Burning Painted Steel Beams, Making Iron-Rich Microspheres!

[Oystein]

What about the video below? You don't believe that military laboratories are able to do much more than an engineer in his backyard?

9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5iIoCiI8g

The old "But what about..." play - it signals a "Move the Goalposts" fallacy coming up the road.

Why do you introduce this video? It shows experiments done on stuff that is neither red-gray chips nor from WTC dust. Also, there is no paint involved, and Cole doesn't look through a microscope to look for spheres or any other residue at the micron scale.

So why do you lure us into discussing a totally unrelated experiment? Are you already assuming that Harrit et al proved "thermite", and Cole is essentially using red-gray chips here? They didn't.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

The old "But what about..." play - it signals a "Move the Goalposts" fallacy coming up the road.

Why do you introduce this video? It shows experiments done on stuff that is neither red-gray chips nor from WTC dust. Also, there is no paint involved, and Cole doesn't look through a microscope to look for spheres or any other residue at the micron scale.

So why do you lure us into discussing a totally unrelated experiment? Are you already assuming that Harrit et al proved "thermite", and Cole is essentially using red-gray chips here? They didn't.

Truthers don't move goal posts any more, they make them dance and space walk in different galactic clusters.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

Harrit's sentence, it seems to me, can only be read two ways. Firstly, it can be read as a purely general statement that Fe-rich microspheres have never been observed ever unless as a product of a thermite reaction; this statement is well known to be false, so it's the sense you're denying was meant (although one might think Harrit knows his own mind rather better than a third party). Secondly, it can be read as a statement that Fe-rich microspheres have never been observed in his sample set other than in samples where a thermite reaction took place; this is a circular argument, as the Fe-rich microspheres are the primary evidence claimed that a thermite reaction took place. In either case, the observation that Fe-rich microspheres are found from many other sources, including burning of primer paint, clearly invalidates their use as proof of a thermite reaction, whatever anyone thinks Harrit may or may not have meant.

Dave

Loved the video on oxidation of steel wool, but that makes such small spheres,
larger spheres were even possible though chemical oxidation reactions, and the reduction of iron oxides. However the true microspheres debated really ended years ago, when Jones
Admitted his spheres contained large amounts of oxygen.

Just like this hollow sphere I created of Fe3O4.

A fuel air blast can super oxidate small regions of the blast wave in front of it, any compression wave can and in those waves both oxidation and reduction reactions can occur.

 

[Lusikka]

The old "But what about..." play - it signals a "Move the Goalposts" fallacy coming up the road.

Why do you introduce this video? It shows experiments done on stuff that is neither red-gray chips nor from WTC dust. Also, there is no paint involved, and Cole doesn't look through a microscope to look for spheres or any other residue at the micron scale.

So why do you lure us into discussing a totally unrelated experiment? Are you already assuming that Harrit et al proved "thermite", and Cole is essentially using red-gray chips here? They didn't.

You did not notice that I was directly commenting a claim by Robrob. Showing that he was wrong and the official story about quite inefficient thermite was false.

5) Even in a controlled environment, there is no way "thermite" could be used to sever a single vertical steel girder - much less sever the thousands of them required to collapse the WTC.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

You did not notice that I was directly commenting a claim by Robrob. Showing that he was wrong and the official story about quite inefficient thermite was false.

That is macro thermite not nano thermite, which becomes mostly deactivated at 600C, in fires
When the Aluminum particles melt in fires.

The discussion here is on ineffective nano thermite spacificly a low reactive, aerogel type thermite Harrit claims was in the towers.

There is no evidence really for Macro or nano Aluminothermics in any of the data, especially since most microspheres that were claimed to represent thermite evidence actually represent
Only oxidation events not Aluminothermic reduction events, even burning paper can create or release Iron rich microspheres.

Paint on steel subjected to impact and heating can under go both oxidation, and reduction
reactions.

Microspheres as evidence of thermite and thermites effectiveness to cut steel will be environmentally Dependant.

The smaller the particle and the slower the burn rate the less energy thermite can transfer to
Errode steel. No thermal erosion of steel is possible from the red grey chips discovered
By Jones and analized by Harrit.

 

[Oystein]

You did not notice that I was directly commenting a claim by Robrob. Showing that he was wrong and the official story about quite inefficient thermite was false.

Fair enough.
But I wrote two posts, and you only addressed the issue we both agree is off-topic here.

I explained how Basile's presentation actually shows that his iron-rich droplets cannot possibly be the iron residue of the hypothesized "thermite reaction" within the red layer - there is way too much of these droplets by volume, the red layer contains, if Basile's quantities are any good at all, way too little iron, way too little Al, way too much hydrocarbon.

The "iron droplets" must come from the gray layer, which Harrit et al considered inert; and the energy to shape then thus must come from the hydrocarbon combustion and/or the heat input from the heating device.

I wonder why you didn't address that argument. It refutes directly the conclusions about iron-rich spherules in the chip residue drawn by Harrit et al.

 

[Criteria]

"I explained how Basile's presentation actually shows that his iron-rich droplets cannot possibly be the iron residue of the hypothesized "thermite reaction" within the red layer - there is way too much of these droplets by volume, the red layer contains, if Basile's quantities are any good at all, way too little iron, way too little Al, way too much hydrocarbon."

It is news to me that Mark Basile quantified the % of iron-rich residue sufficiently for you to make such a determination.

Without any firsthand observation and analysis, it appears that the work of a professional (chemist Mark Basile), is being replaced by amateurish spin.

 

[Oystein]

It is news to me that Mark Basile quantified the % of iron-rich residue sufficiently for you to make such a determination.

Without any firsthand observation and analysis, it appears that the work of a professional (chemist Mark Basile), is being replaced by amateurish spin.

Then you haven't read my post #240.
The first-hand observations are Basile's, the analysis is straightforwards; I layed it out for scrutiny.
If you can't find an describe a fault in my analysis, I will assume you accept there is none, or that you accept that you are incapable of determining what's plausible and what's not here. In the latter case, I'd then expect you to excuse yourself from this discussion - you have nothing to contribute.

To make life easier for you, here are the relevant screenshots from Basile's presentation:

1.) Basile's estimate of the size of the chip #13, from which the volume of the red layer can be determined eaily:



2.) Basile's estimate of the iron-content (and Al, and C, and...) of that chip, from which the total maximum mass and volume of hypothetical elemental iron residue can be easily computed:



3.) Basile shows "iron droplets" - you can gauge their size and volume using the scale marker Basile provided, and compare with the max. volume of iron from the red layer:



4.) And finally Basile's quantification of elements for one particular "iron-based droplet", from which you can compute that the iron probably is largely oxidized:



You're welcome.

 

[DaveThomasNMSR]

You have ridiculed Niels Harrit on this forum:

I could give still many more similar and even more hateful quotes taken from here. But how have you come to this scorn? By cherry-picking one sentence written by Harrit. From http://stj911.org/blog/research-faqs/:

Harrit did not mean his sentence to be a generalization but it concerns only the red-gray chips and chemical reactions in them. If you watch and listen carefully the following video so that ought to be quite clear:

Mark Basile: Dust Analysis Raises Questions - 9/11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1VmaCl4HwU

Unfortunately Harrit did not elaborate his answer a little more clearly.

Holy necrotic thread revival, Batman!

So, I guess your point is that we were wrong to think that Niels Harrit didn't really say "Fe-rich spheroids have never been observed unless there was a thermite reaction" ?

Harrit certainly did say just that. But, so do his fellow truthers Steven Jones and Richard Gage:

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

Holy necrotic thread revival, Batman!

So, I guess your point is that we were wrong to think that Niels Harrit didn't really say "Fe-rich spheroids have never been observed unless there was a thermite reaction" ?

Harrit certainly did say just that. But, so do his fellow truthers Steven Jones and Richard Gage:

Truthers have been lying about iron microspheres for years why should they stop now?

 

[Lusikka]

Fair enough.
But I wrote two posts, and you only addressed the issue we both agree is off-topic here.

Yes, I agree. It was off-topic, but such thing seems not to be rare here.

I explained how Basile's presentation actually shows that his iron-rich droplets cannot possibly be the iron residue of the hypothesized "thermite reaction" within the red layer - there is way too much of these droplets by volume, the red layer contains, if Basile's quantities are any good at all, way too little iron, way too little Al, way too much hydrocarbon.

The "iron droplets" must come from the gray layer, which Harrit et al considered inert; and the energy to shape then thus must come from the hydrocarbon combustion and/or the heat input from the heating device.

I wonder why you didn't address that argument. It refutes directly the conclusions about iron-rich spherules in the chip residue drawn by Harrit et al.

I am preparing an answer but it takes its time. I am a retired professional metallurgist but I have not worked with SEM myself and therefore I must check out many things and learn more. You had really done your homework calculating those percentages. I suppose you have done that already earlier in comments of the Basile video. I am afraid I will not verify them – I have other points.

 

[Criteria]

"..If you can't find an describe a fault in my analysis, I will assume you accept there is none, or that you accept that you are incapable of determining what's plausible and what's not here....

3.) Basile shows "iron droplets" - you can gauge their size and volume using the scale marker Basile provided, and compare with the max. volume of iron from the red layer..

You're welcome.

As usual, you make too many loose assumptions in order to make your calculations.

I disagree with your amateur belief that you can, and have, obtained a usable measurement for the overall iron "volume" based on the incomplete data you have used to make your determination. You cannot accurately determine volume by examining a cropped, two-dimensional image, of a low quality pdf image.

If you can provide corroborating opinion from a known professional, I will reconsider.

Your welcome.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

As usual, you make too many loose assumptions in order to make your calculations.

I disagree with your amateur belief that you can, and have, obtained a usable measurement for the overall iron "volume" based on the incomplete data you have used to make your determination. You cannot accurately determine volume by examining a cropped, two-dimensional image, of a low quality pdf image.

If you can provide corroborating opinion from a known professional, I will reconsider.

Your welcome.

Volume is volume, it does not change for professionals or layman, and that is the whole point in Basile adding scale markers is to show size and volume.
Of materials from an ignited chip, what other purpose would they serve,
Your worthless call to authority noted.
How does it feel to use fraudulent debate tactics to prevent truthful represention of the
Actual fact?

 

[Lusikka]

Holy necrotic thread revival, Batman!

You are welcome.

So, I guess your point is that we were wrong to think that Niels Harrit didn't really say "Fe-rich spheroids have never been observed unless there was a thermite reaction" ?

Harrit certainly did say just that. But, so do his fellow truthers Steven Jones and Richard Gage:

I can assure you that I am able to read and I have never said Harris has not written that sentence. It is a question of interpretation and I interpret him so that he meant only the red/gray chips and the spherules in them. They were discussing just those chips then. Those spherules are produced always when molten iron or steel is spattering in the air. It happens for example in welding and torch cutting steel.

Concerning what Jones and Gage have said there is one point you evidently have not taken into account. I think they thought the very big quantity of the spherules, calculated 2-6 % in the dust. The fires were rather limited and there was an immense quantity of dust. There must also have been iron-rich spherules originated in the time they built the towers. But thinking about the big amount of the spherules Jones and Gage are right after all.

You did a laudable experimenting work in doing the burning test. In my opinion you however did not show that those two spherules would have been produced by the burning process. You had uncontrolled test pieces and crude methods in searching the spherules. It was not verified that there would not have existed spherules in the burnt piece already before burning.

There ought to be a new test with a better controlled method. The surface of the steel beam must be verified to be clean and before painting the primer paint must also be controlled using a strong magnet.

 

[beachnut]

You are welcome.

I can assure you that I am able to read and I have never said Harris has not written that sentence. It is a question of interpretation and I interpret him so that he meant only the red/gray chips and the spherules in them. They were discussing just those chips then. Those spherules are produced always when molten iron or steel is spattering in the air. It happens for example in welding and torch cutting steel.

Concerning what Jones and Gage have said there is one point you evidently have not taken into account. I think they thought the very big quantity of the spherules, calculated 2-6 % in the dust. The fires were rather limited and there was an immense quantity of dust. There must also have been iron-rich spherules originated in the time they built the towers. But thinking about the big amount of the spherules Jones and Gage are right after all.

You did a laudable experimenting work in doing the burning test. In my opinion you however did not show that those two spherules would have been produced by the burning process. You had uncontrolled test pieces and crude methods in searching the spherules. It was not verified that there would not have existed spherules in the burnt piece already before burning.

There ought to be a new test with a better controlled method. The surface of the steel beam must be verified to be clean and before painting the primer paint must also be controlled using a strong magnet.

Are you saying thermite was used on 911? Where is the evidence?
Fires create iron spheres, it is a fact you seem to be unaware of.

LOL, iron is 6 percent of the earth's crust, it is not surprising there was iron at up to 6 percent in WTC dust.

Iron spheres come from burning iron bearing substances... a fact which Harrit, Jones and Gage deny; In fact, even though you say they did not say they only come from thermite, they clearly said that, as seen in the video. Why are you quibbling about it? Are you a thermite believer?

The iron at 6 percent in RJ Lee's study, included clean up dust, after thousands of cuts were made on WTC steel during 8-9 months of clean up...
Where did that iron come from?

Thus the 2-6 percent in WTC dust is lower than back ground iron in the earth's crust.

Do you have evidence any steel was damaged by thermite on 911? No.

Is there iron in wood? What happens to iron in wood, when you burn wood.

if you do believe in the thermite fantasy, who planted it?

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0050-02/fs-050-02_508.pdf

2-6 percent? Why do we have less than 1 percent to about 6 percent in the reports? What is it, 0.7 percent on the low side?

And the average iron content of the dust is the same as... the percent in Eastern US soil.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

You are welcome.



I can assure you that I am able to read and I have never said Harris has not written that sentence. It is a question of interpretation and I interpret him so that he meant only the red/gray chips and the spherules in them. They were discussing just those chips then. Those spherules are produced always when molten iron or steel is spattering in the air. It happens for example in welding and torch cutting steel.

Concerning what Jones and Gage have said there is one point you evidently have not taken into account. I think they thought the very big quantity of the spherules, calculated 2-6 % in the dust. The fires were rather limited and there was an immense quantity of dust. There must also have been iron-rich spherules originated in the time they built the towers. But thinking about the big amount of the spherules Jones and Gage are right after all.

You did a laudable experimenting work in doing the burning test. In my opinion you however did not show that those two spherules would have been produced by the burning process. You had uncontrolled test pieces and crude methods in searching the spherules. It was not verified that there would not have existed spherules in the burnt piece already before burning.

There ought to be a new test with a better controlled method. The surface of the steel beam must be verified to be clean and before painting the primer paint must also be controlled using a strong magnet.

Why Iron Oxide spheres are from the clay in paints they are present as a result of pyrites Iron Sulfides in Kaolin clays.
The larger ones are magneticlly removed after the clay is baked. Leaving only smaller microspheres.

Also Roofing materials in the twin towers would have used fly ash, with asphalt, common practice.

Micro spheres mean nothing, complete stupidity of those who say they do.

 

[Oystein]

As usual, you make too many loose assumptions in order to make your calculations.

Well, can you point out any specific value that you consider "loose", and argue what the margin error might be?

I disagree with your amateur belief that you can, and have, obtained a usable measurement for the overall iron "volume" based on the incomplete data you have used to make your determination.

Can you provide an argument for your disagreement?

You cannot accurately determine volume by examining a cropped, two-dimensional image, of a low quality pdf image.

I assume that the dimensions of the chip and the thickness of the red layers have been determined by Mark Basile and the Harrit group with reasonable accuracy, wouldn't you agree? So my estimate of the red layer volume, and consequently the max. possible elemental iron volume, is rather accurate, as I am using Basile's and Harrit's published numbers.

As for the size of the droplets, no great accuracy is required: Several are easily more than 100 µm wider and several 100 µm long. I could be wrong by a factor of 5, and there's still be too much of these droplets to be accounted for by the maximum 90x90x90 µm of iron that the red layer could produce.

If you can provide corroborating opinion from a known professional, I will reconsider.

You reject my 2x2x2=8 because I am not a professional mathematician? You can't check this out yourself even though I spoon-feed it to you? Are you this insecure of your own abilities in all aspects of life? Do you doubt your shoe laces will hold if they haven't been tied by a shoe professional? Can you not estimate whether the distance to the car driving in front of you is sufficient and safe unless a traffic professional tells you what to believe?

 

[Oystein]

...I think they thought the very big quantity of the spherules, calculated 2-6 % in the dust. The fires were rather limited and there was an immense quantity of dust. There must also have been iron-rich spherules originated in the time they built the towers. But thinking about the big amount of the spherules Jones and Gage are right after all.

Only a limited percentage of the mass of the red layer of the chips is iron oxide, and even less then is iron: Mark Basile determined that there is only 1.7 to 2.6% iron. Even less Aluminium.

Now let me be generous and allow for Basile to have committed a blunder and there is actually 10% iron in the red layer.

Then 2-6% by mass of the total dust being iron spherules would mean that there was 20-60% of the mass of the total dust being red layer material originally.
How much dust was there, total, all around GZ? We are speaking about 10,000 tonnes or more, aren't we? Then you must believe there were originally 2,000 to 6,000 tonnes of red layer material, right? 10 tons, approximately, per WTC floor.
Does this appear even remotely plausible to you?

...and before painting the primer paint must also be controlled using a strong magnet.

Why?

 

[Lusikka]

Originally Posted by Lusikka
Thank you for your immediate and to the point answer. But I suspect you did not listen to the video carefully enough. As I see it, so Harrit did not mean his sample set but the spherules observed inside or at the place of the remains of the reacted red-gray chips after the chips were ignited.

Do you mean the video "Mark Basile: Dust Analysis Raises Questions - 9/11"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1VmaCl4HwU
Can you point us to the minute:second timestamp(s) that you are refering to here?

Yes, I meant that video and the time stamp is here:
https://youtu.be/h1VmaCl4HwU?t=42m57s

There Basile says that there are no spherules in the red/grey chips before the reaction but they are found first after the reaction. I think Harrit meant that.

Basile burned plastic, and the heat of that burning, plus, I assume, the heat of his heating strip, affected the gray layer. (No, it didn't melt)

Did you look carefully how the chip was "burning"? Have you ever burnt plastic? Hydrocarbons require outward oxygen for burning but the chip was "burning" inwardly – no oxygen was needed. I have burnt both gunpowder and plastic and have seen the difference.

Again, could you please be more specific which Figures you are refering to? Time stamps in videos, and Figure numbers in the paper, please!

I referred to the figures in the OP and it was very easy to see what I meant. I usually don't give time stamps. I understand that many people are busy and don't necessarily have time to watch a video for one hour. But if they don't do it ever so they are not interested enough and it would have been in vain to give the time stamp. Videos most often are a logical whole and it is important to watch them in their entirety. I have time enough to watch 95 % of all the videos from the beginning to the end.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

Yes, I meant that video and the time stamp is here:
https://youtu.be/h1VmaCl4HwU?t=42m57s

There Basile says that there are no spherules in the red/grey chips before the reaction but they are found first after the reaction. I think Harrit meant that.



Did you look carefully how the chip was "burning"? Have you ever burnt plastic? Hydrocarbons require outward oxygen for burning but the chip was "burning" inwardly – no oxygen was needed. I have burnt both gunpowder and plastic and have seen the difference.



I referred to the figures in the OP and it was very easy to see what I meant. I usually don't give time stamps. I understand that many people are busy and don't necessarily have time to watch a video for one hour. But if they don't do it ever so they are not interested enough and it would have been in vain to give the time stamp. Videos most often are a logical whole and it is important to watch them in their entirety. I have time enough to watch 95 % of all the videos from the beginning to the end.

are you referring to cordite or black gun powder, and the burn in Basile's experiments looks nothing like thermite.

He can not accurately say if a microsphere is present without destroying the chip to find it.
Any claims of no micro spheres before ignition then is false.