The molten metal
that conspiracy theorists point to are a glowing flow coming from the south tower window
and molten steel found under ground zero.
They
suggest the above glow is steel which is being cut by a thermite cutter
charge reaction. They show photos of a thermite reaction burning a hole
downward through a metal plate. Let's forget for a moment that thermite
doesn't explode so the claims of hearing explosions become meaningless.
The argument that there was thermite and explosives seems to be
rationalization of this dilemma. Why would they use thermite which cuts
steel without announcing it, then switch to explosives? To tip people
off? No theory exist to explain this but the faithful simply say "We're
still working on it". I'm sure they are. Let's also give ourselves
selective amnesia and pretend thermite can burn sideways to melt
vertical columns. Maybe with some device but no working device has been
proven to me to work. While there are relatively
large canisters which
can burn small holes sideways, I have yet to see this elusive steel
cutting technique used to cut a vertical column. Then there is
a patent of a device which has been brought up but as of yet there
is no evidence the idea went any further. Does it even work?
Anyone can make a patent but it
doesn't mean it exists or even works. Even if
it did, they are "Ganged" together to make the cut according to the patent.
You would still need these boxes all over the columns. It would be
pretty absurd to suggest they moved the walls away from the columns
just to fit these things around the columns. Of course they'll say they
didn't suggest that but it goes without saying. Anyway, physicists
aren't supposed to know these things. I will give Jones the benefit of the doubt
and say he and the other "Scholars for truth"
may not know how to use Google. We'll chalk this up to old scholars who
hate computers. (We'll also forget that professors are supposed to know
how to do research. Though that one is a little tougher for me...) The
last thing we are to ignore is that this thermite charge didn't go off
during the impact and decided to go off later. Yes, thermite needs a
very hot source or primary explosive to go off but this primary
explosive didn't go off either. (Enter sound of explosives right?
Wrong, the sounds were described as happening at the time of collapse.
From what I've seen of thermite, it needs longer than microseconds to
work on thick steel.) Jones' torch on the thermite proves it needs
other means of setting it off but it doesn't prove a thing for whatever
is supposed to set it off. That would still be very volatile in the
fires. I have yet to see this 1,100C fireproof container and radio
controlled primary explosive combination some have rationalized. This
seems to exist because they need it to exist. It will be interesting to
see how Jones gets around this now that he knows. Will he use these
rationalizations or produce hard facts? I have little doubt he will
think of SOMETHING...
Since I first wrote
this, the conspiracy theorists did not disappoint. Enter "Nanothermite!"
They offer these links to prove its explosive properties. The problem
is the links do the exact opposite.
INTRODUCTION
Aluminum powder is a common ingredient in
energetic materials. The aluminum is used to
increase the energy and raise the flame temperature
in rocket propellants. It is also incorporated in
explosives to enhance air blast, increase bubble
energies in underwater weapons, raise reaction
temperatures and create incendiary effects. In
explosives, it is generally assumed that combustion
of aluminum particles occurs behind the reaction
front (during the expansion of the gaseous detonation
products), so that the particles do not participate in
the reaction zone, but rather act as inert ingredients.
Son, who has been working on nanoenergetics for more than three
years, says that scientists can engineer nanoaluminum powders with
different particle sizes to vary the energy release rates. This
enables the material to be used in many applications, including
underwater explosive devices, primers for igniting firearms, and as
fuel propellants for rockets.
Note it doesn't say this type of thermite
takes the place of explosives, only
"to enhance air blast". None of the suggested uses
scream POWERFUL to me. The towers were not underwater, and their is no
evidence rockets were strapped to the columns. That they would use it as a
primer and not an actual explosive seems to be good evidence it's not as
powerful as the conspiracy theorist suggest.
Now that you have the
ignorance of "Scholars for 911 truth" we can continue...
To be honest, I don't
like this kind of evidence. It's not something which the scientists of
the NIST or anyone else can prove. It's for 'assumptionists', of which I'm
not one. Yet, there is enough evidence to point to the glow being
aluminum. (Anyone saying they KNOW what the substance is would be lying.
I won't pretend to KNOW it's aluminum because I don't. The NIST doesn't
say they KNOW either. They only conclude it's aluminum because it's the
most likely, given the evidence.)
"NIST concluded that the source
of the molten material was aluminum alloys from the aircraft,
since these are known to melt between 475 degrees Celsius and 640
degrees Celsius (depending on the particular alloy), well below the
expected temperatures (about 1,000 degrees Celsius) in the vicinity
of the fires. Aluminum is not expected to ignite at normal fire
temperatures and there is no visual indication that the material
flowing from the tower was burning.
Pure liquid aluminum would be expected to appear silvery.
However, the molten metal was very likely mixed with large amounts
of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials (e.g., furniture,
carpets, partitions and computers) which can display an orange glow,
much like logs burning in a fireplace. The apparent color also would
have been affected by slag formation on the surface."
One of the glaringly
OBVIOUS pieces of evidence is the place the flow is coming from. It just
happens to be where the airliner crashed to a halt. You can tell by the
way the perimeter columns look. They're bowed out like a catcher's mitt.
Here are
some graphics showing where the airliner ended up.
One of
the arguments for thermite that conspiracy theorists use is the temperature of the
fire. They say the fires at the towers weren't hot enough to melt
aluminum, which suggests they need an unnatural source for the melted
aluminum. (Hint, hint) Yet, the aluminum outer skin of other airliners have melted
without even hitting anything. Sparked only by friction...
Air France
flight 358 didn't hit a steel building at 500 miles an hour. It didn't
even burn the fuel in the wings, yet its aluminum skin melted to the ground. It
simply went off the runway and caught fire. What melted the airliner was
its contents, like seats, clothing and other combustibles including
chemical oxygen generators. It's not unreasonable to conclude the
airliner and contents didn't even need the contents of the building to
melt. Yet the NIST replicated the fires by burning office furniture in a
controlled experiment and found the ceiling temperature to reach 1,100
degrees C. (They say "Yeah but that's the ceiling" to which I say "Now
imagine what the actual flame is.. Do you think it's cooler?") More than
enough to melt aircraft aluminum as well. Unfortunately, they weren't
charged with putting conspiracy theorists fears to rest so they didn't
include a piece of aircraft aluminum in the test.
More evidence that normal fires without jet
fuel added can reach over 1000 degrees C is an experiment conducted by
One Stop Shop in Structural Fire Engineering,
Professor Colin Bailey, University of Manchester.
Figure 1 shows the various nominal fire curves for comparison.
It can be seen that, over a period of 2 hours, the hydrocarbon fire
is the most severe followed by the standard fire, with the external
fire being the least severe fire although the slow heating fire
represents the lowest temperature up to 30 minutes. It is noteworthy
that for standard and smouldering fires, the temperature
continuously increases with increasing time. For the external fire,
the temperature remains constant at 680°C after approximately 22
minutes. whereas for the hydrocarbon fires, the temperatures remain
constant at 1100°C and 1120°C after approximate 40 minutes.
The next piece
of evidence they point to is the color, which is a bright yellow at the
center. They say aluminum is silver when melted. While this is true, at
higher temperatures it can be yellow.
One of the
pieces of evidence Jones points to is a snapshot of the flow falling
down the side the building. This pyrotechnic show seems ominous, that is
until you look at it closely...
Note the color of the
substance as it cools and solidifies toward the end of its journey.
Molten steel would turn almost black. One thing it's not, and that's black.
Jones writes:
"This is a point worth
emphasizing: aluminum has low emissivity and high reflectivity, so that
in daylight conditions molten aluminum will appear silvery-gray"
I think at a cooler temperature, he's
right.
What's telling about this
photo isn't that it's proof of the substance being aluminum, It's that
it's a zoom and crop of the photo from Jones own paper. (Time for him to
change yet another one of his photos.) Below is a screenshot from
National Geographic's "Inside 911".
The droplets on the outside of the center of the fall
seem to be the color of aluminum siding to me.. As I said, the evidence points to it
being aluminum.
Below is a message from
Stephen D. Chastain of
Metal Talk.
Several times over
the last year I have been asked to comment on a photo of one of the
Trade Center Towers. The photo shows a molten flow from one of the
windows. The flow falls down along the building. It appears orange
and turns to a gray color as it cools.
The questions usually want me to address "Is this photo a fake?" and
"Is the flow steel or aluminum?" "Is this situation possible?"
First, I will address the temperature range, then the color of the
flow.
Metals lose about 50% of their strength at 60% of their melting
temperature. This is common knowledge and may be found in any
undergraduate text regarding "Fracture and Deformation of
Materials."
If the approximate melting temperature of steel is 2750 F the the
material would be plastic at 1650 F. Even assuming a safety factor
of 3, you would expect the bolts or other structural members to
deform and fail near this temperature, especially with the
additional weight if a jet air liner. I would assume that the live
load calculations did not include the typical office equipment and
an airliner plus a factor of 3. THEREFORE I assume that the flow is
not steel and that the temperature of the steel members at the time
of the photo is less than 1650 F.
Assuming that the flow would be molten aluminum from the airliner
and the color of molten aluminum is silver then why is the flow
orange?
The color of pure molten aluminum is silver, It has an emissivity of
.12. Steel has an emissivity of .4 and appears orange in the
temperature range of molten aluminum.
The emissivity of aluminum oxide is .44 and also appears orange in
the melting temperature range of molten aluminum.
The emissivity of plate glass is .937 It begins to soften at 1000 F
and flows around 1350 F. Silica has an emissivity of .8
Copper oxide also has an emissivity of .8. however I will assume
that their effect is negligible.
Aluminum oxidizes readily in the foundry under ideal melting
conditions. Large surface area relative to thickness, turbulence,
the presence of water or oil greatly increases the oxidation of
aluminum. A jet airliner is made of thin aluminum sheet and most
probably suffered considerable oxidation especially in contact with
an open flame and being in contact with jet fuel. If you don't
believe this, try melting a few soda cans over coals or open flame.
If you are lucky you will end up with only 50% aluminum oxide.
However, the cans may completely burn up.
The specific gravity of aluminum is 2.7. The specific gravity of
aluminum oxide (Al2O3-3H2O) is 2.42 the specific gravity of Si =
2.40 and Glass is 2.65 these are all very similar and likely to be
entrained in a molten aluminum flow. Don't believe it? lightly stir
the dross into molten aluminum. The surface tension is so high is is
almost impossible to separate them.
THEREFORE assuming that the flow consist of molten aluminum and
considerable oxides, and assuming that the windows in the trade
center were plate glass and also in a plastic state and that they
were also likely entrained in the molten aluminum. I would expect
the flow to appear to be orange in color. Especially since both the
entrained materials have emissivities equal to or more than twice
that of iron.
Also since dross cools to a gray color and glass with impurities
also turns dark. I would expect that the flow would darken upon
cooling.
I would also suggest that not only is the photo possible, but
entirely likely.
Summary: The flow is not steel because the structural steel would
fail well below the melting temperature. The flow is likely to be a
mixture of aluminum, aluminum oxides, molten glass and coals of
whatever trash the aluminum flowed over as it reached the open
window. Such a flow would appear orange and cool to a dark color.
Stephen D. Chastain
The
color
meansnothing.
The color can be misleading, and because it can be
misleading, it means nothing as evidence.
This is not aluminum in a foundry which
hasn't mixed with anything. This is a cocktail of whatever was on the
plane and in the towers which happens to come together. It wouldn't be
unreasonable to suspect Aluminum and some other properties has changed
its color.
The material flowing out the window that was glowing wasn't necessarily
due to black body radiation but could have been due to spectra generated
by chemical reactions in various materials in the melt that may have
interacted with each other. A third factor that affects color would be
reflection of ambient light, which isn't black body radiation and isn't
spectra due to chemical reactions.
In the videos some of the falling drops appeared silver
and turned orange briefly when they struck the facade and then turned
back to silver. The orange glow in that case wasn't due to black body
radiation. The material couldn't have heated and cooled that quickly if
it had been black body radiation. One explanation is that molten
aluminum, which is very reactive, interacted chemically with impurities
on the facade and emitted spectra. The silver appearance is consistent
with molten aluminum near its melting point.
The glowing material would need to be observed with a
spectrometer to know if the light was due to black body radiation or
spectra due to chemical reactions or both. For example, it could have
been glowing red as a black body (or approximate black body) and
emitting spectra in the orange region due to chemical reactions.
One last thing about the
photo. In the
NIST
report where the photo came from it clearly states under the photo "Intensity
levels have been adjusted". So how can you conclude the color of
something from a photo which has been "Adjusted"?
Jones says something I can't
help but find incredible...
"If aluminum (e.g., from the plane) had melted,
it would melt and flow away from the heat source at its melting
point of about 650 oC and thus would not reach the yellow
color observed for this molten metal. Thus, molten aluminum is
already ruled out with high probability."
The
obvious question is how does he know what condition the floors were in to
suggest they were flat enough not to pool aluminum near a heat source? I
guess this is where we begin to forget again... We are to forget an
airliner just rammed into the floors possibly bending/warping them. No?
Don't like that? What about concrete, steel columns, steel sheets which
held the concrete, airliner parts and office furniture which could have
created a temporary dam? In fact, I think it's a "high probability" that
the floors weren't in pristine shape after the impact of an airliner. In
5 years, Jones couldn't envision a sag in the floor enough to hold melted
aluminum?
The above is what the floors
may have looked like.
Yet another possibility is
the flow creating a temporary dam by doing exactly what Jones describes. Like a
candle which has melted to the floor, the aluminum may have melted and
cooled as it flowed away from the heat source. This cooled aluminum
builds up and creates a shallow pool of aluminum. Much like candle wax
pooling around the wick while cooler wax, away from the wick, builds up
creating a levee/dam around the liquid wax. Once the floors sagged
toward the window
as shown
in the NIST Report the pool may have spilled over and out of the
window.
Now, I'm no "Professor" but I think there was a "high
probability" aluminum could have pooled near a heat source.
Interestingly, the
conspiracy theorists have grasped onto another straw. The photo below
shows another stream of fluid in another place but this time it's the
color Jones points to as aluminum.
Note as with the other flow,
it's also where the building sustained heavy damage from the airliner
and also has a very heavy fire.
Another source of heat
hasn't been touched by any conspiracy theorist. There were many chemical
oxygen generators in the airliner. They just happen to be wrapped with
aluminum.
These are NOT oxygen tanks.
They are generators which make oxygen under chemical reaction.
Yet there is even evidence
this isn't thermite...
Release of the molten material (possibly aluminum) that began
pouring from window 80-255 on the north side of the 80th floor at
9:51:51 am provides evidence for the extensive heating that had
taken place from the fire that had been burning in the area for
nearly 50 min. The melting point range for the relevant aluminum
alloys varies from 475C to 635C, and a great deal of heat would have
been required to melt the large volume of liquid metal observed
pouring from the tower. The sudden appearance of the flow at the
top of the window was likely the result of the formation of a
pathway from the 81st floor where the aluminum possibly had pooled
on top of the floor slab as it melted. This, in turn suggests that
the 81st floor slab possibly sank down or pulled away from the
spandrel at this time.
During the 7 min between when the flow of molten metal was first
observed and the tower collapsed, the amount of material flowing
from the 80th floor increased and decreased repeatedly. At one
point the flow shifted from window 80-255 to window 80-256. The
change in the source window for the liquid suggests that the lowest
local point with pooled aluminum somehow moved to the east. These
observations suggest that the 81st floor slab in the immediate
vicinity was possibly shifting almost continuously during this time,
and in the process, spilling more and more of the pooled liquid.
A similar release of liquid occurred from window 78-238 on the 78th
floor around 9:27. It is possible that this material came from the
pile of debris immediately above on the 79th floor. Since this flow
was only observed for a few seconds, it is not appropriate to
speculate further concerning its source.
Thermite can't walk from one
window to another. A pool of aluminum which is guided by floors sagging
at different stages can shift directions. A POOL of metal melted by
thermite could move with sagging floors just like the aluminum but
not according to Jones because...
"it would melt and flow away from the heat source at its melting
point"
But what of Jones evidence for thermite like this?
"The yellow color implies a molten-metal temperature of approximately
1000 C, evidently above that which the dark-smoke hydrocarbon fires in
the Towers could produce."
Yet, once again, we find in
his own paper that it states..
Under section 11 "Factors such as flame volume and quantity of soot decrease the
radiative heat loss in the fire, moving the temperature closer to the
maximum of 1,000 ºC." (Eagar and Musso, 2001)
While this is the maximum air temperature possible
in the WTC fires, this does not mean that the structural steel reached this
temperature in the time the fires acted. Indeed, NIST emphasizes that there was
no evidence that "any of the samples had reached temperatures above 600 ºC."
This statement is consistent with their data plots of "predicted column
temperatures", which "shows maximum temperature reached by each column" in that
no temperature above 600 ºC is given for any of the steel columns. (NIST, 2005.)
Jones goes on to talk about structural steel but we aren't talking about the "predicted column
temperatures" are we.
Nor was the NIST suggesting the structural steel had to melt in order to
collapse the building. No one is. This is a straw man. 600C is good
enough to weaken structural steel. Now back to the aluminum...
It's not unreasonable to
expect the aluminum to be a mix of other things in the towers that day.
There could be all kinds of things in the towers. Even wood might have
affected the color...
This
is the Yosemite Firefall at Yosemite National Park. That's just embers
from bark being thrown from the top. While it's safe to say there was
no bark in the towers it's also safe to say there was wood from office
furniture. But I want to make this clear, I'm not saying this is what
we see coming from the window. What I'm suggesting is that it is
probably a molten metal mix of aluminum and something else. Don't limit
yourself here. I'm not saying aluminum and wood only. One of my biggest
criticisms with the conspiracy theorists is the one dimensional
thinking.
The main point is, jumping to
the conclusion that it's thermite is intellectually lazy given all the
other possibilities. It's a logical fallacy to conclude a lack of
evidence is evidence of something. Yet this is the conspiracy theorist
credo.
Below are some quotes from
different sources concerning the flow...
The
NY Times article
Last spring, the standards institute found the first photographic
evidence on the east face of the south tower that a single floor —
with its lightweight support system, called a truss — had sagged in
the minutes before it started collapsing. Now, detailed analysis of
photos and videos has revealed at least three more sagging floors on
that face, said William Pitts, a researcher at the institute's
Building and Fire Research Laboratory.
In addition, Dr. Pitts said, sudden expansions of the fires across
whole floors in each tower shortly before they fell suggested
internal collapses — burning floors above suddenly giving way and
spreading the blaze below.
Finally, an unexplained cascade of molten metal from the northeast
corner of the south tower just before it collapsed might have
started when a floor carrying pieces of one of the jetliners began
to sag and fail. The metal was probably molten aluminum from the
plane and could have come through the top of an 80th floor window as
the floor above gave way, Dr. Pitts said.
"That's probably why it poured out — simply because it was dumped
there," Dr. Pitts said. "The structural people really need to look
at this carefully."
But the fires continued to burn. Black smoke poured from shattered
windows on floor after floor, fresh oxygen sucked in from the gaping
holes caused by the impacts. In the northeast corner of the south
tower's 80th floor, where office furniture had been shoved by the
plane, the fire burned so hot that a stream of molten metal began to
pour over the side like a flaming waterfall.
The apparent source of this waterfall: molten aluminum from the
jet's wings and fuselage, which had also piled up in that corner.
Within minutes, portions of the 80th floor began to give way, as
evidenced by horizontal lines of dust blowing out the side of the
building. Seconds later, near the heavily damaged southeasterly
portion of this same floor, close to where the aircraft had entered,
exterior columns began to buckle.
A photograph leaked from the ASCE-FEMA
investigation shows a stream of what appears to be molten aluminum
exiting from the northeast corner. This would indicate that what was
left of the aircraft when it reached the north end of its travel was
massive enough to have destroyed at least one floor.
NIST pg 43 Section H.9 App H Vol 4
Starting at around 9:52 a.m. a molten material began to pour from
the top of the window 80-256 on the North face of WTC 2. The
material appears intermittently until the tower collapses at
9:58:59. The observation of piles of debris in this area combined
with the melting point behaviors of the primary alloys used in a
Boeing 767 suggest that the material is molten aluminum derived from
aircraft debris located on floor 81.
NIST H-7-2
Molten Material
It has been reported in the FEMA report (McAllister 2002) as well as
in the media that what appeared to be molten metal was observed
pouring from the north face near the northeast corner. This is the
area where the sustained fires were seen. Video records and
photography indicate that the material first appeared at 9:51:52 am
and continued to pour intermittently from the building until the
time of the collapse. Some of that material can be seen falling in
Fig. H-21. Close up video and photographs of the area where the
material is pouring from have been examined and show that it is
falling from near the top of window 80-256. The most likely
explanation for this observation is that the material had originally
pooled on the floor above, that is 81, and that it was allowed to
pour out of the building when this floor either pulled away from the
outer spandrel or sank down to the point where the window was
exposed. The fact that the material appears intermittently over a
several minute period suggests that the floor was giving way bit by
bit
http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixh.pdf
The composition of the flowing material can only be the subject of
speculation, but its behavior is consistent with it being molten
aluminum. Visual evidence suggest that a significant wreckage from
the plane passed thought the building and came to rest in the
northeast corner of the tower in the vicinity of the location where
the material is observed.
Much of the structure of the Boeing 767 is formed from two aluminum
alloys that have been identified as 2024 and 7075 closely related
alloys. These alloys do not melt at a single temp, but melt over a
temp range from the lower end of the range to the upper as the
fraction of the liquid increases. The Aluminum association handbook
lists the melting point as roughly 500C to 638 C and 475 C to 635C
for alloys 2024 and 7075 respectively. These temperatures are well
below those characteristic of fully developed fires (ca 1000C ) and
any aluminum present is likely to be at least partially melted by
the intense fires in the area.
I highlighted the qualifiers because some conspiracy
theorists seem to be 'qualifier challenged'.
Sounded like, looks like, appear to be, possibly, suggest, as if... these are
just a few qualifiers the conspiracy theorists ignore.In keeping with this trend, the conspiracy theorists have said
the NIST was SURE it was aluminum using the above quotes. They are just saying what I'm saying. The evidence points to it being
aluminum. They conclude it's aluminum.
Update:
Italian debunker uncovers yet another
possible cause of the what we see coming from the 81st floor window.
Abstract:
research into the causes of a conspicuous flow of glowing material
from the corner of the 81st floor of the South Tower leads to the
finding of evidence of a highly flammable UPS system at that
location and suggests a possible triggering event for the flow and
associated fire. Photographic evidence of floor failures is
provided. Molten steel is ruled out as an ingredient of the flow.
This is not a photo of the WTC battery banks. For illustration only.
Conspiracy sites like
to bring up molten metal found 6 weeks after
the buildings fell to suggest a bomb must have created the effect. The
explanation doesn't go into the amount of explosive material needed
because it would be an absurd amount. There is another explanation which
is more plausible.
Before reading the below, it might be a good idea for the novice to read
Mark Ferran's explanation on how
"Iron Burns!!!"
The reaction between IRON AND STEAM is also very EXOTHERMIC
and fast at temperatures above 400 deg C. This reaction
produces Fe3O4 AND HYDROGEN. It is the classic example of a
REVERSIBLE REACTION studied in Chemistry labs at high
school. But believe it or not, back at the turn of the
century, the reaction of iron and steam was used as an
industrial process for the manufacture of hydrogen.
I think iron and steam
could have reacted in this way (at least for a while) and
generated a lot of heat. What is more, the hydrogen released
would have been converted back to water by reaction with
oxygen, thereby generating even more heat. In this case
spraying water on the rubble pile was like adding fuel to a
fire!
Now add in gypsum reactions with H2 and CO and we have a
great source of SO2 and/or H2S to sulfide the steel!
Perhaps the endless spraying of water on the rubble pile was
not such a good idea!
In the usual lab experiment on the reversible reaction of
iron and "steam", nitrogen (or some inert gas) is bubbled
through water to create a gas stream saturated with water
vapor at room temperature. This gas is then allowed to flow
into a glass tube about 1 meter long containing iron in an
inert boat at its center. This assembly is heated in a tube
furnace to some desired temperature, say 500 deg C. The
hydrogen/ nitrogen gas mixture is collected at the outlet of
the tube furnace.
In the industrial process the feed gas might also be "water
gas" which is a mixture of CO and water vapor. The outlet
gas contains mostly H2 and CO2.
I am sure there was plenty of water vapor AND oxygen in the
void spaces in the rubble pile. This is the "steam" I am
referring to.
Please remember that the recovered pieces of structural
steel were heavily OXIDIZED as well as sulfided. The most
important oxidizing agents available in the rubble pile were
obviously O2 and H2O.
The rubble pile was not
only inhomogeneous with regard to its composition, it was
inhomogeneous with regard to its temperature. This was due
to localized chemical reactions. Such reactions were capable
of generating high temperatures in these localized hot
spots.
The demolitionists much beloved thermite is a good example,
BUT NOT THE ONLY EXAMPLE. AND THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF
WHATSOEVER THAT THERMITE, THERMATE, SOL-GEL NANO-THERMITE
WAS EVER PRESENT AT THE WTC SITE!!!!!!
It is irrelevant whether or not the steam was wet or dry,
that is a chemical engineering notion only of interest in a
closed and controlled system, usually under high-pressure,
such as a steam generator in a power station.
Water vapor was present in the rubble pile and water vapor
reacts with iron releasing HYDROGEN.
ITS CALLED A CORROSION REACTION:
METAL + WATER = METAL OXIDE + HYDROGEN
WHEN IT HAPPENED AT THREE MILE ISLAND IT CREATED A HYDROGEN
BUBBLE
- NEU-FONZE
More on this
iron-H2O reaction:
Modern Commercial Hydrogen generation:
"steam contacts
molten iron to form iron oxide and release hydrogen....
The hydrogen production step is the same chemical
reaction that occurs in the steam-iron process which was
used to produce hydrogen commercially 100 years ago. In
that technology steam was passed over iron particles to
produce hydrogen and iron oxide. However, the rate of
hydrogen production declined as the iron oxidized and
was covered with rust and the cost of replenishing iron
ultimately rendered this process uneconomical"
http://www.alchemix.net/index.php?module=C...n&mid=10&ceid=2
or
http://www.alchemix.us/TechnologyDescriptionweb710.pdf
Patent involving the process, without "molten" iron:
"The generation of hydrogen by passing steam at or about
700.degree. C. over a bed of iron is well known in the art."
"a hydrogen-generating process wherein H.sub.2 O is passed
over a bed of iron material. The hydrogen generating process
uses a catalyst, or freshly-ground iron material, or both,
and generates the hydrogen for the fuel cell in situ at
lower-than-normal temperatures when the H.sub.2 O reacts
with the iron material."
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6093501.html
In a vehicle application, the hydrogen is generated by
passing water or low-temperature steam over desirably
freshly-ground iron, which then becomes iron oxide."
Evidently, iron will oxidize about the same rate in air, or
in a steam-atmosphere. The addition of water to the piles
from the top or pools of it at the bottom thus may have
served as an additional source of oxygen, upon combining
with hot steel or aluminum.
The hydrogen generated may have then combined with other
materials in the piles, or with oxygen in air, to produce
additional heat. (Net thermal result would be same as
directly oxidizing iron with oxygen). - Mark Ferran
Abbreviations: gigaJoules (gJ) = 1,000 megaJoules (MJ). To heat steel to
the melting point requires about 0.68 gJ of heat to be added for each
tonne (metric ton) of steel. Enough more heat has to be added to melt
it. Total is about 1 gJ/tonne. All we require is enough heat to obtain
yellow hot steel, approximately 0.6 gJ/tonne. However, for simplicity
and to allow for losses, assume 1 gJ/tonne of yellow hot steel in the
basement(s) of WTC 1 & 2(?).
This could easily be supplied by a pressure pulse down the box columns
as each floor is stripped off. Again, for simplicity of analysis, assume 100 floors each supplied the
same sized pulse of energy down the box column. Then each floor supplied
10 MJ. Calculations shows that this amount of energy, distributed over
the horizontal area of the box columns, only provides a small fraction
of the pressure required to cause structural steel to yield. So ignoring
the top 10 floors to allow a further 10% loss in energy transfer, all
that is required to obtain yellow hot steel in the basements is the
modest contribution of 10 MJ per floor per tonne of yellow hot steel.
Pressure calculations: Above I determined that each floor needed to
deliver 10 MJ of energy down the box column to the bottom in order to
supply more than sufficient heat to cause a tonne of steel to become
yellow hot. Here we need to assure ourselves that this energy delivery
does not stress the box column into yielding. Now just yielding is not
failure, but might be noticed in a post-collapse inspection of box
columns. From wikipedia, structural steel has a yield strength of 400
MPa and an ultimate strength of 650 MPa.
Reminders: Pascal = Newton/m^2, Joule = Newton-meter (N.m). The
meters-squared, m^2, will refer to the cross-sectional area of the box
column. The meters in the Joule part will refer to the vertical height
of the pressure pulse traveling down the box column. The speed of sound
in steel is 5100--5960 m/s, depending upon the source one uses. For
simplicity in the following I will assume that the speed of the pressure
pulse is just the rounded-off 5000 m/s.
Since we are attempting to find the highest possible reasonable figure
for the pressure delivered to the box column by the pressure pulse,
assume that the pressure pulse lasts only for 0.001 s = 1 millisecond.
Then this square wave of pressure extends vertically for 5 meters. Thus
the force over these 5 meters is 2 MN, 10 MJ = 2 MN x 5 m. So the force
applied to the cross-sectional area of the box column is 2 megaNewtons.
Now assume that this force is applied equally across the cross-sectional
area of the box column. (We will return to this assumption. It certainly
applies to all parts of the pressure pulse traveling down the box column
except at the moment of initiation.) Now assume the box column is a
square 1 meter on a side and is 3" = .0762 m thick. Thus the steel
cross-sectional area is 4 x 0.0762 = 0.3048 m^2.
We have now determined that the pressure on the box columns due to the
pressure pulse traveling down it is 6.56 MPa = 2 MN/0.3048 m^2. This is
trivial compared to the 400 MPa yield strength of the structural steel.
No yielding will be observed, and indeed, none was in the majority of
the structural steel. The exceptions are in the basement, where stresses
and temperatures were high. The 400 MPa figure applies to ordinary
temperatures, not elevated ones.
At the moment of the initiation of the pressure pulse due to floors
stripping off, the initial forces will all be on just the outside edges
of the most exterior of the box columns in the core. But as the
calculation shows, the pressure required is less than 1/40th of the
yield strength. So the box columns would not show signs of yielding,
even with highly asymmetric patterns of the initial forces.
"Roaring oven" Ok, it was indeed hot in the rubble piles of WTC 1 & 2.
More important, there were definite hot spots which were the hottest. We
have seen ample evidence of potential fuels, including ordinary office
materials, gasoline in the automobiles in the basement(?) and
transformer oil. However, heat always flows from higher temperatures to
lower ones. So to obtain yellow hot steel requires not only sufficient
energy, but if heated from the exterior, high temperatures. If the
energy was supplied by pressure pulses, as suggested, then simply the
friction of repeated slamming the bottom of a box column into unyielding
concrete or granite suffices.
Further, perhaps the estimated temperature of the hot spots, obtained
via infrared scanning, was 1500 F = (810+273)K = 1083K. Assuming
approximately black body radiation. 1000K is red hot, maybe 1500K is
orange hot. Yellow hot, then is very close to the melting temperature of
iron, (1535+273)K = 1808K. It seems to me a higher temperature than can
be reached by burning ordinary office materials. That gasoline was in
close proximity seems unlikely. I don't know the temperature of burning
transformer oil, but I suppose it is less than gasoline(?) The point
behind this addendum is that the pressure pulse hypothesis is highly
robust under alternative scenarios and is not dependent on an external
source of chemical energy. - David B. Benson, edited by Debunking 911
From a physics blogger:
Despite
repeated calculations showing that the energy released simply from the
kinetic collapse is on the close order of a small nuclear weapon,
without even mentioning the energy contents of the millions of [pounds*] of paper, wood, plastic, etc. that were on the
floors and a large percentage of which would be in the rubble pile and
heated to ignition point by the heat from the kinetic energy dissipated
by the collapse.
My best estimate at 13 psf by 35,000 sf/floor by
110 floors by about 30% combustibles, 60% metal and other
non-combustible items, by the energy content of common garbage, gives a
lot more energy than the energy of the collapse. The insulation provided
in that debris pile was apparently pretty good, and that’s not
surprising. Rock and concrete really are bad heat conductors, air isn’t
much better, and steel while capable isn’t all that good, as you can
tell from the fact that the jaws of the shovel aren’t melting. Ever hear
of “rock wool?” It’s insulation; look it up. You’ll get the idea pretty
quick.
There’s two more factors I’ll throw in: first, a
certain amount of the office materials didn’t make it into the debris
pile, perhaps as much as 10% of it just got scattered all over lower
Manhattan island. Second, a few floors worth had already burned. So when
the time comes, I’ll take three floors out, and then another 10%. You’ll
be surprised, I think, at how much energy there is involved.
This, by the way, is a place where Jim Hoffman
makes a serious mistake; in his paper on the dust cloud, he fails to
note that he has to ADD THE HEAT BACK IN when he’s totaling things
up at the end. This is a violation of conservation of energy, the
First Law of Thermodynamics (and a foundational law of physics). The
energy dissipated during the fall is about 250 or 300 GJ, and the
leftover energy at impact is about 600 GJ. So it’s about a quarter
kiloton of TNT for the North tower and about a fifth of a kiloton
for the South tower; that’s still a hell of a lot of energy, more
than sufficient to liquefy a pretty healthy chunk of steel, and it
doesn’t change the fact that there’s a lot more energy in the office
contents.
You should be aware that anytime you do
mechanical work, the energy you do it with doesn’t just “go away” or
“get used up.” Energy that does work gets dissipated, and when that
happens, it turns to heat. This is a well known fact of physics,
specifically thermodynamics, that was proven early (or maybe it was
late? no, I’m pretty sure it was EARLY) in the nineteenth century by
the gentleman for whom the SI unit of energy is named, James
Prescott Joule. Go look him up on Wikipedia, or elsewhere if you’re
a newbie and believe what you read in the newspapers about
Wikipedia. He did this experiment where he stirred water in buckets
and showed it got hotter.
This, by the way, is a place where Jim Hoffman
makes a serious mistake; in his paper on the dust cloud, he fails to
note that he has to ADD THE HEAT BACK IN when he’s totaling things
up at the end. This is a violation of conservation of energy, the
First Law of Thermodynamics (and a foundational law of physics).
What distance do you drop the load from? The
floor of initial collapse: 79 for the South tower, 97 for the North.
It’s a variable in the program, you can change it for yourself and
run it yourself, it’s a perl. Interestingly, going from a 39-story
to a 13-story falling section doesn’t make a great deal of
difference in the energy, and makes even less difference in the
energy that’s left over when the building hits the ground.
A falling building is not like a bomb or a
laser beam. But it makes heat all the same- just like all work makes
heat. Feel the bottom of the bicycle pump after you’ve pumped the
tire up. Where does that heat come from? Same place as this does.
While a 600GJ bomb would take out ten blocks in
any direction, the WTC collapse obviously did not. While that’s
true, you need to know that conservation of energy says that energy
NEVER disappears. It ALWAYS winds up SOMEWHERE, and if this is
energy capable of knocking buildings over for many blocks in all
directions, and it didn’t knock them over, then where did it go and
what did it do? Answer: it went into the rubble pile, and it melted
and burned stuff in there.
There was energy spent “pancaking” or “snapping
supports” if you believe those theories (I do not). Whether it was
explosives or whether it was sheer mass and momentum that snapped
them (and I have excellent reason to believe it was nothing but
mass- you’ll see shortly), it STILL made heat, and that heat STILL
went into the debris pile at the bottom. Heat is energy and energy
NEVER just “goes away.”
All the collapse theories say that the weight
of the top of the building is what caused the collapse… well that is
HALF true. It was also pushing UP WITH EQUAL FORCE. This force was
largely transmitted into the ground during the collapse, not the
rubble afterwards. The STATIC FORCE of the building pushes down and
the ground pushes up, when the DYNAMIC FORCE of the collapse occurs,
it is local to whatever is moving; this is because it’s the MOTION
that causes the DYNAMIC force, and that force is (and must be, to
collapse the building) many times the static forces of the building
just standing there.
Now, for the program:
**BEGIN PROGRAM**
#
Demonstrates the kinetic energy of the WTC collapses, to debunk 9/11
conspiracies # http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/moltensteel.htm # #!/usr/bin/perl # # Variables for calculations $m = 4285500; # mass of one floor (kg) $mt = 0; # mass of falling section $v1 = 0; # beginning velocity for the current step $v2 = 0; # velocity at impact $v3 = 0; # ending velocity for prior step $p = 0; # current momentum $ke1 = 0; # kinetic energy at impact $ke2 = 0; # kinetic energy after impact $de = 0; # total energy dissipated so far $a = 9.80665; # acceleration
of gravity (constant) $t = 0; # cumulative time taken $t1 = 0; # time taken for this step $d = 3.8; # distance between floors (418m/110 stories) $mt = $fc*$m; #
initialize mass of falling section # # Calculations for WTC Tower One $fc
= 13; # floor count of falling section (13 floors for WTC One) $rfc =
110 - $fc; # initialize remaining floor count of uncollapsed floors
print("Data for WTC Tower One\n"); print("\n"); while($rfc > 0) {
print("Data for story ", $rfc, " -\n"); $v1 = $v3; # starting velocity is ending for last step $v2 = (($v1*2)+((2*$a)*$d))**0.5; # impact velocity for this step by
formula print("Impact velocity: ", $v2, "\n"); $p = $mt*$v2; # momentum
at impact print("Impulse delivered: ", $p, "\n"); $ke1 = ($mt*($v2**2))/2; # kinetic energy at impact print("Impact
kinetic energy: ", $ke1, "\n"); $fc++; # increment falling floor count $mt
= $fc*$m; # update mass of falling section $v3 = $p/$mt; # new velocity print("Velocity after impact: ", $v3, "\n"); $ke2 = ($mt*($v3**2))/2; # kinetic energy after impact print("Remaining
kinetic energy: ", $ke2, "\n"); $de += $ke1 - $ke2; # add dissipated
kinetic energy to total print("Kinetic energy dissipated: ", $ke1 -
$ke2, "\n"); $t1 = $d/(($v2 + $v1)/2); # time for this step by formula print("Time
spent collapsing: ", $t1, "\n"); $t += $t1; # add step time to running
total $rfc--; # decrement remaining floor count print("\n"); }
print("Overall WTC Tower One data -\n"); print("Total collapse time: ",
$t, "\n"); print("Total energy dissipated during the collapse: ", $de,
"\n"); print("Remaining kinetic energy at the end of the collapse: ",
$ke2, "\n"); print("\n"); # # Calculations for WTC Tower Two $fc = 39; #
floor count of falling section (39 floors for WTC Two) $rfc = 110 - $fc;
# initialize remaining floor count of uncollapsed floors print("Data for
WTC Tower Two\n"); print("\n"); while($rfc > 0) { print("Data for story
", $rfc, " -\n"); $v1 = $v3; # starting velocity is ending for last step $v2 = (($v1*2)+((2*$a)*$d))**0.5; # impact velocity for this step by
formula print("Impact velocity: ", $v2, "\n"); $p = $mt*$v2; # momentum
at impact print("Impulse delivered: ", $p, "\n"); $ke1 = ($mt*($v2**2))/2; # kinetic energy at impact print("Impact
kinetic energy: ", $ke1, "\n"); $fc++; # increment falling floor count $mt
= $fc*$m; # update mass of falling section $v3 = $p/$mt; # new velocity print("Velocity after impact: ", $v3, "\n"); $ke2 = ($mt*($v3**2))/2; # kinetic energy after impact print("Remaining
kinetic energy: ", $ke2, "\n"); $de += $ke1 - $ke2; # add dissipated
kinetic energy to total print("Kinetic energy dissipated: ", $ke1 -
$ke2, "\n"); $t1 = $d/(($v2 + $v1)/2); # time for this step by formula print("Time
spent collapsing: ", $t1, "\n"); $t += $t1; # add step time to running
total $rfc--; # decrement remaining floor count print("\n"); }
print("Overall WTC Tower Two data -\n"); print("Total collapse time: ",
$t, "\n"); print("Total energy dissipated during the collapse: ", $de,
"\n"); print("Remaining kinetic energy at the end of the collapse: ",
$ke2, "\n");
**END PROGRAM**
It’s a perl, you can download perl for just
about anything from www.perl.org or somewhere they point. If you’re
going to get involved in CS, somewhere you’re going to encounter
perl, and now’s as good a time to learn it as any. I highly
recommend the O’Reilly Press perl book which happens to be by the
inventors of the language. Just so you can muddle your way through
and derive the equations from the code above, * is multiplication,
** is raising to a power (and don’t forget that a fractional power
is a root; so **0.5 is the square-root operation). The rest of the
symbols are obvious, and the parentheses work the same way as they
do in standard math notation. You should be aware that the single =
in most languages simply ASSIGNS the value of what’s on the right to
the thing on the left; usually, you’re required to put a single
variable on the left of an =. The double == TESTS whether one value
is equal to another, returning 1 or TRUE if it is, and 0 or FALSE if
it is not.
* Edited
the bloggers contribution to remove "tons" and
replace it with "pounds". It doesn't change what the blogger point was
which is there is more than enough combustibles on hand. He did not use
the general figure of "Millions of tons" to calculate anything. Of
course any silly error like this will be exaggerated as if it means
something. This is what conspiracy theorist do.
At 32,000 sq feet of tenant
space per floor and at 4lbs per sq ft of combustible material (at 5 lbs
per sq ft NIST found that the fires moved too slowly) for 110 floors (-6
floors for mechanical + 6 for underground) is equal to 14 Million POUNDS
of combustible material. Or 7,000 TONS. Clearly a RESPECTABLE amount of
burnable material per TOWER. Thus the rubble pile had ~ 28 MILLION
POUNDS of combustible material not including what was in the Marriot
hotel and its parking garage.
From a contributor.
One of the
conspiracy sites published an article called "Popular
Mechanics Attack on 9/11 Truth." I was pointed in that
direction during a debate on a forum, after citing the
Popular Mechanics article.
Since we had been
talking about the "melted steel" argument, I scrolled
down to that area, which claimed this:
"Here PM's counter claim implies that flame temperatures
and steel temperatures are synonymous, ignoring the
thermal conductivity and thermal mass of steel, which
wicks away heat. In actual tests of uninsulated steel
structures subjected to prolonged hydrocarbon-fueled
fires conducted by Corus Construction Co. the highest
recorded steel temperatures were 680ºF."
That seemed strange to me. They made a point of how
steel temperatures are different from the atmospheric
temperatures surrounding it, then went on to cite a
study and only mentioned the steel temperatures, not the
atmospheric. So I went to the website of Corus
Construction Co, and found a section in their Research
area that said this about the difference in temperatures
between steel and atmosphere:
"With regard to steel temperatures, these depend upon
the size of the member but for typical unprotected
beams and columns these would lag behind the compartment
temperatures by around 100°C to 200°C."
So the tests that the conspiracy theorist cited only had
atmospheric temperatures ranging around 800-900 degrees,
while the Popular Mechanics article (and NIST report)
mentions that pockets of the World Trade Center reached
1800 degrees. This would put the steel temperature in
those locations at around 1600-1700 degrees, which is
far above the 1100 degree mark that steel loses 50% of
its structural integrity.
I just thought it was a pretty striking example of
dishonesty. The conspiracy theorist site could not have
found that Corus study without finding the question on
the atmospheric temperature, but left that part out.
Some "truth movement"...
-Steve
Thanks to ScottS, Shagster, Arthur,
Mark Ferran, NEU-FONZE and David B. Benson for
their research.
