancy straight.  Instead, the NIST WTC reports, which corporeality to tens of thousands of pages, reflected the results of estimator modeling that proposed three root causes.

• "Widely dislodged" fireproofing – the Twin Towers
• Linear thermal expansion – WTC vii
• "Progressive global plummet" – all 3 buildings [4]
  

Progressive global collapse was a term that NIST used frequently throughout its investigation despite the fact that no tall edifice had ever collapsed completely due to burn down.  In fact, the merely three instances of progressive global plummet for any reason other than demolition occurred all in the same place (at the WTC) at the aforementioned time (on 9/xi).

With respect to the fireproofing (i.due east. insulation) loss in the towers, NIST said –

"The WTC towers would likely non have collapsed under the combined effects of aircraft impact and the extensive, multi-flooring fires if the thermal insulation had not been widely dislodged or had been but minimally dislodged by shipping impact."

At the time of the nine/11 attacks, the WTC towers were undergoing a fireproofing upgrade to better ensure the buildings' burn down resistance.  In an incredible coincidence, the floors where the full fireproofing upgrades had been completed were the aforementioned floors that were struck by the aircraft on 9/11.[five]

The true status of the fireproofing in the WTC towers at the time of bear on has been misrepresented by supporters of the official account.  These official account supporters produce quondam photos of the fireproofing status prior to the upgrades.  What they don't tell you is that the upgraded fireproofing, for example on the impact floors of the north tower, was measured before the attacks and plant to exist 3.25 inches thick.  This was twice what was required by the NYC code.  What's more than, inspectors constitute that the adhesion, or bond force, of the newly installed fireproofing was twice every bit high as what was required.[6]

How did this newly installed, superior fireproofing in the towers get "widely dislodged" as proposed by NIST?

We don't know considering NIST produced a startling lack of scientific evidence for its key merits that the fireproofing was widely dislodged.  In fact, the just evidence NIST presented for this was a test in which 15 rounds from a shotgun were aimed at various non-representative samples.  A shotgun may accept been needed due to the fact that other tests NIST had performed showed the bond strength of the WTC fireproofing to be "considerably greater" than what was expected.[7]

For WTC 7, the root cause cited by NIST was the dislocation of a girder caused by the linear thermal expansion of flooring beams.  The expanding composite beams were said to have caused the breakage of over one hundred high-forcefulness bolts and other structural connections, and thereby the failure of a girder supporting a critical column.

However, other scientists submitted public comments to NIST near bodily physical tests they had done, which NIST avoided entirely, that indicated such a sequence was not realistic.  "Having conducted numerous fire tests on composite beams, we have never observed this," wrote Dr. David Proe of Victoria Universty. [viii]

As a whole the NIST WTC reports were plant to be unscientific and simulated.[9]  And because the computer models upon which these reports were ultimately based have never been made bachelor to the public, the NIST findings cannot be replicated.

Ignoring NIST's recommendations

Regardless of the lack of scientific validity of the WTC reports, NIST represents a standard making body of the U.South. government and its findings should hogtie U.S. professionals to make changes to their practices. To see if edifice professionals and local government regulators have followed NIST'southward pb, we should examine the relevant building codes for any updates resulting from the NIST WTC investigation.

The International Code Council (ICC)'southward International Building Code (IBC) provides a full general guidance for local lawmaking makers in the U.s.. Following the IBC code is non a requirement for local governments, however.  Translation of the code into local code requirements is strictly a discretionary decision.

Although the ICC praised NIST and its contractors for the hard work that had gone into the NIST WTC investigation, the fact is that ICC did not incorporate relevant changes into its IBC lawmaking as a result.

In its 2008 press release on the subject, NIST claimed that the IBC lawmaking had changed to "address areas such as increasing structural resistance to building plummet from burn and other incidents; requiring a third exit stairway for tall buildings; increasing the width of all stairways by 50 percent in new high-rises; [and] strengthening criteria for the bonding, proper installation and inspection of sprayed fire-resistive materials."

Of course, additional and wider exit stairways cannot prevent the catastrophic plummet of a skyscraper from burn down.  But NIST was not telling the truth nigh the ICC having adopted code changes to increment structural resistance to the kinds of building collapse phenomena proposed past the WTC reports.

A 2010 printing release from NIST added "better communications" to the list of ICC-adopted recommendations from the WTC investigation.[10]  It'southward true that the radios used past firefighters in the WTC were a business concern, and were really known by NYC officials to be faulty as early as 1993.[11]  However, no amount of radio-related code differences would take prevented the unprecedented destruction of the buildings.  Similarly, NIST'due south evacuation recommendations had no relevance to the root crusade of the WTC destruction.

NIST had to admit that ICC did not adopt the recommendations that called for edifice professionals to "accost areas such every bit designing structures to mitigate disproportionate progressive collapse."[12]

In a Jan, 2011 alphabetic character to NIST, the ICC confirmed that this was still the instance.[13]  The only lawmaking changes that ICC adopted were:

"1) Luminous egress path marker required; two) exit stairway enclosures required to exist separated by no less than thirty feet; 3) enhanced inspection requirements for Sprayed-on Fire-Resistant Fabric (SFRM)."

And for buildings college than 420 anxiety,

"ane)Increased bond forcefulness for SFRM; two) a second, additional exit stairway, with a minimum separation betwixt stairwells; iii) a requirement to increase structural integrity of exit enclosures and elevator hoist enclosures; 4) redundant sprinkler system risers with alternate flooring requirements."

Of these changes, just the two related to SFRM tin can be seen every bit linked to the official business relationship of the plummet of the buildings. But even these changes were non planned for addition to the IBC lawmaking until release of the 2012 edition.  Obviously the concerns about the SFRM and its bond strength were non that neat.

That might be because it'southward tough to see how the SFRM code changes were related anyhow.  That is, the ICC changes to require greater fireproofing bail strength cannot be reconciled with the fact that the fireproofing in the alleged failure areas of the towers was already far greater than what the code required.  Yet notwithstanding the buildings suffered "progressive global plummet," a phenomenon for which the ICC made no changes.

As for the inexplicable collapse of WTC 7, the ICC made no changes in that location either. The alleged root crusade of floor beam thermal expansion is non addressed by whatever ICC code modify.

How nigh New York City and authorities leaders in general?  Were federal and country leaders, municipalities and building professionals willing to put money into the relevant recommendations made by NIST, and thereby endorse the official explanations for what happened at the WTC?  No, they were not.

The electric current (2008) NYC lawmaking includes changes that were said to be modeled later on the ICC's changes, which were said to be a issue of the NIST WTC investigation.  However, the actual changes fabricated were not related to NIST's three root causes of the WTC devastation.  Instead, they focused on "widened stairwells in high-rise buildings, expanded sprinkler systems, and enhanced emergency voice communication systems."[14]

The NYC building code includes a requirement for SFRM bond strength that clearly does not have the WTC investigation into account.  The requirement is that the bond strength "shall not be less than 150 pounds per square pes (psf)."[15]  The problem is that the bond force of the fireproofing in the WTC was known to be much higher than this and yet nosotros're told it was still widely dislodged.

The Port Authority of NY and NJ provided 64 bail strength measurement values to NIST, taken from the fireproofing in the impact and failures zones of the WTC.  NIST even listed these in its study.  None were as low as 150 psf and most were twice that value.[sixteen]  The failure to increase the bond strength requirement in the building code, leaving it at a value that was far lower than what the WTC had in place, indicates that NYC officials are not in the to the lowest degree scrap worried about bond force.

Related to WTC 7, the 2008 NYC code besides refers to the need to ensure that the fire-induced expansion of edifice components (e.1000. steel beams) does "not adversely interfere with the system's capabilities."[17]  Merely the 1968 code included similar requirements and even stated that the coefficient of expansion for all building materials needed to be addressed in test reports.[18]

More specifically, the 1968 code that WTC vii was required to meet stated that the pattern "shall provide for forces and/or movements resulting from an assumed expansion respective to a change in temperature."  Therefore not merely was there no change as a issue of the NIST WTC seven report, given the NIST account we might wonder if the original WTC 7 was synthetic outside of the NYC code requirements.

 Another reason the NIST WTC reports are fake

Despite its grandiose claims, NIST knows that the edifice community has ignored the WTC investigation findings.  That's clear from NIST'due south own tracking sheet on its website.  This tracks all 30 recommendations from the NIST WTC investigation and lists the lawmaking "outcomes" from each.[19]  As of August 2011, the nearly contempo update, not 1 NIST recommendation related to progressive global plummet, "widely dislodged" fireproofing, or linear thermal expansion has been adopted.

The two NIST recommendations that telephone call for (unspecified) measures to foreclose progressive global collapse accept been completely ignored.  Other things similar an additional exit stairway, a fire service access elevator, and stairwells with glow-in-the-dark markings are simply not relevant.[twenty]

NIST might argue that there is i ICC alter that calls for fireproofing to have increased bond strength and exist installed and inspected correctly.  But since bond strength was not a root cause of the WTC destruction, and measurements merely earlier 9/11 showed that the fireproofing in the impact zones was far better installed and had far amend bond strength than what was required, this is a red herring.  That's not to mention that no tests were always washed to indicate what bond force was needed to resist flying shipping debris.

Are tall buildings safer as a upshot of the NIST WTC report?  No, they are most certainly non. And if people actually understood and believed the official account of what happened at the WTC they would non enter tall buildings because in doing then they would be putting their lives at gamble.

The truth, withal, is that the NIST WTC investigation was a politically motivated diversion that produced reports which are known to be simulated.  This fact is re-emphasized by the noesis that the international edifice community, including that of New York Metropolis, has not adopted code changes that can be traced to the root causes cited by NIST for the WTC destruction.

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[1] NIST, Safer Buildings Are Goal of New Lawmaking Changes Based on Recommendations from NIST Earth Trade Center Investigation, October 1, 2008, http://www.nist.gov/el/wtc_100108.cfm

[x] NIST WTC Recommendations Are Footing for New Set up of Revised Codes, June nine, 2010

[12] NIST, Safer Buildings Are Goal of New Code Changes Based on Recommendations from NIST World Trade Center Investigation, October 1, 2008, http://www.nist.gov/el/wtc_100108.cfm

[13] National Constitute of Standards and Technology: Asking for Information, International Code Council, Docket No. 0909100442-0563-02, January 12, 2011, http://standards.gov/upload/35_ICC.pdf

[16] NIST NCSTAR 1-6A, p 45

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Source: https://digwithin.net/2012/09/07/are-tall-buildings-safer/

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