Slide #37 - Earthquake Collapses

I Thought We Were Talking About Fire

In this slide, Gage jumps ship. He's been trying (and failing) to show how the collapse of 7 World Trade showed no characteristics of destruction by fire. And now he's back to the "Symmetrical Collapse" square on his little diagram. What's up with that?

Actually, he's trying to reinforce his second "destruction by fire" characteristic, "asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance." He's once again brought out these pictures of much smaller buildings than 7 which have tipped over.

And he spills the beans. Everyone of these pictures are of buildings tipped over by earthquakes.

Why couldn't he show us pictures of buildings destroyed by fire that tipped over like this? Wouldn't that be more to the point?

I mention again that these are smaller buildings that appear to be concrete-reinforced buildings. There's no indication that they are steel framed, and they simply aren't indicative of the kind of forces at play in the collapse of a building the size of 7 World Trade.

The Columns and The Concrete

Gage says that since these buildings didn't have their columns all severed simultaneously, they fell over.

Again, by Gage's own admission, the columns in 7 didn't fail simultaneously. Several columns were cut by the North Tower debris, column 79 was the critical column failure that initiated collapse, and the rest of the columns were pulled apart when the "foundation in the sky" began shifting after the fall of the east mechanical penthouse.

These buildings have much less mass than 7 World Trade. Whatever columns remaining attached to the ground after the earthquake shook the rest loose were an adequate pivot point for the building, especially with the strong lateral (horizontal) forces common in an earthquake. The earthquake provided the energy, and the building's structure was able to support the dynamic load of the mass as it moved around the pivot point (the unsevered columns).

But 7 World Trade was immense. The dynamic load coming from its mass in motion would have quickly torn apart any potential pivot point in the building's structure. The building would then continue to accelerate under the vertical force of gravity, straight down, unless it met enough resistance to either stop the movement or provide another pivot point. Having already destroyed one, what are the chances the now-stronger dynamic load would find another one in the same structure?

7 World Trade crushed itself under the kinetic force of its own immense mass. No part of the building's structure could have provided a strong enough pivot point to tip the building over. The dynamic load was too strong.

And to Gage's point about the pulverized concrete, there wouldn't have been in the earthquake-toppled buildings. The structures held, and so the mass of the building couldn't have been used against itself to pulverize concrete. That's a point for the collapse of the Twin Towers, anyway. I'm sure it will come up again.

7 World Trade Center and Destruction by Fire Characteristics

In this section, Gage tried to show that 7 World Trade didn't meet any of the features of destruction by fire. His list of these features:

1. Slow onset with large visible deformations

2. Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, to the side most damaged by the fires)

3. Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel

4. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never "collapsed".

As I have shown, Gage's first two characteristics are present in the collapse. I've also shown Gage's fourth point to be irrelevant since the incidents he chooses to compare with 7 World Trade are so much more different from it as to be more suitable for contrasting with 7's collapse.

Indeed, his fourth point is close to saying that such destruction is impossible. If a steel-framed high rise were to collapse from fire in the future, Gage's fourth item would rule it out as "destruction by fire" as well!

That leaves No. 3 as a wash at the present. Though I cannot show conclusive proof of the fire temperatures in 7, I have shown intense fires in the building. I'm confident that the modeling of NIST will show the types of temperatures present in 7 World Trade and they will prove to be adequate, since NIST has not changed his working hypothesis which is built on the presumption of ordinary office fires.

Gage's effort to minimize these fires has been for nothing. I've shown the type of evidence that exists of large, powerful fires in 7 World Trade Center, especially in the area of the building where column 79 was.

What's more, his argument is hopelessly ruined. With two features present in 7's collapse, Gage cannot eliminate the possibility of 7 World Trade being destroyed by fire. And with three of his controlled demolition features ruled out so far, Gage may wind up actually proving that 7 fell because of fire in spite of himself!

Wouldn't that be interesting?

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