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Fire and Steel

TheRedWorm

I AM the Red Worm!
TheRedWorm
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
4,452
No, I'm not starting a new heavy metal rock band, instead, I am starting this thread for the benefit of Bofors. his/her contention is that fire cannot weaken steel, therefore WTC 7(?) was brought down by thermite coated C4, or something.

As usual, this thread is free for everyone, and if I misstated Bofor's position, please call me on it.
 
Strange. If fire cannot weaken steel why is flame retardant/insulation required on steel structures in buildings?

Drat!. Gravy's always on top of things
 
Although, to be fair, I may have misrepresented his position. I only wanted to not derail the "what motivates truthers" thread.
 
Carried over from the other thread.

Disbelief said:
Why do you equate "hasn't happened" with "can't happen?"
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bofors said:
Obviously these are not always equivalent, but in the case at bar the effectively are. I mean, steal-framed buildings can not globally collapsed under possible fire conditions and this is proved by the fact that they have not.
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Why? Because you say so? It is in no way proven, and in fact is disproven by the WTC collapses. You also seem to forget about plane damage.

Disbelief said:
Why fire proof steel buildings?
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bofors said:
As far as the application of abestos and such, I think it primarily has to do with preventing trusses from sagging, the framing itself (I-beams, H beams and such) does not need it (or get it).
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That's it? The only reasons? Preventing a collapse never played into the picture?
 
You'd figgure that trusses help support the structure. What would happen to the structure if enough of the trusses sag and lose strength?

I guess he also is not aware of steel ware houses collapsing due to fires.
I think there is an article out there about a ware house that stored toilet paper collapsing due to a fire.
 
RedIbis said:
Document Not Found
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Only for 9/11 truth movement believers.

The fires stuff is secret, so people like Dylan can sell not so smart people videos of lies on 9/11. If people understood fire destroys the strength of steel, Dylan could not sell his lies. A sucker born every second.
 
bofors said:
Right, the Windsor building was a steal-reinforced-concrete structure. It is a different type of building than the WTC's steel-framed structures so it really is not good comparison. However, steel-framed structures perform better than cheaper steal-reinforced-concrete in fires:

Before examining the partial collapse of the Windsor building more closely, we note that steel-framed and steel-reinforced-concrete-framed structures behave very differently in fires.

Steel is a good conductor and concrete is a poor conductor of heat. Thus in a fire, a steel frame will conduct heat away from the hotspots into the larger structure. As long as the fire does not consume the larger structure, this heat conductivity will keep the temperatures of the frame well below the fire temperatures. The same is not true of steel-reinforced-concrete structures, since concrete is not a good thermal conductor, and the thermal conductivity of the rebar inside the concrete is limited by its small mass and the embedding matrix of concrete.

Fires can cause spalling of concrete, but not of steel. This is because concrete has a small percentage of latent moisture, which is converted to steam by heat. Thus, a large fire can gradually erode a concrete structure to the point of collapse, whereas a fire can only threaten a steel-framed structure if it elevates steel temperatures to such an extent that it causes failures.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/windsor.html

In fact, the reason the why the Windsor did partially collapsed in the fire was becuase it was cheap steal-reinforced-concrete as opposed to steal-framed like the WTC buildings.

Better comparisons with the WTC buildings are:

The One Meridian Plaza Fire
The First Interstate Bank Fire
The 1 New York Plaza Fire
Caracas Tower Fire

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html





I am not sure what you are talking about here. Steel structure, including perimeter columns on the left, is visible in this photo: [URL]http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9692/windsor6yw3.jpg[/URL]
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Holy cow. You're an architect / engineer for 9/11 "truth", Bofors? Did you learn anything in school, or do you just get your information from conspiracy websites? As an architect / engineer who had to send in copies of his degrees to join the group, (by which I assume you mean that you at least graduated) you must have taken some university courses in statics, structural systems, and strengths of materials. Right? So, you should be able to answer this relatively simple structural question related to the comparison you make above:

Which performs better - retains the greatest portion of its original strength the longest - in a typical building fire?

A). A steel framed building.
B). A heavy wood timber framed building.

And, why?

For the purpose of this example, please assume that other than the materials of construction, the buildings and fires are essentially the same, with no extraordinary differences between the two structures. Also assume that there have been no additional fire protection measures taken, such as spray-on insulation or sprinkler systems.

Based on what you've said above, I don't think you have the best understanding of structures and materials, as you seem not to understand the purpose of reinforcing steel in structural concrete, or the properties of steel in general. But, we'll see.
 
One Meridian Plaza: much smaller building, masonry reinforced core area.

First Interstate Bank: exceptionally thick fireproofing applied to the building. This was credited with limiting the damage to the structure.

1 New York Plaza: The only info I have on this one is that it involved two floors, and 130 steel beams and 20,000 SF of concrete had to be replaced.

The Caracas tower consisted of a reinforced concrete "macro-frame" (every 5th floor was reinforced concrete) with steel infill.
 
As far as the application of abestos and such, I think it primarily has to do with preventing trusses from sagging, the framing itself (I-beams, H beams and such) does not need it (or get it).
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AHHHHH --- - The stupid, it burns!!!!!
 
God, I hope bofors is not employed in the construction industry.
 
uruk said:
God, I hope bofors is not employed in the construction industry.
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He claims to be a member of AE911, the Richard Gage farce of a conspiracy theorist group among alleged building design profesionals:

bofors said:
It is not a scam. I had to send copies of my degrees to join.
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However, if he is an engineer or architect, he certainly doesn't seem to bring much to the table in the area of techincal expertise:

bofors said:
In general, fire does cause steal to "fail". A steal wood burning stove does not "fail" buy using it anymore than a frying pan "fails" on a gas stove.
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Same old conspiracy arguments we get from the ones who admit they have no expertise. And seriously, steal? Did you rob a Wal-Mart? Yet, it's not an isolated typo, as you can see:

bofors said:
The point is that the structural framing steal never fails do to fire in a mannar that causes anything approaching global collapse of the structure.
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Except for in all the cases that it has in the past, which is the reason we have codes that dictate how and where to use fire protection in steel buildings. I can't see how anyone who has spent more than 2 years in architecture school or even taken a structural engineerig class could say the above. No degree required.

bofors said:
Obviously these are not always equivalent, but in the case at bar the effectively are. I mean, steal-framed buildings can not globally collapsed under possible fire conditions and this is proved by the fact that they have not.
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Not only is this patently false, but apparently, in Bofors' world, absense of evidence is evidence of absense. Neat logic.


bofors said:
As far as the application of abestos and such, I think it primarily has to do with preventing trusses from sagging, the framing itself (I-beams, H beams and such) does not need it (or get it).
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what his point is here. If the fire's heating the steel enough to cause it to sag, isn't that an issue for other steel members as well? I mean, since it's your theory that the steel quickly wicks away the heat to cooler portions of the structure, because it's such a good conductor.

Also, what the heck are H-Beams? The term I-Beam is a common (vernacular) term for a Wide Flange Steel Beam, which we usually refer to a a W-Section. Real I-Beams haven't been made for quite a while. People who aren't in the industry use that because they don't know any better. There's also a H-Section, but that's not a steel section you'd use for a beam. It's a column section, designed mainly for axial loading.
 
An H beam is just an I beam turned on it's side, I think. Not a very commonly used term though, to my knowledge.
 
Back in June there was a horrible fire at a furniture store in Charleston, SC. Sadly, nine firefighters were killed.

I passed by it when I was visiting in early July and one could very clearly see substantial metal beams that had been part of the structure on top of the debris, bent and twisted like taffy. So we have a steel framed structure, collapsed in a fire fed by furniture, in which steel beams can clearly be shown to have softened, lost their strength, deformed and collapsed. Sound like any other incident we've seen in the last, oh, six years or so?

I'll be in Charleston again in November. If it's all still there and if I don't feel too ghoulish I'll try to get some pictures.

Here's a link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19301684/ In the picture you can clearly see the collapse of the roof, showing why firefighters hate trussed systems like that.
 
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