Molten Steel in WTC

gumboot

lorcutus.tolere
gumboot
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This is something that has been mentioned a lot, without anyone really offering up "evidence". So I thought I would.

The relevant video is here

This is a segment from "America Rebuilds" by PBS, I believe (I could be wrong).

Unfortunately for the guy who posted this video, he ended it before the actual "molten steel" is removed, however I have seen the whole thing.

The particular bit he pulls out is not actually molten steel (as evident from the fact that it isn't liquid) but it is about the right colour, and the liquid dripping off the end is definately molten.

"Ah hah!" Cry the CTers.

Not quite.

Molten Steel found months after the collapse indicates intense fires with a lot of fuel. There is no logical way in which explosives could have generated fires that would do this. Any steel melted by initial explosives would long ago have hardened again.

IMHO the molten steel is evidence of intense fires and extensive fuel for fires at the time of collapse. This supports the official story in two ways:

1/ Fires burned in WTC1, 2, and 7 (molten steel claimed to be found there also) so intensly, and so expansively, that upon collapse they were not put out, and continued to burn for months.

Fuel sources in the floors of WTC were so extensive that they fueled fires hot enough to melt steel months after collapse. This indicates there was ample fuel in the floors of the buildings to provide the heat to weaken the structure of the buildings, resulting in the collapse.

I believe molten steel and red hot steel in the basements of the WTC rubble is strong evidence that the official story is accurate.

-Andrew
 
Cheers,gumboot.
I can't view the video, but I haven't seen any evidence of molten steel found months after the collapse.

There were verbal reports of molten metal found days after the collapse. (Or maybe one healthworker said it was steel. Mark Loiseaux's quote was false as discovered by Gravy.)

Steven Jones' paper shows a picture of red-hot 'metal' found September 27.

The outer frame of the towers was aluminium which becomes molten and glows red-hot at 1300 degrees fahrenheit. Alloyed metal such as is used in stove hot-plates glows red at 200 degrees celsius.

I'm just posting quickly, but my point is that there is no evidence for planted explosives.
 
I can't run the video, but is it steel? Molten steel will be white-hot, and throwing sparks (because it burns when exposed to air). More likely, it is some other metal, with a lower melting point. Aluminum is a good bet.

Hans
 
orphia nay said:
Cheers,gumboot.
I can't view the video, but I haven't seen any evidence of molten steel found months after the collapse.

There were verbal reports of molten metal found days after the collapse. (Or maybe one healthworker said it was steel. Mark Loiseaux's quote was false as discovered by Gravy.)

Steven Jones' paper shows a picture of red-hot 'metal' found September 27.

The outer frame of the towers was aluminium which becomes molten and glows red-hot at 1300 degrees fahrenheit. Alloyed metal such as is used in stove hot-plates glows red at 200 degrees celsius.

I'm just posting quickly, but my point is that there is no evidence for planted explosives.
Click to expand...
Excuse me, but all metals glow at the same temperature. The color of anything glowing is a pretty accurate measure of its temperature.

You are both right that the findings do not contradict the official report. They don't particualrly contradict any other theories, however, since just the collapse of the buildings would release energy enough to melt steel, given the right conditions.

Hans
 
CT'ers claim that molten aluminium keeps its silvery appearance in bright daylight, and will not turn bright red/orange/yellow. I can't post URLs, but a quick search on google images of 'molten aluminium' reveals a number of pictures of molten aluminium that do indeed look silvery white, even though the steel crucibles are glowing red. Pictures of molten aluminum in the dark are red/orange as you would expect. If anybody has pictures of orange/yellow aluminum in bright daylight, I'd love to see them.

(This doesn't mean that there was thermite, or similar nonsense.)
 
Some people have claimed that the potential energy released from the collapsing towers could have heated the debris. However, I don't think that makes much sense. A piece of steel falling from the top of the tower (417 meter), would yield about 4 kJ/kg. Even if all that energy was turned into heat, and nothing got lost, it would only heat up the steel about 9 degrees (specific heat capacity is 452 J/kg/oC).
 
This whole "molten steel produced by explosives" issue is utter and demonstrably false tripe that stems from fundamental ignorance about explosives and how they are used in civilian and military applications. Having worked with a wide assortment of explosives, the only high explosive I am aware of that would melt steel is thermite, but it leaves unmistakable telltale pitting around the cut area. It is normally used in underwater demolitions of steel or metal structures because other approaches (see below) are both less effective and more expensive in that environment. At the same time, detonating thermite can be troublesome. Some CTists suggest that thermite was used to bring down the WTC, based on the presence of molten metal. If that is indeed what was done, I can only marvel at the planners' ineptitude and ignorance in respect of explosives. For the purpose of covering up a demolition, using thermite is just about the penultimate choice one would make short of a team of giggly schoolgirls armed with sledgehammers.

Apart from the concealment angle, there are other pragmatic reasons for avoiding thermite. On surface, i.e. in air, there are far more efficient explosive cutting methods that involve dedicated cutting charges. Basically, a specially shaped liner (usually of annealed copper) is given a huge amount of kinetic energy, i.e. enormous velocity in the thousands of metres/sec, by the detonating explosive, and it is the kinetic energy of the resulting slug that cuts the target. The result is a far more accurate and cleaner cut which doesn't involve any melting at all. The slug itself is hot and pliable but hardly molten to a liquid. These cuts have a distinctive look, and traces of the liner material are often visible on them.

Where cutting accuracy is not an issue, e.g. in straight demolitions, less subtlety is afforded by high explosives without the liner adaptation. In this case and for optimal effectiveness, the explosive must have a velocity of detonation (VoD) that exceeds the speed of sound in the material being cut. Basically, the target material fails through being ripped apart as a result of its inability to transmit the shockwave at the incident velocity, i.e. the VoD. No melting is involved. Alternatively, if the VoD is less than the target's sonic speed, far more explosive is required in order to "shear" out a piece of the target by brute force. Again, no melting is involved. Each of these cutting approaches has its own distinct identifying characteristics, and the absence of melting is a result of the brevity of the chemical reaction producing the detonation. The heat produced simply does not transfer into the target quickly enough, and the surrounding air also rapidly dissipates such heat. It is thus purely mechanical failure of the target.

In steel the speed of sound is around 7,200 m/s. Few civilian explosives (RDX-based detonating cord is the only exception that springs immediately to mind) can muster a VoD exceeding about 5,000 m/s. Military plastiques such as C4 on the other hand commonly have VoDs in the 8,000 m/s neighbourhood.

'Luthon64
 
Oddly enough, I can qualify molten aluminium from film work.

On a short film we had a sequence where we had to melt down a big pot of aluminium. So I can confirm, personally, that under anything but practically pitch black conditions molten aluminium looks sliver in colour.

For ref:

here are the approximate colours for steel:

I would say the steel they pulled out was not actually molten, just really friggen hot.

And I am strongly confident steel this hot six weeks after collapses indicates intense fires pre-collapse. (It certainly disproves explosives alone, if you ask me)

Cheers.
-Andrew
 
Anders W. Bonde said:
Weren't there burst gas mains at the site feeding the fires for quite a while?
Click to expand...

I'd say they turned off the gas, however WTC7 had a second enormous fuel tank under it to fuel the generators for the bunker (in addition to the 6,000 gallon tank on level 5).

-Andrew
 
Montoya said:
CT'ers claim that molten aluminium keeps its silvery appearance in bright daylight, and will not turn bright red/orange/yellow. I can't post URLs, but a quick search on google images of 'molten aluminium' reveals a number of pictures of molten aluminium that do indeed look silvery white, even though the steel crucibles are glowing red. Pictures of molten aluminum in the dark are red/orange as you would expect. If anybody has pictures of orange/yellow aluminum in bright daylight, I'd love to see them.

(This doesn't mean that there was thermite, or similar nonsense.)
Click to expand...
Aluminum has a melting point of about 600 deg C (depending on the actual alloy) Thus, molten aluminum will only glow a dull red, and in daylight the light reflected from the silvery metal will outshine that glow, making it appear silvery. The difference is the temperature. If you heat molten aluminum to the 1500 degrees needed to melt steel, it will glow white-hot in daylight (except I suspect it will burst into flames).

That was the reason I asked if the "steel" in the video was white-hot.

Obviously, a number of other metals will have existed in the wreckage.

Hans
 
Montoya said:
Some people have claimed that the potential energy released from the collapsing towers could have heated the debris. However, I don't think that makes much sense. A piece of steel falling from the top of the tower (417 meter), would yield about 4 kJ/kg. Even if all that energy was turned into heat, and nothing got lost, it would only heat up the steel about 9 degrees (specific heat capacity is 452 J/kg/oC).
Click to expand...
Yes, but some of the energy would be concentrated in parts of the collapsing structure. Take a it of fairly thick steel wire, bend it till it breaks (it must be thin enough so you can do that), touch the broken ends. In your example, I would expect that the end hitting the ground (assuming it hit in an upright position) would get quite hot, but the rest would hardlt heat up at all.

Hans
 
gumboot said:
I'd say they turned off the gas, however WTC7 had a second enormous fuel tank under it to fuel the generators for the bunker (in addition to the 6,000 gallon tank on level 5).

-Andrew
Click to expand...
That's 22.680 liters.

....boooOOOOOMMMM!!!!
 
MRC_Hans said:
Yes, but some of the energy would be concentrated in parts of the collapsing structure. Take a it of fairly thick steel wire, bend it till it breaks (it must be thin enough so you can do that), touch the broken ends. In your example, I would expect that the end hitting the ground (assuming it hit in an upright position) would get quite hot, but the rest would hardlt heat up at all.
Hans
Click to expand...

Maybe, but I don't think the effect would be significant. The fall was very chaotic, so I don't see much opportunity for things to fall cleanly head-on. I also ignored some other factors, that would lessen the effect. The average height was much less than the full height of the building, and most materials have higher specific heat capacity than steel. Smaller pieces of debris also suffered from resistance in the air. All in all, the average increase in temperature would only be a couple of degrees. Even if some of that was concentrated, those hot spots would have dissipated fairly quickly (within hours).

The most likely candidate for the heat (absent of leaky gas pipes) is the mass of combustible materials.
 
22.680 liters?
Wrong to three decimal places Claus.
Methinks your tail hit the "." instead of the "," ?:D
 
Montoya said:
Maybe, but I don't think the effect would be significant. The fall was very chaotic, so I don't see much opportunity for things to fall cleanly head-on. I also ignored some other factors, that would lessen the effect. The average height was much less than the full height of the building, and most materials have higher specific heat capacity than steel. Smaller pieces of debris also suffered from resistance in the air. All in all, the average increase in temperature would only be a couple of degrees. Even if some of that was concentrated, those hot spots would have dissipated fairly quickly (within hours).

The most likely candidate for the heat (absent of leaky gas pipes) is the mass of combustible materials.
Click to expand...
Amen to the last. However, steel structures being crushed under the pancaking building may have gotten quite hot. Not, obvouosly, hot enough to stay hot for any lengh of time. The absolutely only thing that can account for that is fires smoldering in the ruins (which kinda coincides with the smoke rising from said ruins, even days later).

As for combustibles, I assume there were several stories of parking-space, with cars in it, right? (at least I seem to remember that was where a bomb was exploded, some years earlier)

Hans
 
Brodsky: Correct, including Denmark. Rather annoing little thing, if you ask me.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
Excuse me, but all metals glow at the same temperature. The color of anything glowing is a pretty accurate measure of its temperature.
Click to expand...

True. However, it's not trivial to estimate the color from a photo or video recording. We don't know the white balance setting, unless there are known reference colors in the picture. Also, bright lights tend to wash out, and appear whiter than they are. Film and video also don't have the same sensitivity curve as the human retina. Especially digital cameras are sensitive to infrared light (try looking at the IR emitter of a remote control with a camera, on mine it appears blueish-white).
 
 
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