A Thermite/Thermate Question

[PhantomWolf]

heres the link to the Thermite gun, which shoots thermite.Once again this will come from the military who will use a much more advanced version

And again, if the police radios and mace canisters survived the collapses, why didn't any Thermite Guns?

most of it was shipped away

Not true. At least 35,000 tons of steel went through the Freshkills Landfill Crime Scene site. It was studied by over 130 engineers with instruction to specifically look for the following types of steel members:

• Exterior column trees and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 that were exposed to fire and/or impacted by the aircraft.
• Exterior column trees and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 that were above the impact zone.
• Badly burnt pieces from WTC 7.
• Connections from WTC 1, 2, and 7, such as seat connections, single shear plates, and column splices.
• Bolts from WTC 1, 2, and 7 that were exposed to fire, fractured, and/or that appeared undamaged.
• Floor trusses, including stiffeners, seats, and other components.
• Any piece that, in the engineer’s professional opinion, might be useful for evaluation.

When there was any doubt about a particular piece, the piece was kept while more information was gathered. According to FEMA, a conservative approach was taken to avoid having important pieces processed in salvage yard operations.

Many pieces were saved including one of the columns from WTC 1 that the plane hit which now stands as a sculpture in the foyer of NIST.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

I would like to see the evidence too , most of it was shipped away .I have seen some photos of wtc debris some of the Steel looks like its been burned through.
Although alot of the steel has clean cuts.Some doesnt,
Does anyone have a good link for photos of wtc debris .

Links to some photos and videos of the cleanup can be found at Gravy's page:
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/groundzerocleanup,freshkillssortingopera

... and Mike W's page, Debunking 911, and this very forum will have photos as well. That's not exhaustive by any means, but it's a start. Sorry I don't have the links directly at hand, but there are some good images at those sites.

Now, the fact that much of the steel debris was shipped away is irrelevant. It was very well examined before that happened. Recall:

• 24 local, state, and federal agencies participated, with as many as 1,000 workers a day
• 55 FBI Evidence Response Teams worked the site -- over 1,000 agents -- plus FBI medics, safety officers, and other specialists.
• New York Evidence Response Team members worked over 8,000 hours at the site, at the morgue, and at Ground Zero.
• There (were) 600 NYPD detectives, 50 FBI personnel...working tirelessly at Fresh Kills landfill
• Number of U.S. Customs Agency volunteers working search and inspection at Fresh Kills Landfill: at least 193.

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/groundzerocleanup,freshkillssortingopera

"Law enforcement authorities survey the material for evidence. Only then is it released to a scrap processor under an existing long-term contract with the NYC Department of Sanitation to purchase and then recycle scrap metal."

http://www.americanrecycler.com/11wtc.html

And although this is a fire scene, it is also a crime scene, which means a large unit of crime scene investigators is present, working from a tent at the corner of West St. and Liberty. (p. 194)

NYPD Detective first grade Hal Sherman: "At Ground Zero the CSU is responsible for photographing the site, recovering physical evidence, documenting body parts and any other physical evidence like weapons or a wallet, manning the temporary morgue at the site (as well as the city morgue up on 28th Street), inspecting debris that leaves the site, and inspecting debris as it gets sifted out at Staten Island. ...All evidence is documented...

-from "Report From Ground Zero", Dennis Smith.

The fact that the steel was shipped away doesn't mean it wasn't examined. It is a distortion to imply that the act of shipping the steel away means otherwise.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Any evidence would be dismissed as from oxycetlene cutting torches or thermites lances ,or suphidization from battery acid .So how can you win?

Okay, first of all, how many times have we discussed steel cutting as not being a source already, and being a red herring on top of that? Steel welding was another potential source that hasn't been discussed, and fly ash too is most likely the majority source of the iron spheres Jones discusses. But you keep bringing up the irrelevancy about steel cutting. We've already agreed that steel cutting was not a source. That doesn't speak to other sources. Bringing it up as if it's our argument is a distortion. Read what we've written.

But beyond that: You're staring directly at the point and choosing not to get it. Everything Jones has brought up and that you are repeating is indeed due to materials known to have either been associated with the history of the towers, or with the construction, or manufacture of the components. That's exactly the point we're bringing up! If Jones took a sample from an area said he found evidence of water, wouldn't it be necessary for us to point out that he's sampled a lake?? And that water would be an expected component of such?

That is the entire point of the rebuttal: Jones is citing particles and phenomena that is entirely expected at the Twin Towers in the absence of thermite. So how can he then conclude that thermite was used, given that the individual components he cites would be found there anyway?

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Nano thermite residue would be interesting to study and compare too .Because i dont think they would be stupid enough to use thermite variables which left visible evidence.

The fact that there's no visible evidence pretty much negates the notion that it was used, doesn't it? After all, how can thermite cut steel and not leave any signs that it did so? And no, the eutectic erosion is not one of those signs, not when it's limited in scope and didn't sever the steel it was found on.

heres the link to the Thermite gun, which shoots thermite.Once again this will come from the military who will use a much more advanced version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn-MCCZ3O1M

The gun is irrelevant. Even if it existed, how could it not leave obvious signs of its use? Bringing it up doen't mean anything, because the characteristics of thermite use on the steel is missing.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

""a comparison of WTC dust with other buildings that have combusted and/or collapsed""
Yes this comparison would be lovely if you have any sources.

The point you seem to be missing is that you're making a comparison between two very dissimilar situations and trying to draw valid conclusions from it. One set of dust samples represents the dust from a buildings collapse, whereas the other does not. And one set of dust samples is taken from a building with a different mix of components - steel, concrete, other materials - than the others. Given that, how can you say that the amount of iron microparticles from one sample indicate something unusual because they exceed the amount of microparticles from another? The samples represent fundamentally different situations! You cannot leap to the conclusion that the towers dust samples indicate thermite use because of the higher incidence of iron spherules compared to uncollapsed buildings of different composition. They're uncollapsed, and they were built differently with different amounts of steel, concrete, and other materials.

Again, the RJ Lee group's study was done to compare what is normal background levels of various pollutants in the absence of the towers collapses with what happened after the towers fell. The higher incidence of iron particles means they were liberated from the structure, not that they were formed by whatever initiated the collapse; it is impossible to make the conclusion you do from the evidence you cite.

Because RJ lee who have experience in such activities claimed that the vapourised molydmenum was caused by high temperatures.The Fact that it and the alumino silicates are spherical indicate it was once molten, and i dont know if they are used in construction but a slab/brick of alumino silicates would need to melt in order to form a sphere ,Unless in its original building purpose it is spherical .

And again, the point is in front of you and you do your best to look past it. What about the spheres indicates they were actually generated in the fires or collapse? Nothing you've said - nothing - nails down the generation of those spheres to the collapse, and everything we know about the manufacture of materials, as well as the assembly of large buildings, indicates that those spheres must have been generated during the manufacture and construction processes. There is zero evidence - zero - that says "these spheres were generated by thermite in the towers".

 

[ElMondoHummus]

The fires after the collapse didnt have a magical fuel source which raised temperatures higher than the collapse temperatures, this is a moot point.

The fires didn't need a "magical fuel source" to raise the temperatures. It simply needed a higher density of fuel in a well insulated environment, and that's exactly what happened in the rubble piles. The floors were compressed together, material that used to be separated by whole stories vertically got compressed to mere feet after collapse. Then, it was surrounded by all the material in the towers. The result was a fire with much fuel in the form of office contents surrounded by debris. This resulted in a very hot rubble pile fire. There's no mystery there.

You can doubt the temperatures all you want, but the fact of the matter is that Bechtel measured the pile temperatures and found that they exceeded 2,800 degrees F. These are direct measurements, not models or assumptions. The fact is that the pile fires did indeed burn much hotter than the tower fires. It is not only not a moot point, it is a central issue that must be accounted for when you take into account that the steel supposedly displaying the characteristics you attribute to thermite was recovered from those debris piles.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Al-O-Fe is indicitive of thermite because you have aluminium ,iron ,and metal oxide together .Not seperate as we would expect from various samples of spheres in the dust etc.For example We would expect aluminium spheres from the aluminium cladding, some oxygen perhaps as al203 .But not iron.
Steel for example doesnt gain aluminium in the collapse.

Ok, that is just nonsense. What about what you said is supposed to indicate thermite use? Again, each component you cite is expected in the towers. "Not seperate as we would expect from various samples of spheres in the dust etc."?? What is that supposed to mean?
For the umpteenth time, it doesn't matter what your chemical argument is, the steel displayed no signs of thermite cutting. Much steel displayed signs of having undergone stress from the collapse, and some components showed the effect of pretty high temperatures in the debris pile fires, but no recovered piece of debris showed signs of being cut by thermite. Arguing minituae about the presence of expected elements and the ratios of such fail in the light of the fact that no steel displayed any thermite induced severing.

Again i wont be convinced untill i have seen a Comparison between a normal office fire and the analysis of wtc.

Yet you leaped to a conclusion from a comparison of the WTC to standing, unburnt buildings...

I'm done here. GIE has brought nothing new to the table; all the info here is for the benefit of those reading this who're unfamiliar with the arguments. This topic is dead. New folks - Here are some references:

http://911myths.com/html/wtc__demolition_.html
http://debunking911.com/thermite.htm
http://debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/groundzerocleanup,freshkillssortingopera
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3388924#post3388924 (and it's parent thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104926)http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104926
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98264
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124422
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115967

... and with that, I'm out of this thread. There's simply nothing new here, as a perusal of those references and historical threads will demonstrate.

 

[PhantomWolf]

It was studied by over 130 engineers

Okay so we all make mistakes. This should be that the steel was studied by 17 engineers who did over 130 trips to the sites. I misread "131 engineering visits" as "131 enigineers visited"

 

[GodisEnergy]

In The link fresh kills landsite
i did see a white coating on the steel ,it was rather like this picture from the ae911truth.org slideshow presentation around 170 into it, this is from a memorial with a peices of steel from the wtc



also on the slideshow was a hunk of molten metal recovered from wtc ,abit was sent to steven jones.he analysed it finding molten iron .




As for the spheres been formed or released in the collapse of the buildings,The spheres (as the rj lee report suggests) could only have been formed at very high temperatures,because they were once molten or even gaseous .Were there Gases ,and molten metals in the building before the collapse?

 

[Arus808]

as stated and explained before, the "spheres" could have been created during the time construction (because of welding) and DURING CLEAN UP when they were using PLASMA torches to cut the steel beams into smaller and transportable pieces.


GIE you are ignoring hte painfully obvious reasons why the sphere were there.

And you show non-descript pictures, with no explanation as to who took it; and no explanation as to when that piece was retrieved (after clean up? after it was cut? etc etc)

You are being dishonest for using those pics to compare to each other, and say they are "same" just because they look the same.

 

[GodisEnergy]

im not ignoring it because of the fact the rj lee report ,said normal office buildings have .04 % iron sphericles from welding etc.
There sample had 5.8% iron sphericles with relatively low oxygen indicating there not from oxycetelene torches.

 

[Sunstealer]

As for the spheres been formed or released in the collapse of the buildings,The spheres (as the rj lee report suggests) could only have been formed at very high temperatures,because they were once molten or even gaseous .Were there Gases ,and molten metals in the building before the collapse?

Keep pushing in that direction.

Have you considered the possibility that spheres that were produced by high temperatures which at one stage allowed them to be molten were produced before the building of the twin towers?

Why must these microspheres have been produced during the fire on 9/11?

For example - lets say that a manufacturing process to produce "component A" requires a lots of materials and within these materials are "iron-microspheres" that were indeed produced by high temperatures and trapped gas. "Component A was used widely in the WTC".

Would one expect these iron-microspheres to be present when lots of "component A"s have been subjected to incredible force, smashing the constituents apart?

 

[Sunstealer]

im not ignoring it because of the fact the rj lee report ,said normal office buildings have .04 % iron sphericles from welding etc.
There sample had 5.8% iron sphericles with relatively low oxygen indicating there not from oxycetelene torches.

What is the difference between a building that is standing and one that has been knocked down?

Choose any building, any construction, anywhere in the world.

What is the difference between the house you go to sleep in each night and that same house being reduced to tiny pieces?

How much construction debris do you see in your house? How many pieces of plaster board and brick and wood do you see strewn about your house? What would happen if you took a wrecking ball to your house? How much debris would you see then?

How much dust would you generate by knocking down your house?

Before your house was knocked down would you expect to encounter ordinary household dust, you know, spiders cobwebs, bits of skin, woodlice, old plaster, paint etc?

After your house was obliterated by you with a giant wrecking ball, would you expect to see more particulates from dry wall, brickwork, plaster, cement or would you expect the same old ordinary household dust?

 

[GodisEnergy]

because its steel.Steel doesnt break into many small peices like glass.
There were microspheres pre collapse .04% not 5.87%

 

[Sunstealer]

Sigh. No, there where 5.87% (and higher) microspheres pre-collapse of which 0.04% where free. that is to say they were part of "ordinary office dust". Post collapse there were 5.87% microspheres in the dust.

Imagine this - I have a piece of concrete and in that concrete is 100 small glass marbles. That concrete is in a building. Ordinarily we might expect to see the odd marble in an office. It may have gotten knocked loose or part of it broken off. We find that the percentage of marbles that make up the dust is 0.04%.

Are there any other marbles in the building even though they don't make up the 0.04% of the dust? The answer to that is Yes! They are in the concrete!

Now suppose that the concrete is smashed apart. Would we expect to see more marbles liberated from the concrete or none liberated? If more marbles have been liberated from the concrete would that increase the percentage of marbles that make up dust? Of course.

You are thinking in terms of steel beams and trying to get microspheres from them. Instead, think that the microspheres were already present, but weren't from the steel beams, but from some other construction material. Hint: dry wall/fly ash. - there is a post on JREF that shows the dust composition to correlate very well with this material.

(And yes you can smash steel like glass. What you do is lower it's temperature by a large amount say in liquid nitrogen then hit it with a hammer - it does shatter. I've done it. This is not to be confused with the "ductile to brittle" transition in steels, but is related)

 

[GodisEnergy]

“Various metals (most notably iron and lead) were melted during the WTC Event,
producing spherical metallic particles. Exposure of phases to high heat results in the formation
of spherical particles due to surface tension…”
“In addition to the vesicular carbon components, the high heat exposure of the WTC
Dust has also created other morphologically specific varieties of particulate matter including
spherical metallic, vesicular siliceous and spherical fly ash components. These types of particles
are classic examples of high temperature or combustion by-products and are generally absent
in typical office dust…”
“Particles of materials that had been modified by exposure to high temperature, such
as spherical particles of iron and silicates, are common in WTC Dust because of the fire that
accompanied the WTC Event, but are not common in “normal” interior office dust…”
“Combustion-related products are significant WTC Dust Markers, particularly if seen in
combination [5].”
RJ LEE REPORT

So now you have debunked RJ LEE ?

 

[Sunstealer]

No I've not. What I'm saying, and this is specific to the iron-microspheres, is that the material that produced this phenomenon was not the steel beams of the structure, but iron particulate that was already present in other materials or very small iron or steel components that you would find for example in electrical components. What you are missing when they state that "iron and lead were melted" is the quantity and size of these particles before melting. From R J Lee - these microspheres are approximately (my guestimate) 3µm in diameter. This is tiny. You simply would not get this from steel beams at around 1000°C, but it would be sufficient to melt or partially melt very, very, small pieces of iron.

Secondly they do not show a comparison of ordinary dust iron-microspheres with iron-microspheres post collapse as they do with alumino-silicates (Figs 23 and 24).

Would there be any difference? Professionally I don't know if you would be able to tell. There would need to be a clear compositional indication.

Thanks RedIbis....

I am not questioning Jones' data, I am questioning his interpretation of said data.

You need to take a look at Volume III of the famous "Particle Atlas" by Walter McCrone. This provides scanning electron micrographs and EDX spectra for thousands of common materials. The section from pages 760 - 780 is most interesting since it shows flyash microspheres from large domestic waste incinerators burning paper, wood and plastics as well as flyash from coal-fired furnaces. The EDX spectra show major peaks from Al, Si, K, Ca, and Fe together with smaller peaks from Ti, S and Cl.

Jones' spectra are a perfect match for FLY ASH!

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3269290#post3269290

For example it is well known that concrete specifications have allowed percentages of fly ash for decades. There have even been studies into Iron recovery from fly ash using magnet separators. This would indicate that iron particulates are present in fly ash. Again, what's the difference between fly ash Iron particulates and WTC post collapse "Iron-microspheres"?

 

[GodisEnergy]

You mean this micrograph

Where is the oxygen in the spectrum? The oxygen content is significant, yet the spectrum appears to be skewed, cut off at low X-ray energies... please explain -- how much Oxygen was present? Oxygen must be present in a spectrum to provide a match with spectra I have shown -- not the case in the one example you provided!

All of the iron-aluminum spheres I have found in the WTC dust show abundant OXYGEN. Often O is the principal element in the spheres.
Can you get a Fe-O-K-Al-Si spectrum (with oxygen, O) and sphere production from burning office materials? A few examples please -- if you can do it


Its Abit different from this

 

[Sunstealer]

If the top photograph is an EDS spectrum produced with a older SEM and bear in mind that the 2nd edition of the The Particle Atlas Book was published between 1973-1979, then one would not expect to see any Oxygen in any spectra for the simple reason that the EDS of that time would not have been able to detect it! This is the same for any of the "light elements" typically below Sodium when using a Berylium window.

Modern SEMs have much better EDS (especially when combined with WDS) and software that will reduce noise and give the user wt% information. To detect the lighter elements a plastic or synthetic window is used.

It's very important that when one uses an analytical instrument that one knows the limitations of the equipment.

 

[leftysergeant]

There is less iron in the WTC dust sample, but about the same levels of all the other elements. That does not seem to support Jones' blather a bit.