Origin of the paint that was found as red-gray chips - any ideas?

[bill smith]

Do you have a picture that shows what this "wire mesh" would look like? I think you're looking for something and you have no idea what it looks like (Chicken wire was a clue for me).

You can probably see it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5MRzWLdpzg

 

[DGM]

You can probably see it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5MRzWLdpzg

Probably?

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Bill Smith and DGM: This floor concrete mesh wire reinforcement was surely one of the minor sources of steel and iron rich particles (e.g. chips, often red, clear On Topic) formed during collapses.

Such steel wires are rusty soon (their protection against corrosion is perhaps economically limited ), even without being exposed to such harsh conditions like the sudden fall of hundreds of thousands of quite well-packed tons of solids from hundreds of meters above.

Considering the allegedly missing floor decks and wire mesh in the debris, some of this steel material with comparatively very low thickness (fluted decks) and/or low surface area (wires) had to be disintegrated and/or oxidized (during about 20 s) at really very harsh conditions and at quite high overall temperatures (?) during collapses.

Who knows, even some intimate mixing of iron oxide (rust) with particles of aluminum and silicon compounds in (almost) nano-level on some steel surfaces (with certain fine red chips as one of the results) can not been excluded in these extremely powerful devils' mills.

But first of all, I would like to be sure enough that there is really some substantial lack of such construction steel in the debris (as a potential source of iron-rich chips, of course

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint - Fe, Al, Si, C (and some Cr and Sr)

Let me go back to the plain reality

I think most of relevant things and data are described in NIST reports, it is just difficult to find them, e.g. there are so many scanned documents which cannot be explored by fulltext search.
In the already mentioned NIST document http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-6BDraft.pdf, Appendix A (at the end, p. 112), I have just found a specification of the paint used for protection of WTC1/WTC2 floor trusses.

Its declared composition is:
Pigment
Iron oxide 55 % (probably wt%)
Aluminum Silicate 41 %
Strontium Chromate 4 %
Total Pigment 100 %

Vehicle
Unmodified Epoxy Amine 45 %
Deionized Water and Amine 55 %
Total Vehicle 100 %

This paint can be easily a source of the red chips (a) to (d), since it contained mostly Fe, Al, Si, O and C (and the content of chromium and strontium was quite low and peaks of these elements in XEDS spectra might be very little/hidden in noise).

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Btw Harrit himself in the text WHY THE RED/GRAY CHIPS ARE NOT PRIMER PAINT (http://11-septembre.com/dossiers/Harrit/primer_paint_Niels_Harrit.pdf) shows a detailed XEDS spectrum of one red chip (Fig. 5). Small peaks of strontium and chromium are visible and marked there. Consequently, red chips (a) to (d) were probably particles of Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint (formula LREP-10001).

 

[Ivan Kminek]

DSC of epoxy resins - exotherms at cca 410 - 430 degrees C

Since the binder in Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint was some epoxide, I just made some quick search regarding DCS behaviour of epoxide resins. So far, I have found this older reference http://www.springerlink.com/content/c06147654665660h/.

Unluckily, this review is not available online for me so I visited our polymer library and found (p. 146, Fig. 13 and 14) DSC of Epoxide Resin 1 and Epoxide Resin 2, measured up to temperature 600 ^oC (heating rate 1 to 5 K/min). In both cases, distinct and quite sharp exotherms at 410 and 420 ^oC were observed. (e.g. in the region where chips (a) to (d) - exposed to air - gave similar exotherms).

I have a paper copy of this page and I can put it here later. The original source of these graphs: Schneider N.S. et al.: Polym.Eng.Sci 19, 304 (1979) Also this paper is not available online for me, but I will find it in our library if you like.

 

[Oystein]

As a newcomer, I again put more questions than useful info in this contribution. Well, floor corrugated decks were not red-painted, but only galvanized. But again, what happened to them during collapses? It seems that (almost) no big parts of them were found in the debris (see e.g. http://letsrollforums.com/hunt-floor-pans-t25015p5.html). They were only 0.7 mm thick (22-gauge), so they could be probably destroyed to very small pieces and simultaneously oxidized to the rust in that inferno (?). Are there some estimations/evaluations how high were temperatures in the falling debris, caused e.g. by friction phenomenons etc.?

It is not hard to calculate that the potential energy of a piece of steel from the roofs of the towers, if converted 100% to heat up that same piece, would not get it very hot: E = m*g*h, or E/m = g*h = 4,000J/kg (I am rounding).
Molar heat capacity, according to WP, is 25.10 J/mol/K or (dividing by atomic weight 0.055845kg/mol) 450J/kg/K. 4000J would heat 1kg of iron by (4000/450)K = 8,9K (rounded twice again).
(Could someone check my calcs? Even though I expected a value very far from melting steel, I am surprised to find it this low)

So we would definitely not expect any bulk melting. You will get high temperatures from friction very localised as in sparks, but only a tiny fraction of the total material would have a chance to heat up like that.

 

[Oystein]

Bill Smith and DGM: This floor concrete mesh wire reinforcement was surely one of the minor sources of steel and iron rich particles (e.g. chips, often red, clear On Topic) formed during collapses.

Such steel wires are rusty soon (their protection against corrosion is perhaps economically limited ), even without being exposed to such harsh conditions like the sudden fall of hundreds of thousands of quite well-packed tons of solids from hundreds of meters above.

Considering the allegedly missing floor decks and wire mesh in the debris, some of this steel material with comparatively very low thickness (fluted decks) and/or low surface area (wires) ...

Quite the contrary: such wire mesh, because it is thin (high surface-to-volum ratio), and not smooth (increasing volume even further), and probably already somewhat rusty on the surface (increasing volume even further) before collapse even started, would be a great source for a lot of iron-rich particled released during the collapse!

...had to be disintegrated and/or oxidized (during about 20 s) at really very harsh conditions and at quite high overall temperatures (?) during collapses.

Don't think so. As shown above, overall temperature of the collapsing material did not rise by more than a couple of degrees. You only find very localized incidents of elevated temperatures by friction. Yes, those would naturally occur on the surfaces, but overall, the mesh wires would not be burned or ground away during the collapse, only their brittle, uneven, rusty surfaces abrased.

Who knows, even some intimate mixing of iron oxide (rust) with particles of aluminum and silicon compounds in (almost) nano-level on some steel surfaces (with certain fine red chips as one of the results) can not been excluded in these extremely powerful devils' mills.

But first of all, I would like to be sure enough that there is really some substantial lack of such construction steel in the debris (as a potential source of iron-rich chips, of course

Don't expect that proof to come from Bill Smith.

 

[Oystein]

Let me go back to the plain reality

I think most of relevant things and data are described in NIST reports, it is just difficult to find them, e.g. there are so many scanned documents which cannot be explored by fulltext search.
In the already mentioned NIST document http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-6BDraft.pdf, Appendix A (at the end, p. 112), I have just found a specification of the paint used for protection of WTC1/WTC2 floor trusses.

I think you should link to the final version, not the draft, of the NIST reports. In the final version of NCSTAR 1-6B (september 2005), the Primer Paint Specification is found in Appendix B, which bears no page numbers. It's page 155 and following of the PDF file.

Its declared composition is:
Pigment
Iron oxide 55 % (probably wt%)
Aluminum Silicate 41 %
Strontium Chromate 4 %
Total Pigment 100 %

Vehicle
Unmodified Epoxy Amine 45 %
Deionized Water and Amine 55 %
Total Vehicle 100 %

This paint can be easily a source of the red chips (a) to (d), since it contained mostly Fe, Al, Si, O and C (and the content of chromium and strontium was quite low and peaks of these elements in XEDS spectra might be very little/hidden in noise).

I am no expert on these spectra, however, here are the X-ray properties to be looking for:
Chromium: http://csrri.iit.edu/cgi-bin/period-form?ener=&name=Cr
I believe the K-alpha edge energy at 5.4 keV would be the strongest signal. K-beta just below 6keV

Strontium: http://csrri.iit.edu/cgi-bin/period-form?ener=&name=Sr
K-alpha and -beta are pretty high, at 14.2 and 15.8keV. L-levels at 1.9, 2.0 and 2.2. Not sure if we'd see and identify that in any of the spectra I've seen so far.

(I'll elaborate later, I see Harrit's May 09 whitepaper, and it is interesting. Nit sure if I will be able to conclude anything new and robust. For now, little bit of real life takes precedence)

 

[leftysergeant]

Yet we see little or none of this matting in the rubble of the WTC. Where can it be gone ? Very little decking or floorpans either as you noted.

Horse feathers. There is plenty of it visible in photos from late in the cleanup.

The floors fell first, and they fell mostly straight down, inside the perimeter columns. The core columns were the last elements to fail, and fell on top of the floor pans and concrete. I will have to sort through some of the pics that Gravy provided for us on his website and start a new thread, since this is sort of off-topic here.

But go find a copy of that famous photo of a fire fighter standing in front of that column that everyone said was proof of thermite.

He's standing on a bunch of chunks of concrete and mesh.

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Oystein: you are right, I should link here the final versions of NIST reports. But as expected, the composition of Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint in the final version of NCSTAR 1-6B is the same as in the draft.

Harrit was really right in the cited text http://11-septembre.com/dossiers/Harrit/primer_paint_Niels_Harrit.pdf, chips (a) to (d) could not be particles of Red Tnemec Primer used for perimeter elements (e.g., there is too much of Al and no Mg or Zn in the XEDS spectra of the chips). But (at least to me) he again probably debunked himself in his own text (Fig.5) , just like in the case of the chip (e). Chips (a) to (d) were still indeed particles of primer paint, but different from Tnemec (as has been expected here in JREF).

Let me again summarize my thinking: According to specification, Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint used for floor trusses contained Fe, Al, Si, O and C (from the epoxy binder) and a little of Cr and Sr. And the same composition can be read in the detailed XEDS spectrum of the red chip in Harrit's text (Fig.5). Well, some very little calcium and sulfur peaks are also visible there, but they can be attributed to some random contamination (e.g., from wallboard gypsum, which is mostly calcium sulfate

 

[Sunstealer]

Btw Harrit himself in the text WHY THE RED/GRAY CHIPS ARE NOT PRIMER PAINT (http://11-septembre.com/dossiers/Harrit/primer_paint_Niels_Harrit.pdf) shows a detailed XEDS spectrum of one red chip (Fig. 5). Small peaks of strontium and chromium are visible and marked there. Consequently, red chips (a) to (d) were probably particles of Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint (formula LREP-10001).

Brilliant piece of work. When I get a bit of time I shall look into this further.

 

[leftysergeant]

I would further speculate that some of the microshpheres of iron could have been formed when the trusses were assembled and were then painted over so that they remained there until the paint was knocked off in the collapse.

 

[DGM]

I would further speculate that some of the microshpheres of iron could have been formed when the trusses were assembled and were then painted over so that they remained there until the paint was knocked off in the collapse.

Are you insinuating that us welders don't clean-up perfectly after ourselves?

 

[Oystein]

Oystein: you are right, I should link here the final versions of NIST reports. But as expected, the composition of Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint in the final version of NCSTAR 1-6B is the same as in the draft.

Harrit was really right in the cited text http://11-septembre.com/dossiers/Harrit/primer_paint_Niels_Harrit.pdf, chips (a) to (d) could not be particles of Red Tnemec Primer used for perimeter elements (e.g., there is too much of Al and no Mg or Zn in the XEDS spectra of the chips). But (at least to me) he again probably debunked himself in his own text (Fig.5) , just like in the case of the chip (e). Chips (a) to (d) were still indeed particles of primer paint, but different from Tnemec (as has been expected here in JREF).

Let me again summarize my thinking: According to specification, Laclede Standard Steel Joist Paint used for floor trusses contained Fe, Al, Si, O and C (from the epoxy binder) and a little of Cr and Sr. And the same composition can be read in the detailed XEDS spectrum of the red chip in Harrit's text (Fig.5). Well, some very little calcium and sulfur peaks are also visible there, but they can be attributed to some random contamination (e.g., from wallboard gypsum, which is mostly calcium sulfate

That Harrit whitepaper adds very little to the "original" paper at Bentham, except for detailing what tnemec is. Of course we already know that chips a-d are not tnemec, so he is on the wrong boat for most of the time.

On page 6, he false claims that "Magnesium was never observed". His own Fi.6, an XEDS of chip e (MEK lalala...) has an unlabelled peak at about 1.25keV, which is quite likely the K-alpha level of Mg. The same peak is found in the XEDS that Jones had done on actual tnemec from a WTC column; I showed that in my blog (fig. C).

Now I disagree with you that Cr and Sr have readily visible peaks in Harrit's Fig. 5: He puts the labels where he would expect to see peaks, but they aren't really discernibly there, except for one possible Cr peak. However he magnified only one of the 4 XEDS charts for chips a-d. Going back to the Bentham paper, Figure 7 has tiny tiny blips at 5.4keV for chips b and d, which corresponds with k-alpha of Chromium. a and c are practically flat there. Unfortunately, those spectra end at 10keV, so we don't know if any Strontium peaked beyond 14keV.

Unfortunately, I am not convinced that Harrit's data points to LaClede standard paint - the Cr-signal is woefully weak, and the Sr non-existent for all I can tell.

Maybe Sunstealer can shed a bit more light here.

 

[leftysergeant]

Are you insinuating that us welders don't clean-up perfectly after ourselves?

From what I have seen as a safety observer and some construction work, welding fume is one of the more insidious environmental contaminants in the world. You have iron dust floating around in a room full of steel that nobody has bothered to deguass. You can't wipe that stuff off and keep it off.

 

[leftysergeant]

Now I disagree with you that Cr and Sr have readily visible peaks in Harrit's Fig. 5: He puts the labels where he would expect to see peaks, but they aren't really discernibly there, except for one possible Cr peak. However he magnified only one of the 4 XEDS charts for chips a-d. Going back to the Bentham paper, Figure 7 has tiny tiny blips at 5.4keV for chips b and d, which corresponds with k-alpha of Chromium. a and c are practically flat there. Unfortunately, those spectra end at 10keV, so we don't know if any Strontium peaked beyond 14keV.

This is a little over my head, but am I right in understanding that Harrit did not fully apply whatever energy he was supposed to apply to test for all the possible elements of the paint? Would the full application of that energy have produced a chromium spike elsewhere?

 

[chrismohr]

A very nontechnical piece to add here: in an email to me, Kevin Ryan said he has in his personal possession both the paint and the thermitic dust. He said they are totally different. I quoted him in my Gage rebuttal videos:

part 11a thermitics in the dust http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYja1f-Tefc
part 11b thermitics in the dust continued http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb8Q1UYdW4I&feature=related

Wish we could look at both samples, don't you?

 

[alienentity]

Hey can somebody comment on fig. 29 in the 'Active Thermitic' paper as to the DSC traces of the chip and the Tillotson sample? p25 of the paper

Why do Harrit/Jones claim this makes the chip look like nanothermite, and why is that claim wrong?

thx

 

[Oystein]

This is a little over my head, but am I right in understanding that Harrit did not fully apply whatever energy he was supposed to apply to test for all the possible elements of the paint? Would the full application of that energy have produced a chromium spike elsewhere?

In those graphs, the electron's edge energies are on the x-axis. Those end to the right at 10keV. I don't recall if the text explained what energy levels they applied, and if that ended at 10. Either way: The data is not there, and we can't validliy conclude anything from data that is not there. I don't presume that they left it away on purpose to hide something. Maybe the graphs were flat beyond 10, maybe they just didn't spot anything they deemed significant and left that part away for the benefit of better data resolution below 10.