SFCharlie - that's good work, but I don't see it proving anything.
I think the lights are messing with the camera image quality. Also, in low light cameras tend to blur motion so that could be messing up the image quality as well.
To me, that column without lower level balconies is ending with the 11th floor balcony right above the windows with lights on. Then, there is the strip that is the 11th floor, another strip that is the balcony/parapet at the 12 floor and then the roof parapet. A possible reason the top level parapets aren't as wide as they should appear is because the facade wall is dropping first so the floors has hinged down enough the camera is seeing them from an angle instead of straight on.
To me. all the collapsing floors have already dropped about a floor.
I see nothing that definitely points to part of the roof missing or falling off first. I don't see how any more details can be gleamed from that video based on how crappy that area appears.
I can't make out anything at the left of the collapsing area because of the lights.
I actually saw most of the above just looking at the Youtube video. Scanning these frames just confirmed what I already believed.
I really don't see enough of a difference between these groups of frames to be able to claim the building stopped dropping during these frame groups. From the crappy footage, I would be more inclined to believe it is the camera or the playback device causing these pauses.
08-11
12-15
17-19
20-22
24-27 - It collapsed upwards slightly if you believe these are true frames of the building.
29-32
33-34
Of course, I'm sure others will give long written explanations on how the frames must be different.
There is a reason why the established structural folks on this site have mostly given up on this thread. It's because they don't speculate and chase wild theories and other unrelated crap, not because they can't due to their profession but rather because they know how stupid it is to do so.
I haven't seen very much for postings that would be considered FMEA in the last few threads. FMEA would involve looking at a failure mode and then examining what the result of that failure would be. For example, if a transfer beam failed what could happen. It's not posting on about labor skill or who did what renovations or chasing a white car even though there isn't an ounce of evidence it was involved in any way.
Finally, this isn't a forensic engineering area, it's an area to discuss engineering failures. But, if you want to talk forensic engineering, then there's not much of that going on with the stupid throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks that's happening here. It all happened in the first few threads when the little evidence that was available was first examined and discussed as to it's meaning. This is when the established structural folks mostly stopped posting because they know it's impossible to do any deeper forensic examinations without more evidence and the evidence had dried up. They also know how pointless it is to try and convince the "what if" wild theory crowd that it's pointless to keep at it. Remember the "it was a car hitting a column, end of story case closed" post? Dealing with that level of stupidity drives rational folks away.
Sorry, it’s one of those days. BTW - this is a terrific site. Thanks!!
