Kenneth Kuttler's letter on the Twin Towers collapse times

Dave Rogers · 13th November 2007, 09:59 AM

I've been meaning for some time (quite a long time actually, since the publication was in May) to post some comments on Kenneth Kuttler's letter to the Journal of 9-11 Studies on estimates for the time to collapse of WTC1. This is not the June 2006 letter in which Kuttler calculates how long WTC7 would have taken to collapse had the initiation been at the top, a matter of no more than academic interest since the final phase of collapse in fact initiated low down in the structure, but his May 2007 letter in which he looks at the Twin Towers, which did in fact collapse from the top down.

The letter can be found at:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/l...lculations.pdf

Kuttler's letter sets out to estimate the collapse times of the Twin Towers, then to establish lower limits for gravitational collapse times. This is in order to demonstrate that the collapse times observed are inconsistent with gravitational collapse, a commonly repeated assertion from the truth movement. Kuttler is a Professor of Mathematics at Brigham Young and appears to have a respectable record as an academic and teacher. As mathematics is his speciality and the computation involved in this letter is all straightforward arithmetic, I shall assume that all his computed results are correctly derived from his assumptions, and shall focus primarily on the physical feasibility of his assumptions (more the province of a physicist or engineer than of a mathematician) and of the validity of his reasoning from results to conclusions.

In the first paragraph of section 1.1, Kuttler refers to "the claim that the concrete of the floors was essentially all crushed to dust", and refers to the assertion that all the concrete in the Twin Towers was pulverised in his reference 10, an article by Morgan Reynolds. This in turn refers to a single comment by an un-named official taken out of context from an ABC news story which is no longer available but has been archived on a truther website - a less authoritative source would be hard to imagine. This quote of course contains no information about when in the collapse the dust was created, the particle size distribution of the dust or whether larger fragments of concrete were present in other areas of the rubble pile than those in which the un-named official's workers were searching, and disagrees with a wealth of photographic evidence showing macroscopic concrete fragments present in very large quantities in the rubble pile. The date of the reference, September 16th, makes it clear that no significant clearance of debris could have taken place by this time, and that this quote therefore can at most only refer to the absence of large concrete fragments from the upper reaches of the debris pile. In particular, it does not state, or even suggest, that there was no concrete dust in the rubble pile. This will be of significance later in the article.

When Kuttler looks at the actual collapse times, some of the times quoted are not reasonable estimates. Kuttler starts by saying that the collapse time for WTC1 "looks like it came down in about 15 seconds", but then quotes times from the NIST report which are not estimates of the collapse time but of the free-fall time for debris. Legge's estimate, also given as a reference, is an extrapolation without justification from the early moments of the collapse. In discussing his own estimate of the collapse time, Kuttler estimates that the collapse took about 12 seconds after the start of a specific video which he states begins "when the collapse of the top floors has been underway for a few seconds", but he rather misleadingly twice quotes the time "12 seconds" in a discussion which clearly indicates that the collapse time for WTC1 was significantly greater than 12 seconds. His actual estimate of the collapse time is never stated, which seems odd since it is a key part of the analysis.

In section 1.2, Kuttler discusses different collapse modes, specifically what he refers to as "hard top" and "soft top" collapses. The "hard top" model is equivalent to that used by Greening, Bazant and others, and is commonly referred to as "crush-down/crush-up", in which the top part of the building initially destroys the bottom part and then is itself destroyed when it impacts the ground. The "soft top" collapse mode involves simultaneous crush-up and crush-down until the top portion has been destroyed, after which the rubble from the floors destroyed continues to collapse the lower floors. Kuttler argues with considerable justification that the latter model appears more physically reasonable, and then goes on to discuss both models in order to obtain valid comparisons with the work of others. This part of the analysis appears well thought-out and physically reasonable.

In section 1.3 Kuttler sets out the basic physics involved in the collapse, which is generally correctly derived. One quesionable statement from this section is that he has neglected some energy sinks which will therefore increase the collapse time. This will be further discussed in comments on section 1.4.3.

In section 1.4 Kuttler calculates collapse times for the hard top floating floor model. This section is broken down into a series of different sets of starting assumptions, as follows:

Section 1.4.1: Floating floor collapse times considering conservation of momentum only. Kuttler quotes his calculated 12.18 second collapse time as "longer than the official NIST figure of 11 seconds", despite having himself determined the collapse time to be longer than this. Since this letter purports to be a scientific analysis rather than a rebuttal to NIST, it seems inappropriate that he does not compare his results with his own observations. In any case, the figure from NIST is not a collapse time but a free-fall time for loose debris, so Kuttler gives the appearance of deliberately trying to find a shorter time than his calculation for comparison.

Section 1.4.2: Progressive loss of mass to dust. Kuttler assumes 100% loss of concrete in every impact stage of the collapse. This assumes that, in the sequence of floor-to-floor impacts, the entire concrete content of the lower 94 floors has been lost by the time the top impacts the ground. This is a physically unreasonable and completely unjustified assumption. Even if there was no solid concrete remaining in the debris, this does not require that all the concrete involved in a floor-to-floor impact was expelled prior to impact with the ground, as Kuttler assumes; this would require that concrete was not even present as dust in the rubble pile, which the references in the letter do not support. As a result, the collapse times thus calculated will inevitably be unrealistically long. If we simply accept the possibility of dust in the rubble pile, then the requirement for pulverisation to precede the ground impact is removed, as the kinetic energy of the falling debris becomes available in its entirety for pulverisation. If we further accept that macroscopic concrete fragments were present then the energy requirement for pulverisation falls drastically.

Section 1.4.3: Kuttler neglects conservation of momentum and assumes 100% crushing of concrete to 100µm dust. This is physically unreasonable because (a) it has not been established satisfactorily that all the concrete was crushed (see above), and (b) the transfer of energy from kinetic to fracture energy must be limited by conservation of momentum otherwise Newtonian mechanics are violated. Indeed, it is the loss of kinetic energy due to the requirement that momentum is conserved in an inelastic collision that is the source of the fracture energy required for pulverisation, so by neglecting that effect Kuttler is failing to make any attempt at realistic modelling of the physics of pulverisation. The value of 100µm comes from Lioy et al, a paper concerning the sampling of airborne dust at remote sites downwind of the Twin Towers, a sampling technique which would automatically place an upper limit on the dust particle size collected; these samples were therefore in no way representative of the debris from the collapse as a whole, which could have a very much larger particle size distribution. In fact Kuttler himself comments that there was insufficient energy in the collapse to achieve the level of pulverisation he requires, which should alert him to the problems with his own modelling.

Similar comments apply to sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3, in which Kuttler calculates collapse times for the soft top model; the quantity and size of dust is not justified, hence the collapse times are unrealistically long. Kuttler does not calculate the collapse time for the soft top model without loss of mass or energy to pulverisation, which is a significant omission.

Section 2.4 seems to be asserting that the steel in the collapse did not contribute to the energy requirements for pulverising concrete but that it should be included as an unrealistic variant of the model to give a shorter collapse time. Quite what Kuttler is trying to say here, I can't really tell.

In section 2.5, analysing the effect of column resistance on the collapse time, Kuttler states that each column exerts an average upwards force during the collapse of between 0.35 and 0.5 of its yield point, making no attempt to justify this figure either by reference or by calculation. This is a serious omission and a key weakness of the paper, as this value is critical to the remaining analysis. His discussion is limited to the following:

"Instead of the acceleration of gravity for g I will use

g = 32 - 2 x 32 x .35.

The 2 in the above is a safety factor which should be somewhere between 2 and 5. A factor of 2 is the smallest reasonable safety factor. The .35 comes about because the column will not deliver its full force over the whole length of the interval. Thus it should be multiplied by some number between .35 and .5."

This last sentence is a bizarre assertion. It is to be assumed that Kuttler is implying that the yield point of each column is at least twice the design loading, which is not entirely unreasonable although not backed up here by reference to any information on the design of WTC1. Since, by definition, at no time can the column exert a greater force than its yield point, this suggests that either the columns were delivering their full strength up to a compression of 35%, or - this is more likely Kuttler's basis for calculation - that their strength declined continuously throughout the collapse in such a way that they were always exerting an upward force whose average value over the collapse was 35-50% of the yield point. This presumes that the support columns were, in effect, slowly bent during the collapse rather than breaking. Since this has no resemblance to the behaviour of steel columns under compressive strain beyond their yield point, his resulting collapse times have no physical meaning whatsoever, and are necessarily a gross overestimate.

In summary, Kuttler in this letter does two things which preclude meaningful analysis.

Firstly, he makes invalid or physically unreasonable assumptions which will lead to greatly increased collapse times. There are four major invalid assumptions amongst those on which the analysis is founded:
(1) There was no concrete in the rubble piles within the footprint of either of the Twin Towers, not even in the form of dust.
(2) The entire concrete content of both towers was pulverised into fragments of 100 microns or less.
(3) Conservation of momentum is not a necessary factor in analysing inelastic collisions.
(4) Collapsing steel columns continue to support significant fractions of their design loads after failure in compressions.
Of these assumptions, (1) is not supported even by the flimsy anecdotal evidence advanced in its support, (2) is based on misinterpretation of airborne dust sampling data, (3) is patently absurd, and (4) is asserted in a highly disguised form and never discussed.

Secondly, either by misinterpretation or veiled implication, he suggests in two places that the collapse time was shorter than his own observations indicate.

While the former could simply be interpreted as an inability to visualise complex situations accurately, the latter - quite blatantly carried out - appears wilfully dishonest. This is the type of propaganda technique of which the truth movement frequently accuses government and media sources, so it is ironic to see it in a scientific communication which purports to seek the truth concerning the 9-11 attacks.

This letter is therefore, in my opinion, primarily a mixture of fatal fallacies and deliberate attempts to mislead. Since its fundamental assumptions are grossly unrealistic, its conclusions are of no value whatsoever.

Dave

JamesB · 13th November 2007, 10:12 AM

Hey, that is not just a letter. By nature of its being posted on the website of the Journal for 9/11 Studies, it has become a "peer-reviewed academic paper".

Alferd_Packer · 13th November 2007, 10:50 AM

My peer review of your peer review:

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

Quite what Kuttler is trying to say here, I can't really tell.

Awkward sentance constructions are those, up with which I shall not put.

JamesB · 13th November 2007, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by Alferd_Packer

My peer review of your peer review:

Awkward sentance constructions are those, up with which I shall not put.

He is channeling wise master Yoda.

krelnik · 13th November 2007, 11:28 AM

Awesome analysis, Dave. Nicely done.

--Tim Farley

Alferd_Packer · 13th November 2007, 12:25 PM

Yes, good job, sorry to distract the thread.

Newtons Bit · 13th November 2007, 02:53 PM

Nicely done. I think most truthers make this mistake:

Quote:

the transfer of energy from kinetic to fracture energy must be limited by conservation of momentum otherwise Newtonian mechanics are violated. Indeed, it is the loss of kinetic energy due to the requirement that momentum is conserved in an inelastic collision that is the source of the fracture energy required for pulverisation, so by neglecting that effect Kuttler is failing to make any attempt at realistic modelling of the physics of pulverisation.

They all scream that physics must have been violated, and then ignore basic precepts on the behavior of a collision.

Regarding the "factor of safety" of the towers. I think it is entirely reasonble for the towers to have been at a demand to capacity ratio of 1/2 to 1/5.

bofors · 13th November 2007, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

Section 1.4.1: Floating floor collapse times considering conservation of momentum only. Kuttler quotes his calculated 12.18 second collapse time as "longer than the official NIST figure of 11 seconds", despite having himself determined the collapse time to be longer than this. Since this letter purports to be a scientific analysis rather than a rebuttal to NIST, it seems inappropriate that he does not compare his results with his own observations. In any case, the figure from NIST is not a collapse time but a free-fall time for loose debris, so Kuttler gives the appearance of deliberately trying to find a shorter time than his calculation for comparison.

This is ridiculous.

Kuttler is simply stating that the times predicted for the WTC twin towers to collapse without any columns holding it up is for all practical purposes the same as the observed "collapse" times.

This means nothing was holding the WTC towers up and proves demoltion. It is the key point of the paper.

Quote:

Similar comments apply to sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3, in which Kuttler calculates collapse times for the soft top model; the quantity and size of dust is not justified, hence the collapse times are unrealistically long. Kuttler does not calculate the collapse time for the soft top model without loss of mass or energy to pulverisation, which is a significant omission.

There is no such thing as a "soft top model without loss of mass or energy to pulverisation". "Soft top" means the building-top is pulverized.

Quote:

In section 2.5, analysing the effect of column resistance on the collapse time, Kuttler states that each column exerts an average upwards force during the collapse of between 0.35 and 0.5 of its yield point, making no attempt to justify this figure either by reference or by calculation. This is a serious omission and a key weakness of the paper, as this value is critical to the remaining analysis. His discussion is limited to the following:

"Instead of the acceleration of gravity for g I will use

g = 32 - 2 x 32 x .35.

The 2 in the above is a safety factor which should be somewhere between 2 and 5. A factor of 2 is the smallest reasonable safety factor. The .35 comes about because the column will not deliver its full force over the whole length of the interval. Thus it should be multiplied by some number between .35 and .5."

... or - this is more likely Kuttler's basis for calculation - that their strength declined continuously throughout the collapse in such a way that they were always exerting an upward force whose average value over the collapse was 35-50% of the yield point. This presumes that the support columns were, in effect, slowly bent during the collapse rather than breaking. Since this has no resemblance to the behaviour of steel columns under compressive strain beyond their yield point...

And what are you suggesting here? 0.002 for elastic deformation + 0.03 for the plastic shorting phase? That would be absurd.

Sorry, but even if the columns did buckle and fracture (and I have yet to see any paper prove that they would in the ludicrous free fall collapse scerario supposed by Bazant and endorsed by NIST), the columns then do not just magically disappear.

No, even after conventional failure columns still support a load until fracture. Then the fractured columns pieces support the load during the crushing process and so on.

While Kuttler's value of 0.35 might be unexplained, it certainly is not unreasonable.

Dave Rogers · 13th November 2007, 03:26 PM