Merged So there was melted steel

[Oystein]

What about the thermitic behavior of the dust?

We know that much of the WTC and its contents were pulverized into dust.

We know that the WTC dust is thoroughly impregnated with red chips that ignite at 430 C, at which temperature, they flare up and release a significant amount of energy.

Okay, let's see if this is plausible:

• "WTC dust is thoroughly impregnated with red chips" - can you give us a percentage by weight of these red-gray chips in the dust?
• Can you give us a percentage by weight of the thermite in those red-gray chips? Marc Basile seems to have found that less than 10% of these chips are Al + Fe2O3
• Can you give us the energy density of nano-thermite (assume a stochiometric mix of Al + Fe2O3)?

With these numbers, we can compute if the dust could "release a significant amount of energy"!

here are my estimates:

• The chips are far less than 1% of the mass of the dust
• The red (supposedly thermitic) layer is only about 50% of the chips. It contains about 15% Fe2O3 and 2.5% Al. That proportion is not stochiometric; too much iron oxide. Stochiometric portion of supposed thermite in those chips is only about 10% (the rest is organic matrix, silicon and excess iron oxide))
• Stochiometric thermite has an energy density of 3.9kJ/g

It's easy to multiply all that:
1% * 50% * 10% * 3.9kJ/g = 0,00195kJ/g
That is the thermitic energy density of the dust!
Compare that to a human corpse, which clocks in at about 10kJ/g: Your "thermitic dust" is 5000 times less energetic than your own body, despite the 65% water your body consists of!

If you think that dust can keep molten steel liquid...

...Surrounded and thermally insulated by the dense mass of the pulverized debris pile, and constantly being re-supplied with falling dust, very high temperatures capable of melting metal could be achieved.

Bollocks

As long as any one of these thermal pockets has a minimal temperature of 430 C and a steady supply of un-ignited dust, the hotspot will perpetuate.

As each pocket is excavated, the temperature inside would immediately begin dropping and once a pocket is exposed sufficiently to reduce the temperature below 430 C, the dust would no longer ignite.

MM

The same is true if you have pockets with common office materials such as paper and plastics, except these are several thousand times more potent that that dust.

(Of course, the dust that contains these miniscule amounts of low-energy "thermite" also contains more highly energetic components such as paint chips)

 

[Miragememories]

"To date, all the known dust samples have contained significant concentrations of these thermitic red chips. There were tons upon tons of dust in that debris pile."

"really? how do you know that? and significant concentrations? hardly, there was not even enough to make the dust burn even when it was on top of paper next to burning cars. In fact there is more evidence that it was a good fire retardant than a heat source."

How do you know that there was no ignition of WTC dust red chips in your example above?

"In a confined, densely insulated space, if the heat produced is greater than the heat escaping, the ambient temperature will have to rise."

"Indeed especially if there are good things to burn like wood and pladtics rather than poor ones like thermite."

You are missing a key point. Wood and plastics require an external supply of oxygen for combustion. The thermitic red chips do not!

"The dust does not have to "sustain a flame". If it produces a sufficient number of these highly energetic reactions, a significant amount of heat will be produced."

"baseless assertion, If it won't burn its useless for the purpose you claim."

Your statement makes little sense?

The dust only has to create heat through a thermitic reaction that provides its own oxygen.

If the sealed pocket cannot release this generated heat faster than it is produced, than the ambient temperature inside the pocket must increase.

"If the temperature rises high enough, metals will melt."

"indeed, especially if you have a furnace effect."

A furnace does concentrate a greater heat than its surroundings as would the debris pocket in the scenario I described.

"The amount of molten metal produced will depend largely on how much and how long the metals are exposed to the elevated temperatures in these pockets."

"so how much was there and why should we care less since there is a perfectly normal way of explaining them?."

If you have a credible explanation for the length of time that the debris fires existed and the observed molten metal, then I would love to hear it?

MM

 

[sheeplesnshills]

It doesn't matter how many theories were put forth. He agreed it can not be explained, if it can be explained there is reason for it to be malicious.

In regards to BPAT, maybe it's just me, but those responsible for studies of how the building collapsed would be interested in molten steel

Yep its just you.

, or just the condition of the steel in general.

They were, thats why the studied it all and kept hundreds of tons of it
just they didn't find any previously melted steel or so little it was regarded as unimportant.

But I'm sure that's just me.

Yep as I said its just you, and it might explain why you don't have a career.

Anyway you are diverting the thread, what they were or were not looking for is not important for this thread.

Who said it was????

He asked a questions and got his answer, an answer he agreed to.

Only in your mind..........

 

[Oystein]

To date, all the known dust samples have contained significant concentrations of these thermitic red chips. There were tons upon tons of dust in that debris pile.
...

One ton of dust would have contained at most one pound of thermite, which has the same energy as 5 ounces of honey.
Wow.

 

[uke2se]

One ton of dust would have contained at most one pound of thermite, which has the same energy as 5 ounces of honey.
Wow.

Well you see, the Twin Towers were like a bee-hive becau...

 

[sheeplesnshills]

How do you know that there was no ignition of WTC dust red chips in your example above?

because the paper under the dust didn't catch fire?

You are missing a key point. Wood and plastics require an external supply of oxygen for combustion. The thermitic red chips do not!

So? why would there be a lack of oxygen?

Your statement makes little sense?

The dust only has to create heat through a thermitic reaction that provides its own oxygen.

Who cares, oxygen isn't a problem.

If the sealed pocket cannot release this generated heat faster than it is produced, than the ambient temperature inside the pocket must increase.

yes we know that but since your dust won't even burn it would have to be one heck of an insulator to be losing less than a non inflammable dust is adding!

A furnace does concentrate a greater heat than its surroundings as would the debris pocket in the scenario I described.

as would a furnace effect sans super nanny thremopoop so remind us why do we need the latter?

If you have a credible explanation for the length of time that the debris fires existed and the observed molten metal, then I would love to hear it?

Debris piles like landfills can and will burn for months. Lots of metals in the pile have relatively low melting points, lead, aluminium, copper, zink, tin, gold, silver etc. So now that you have heard it are you happy?

 

[Miragememories]

"To date, all the known dust samples have contained significant concentrations of these thermitic red chips. There were tons upon tons of dust in that debris pile.

In a confined, densely insulated space, if the heat produced is greater than the heat escaping, the ambient temperature will have to rise.

The dust does not have to "sustain a flame". If it produces a sufficient number of these highly energetic reactions, a significant amount of heat will be produced.

If the temperature rises high enough, metals will melt.

The amount of molten metal produced will depend largely on how much and how long the metals are exposed to the elevated temperatures in these pockets."

"Perhaps you'd like to address problems with this theory?"

Of course.

"The dust samples came from above ground and I expect that we assume that the dust underground is consistent with the dust above the rubble, correct?"

Yes.

"You say that significant amounts of thermitic material in the form of these red chips are in the dust. You say that in the underground the flaring off of these chips is what contributed enough heat to build up to metal/steel melting temperatures."

Okay.

"Why was there never an observed thermite burn in the dust on top of the rubble pile given that your 'thermitic' material has an ignition point close to that of newspaper?"

If the surface temperature throughout the debris pile was at the combustion point of paper, I doubt there would have been so many people standing around.

Except for the immediate hotspots occurring right after the collapses, there is no reason to believe that surface temperatures throughout would be the same as that deep in the pile.

What I described was a gradual build up of heat from deep in the pile where the observations of molten metal and prolonged fire occurred.

The surface, in particular in the areas where smoldering was evident, was constantly being cooled by firefighters.

There were reports of the rubber melting on the firefighters boots. It is quite likely that there were occasional ignitions of the surface dust at times.

Out in the daylight, I doubt that igniting chips, most of which were invisible to the naked eye, could be readily observed.

"Why does this thermite burn seem to preferentially occur underground?"

Preferentially?

The most immediate reason would be ignition temperature availability.

For the most part the debris at the surface would be too cool. Hermetically sealed deep pockets containing still hot debris could build up heat sufficiently to provide the necessary 430 C ignition temperature.

"If there were tons of left-over thermitic material how much was in the towers pre-collapse?"

You are asking for pure speculation. I do not know.

"If, as we could expect, more thermitic material burned pre-collapse than post collapse, why was no thermite flaring observed pre-collapse?"

How can you say it wasn't observed?

I definitely saw strong evidence of thermitic activity in the downpour of molten metal from the WTC2 corner.

"If, as we could expect, more thermitic material burned pre-collapse than post collapse, where is the evidence of the large number of partially melted structural steel members? Molten steel may flow into pockets underground and remain there but a steel column 30 feet long is not very likely to have had its entire length converted to liquid form and we should have numerous examples of partial structural components with melted ends."

Well, like you said, "if".

So I'll speculate.

No doubt there would have been a great deal of overkill to guarantee the desired collapse result, but the rapid, fountain-like failure of the twin towers suggests the supports were cut for implosion and not much additional melting would have occurred or been required once the collapse got under way.

During the collapses, and as a consequence of an abrasive debris removal process, a lot of slag would have been removed and mixed into the general debris pile.

The collapse methodology is really a subject for a different thread.

MM

 

[Oystein]

...
The collapse methodology is really a subject for a different thread.

MM

Not at all!
The truther-argument about molten steel generally goes like this:

"Molten steel!" -> ??? (unknown reasoning) -> "CD!"

You truthers are asked here to fill in the ??? (unknown reasoning), but whatever you fill in there would be conditioned on the CD methodology used. Surely, molten steel is not indicative of Verinage demolition, pulling with cables, wrecking ball or conventional explosives such as RDX, nitroglycerin, dynamite.

So you only make a complete argument if you tell us what method(s) of CD molten steel would be indicative of, and why.

 

[Travis]

When the Mythbusters tried thermite paint I believe they ran into some problems with it being diluted. Wouldn't the same be the case with thermite mixed in with dust?

 

[Oystein]

When the Mythbusters tried thermite paint I believe they ran into some problems with it being diluted. Wouldn't the same be the case with thermite mixed in with dust?

Of course. That's what my post 481 is all about:

The Fe2O3 and Al they found (well, the Al wasn't really elemental, it was part of aluminiumsilicate, but let's ignore reality for a moment and assume Al was really free there) was diluted

1. 1:10 by mixing with silicon, excess iron oxide and, most importantly, lots and lots of organic matrix to make the red layer
2. 1:2 by attaching it to inert gray layer
3. 1:>100 by mixing it with all the other dust

resulting in a 1:2000 dilution. This borders on homeopathic!
The organic matrix alone would provide more than ten times as much heat as the thermite content.




(Disclaimer: For those keen on quote-mining me: NO! I do NOT imply that there actually was any thermite in the paint! No free Al mixed intimately with iron oxide -> NO THERMITE!)

 

[sheeplesnshills]

If the surface temperature throughout the debris pile was at the combustion point of paper, I doubt there would have been so many people standing around.

Except for the immediate hotspots occurring right after the collapses, there is no reason to believe that surface temperatures throughout would be the same as that deep in the pile.

so what explains why the dust would not have ignited from any of the dozens of cars that were on fire.......if it would have burned hot enough to keep steel molten for weeks then it incredible that it stopped fires spreading in dry paper!

anyway this would be easy enough to prove, get some thermite, mix it 2000:1 with crushed wallboard and concrete and see if you can get it to ignite.........

 

[beachnut]

What about the thermitic behavior of the dust?

We know that much of the WTC and its contents were pulverized into dust.

We know that the WTC dust is thoroughly impregnated with red chips that ignite at 430 C, at which temperature, they flare up and release a significant amount of energy.

... MM

Paper has 5 times the heat energy of thermite, do you try to research and gain knowledge to see Jones make up the lie of thermite?
Autoignition point of paper is 430 C, they did not find thermite. They lied.
Do you try to be a skeptic?

...A byproduct of the thermitic reaction with steel, is molten iron. In a confined and sufficiently well insulated location, the heat generated could also melt steel. Without the steel, the thermitic material has nothing to react with. Is that sufficiently clear?

MM

You have no idea what you are talking about. If you did, you would know Jones and company did not find thermite.

Paper starts burning at 430 C, and puts out 5 times more energy. Jet fuel, over 10 times more energy. Bringing thermite to an office fire, like bringing a plastic knife to a gun fight.

 

[Tomtomkent]

So you only make a complete argument if you tell us what method(s) of CD molten steel would be indicative of, and why.

The rather expensive and rare jet plane method.

 

[GlennB]

We know that the WTC dust is thoroughly impregnated with red chips that ignite at 430 C, at which temperature, they flare up and release a significant amount of energy.

No, we don't. In-depth studies (e.g. by Lioy et al) show almost entirely comminuted concrete, drywall, ash and various fibrous materials.

However, even if your wild claim were true, why wouldn't the visible dust (for example on the streets) flare up when exposed to random fires, of which there were many? In fact, why wasn't lower Manhattan one vast sea of creeping flame as the 'thermitic dust' flared like a trail of gunpowder?

Your fantasy-based claims are getting wilder as the years go by, MM.

 

[Oystein]

The rather expensive and rare jet plane method.

No.

If you think through this, you will find that planes as such cannot have anything to do with molten steel after the collapse. The planes started fires, and were responsible for the collapses, but any other method of starting fires and causing collapse would or could have caused more or less the same debris pile conditions. There's nothing in the planes that would inrease the likelihood for molten steel in the rubble.

The same is true for explosives and conventional incediaries, and is almost certainly true for thermite.

 

[OCaptain]

One ton of dust would have contained at most one pound of thermite, which has the same energy as 5 ounces of honey.
Wow.

Hey, Oystein, I've been interested in developing a way to explain the comparitive energy potential of thermite, and I saw your comment about honey.

Help us laymen understand what the scoop is.

 

[NoahFence]

How do you know that there was no ignition of WTC dust red chips in your example above?

LOL

Uh....because it didn't look like a scene from Independance Day?

 

[Tomtomkent]

No.

If you think through this, you will find that planes as such cannot have anything to do with molten steel after the collapse. The planes started fires, and were responsible for the collapses, but any other method of starting fires and causing collapse would or could have caused more or less the same debris pile conditions. There's nothing in the planes that would inrease the likelihood for molten steel in the rubble.

The same is true for explosives and conventional incediaries, and is almost certainly true for thermite.

I think i may have needed to make it clearer my tongue was in cheek.

 

[Travis]

Hey, Oystein, I've been interested in developing a way to explain the comparitive energy potential of thermite, and I saw your comment about honey.

Help us laymen understand what the scoop is.

I don't know about thermite but I do know that high explosives don't have much thermal energy. They have great combustive strength but if you aren't blowing them up and are just burning them you would really be better off burning almost anything else.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

I think i may have needed to make it clearer my tongue was in cheek.

We do need a sarcasm Font...........