source: Examiner Aug 11, 2010
Anders Björkman is a structural engineer from France who became an early member of Richard Gage’s AE911Truth. He had previously given speeches in his country to people whose children had seen footage of the Trade Towers’ destruction and were worried that buildings could collapse from the top down. He reassured these parents that this couldn’t happen and posted his presentation on his web site where it gradually developed.
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| Anders Björkman |
Björkman became a formal critic of the “Progressive Collapse” or “Piledriver” theory promoted by Dr. Zdenek Bazant, a consultant for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in its work on 9-11. The Piledriver Theory basically posits that prolonged heating weakened the support columns of a single floor which caused the upper section to crush what was below it in a chain-reaction all the way to the bottom.
“I explained on my website that you cannot destroy a building by dropping the top on the bottom; you have to destroy it from the bottom,” Björkman said. “Then a lot of people criticized that and said, ‘But Dr. Bazant says the opposite, and he has written all these papers,’ so of course I looked at these papers, and said, ‘This Bazant is nonsense.’ But others said, ‘But he’s peer-reviewed. It has been published in a scientific journal—the Journal of Engineering Mechanics.’”
Björkman contacted Ross Corotis, the journal’s editor, saying Bazant was incorrect and asking if he could write a response to the article. Corotis said yes, so Björkman wrote what he called “a very simple article” and submitted it in early February to the journal. In June Corotis contacted Björkman and told him the intended to publish it, but first Björkman needed to sign a copyright agreement, which he immediately returned. In September Björkman contacted the journal to investigate the delay and was told Corotis was waiting for Bazant to submit “closure” or his response to Björkman’s response. Björkman’s article and Bazant’s response were finally published in July of 2010.
Björkman explains why he vigorously disputes Bazant’s “Piledriver” idea.
Posted by Brian 
