Kurt King's WTC Dust Cloud Paper

[rwguinn]

Well written and researched, Dr. Greening.

 

[Hokulele]

Very thorough discussion and rebuttal. I just had one question on your final comment.

Final Comment

It is interesting that Jim Hoffman and others frequently refer to the expanding dust clouds produced by the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 as pyroclastic surges. This terminology is based on the supposed resemblance of the WTC dust clouds to the hot turbulent flows of gas, dust and debris ejected by many volcanic eruptions. L. M. Schwarzkopf et al. have pointed out that pyroclastic surges are promoted by breaks in the slope of a volcano where the cascades of falling rock and ash are subject to hard impacts. These impacts result in intensified production of fines through fragmentation of the larger rocks entrained in the flow.

In order to study this phenomenon further, Schwarzkopf et al. performed drop experiments with basaltic rock samples pre-heated to temperatures up to 850 deg C. The samples weighed about 50 grams and the drop height was about 3 meters so that the impact kinetic energy was about 30 J/g. The remarkable result of these experiments was that the samples heated above 200 deg C exploded on impact and the degree of fragmentation increased as the temperature was increased.

See www.electronic-earth-discuss.net/1/81/2006/

I believe that the same thing would happen to the concrete slabs in the fire-affected zones of WTC 1 & 2 as the upper sections collapsed. Concrete typically contains at least 5 % water in pores and capillaries. When concrete is heated above 100 deg C, the water is converted to steam under very high pressure, sometimes leading to explosive spalling of the outermost layers of the material. However, a hard impact on hot concrete would most certainly result in total fragmentation of the concrete, accompanied by the explosive release of hot, (superheated!), steam.

Is Hoffman referring to a pyroclastic surge, or a pyroclastic flow? If he is calling it a surge, that implies that there was very little particulate matter in the dust cloud (less than 1% of the total volume of the cloud), which would contradict the theory that the majority of the mass of the tower was "dustified".

Here is a response I just received from Ace Baker:

<snip>


2. The "meteorite" is indeed interesting, but the notion that it is a "sandwich" implies that it was created by compression of "pancaking" floors. That's an assertion. I hope all on this list would support scientific analysis of the "meteorite". I, for one, think it does indeed bear resemblance to a real meteorite. Have concrete, iron, and office materials been fused together into new compounds? What exactly is the chemical composition? Any real scientist would be overcome with curiosity about this most unusual object. If the "meteorite" is the only evidence for stacked up floors, I don't think it supports and sort of gravity collapse hypothesis.

<snip>

Ace has discovered cold fusion now?

 

[leftysergeant]

It's interesting hearing Capt Jay Jonas and others that survived WTC 1 speaking about the howling wind that raced down the stairwells, in some cases lifting them up and carrying people down the stairs.

Don't mean to derail the thread, but I am not familiar with that statement. It strikes me right off as another avenue to explore in another thread and perhaps on a couple other sites I frequent.

A "howling wind" is not consistant with the detonation of demolition charges It would obviously have to be driven by falling debris, compressing the air at a more or less constant rate. Given this constant compression from above, I shopuld think that even a closely-timed series of demolition charges would have created a pulse of some sort that would have to have been transmitted to the stairwells. Doesn't sound to me as though that were the case.

 

[Apollo20]

First, I'd like to thank everyone for their interest in this topic.

One point I should make is that I believe the distinction between a pyroclastic flow and a pyroclastic surge is usually based on observed differences in the deposits left by volcanic eruptions. Flow deposits are usually poorly sorted and massive while surge deposits are better sorted, finer-grained, thinner and better bedded than flow deposits. Nevertheless, pyroclastic flow and surge deposits are both composed of crystals, glassy shards and pumice. According to R. V. Fisher in his paper "Models for pyroclastic surges and pyroclastic flows" in Journal of Volcanol. Geotherm. Res. 6, 305, (1979), surges develop from the margin of a collapsing eruption column; the surge proceeds the pyroclastic flow which is derived from the collapse of the central main part of the column. On the other hand, C. J. N. Wilson has suggested that surge deposits develop from extreme turbulent action at the base of a flow as air is infolded beneath the advancing front.

Having said all that, I think that when it comes to the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 these distinctions are moot and not important because the expanding dust clouds at Ground Zero were NOT pyroclastic flows or surges. Pyroclastic flows are volcanically produced mixtures of hot particulate and exsolved volatiles consisting of H2O, CO2, SO2, etc. These volatiles usually amount to only 1 % of the weight of the material, but the nucleation, growth and disruption of gas bubbles leads to explosive fragmentation accompanied by violent eruptions when the pyroclast-gas dispersion exits the vent.

It is very interesting that some CTers consider the WTC dust clouds to be pyroclastic flows when real world flows usually contain so-called "bombs" (which are typically larger than 64 mm), "blocks" and "lapilli" (typically larger than 2 mm) as well as ash and dust smaller than 1 mm.

And this ties in nicely with one of Kurt King's comments in his latest e-mail to me:

"The water in concrete that is bound to other materials will require not only a temperature over 100 C, but also energy to re-arrange the chemical bonds so the water is released into a vapor phase. While one considers that transition, one would also have to consider the vaporization of many other materials - a problem of considerable complexity and fraught with unknowns. So I had to say on page 14 that it is not explicitly considered here. The higher temperatures I did not discuss until page 22, then only as the initial average temperature of the dust cloud that must have existed in order to force its expansion. If the momentary highest temperatures available during the "collapse" were high enough to vaporize some ordinary solids, then those vapors could have contributed to a momentary expansion. But, with radiative cooling, I would expect that to be followed almost immediately by condensation back to micron-scale solids and a momentary relative vacuum. Thus, the momentary existence of superhigh temperatures would have changed the particle size and composition distribution, but not have made a net change in the the expansion. On the contrary, the conversion of liquid water to vapor would be largely irreversible in the dust cloud expansion time scale."

So, according to Kurt King some "ordinary solids" were probably vaporized during the collapse of the Twin Towers - something that does NOT even occur in a volcano - only to condense back to micron sized solids!

Oh, and by the way, KK goes on to support this scenario by arguing that the data of Lioy shows that the WTC dust had an average particle size of 1 micron!

PYROCLASTIC BOMBASTIC BS INDEED!

 

[Apollo20]

And here is how KK calculates the particle size (Sorry about the format of the table, I am not sure how to fix it!):

-----------------------------------------------------------------

KK:

"You are correct that Lioy did not address the dust quantity, but I did not say he did. The quantity 123,016 tons (recall my apology on page 3 about precision and accuracy) is 42.005% (the sum of the 1st 3 averages of some of his Table 2 numbers - from my table 2) of 300,000 tons (that number from other sources as documented on page 7).

The actual computed numbers of particles by size (table 2 tons / table 1 particle weight) are:

Nominal particle Size (in microns) / tons / Particle weight / # particles / relative #s relative #s rel # x size

1 micron 3315 tons 1.72E-15 1.92E+18 37275 1.00000 1.000
5 micron 1050 tons 2.15E-13 4.88E+15 94 0.00253 0.013
25 micron 121650 tons 2.69E-11 4.52E+15 88 0.00235 0.059
125 micron 173700 tons 3.37E-09 5.16E+13 1 0.00003 0.003
Sum: 1.075
and the average particle size is 1.075 micron."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

AMAZING! 173,700 tons of 125 micron particles and 3315 tons of 1 micron particles and the AVERAGE particle size is 1.075 microns.....

 

[bonkey]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nominal    |             |	    |		 |	    |	       |
Particle   | Mass        | Particle |            |Relatve   | Relative | Relative
Size       | (tons)      | Weight   | #Particles | #s	    | #s       | #s * size
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1 micron |   3315 tons | 1.72E-15 | 1.92E+18   | 37275    | 1.00000  | 1.000  
  5 micron |   1050 tons | 2.15E-13 | 4.88E+15   |    94    | 0.00253  | 0.013
 25 micron | 121650 tons | 2.69E-11 | 4.52E+15   |    88    | 0.00235  | 0.059
125 micron | 173700 tons | 3.37E-09 | 5.16E+13   |     1    | 0.00003  | 0.003 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There ya go. (Wrap it in CODE tags)

 

[Dave Rogers]

AMAZING! 173,700 tons of 125 micron particles and 3315 tons of 1 micron particles and the AVERAGE particle size is 1.075 microns.....

Not really surprising, given that taking the numbers of particles will inevitably skew the average grossly in favour of the smaller particle sizes. At least King is intellectually honest enough to make a reasonable attempt at calculating the surface energy for the entire distribution of particles.

However, if what I understand from the paper is correct, then this is all meaningless anyway. King refers to dust samples taken at 7km from ground zero by Lioy, then goes on to assume that this particle size distribution is characteristic of the entire mass of debris from the collapse. It's quite obvious that this will not be the case. At a 7km distance only wind-borne dust would be found, which would automatically select the lowest extreme of the particle size distribution; larger fragments of concrete simply could not have carried this far. Am I correct here, or have I misread the paper? If I haven't, then King's estimates of fracture energies required will inevitably be many orders of magnitude too high.

Dave

 

[Apollo20]

Bonkey:

Great, I knew a computer wiz out there could fix it!!

Dave Rogers:

No! I think you have got it absolutely right. There is a nice paper by G. P. L. Walker et al. entitled "Explosive Volcanic Eruptions - The Rate of Fall of Pyroclasts" in Geophysical Journal Vol 22, p 377, (1971) which calculates terminal velocities for pyroclastic materials. It shows for example that the terminal velocity of a particle of density 1.25 g/cc is about 20 m/s for a 1 cm diameter particle, about 5 m/s for a 1 mm particle, and about 0.3 m/s for a 100 micron particle. The prevailing wind was about 5 m/s on 9/11 so it is a simple matter to calculate how far a particle would travel horizontally if it was released at a height of say 200 meters: 50 meters for the 1 cm particle, 200 meters for the 1 mm particle and over 3 km for the 100 micron particle.
Q.E.D.

 

[The Almond]

First, I'd like to thank everyone for their interest in this topic.

Thanks for your continuing comments. They are most interesting. I just wanted to comment of one of King's points here, which has absolutely no basis in reality.

[...]

And this ties in nicely with one of Kurt King's comments in his latest e-mail to me:

"The water in concrete that is bound to other materials will require not only a temperature over 100 C, but also energy to re-arrange the chemical bonds so the water is released into a vapor phase. While one considers that transition, one would also have to consider the vaporization of many other materials - a problem of considerable complexity and fraught with unknowns. So I had to say on page 14 that it is not explicitly considered here.

King has made a non-sensical assumption in this statement; namely that the water that is part of the hydroxyl structure of the CSH gel is the primary source of water in the cement paste. In truth, interlayer pores, micropores and isolated capillary pores are the primary sources of available water in concrete. As this water leaves the system, the CSH microstructure changes, thereby decreasing the forces bonding adsorbed water to the CSH crystals. The CSH crystals will actually shrink without all of the available free water first leaving the system.

I'm referencing Concrete, 2nd edition Mindness et. al pages 68 and 69.

 

[Hokulele]

It constantly amazes me how often the truth movement confuses analogy with reality. A dust cloud suddenly is a "mushroom cloud" or "pyroclastic surge/flow". The sound of explosions suddenly are "bombs". *Sigh*


ETA: Airplane wake vortices behave in the manner of boat wakes.

 

[Apollo20]

Hokulele:

Steven Jones is master of that approach!

If something in the WTC glows yellow when its molten, its iron.... obviously!

And,

If a WTC sample contains iron, aluminum, manganese, sulfur and potassium, it's a thermate residue...... obviously!

 

[Par]

Hokulele:

Steven Jones is master of that approach!

If something in the WTC glows yellow when its molten, its iron.... obviously!

And,

If a WTC sample contains iron, aluminum, manganese, sulfur and potassium, it's a thermate residue...... obviously!

Oh yes, the good old affirming the consequent fallacy. It’s one of the truthers best friends. “If there was thermite, then there would be sulphur. There was sulphur, therefore there was thermite!”

 

[TerryUK]

Hokulele:

Steven Jones is master of that approach!

If something in the WTC glows yellow when its molten, its iron.... obviously!

I'm sure you know why it's probably steel...

 

[A W Smith]

Originally Posted by Apollo20
Hokulele:

Steven Jones is master of that approach!

If something in the WTC glows yellow when its molten, its iron.... obviously!

I'm sure you know why it's probably steel...

why of course

If all the glass used in the construction of both towers were melted into a ribbon of glass, 20 inches wide, it would run 65 miles long. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/world_trade.html