Debunk Alert: New Ryan/Jones Article in Peer Reviewed Journal

[Dave Rogers]

In the event an excess was used to sever connections in the perimeter and core columns, which is entirely consistent with the lack of resistance to the collapse once it initiated, it is highly plausible pockets of un-ignited thermite/thermate existed in the pile.

Just taking one minor point here, there is no evidence of any unexpected "lack of resistance to the collapse once it initiated". Calculations of the collapse time based on reasonable values for structural resistance (as opposed to calculations by Gordon Ross and Kenneth Kuttler, which respectively use erroneous reasoning and physically absurd values for structural resistance) give excellent agreement with the observed collapse times. For a good example from someone who seriously doubts the generally accepted sequence of events on 9-11, see the work of Gregory Urich on this forum, work which Kevin Ryan and Steven Jones chose not to publish in their journal.

Dave

 

[RedIbis]

So... nobody's taken issue with my explanation of why the paper is nonsense? Heck, that was easy.

Also, my compliments to Mangoose for his thorough exposure of the poor sourcing found in the paper. This is par for the course. I didn't want to get into it -- instead, I focused on the reasoning itself. Even if you accept the data that Mr. Ryan uses in this paper, you still wind up with one huge assuming the consequent. But as he showed, the data is suspect as well.

I also got a huge chuckle out of the "180,000 ppm" mistake. Yes, I accept it was an honest mistake, but really, it should have been obvious. Air containing 180,000 ppm benzene would be about 34% benzene by mass, and would have approximately 30 times as much benzene as the oxygen required to combust it. The only way this can happen is if the benzene is boiled, and rather than sampling air, we are really sticking our instruments into an expanding cloud of benzene vapor. Which, by the way, is incredibly flammable, and would have a fuel-to-oxygen ratio of about 30:1. In other words, about the worst backdraft situation I've ever heard of.

So, until the error (that it was "ppb" instead of "ppm") was detected, we all should have marvelled at the hardiness of researchers willing to stand within this fearsome, enormous cloud of superheated benzene, clearly willing to don oxygen rebreathers and asbestos coveralls, not to mention brave imminent fuel-air explosions, all in the name of science. And with that said, we should remain in awe of their powers of understatement, concluding that the benzene concentration was merely "high."


Finally, the editors of The Environmentalist wrote me back already. They did not dispute my concerns at all. Their response, "write us your concerns as a new article."

This is Bentham all over again. I'm beginning to think they work on commission.

This makes me particularly angry. This isn't just Dr. Jones and Mr. Ryan trying to trick people anymore -- although that is what this paper is, a trick, as Myriad explained to perfection. Now it's crossed over into the realm of scientific ethics. Not if I can help it.

The fact that you got such a huge chuckle from an obvious mistake is telling. Anyone could have checked the article and noticed that I was wrong and Ryan/Jones had it correct.

sdemetri: well done, you said it much better than I ever could.

 

[RedIbis]

None of you here have made any case whatsoever against conducting an investigation into that possibility. The most you have done in this thread is thumping of chests, patting each other on the back, and name calling, with poor or no substantiation to your arguments.

Welcome to the jref 9/11 forum.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

There's one more missing link in Ryan and Jones's chain of reasoning that I don't think has been raised here. They're claiming, in effect, that brief, energetic reactions within the rubble pile resulted in an increase in the release of aromatic chemicals such as benzene. Taking the most simplistic possible view, one might reason that if heat leads to benzene liberation, more heat liberates more benzene. However, in this case we're talking about temperature spikes up to 2500ºC, and this is far above the temperatures needed for cracking benzene into short chain alkenes. One might expect, therefore, that a thermite reaction in the rubble pile would reduce, not increase, the levels of benzene emission, with a corresponding increase in methane, ethene and propene levels. Have the authors considered this, or have they just taken an over-simplistic line of reasoning and assumed it to be correct?

I'd have been very interested to hear Apollo20's opinion on this one. Do we have any more chemists around here?

Dave

As I understand it the Benzene cracking is environmentally dependent, so it depends on the environment, if there is a suitable substance for the carbon to form other compounds than benzene it will form short chain molecules, however if those substances are lacking then the benzene can reform.

The proposal of Ryan and Jones is a low oxygen environment where carbon is broken from its bonds and naturally reforms the benzene ring.
That is similar to the manufacture of carbon nano tubes from acetylene gas in a low oxygen oven with iron present, anyone who has seen the black carbon soot from a cutting torch is familiar with the process.

That is also why acetylene is so high these days, it was dirt cheap before the discovery of carbon nano fibers.

 

[sdemetri]

acceleration

It is pretty easy to take stills from the video of the North Tower, establish a point on the communications tower and on the roof line and plot a curve of their acceleration into the rest of the building, a presumably intact building below the damage zone. The pixels in the still frames make for a very accurate way to measure the drop as they can be converted to feet relatively easily. As the frames of video are captured at regular intervals, the drop verses time makes for a very accurate curve.

The North Tower communications tower and roof line accelerated into the lower building. There is no deceleration. Why? Because the building is disintegrating out from under the upper block. There was no deceleration, the block accelerated through what was below it. How else can that lack of resistance be explained except by removing what would cause resistance from below. And that is consistent with account after account of firefighters hearing and seeing large explosions just prior to the upper block falling. With nothing to slow the fall of the upper block, that mass of material accelerated into the rest of the building. At no point is there deceleration witnessed in what is available in the mechanical evidence before the entire collapse becomes obscured in a semi-gaseous cloud of pulverized concrete and office materials.

 

[SDC]

Sdemetri wrote: "None of you here have made any case whatsoever against conducting an investigation into that possibility. The most you have done in this thread is thumping of chests, patting each other on the back, and name calling, with poor or no substantiation to your arguments."

OK, conduct your investigation. Of course, the burden of proof is on you. Good luck.

 

[Dave Rogers]

The North Tower communications tower and roof line accelerated into the lower building. There is no deceleration. Why? Because the building is disintegrating out from under the upper block. There was no deceleration, the block accelerated through what was below it. How else can that lack of resistance be explained except by removing what would cause resistance from below. And that is consistent with account after account of firefighters hearing and seeing large explosions just prior to the upper block falling. With nothing to slow the fall of the upper block, that mass of material accelerated into the rest of the building. At no point is there deceleration witnessed in what is available in the mechanical evidence before the entire collapse becomes obscured in a semi-gaseous cloud of pulverized concrete and office materials.

Sorry, but that doesn't follow from basic Newtonian mechanics. There is a force acting downwards on the upper block of mass M, equal to MG, due to gravity. In a chaotic collapse, as seen on 9-11, the work done in breaking columns will be roughly continuous with distance fallen, rather than discontinuous in an idealised pancake collapse where each floor collapses in turn. The energy absorbed by the collapse of the support columns therefore exerts an effective upward force, which we can call F1, which is equal to the work done in breaking columns per unit distance and may be assumed to be slowly varying with height. There is another principal component, which is the retardation of the upper block due to momentum transfer to the collapsed material below it, which we can call F2. This will also vary slowly with height. If MG > (F1+F2), the upper block will accelerate smoothly downwards (as seen in all the videos) with an acceleration equal to G-(F1+F2)/M. If MG < (F1+F2), collapse cannot propagate. Therefore under no circumstances would any deceleration of the upper block be expected; the downward motion will either accelerate smoothly, or will not occur at all.

Dave

 

[HyJinX]

Hey Red...any comment on Mangoose's post (#139)?

 

[Drudgewire]

Sdemetri wrote: "None of you here have made any case whatsoever against conducting an investigation into that possibility. The most you have done in this thread is thumping of chests, patting each other on the back, and name calling, with poor or no substantiation to your arguments."

OK, conduct your investigation. Of course, the burden of proof is on you. Good luck.

Oh come on, how dare you not treat imaginary/oft debunked nonsense with the same reverence you give to legitimate science. Jerk!

 

[RedIbis]

Hey Red...any comment on Mangoose's post (#139)?

Mostly it's questioning the sources for the paper. I don't see where s/he proposes what caused the spikes in VOCs at levels thousands of times greater than what has been recorded for normal office bldg fires with large amounts of plastics.

 

[funk de fino]

It is pretty easy to take stills from the video of the North Tower, establish a point on the communications tower and on the roof line and plot a curve of their acceleration into the rest of the building, a presumably intact building below the damage zone. The pixels in the still frames make for a very accurate way to measure the drop as they can be converted to feet relatively easily. As the frames of video are captured at regular intervals, the drop verses time makes for a very accurate curve.

The North Tower communications tower and roof line accelerated into the lower building. There is no deceleration. Why? Because the building is disintegrating out from under the upper block. There was no deceleration, the block accelerated through what was below it. How else can that lack of resistance be explained except by removing what would cause resistance from below. And that is consistent with account after account of firefighters hearing and seeing large explosions just prior to the upper block falling. With nothing to slow the fall of the upper block, that mass of material accelerated into the rest of the building. At no point is there deceleration witnessed in what is available in the mechanical evidence before the entire collapse becomes obscured in a semi-gaseous cloud of pulverized concrete and office materials.

Lets get this straight before we continue. Are you an explosives man with big explosions that are heard and seen or a thermite man with silent action and no visible reactions in any videos?

Or both?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Mostly it's questioning the sources for the paper. I don't see where s/he proposes what caused the spikes in VOCs at levels thousands of times greater than what has been recorded for normal office bldg fires with large amounts of plastics.

The suggestion would be that these VOCs accumulate in cavities in the rubble pile, and that collapses in the rubble pile could release these accumulations at random times. The result would be a localised spike, both temporal and geographical, exactly as was observed. Do you have any reason to believe that was unlikely? [1]

Dave

[1] Other than, of course, "No such thing has ever been observed before", which is of course equally true of what Ryan and Jones are suggesting.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

The paper states: “The spikes in VOC detection could also be explained as a result of rapid combustion of typical materials found within a building structure. If energetic nanocomposite materials, buried with the pile at GZ, were somehow ignited on specific dates, violent, shortlived, and possibly explosive fires would result. Such fires would have quickly consumed all combustible materials nearby. The combustible materials available, after a month or two of smoldering fires in the pile, might have been more likely to be those that were less likely to have burned completely on earlier dates, like plastics. Later combustion of such plastic materials, in violent but short-lived fires, could explain the spikes in VOC’s seen on those dates.”

Such spikes would be consistent with the fires reaching pockets of unburnt material. No one claims that the debris piles are consistent all the way through; on the contrary, you'd have areas that are nothing but highly flammable office contents, and areas that are nothing but structural material such as steel members and other components of the building frame.

Ryan doesn’t make a case for “persistent thermite reactions.” The very quick, energetic exothermic reaction is over very rapidly. In the event an excess was used to sever connections in the perimeter and core columns, which is entirely consistent with the lack of resistance to the collapse once it initiated, it is highly plausible pockets of un-ignited thermite/thermate existed in the pile. At any rate, there is sufficient cause to investigate incendiaries.

The handwave in Ryan's and Jones's work is the assertion that thermite is responsible for these spikes. First of all, nothing requires that the energy in thermite is necessary for such spikes; recall that the debris piles reached 2800 degrees in some spots. There was enough thermal energy present to account for combustion in buried spots without the need to resort to thermite. Secondly, the idea that the fires found a pocket of combustible material is, as I noted above, a far more likely explanation in that it does not require the presence of thermite, which is contraindicated in many ways, not the least of which is the lack of opportunity to install such an incendiary.

BTW, concerning benzene levels:
The general equation is: micrograms/m3 = (ppbv)(12.19)(MW) / (273.15 + oC) where: micrograms/m3 = micrograms per cubic meter (i.e., micrograms of gaseous pollutant per cubic meter of ambient air) MW = molecular weight of the gaseous pollutant ppbv = parts per billion by volume (i.e., volume of gaseous pollutant per billion volumes of ambient air) oC = degrees Centigrade (Source: as a new commentor, not allowed to cite the source...)
MW of benzene is 78.1 g/mol

82 micrograms/m3 = ~26 ppb at 20 degrees C

180,000ppb is a massive amount of benzene to be suddenly released, as are daily averages of 18,000 ppb. It warrants investigation. Especially in light of the EPA’s failure to warn workers and others of the environmental dangers to working in the area at the time, and in light of the sicknesses and deaths that are occurring in first responders.

That's true, and if it was a standalone critique of the EPA's conclusion regarding safety at Ground Zero, then it would be a valid one. However, Ryan and Jones are trying to create an energetics argument to support thermite without explaining why such a material is necessary to explain the spikes in emission to begin with. As I said, there's nothing stopping such spikes from being due to unequal distribution of flammable debris - or in other words: There being "pockets" of highly flammable material surrounded by less flamable items - and given that such debris is known to have been present (as opposed to thermite, which would have to be introduced) it is a far more likely scenario. So in short, sure, there may indeed be a health issue here, but any investigation into such should revolve around issues of warning workers. That's hardly a call for a new overall investigation.

 

[RedIbis]

The suggestion would be that these VOCs accumulate in cavities in the rubble pile, and that collapses in the rubble pile could release these accumulations at random times. The result would be a localised spike, both temporal and geographical, exactly as was observed.

Of course it was exactly as observed. What you're insinuating is that it was exactly as expected. Your scenario accounts for the presence of these spikes, but not necessarily for the levels of these spikes. Please keep in mind that the greatest spike of benzene levels took place in November, at 10x the daily average.

I see a "magic concentration of office contents" theory in our future.

ETA: Upon further review the greatest spikes of benzene took place in February 02 at 610,000ppb.

 

[sdemetri]

both

Both.

Dave, I have read Bzant and he tries to make that argument. I was not convinced as I have never seen it demonstrated. The "retardation" of the upper block looks alot to me like "deceleration" of which we see none. I was trained as a chemist, not an engineer. It seems this hypothesis, crush up/ crush down, has been forwarded to try to explain progressive collapse, but acceleration occurs with a lack of resistance. Opposing forces require some resistance; one is either stronger than the other, or they perfectly cancel out. The mass of the upper block was not so great as to provide an overriding force that would destroy the material below it before it arrives, therefore accelerating through it. That makes no sense to me...

You said the collapse was chaotic. The repeated symmetry seen in many stills and video does not seem at all chaotic. Corner assemblies remain intact while a straight, not chaotic, destruction front blows out windows, from one corner to the other simultaneously, floor by floor. It is very regular, very symetrical. There is symetry in the plumes of debris at collapse initiation, while the upper mass accelerates down. The symetry is very close to the same for both buildings, although each building had unique damage.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

The suggestion would be that these VOCs accumulate in cavities in the rubble pile, and that collapses in the rubble pile could release these accumulations at random times. The result would be a localised spike, both temporal and geographical, exactly as was observed. Do you have any reason to believe that was unlikely? [1]

Dave

[1] Other than, of course, "No such thing has ever been observed before", which is of course equally true of what Ryan and Jones are suggesting.

Oh! You got me thinking. I didn't consider that scenario. In my argument above, I was thinking that the material such organic compounds were enclosed in - such as the computer plastics responsible for the 1,3-DPP - would themselves be in pockets. That would make sense, as vertically you'd have layers of floor material, then layers of office material, etc., and horizontally you'd have segments of wall material, then segments of office contents... the point being that I was imagining that the original material (plastics, rubber, PVC, etc.) would be in pockets, catch fire once the conflageration reached them, then release the compounds in question. And that's still valid.


But, I also like your suggestion.

1. The fires release volatile compounds.
2. Such compounds rise into pockets, voids, cavities, whatever, in the rubble and become trapped.
3. Events above the pockets/voids/cavities/etc. - such as material above burning away, or cleanup efforts shifting the debris -open the cavities up and allow the VOCs to escape.

That, too, is equally valid. In truth, I think the reality is some combination of both hypotheses. But thanks for getting me to think more fully about that. I'd only considered my own model as an explanation of the observation.

 

[The Big Dog]

Welcome to the site, sdemetri

You claim that “Comparing the WTC fires to the Centralia underground fire is completely irrelevant as the two have nothing in common, or any connections whatsoever.” This stopped me dead in my tracks, as we are talking about subterranean fires in the pile at GZ. My confusion doubled when I read:

“This paper assumes there is much plastic, polyvinyl chloride, computer housings, office materials in the rubble. It is the release of particulate matter, and the documentation that shows typical release patterns of PM in large structural fires, as well as the concentrations of specific compounds that EPA and Cahill reported, that are not adequately explained by what is known about large structural fires.”

So subterranean fires at Centralia are irrelevant to understanding what happened in the subterranean pile, but large structural fires are very relevant? Is that your claim?

Next:

“You said, “The "explosions followed by white dust clouds" are, of course, gypsum, concrete, and similar materials ejected by the collapse, and not by a "thermite reaction." “

NIST comments on the white clouds as “An unusual flame is visible within this fire. In the upper photograph {Fig 9-44} a very bright flame, as opposed to the typical yellow or orange surrounding flames, which is generating a plume of white smoke, stands out." Source: NCSTAR 1-5A Chapter 9 Appendix C NIST Fig. 9-44. p. 344

Source: nist factsheets/faqs_8_2006 (August 2006)”

Curious that you are simply reciting one of Jones’ own claims that concerned an alleged plume of smoke from the upper stories of the WTC long before the collapse. What exactly does this have to do with what was happening in the pile weeks or months later?

“And Mangoose, rather than taking a single line and parsing it to your heart's content, perhaps you might try to address the salient points of the paper.”

Is that what you took from his post? That he was parsing one line of the article? Really? IT seemed to the rest of us that he was testing the sources claimed for some very significant assumptions upon which the article was based. The sources were found to be baseless. It is unfortunate that you did not take the time to understand what was posted.

“The most you have done in this thread is thumping of chests, patting each other on the back, and name calling, with poor or no substantiation to your arguments.”

Really? Well, why don’t we just agree to disagree then, champ. Let me know what you have found wrong with Mangoose’s excellent investigation.

 

[SDC]

Mostly it's questioning the sources for the paper. I don't see where s/he proposes what caused the spikes in VOCs at levels thousands of times greater than what has been recorded for normal office bldg fires with large amounts of plastics.

Could you provide information on the "levels ... recorded"? I thought in one of these discussions it was said that the topic had hardly been studied anywhere. That would mean that your implied criticism, above, isn't valid.

 

[sdemetri]

Such spikes would be consistent with the fires reaching pockets of unburnt material. No one claims that the debris piles are consistent all the way through; on the contrary, you'd have areas that are nothing but highly flammable office contents, and areas that are nothing but structural material such as steel members and other components of the building frame.

The point of the paper, at least one point, is to highlight the fact that neither Cahill nor EPA could explain to spikes in VOC. They were atypical. They were not expected in very large structural fires, another very unexpected occurrance in what were very unexpected collapses. The evidence for high temperatures in volatized metals is completely unexpected and in need of explanation. As Cahill said, "they should not have been there..." and he and apparently no one else has any explanation for it. Highly energetic nanocomposites provide an explanation that is very consistent with many other aspects of the evidence. It plausibly explains USGS's finding of molybdenum microspheres, RJ Lee's findings of volatized lead, and aluminosilicates, Worcester Polytech's findings of volatized steel. The typical large structure fire does not explain these phenomena.

 

[RedIbis]

Just a note on the article. Initially, I read the maximum level of benzene at 180,000ppb, but that was only for November.

In February of 02, when most of GZ had been cleared, benzene levels were recorded at 610,000ppb.

All of this data appears to come from the EPA 2004 report