WTC: Molten Steel - Was there any? Why? What About the Hot Spots?

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Not an engineer, but I have two considerations. (1) The Gambino family had a lot of control in the construction industry, especially cement, when the Twin Towers were put up. So we cannot assume that everything was built according to specifications. Just because we don't know about Mafia involvement in the steel, does not mean it didn't exist; (2) Possibly any heat from burning material would be funneled into the narrow space of elevators, and when a gas is funneled into a narrow space, it is hotter. That's all.
 
And similarly just because there is alleged mafia involvement in cement doesn't mean it wasn't up to spec - got any ACTUAL evidence of that for the TT's?
 
Not an engineer, but I have two considerations. (1) The Gambino family had a lot of control in the construction industry, especially cement, when the Twin Towers were put up. So we cannot assume that everything was built according to specifications. Just because we don't know about Mafia involvement in the steel, does not mean it didn't exist; (2) Possibly any heat from burning material would be funneled into the narrow space of elevators, and when a gas is funneled into a narrow space, it is hotter. That's all.

Interesting . . . What if a major part of the story is about substandard building materials and building procedures . . . the real conspiracy is a scandal involving the Mafia that no one dares to touch . . . Lol!!!
 
To those now expert in concrete technology, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing:

On 'waterproof' concrete and semantics.

Maybe it was unfortunate I used the word waterproof to describe all concrete; the correct term would have been watertight. All properly designed concrete which is correctly prepared and laid is watertight - it holds water. Watertight+damp proof = waterproof, technically speaking. So yes, I was wrong to say waterproof.
Professionally, additives in the form of proprietary liquids are not used to this end (waterproofing) - 1) because it's not necessary and 2) they are rubbish. Concrete accrues moisture regardless of pressure, ie it could just as well be a wall in a building at 5000m ASL, at atmospheric pressure, or a deeply submerged concrete structure offshore at 500m below sea level, and resulting pressures. Water ingress into concrete isn't affected by pressure, it's affected by capillary action, like in some natural stone. Capillaries are formed in the drying process, and mix design always looks at that as a consequence of ingredients. The quantity of water accrued in the concrete is very small and it is released in the form of water vapour (which tells how little it is), which may well then go through phase changes again, ie return to liquid perhaps, depending on conditions etc. The point is that, yes ofcourse, no concrete is waterproof in the same way as say, I don't know, butyl or bitumen - and lots of other things, obviously, but it holds water and that's why it's used in flood defences, sea walls, harbours, jetty construction and on and on - make a bath with concrete - do it properly and it won't leak, I promise. Many of the marine applications for steel rc are obviously never going to be painted with some sealant to make them 'waterproof' as has been claimed is necessary - it's clear that the conditions would prohibit such applications - ie the tide, or the fact that the structure is permanently underwater. Surface barriers are only used or even considered professionally to prevent leaching and freeze/thaw action. That's it.

The only proprietary liquid additives even considered for any concrete mix would be

plasticiser (to reduce water quantity in mix)
retarding agent (to slow setting time and increase workability time)
accelerating agent (to speed up setting time)
anti washout agent (for use in underwater concrete pouring applications)

That's it.

'Waterproofing' is considered in these terms in the ingredients of the mix and its proportions like this:

The 'waterproofing' is a function. The function is considered in 'properties'. The properties are cohesion/aggregation; heat of hydration; shrinkage; porosity; permeability. The last two are just a natural progression of the first three, ofcourse, but that's because they are mutually inclusive.


That represents about 1,000,000th of a millimetre of the maybe 2 metre long shelf of literature I have in my office regarding concrete technology, not because I particularly like it, but because it's part of my job.
 
not because I particularly like it, but because it's part of my job.
I have nothing except a few books, an empty computer, and maybe there's an English library fifty miles away. And forty years previous engineering experience.
I suggest you don't like it.

Where did the potential energy go, if not into the basement hotspots?

If you have so many books in your library, then you should be able to make sense of this: View attachment Mechanics of Progressive Collapse- Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions.pdf

Particularly this: "An elastic stress wave with approximately step wave front and stress not exceeding the yield limit of steel emanates from the crushing front when each floor is hit, propagates down the tower, reflects from the ground, etc. But the damage to the tower is almost nil because the stress in the wave must remain in the elastic range and the perfectly plastic part of steel deformation cannot propagate as a wave."

"Almost nil" but not nil. That's a hot spot down below for each hotspot down each column. Fifty hotspots down each column for fifty blows at each column base.
 
I have nothing except a few books, an empty computer, and maybe there's an English library fifty miles away. And forty years previous engineering experience.
I suggest you don't like it.

Where did the potential energy go, if not into the basement hotspots?

Where does the energy of an earthquake go?

Consider that the WTC collapses registered as small earthquakes, doesn't that suggest quite a bit of the energy ended up in the ground for quite some distance around the site. Partly as heat, but partly as kinetic energy - the falling debris theoretically pushes the planet very very slightly, and practically pushes whatever it lands upon. It did not fall upon an infinitely large infinitely rigid flat surfaced body.
 
Where does the energy of an earthquake go? Consider that the WTC collapses registered as small earthquakes, doesn't that suggest quite a bit of the energy ended up in the ground for quite some distance around the site. Partly as heat, but partly as kinetic energy - the falling debris theoretically pushes the planet very very slightly, and practically pushes whatever it lands upon. It did not fall upon an infinitely large infinitely rigid flat surfaced body.
I should have said some of the energy. It's true that I disregarded the absorption of energy that way.

But my point with demonstrating the bound of the energy as 1200 tons of steel at melt temperature was merely to make the point that that was the available energy, and a proportion of that amount would have to be found in the basement as heat around the foundation slab.
 
I should have said some of the energy. It's true that I disregarded the absorption of energy that way.

But my point with demonstrating the bound of the energy as 1200 tons of steel at melt temperature was merely to make the point that that was the available energy, and a proportion of that amount would have to be found in the basement as heat around the foundation slab.

Sure, but really I think that fire is a much bigger factor in the hotspots over the next new weeks.
 
Been busy as hell, but managed to get a moment to read up on how this discussion is going. I find the discussion of the pouring molten 'something' out of the side of the tower rather interesting, especially this bit:
Summary: The flow is not steel because the structural steel would fail well below the melting temperature. The flow is likely to be a mixture of aluminum, aluminum oxides, molten glass and coals of whatever trash the aluminum flowed over as it reached the open window. Such a flow would appear orange and cool to a dark color.

Stephen D. Chastain

First off, with very few exceptions, most glass used today doesn't reach 'melting' point until around 1000-1400 degrees centigrade. That's low for glass, which in its pure form doesn't reach 'melting' point until about 2000 C. Soda-lime glass, which accounts for most of the glass in use today and which was almost certainly by far the predominant glass in the WTC, doesn't even begin to soften until it reaches temperatures of 700-800 centigrade, 100-200 degrees higher than the melting point of aluminum, and about the very peak of pre-collapse temperatures for which the official story allows. Stephen Chastain states that:
The emissivity of plate glass is .937 It begins to soften at 1000 F and flows around 1350 F. Silica has an emissivity of .8
but this is very misleading, if not flat out incorrect. 1000 F (or 537 centigrate) is just shy of the -annealing point- of soda-lime glass (actually 546 C, or 1015 F), well prior to softening. Softening, which doesn't even equate to melting, takes place at 726 C (or 1340 F), which is the point at which the glass will sag and deform, not 'flow' like a liquid. The heat required to get plate-glass in a state in which it would homogeneously flow with molten aluminum would likely be in the 1000 C + range at least. As for the 'coals of trash' theory, that's a very interesting, if not rather basic supposition, but also rather easily tested. Show me an aluminum/carbon-residue mixture at temperatures below 1000 C that glows red-hot even when poured from a considerable height, and I'll be convinced the pouring flow of molten orange out of the tower just prior to its collapse isn't suspect.

Here's some links to the info on glass, totally unaffiliated with this discussion and thus lacking any biased spin on the figures.

http://www.sgpinc.com/sodalime.htm
http://www.udel.edu/chem/GlassShop/PhysicalProperties.htm
 
Show me an aluminum/carbon-residue mixture at temperatures below 1000 C that glows red-hot even when poured from a considerable height, and I'll be convinced the pouring flow of molten orange out of the tower just prior to its collapse isn't suspect

I don't think you need to get down to "carbon-residue" - simply stuff that is burning. If there's a small stream of aluminum, then it can carry along burning debris, and indeed spark new fires as it goes along and collects debris, then the whole lot finds its way out of the building.

I mentioned this earlier as "embers", which I think lee misinterpreted as "sparks", suggesting they would go up, not down. But I was thinking more along the line of chunks of burning debris.
 
yar, but in order to account for the massive flow (I don't think Lee was wrong in speculating it at several tons, given the scale) of pure-orange substance, the silver-hot aluminum would of had to have homogenized, at least to some extent, with these ambiguous materials. In the case of plastics and ash-residues such a homogenization is vaguely plausible, though I don't know enough about the capacities of plastics and molten metals to 'mix'. Still, for the entirety of the massive flow to be just the right mixture of homogenized aluminum and debris to achieve the same glowing-orange hue throughout its pour is unlikely on the border of impossible, which would suggest 'just the right mixture' isn't at all required, and about any mixture of molten aluminum and plastics/carbon residues can achieve this effect. That's why I suggested such a premise should be exceedingly easy to test, and either prove or disprove promptly.
 
yar, but in order to account for the massive flow (I don't think Lee was wrong in speculating it at several tons, given the scale) of pure-orange substance, the silver-hot aluminum would of had to have homogenized, at least to some extent, with these ambiguous materials. In the case of plastics and ash-residues such a homogenization is vaguely plausible, though I don't know enough about the capacities of plastics and molten metals to 'mix'. Still, for the entirety of the massive flow to be just the right mixture of homogenized aluminum and debris to achieve the same glowing-orange hue throughout its pour is unlikely on the border of impossible, which would suggest 'just the right mixture' isn't at all required, and about any mixture of molten aluminum and plastics/carbon residues can achieve this effect. That's why I suggested such a premise should be exceedingly easy to test, and either prove or disprove promptly.

I don't think it mixed. I think the glowing stuff floated on top. The aluminum is just what carried it along. Have a look at this:



Looks like falling embers to me. Consider one important point - different orange things fall at different speeds. Since they all seemt to be coming from the same location, then that would not happen with globs of molten metal, only if some of the orange things were much less dense than others.
 
yar, but in order to account for the massive flow (I don't think Lee was wrong in speculating it at several tons, given the scale) of pure-orange substance, the silver-hot aluminum would of had to have homogenized, at least to some extent, with these ambiguous materials. In the case of plastics and ash-residues such a homogenization is vaguely plausible, though I don't know enough about the capacities of plastics and molten metals to 'mix'. Still, for the entirety of the massive flow to be just the right mixture of homogenized aluminum and debris to achieve the same glowing-orange hue throughout its pour is unlikely on the border of impossible, which would suggest 'just the right mixture' isn't at all required, and about any mixture of molten aluminum and plastics/carbon residues can achieve this effect. That's why I suggested such a premise should be exceedingly easy to test, and either prove or disprove promptly.
I agree testing is in order for several issues regarding what was observed on 911 . . . including the ability of minimally trained pilots to hit the towers, the necessary parameters to produce and sustain hotspots, the ability to progressively collapse steel reenforced buildings, etc . . .
 
Just as an example of what I mean by embers, and showing that consistently colored orange things can fall down:
 
So you're suggesting the substance isn't a liquid at all, but just solid pieces of debris being carried out on a red-hot flow?
I'll concede its highly likely that such a stream of molten 'something' carried a fair bit of debris out with it, and that some of that debris spilled out along with the flow, but it seems entirely obvious to me that a glowing-red substance in a near-liquid state is primarily what's pouring out of there. I'm also not seeing much of a speed differential from 'ember' to 'ember' myself. The larger, more central 'globs' do seem to fall a little faster than the others perhaps, and there are some somewhat noticeable differences in the trajectories and rates at which the little 'droplets' seem to be falling, but that doesn't necessarily suggest a profound difference in density. The source from which all this stuff is pouring isn't unobstructed after all. Turn on your shower just enough to get a steady, fast drip pouring from its head, and watch the speed of the drips as they fall, direct and mostly uniform (depending on your plumbing). Then plant your thumb in the path of the drip. Though much of that water will simply spill around your thumb to form new heavy droplets that fall in a uniform way, many smaller droplets are likely to spatter in more or less random directions, and these droplets are by no means bound to hit the tub at the same time as the larger droplets, or even each other.
Similarly, the molten material isn't pouring out the tower faucet-like, its clearly in the video you provided spewing out past obstructions, with the same pressure and trajectory by no means applying to each separate 'droplet'.
 
could be, but most all plastics that can melt do so at less than 300 degrees centigrade, most infact at much, much lower temperatures, and all reach combustion at temperatures less than 600 degrees centigrade (Polycarbonate, though having a very low melting point, doesn't burn until it reaches temps of 580 degrees +, but the average seems to be around 350-450 C), and all these combustion points are lower than the melting point of aluminum and the estimated temperatures of the fires. Considering the fires had burned for roughly an hour when the flow began, its highly improbable that the flow was a large quantity of molten plastic, as any plastic in such close proximity to the fires would combust rather than remain liquified. If you've ever tossed plastic wrap onto a fire (which you really shouldn't do) you know that it appears to start melting for a moment, before rapidly blackening/crumbling.
 
could be, but most all plastics that can melt do so at less than 300 degrees centigrade, most infact at much, much lower temperatures, and all reach combustion at temperatures less than 600 degrees centigrade (Polycarbonate, though having a very low melting point, doesn't burn until it reaches temps of 580 degrees +, but the average seems to be around 350-450 C), and all these combustion points are lower than the melting point of aluminum and the estimated temperatures of the fires. Considering the fires had burned for roughly an hour when the flow began, its highly improbable that the flow was a large quantity of molten plastic, as any plastic in such close proximity to the fires would combust rather than remain liquified. If you've ever tossed plastic wrap onto a fire (which you really shouldn't do) you know that it appears to start melting for a moment, before rapidly blackening/crumbling.

It is also possible that on a floor below the fire, the temperature could rise enough to liquify a significant amount of plastic before it actually began to combust. The point is there are multiple possibilities.
 
But that "pour" was immediately below roughly seventy tons of aircraft fragments heated red hot. Only five neurones need to be put to use.

It has to be molten aluminum because of its low melting point and proximity to a source of both heat and aluminum. This liquid could certainly drag glass fragments, which have the same density, with it.
 
But that "pour" was immediately below roughly seventy tons of aircraft fragments heated red hot. Only five neurones need to be put to use.

It has to be molten aluminum because of its low melting point and proximity to a source of both heat and aluminum. This liquid could certainly drag glass fragments, which have the same density, with it.

I agree.
 

A post back you insisted it could have been just about anything, now you agree that it has to be molten aluminum? That was a quick turn. :p

Jazzy: the airplane impacted the building in a powerful, massive explosion, slamming through separate floors and being torn to shreds through and through. The debris of the plane that didn't wind up outside would have been scattered about several ruined floors of the building in relatively small fragments. Please explain to me how these scattered fragments of aluminum managed to melt, coalesce, and pool in such a quantity against an exit point that tons upon tons of it would go pouring out of the building more or less all at once. Given the highest heat achieved in the pre-collapse fire would have almost certainly been during the explosion itself, also explain why the substance, if it was molten aluminum from the plane, took roughly an hour to begin leaking out in such massive amounts from a single tower, as opposed to consistently drooling out of the impact site throughout the event in the cases of both collisions.

Also, the scientist quoted in the 'debunking911' link on this subject has been proven to have offered up false, or at the very least considerably misleading information to have suggested molten glass was a prominent factor in the 'orange glow' of the substance. Thus, the websites claim that 'the color doesn't matter', which you support, appears increasingly hollow. Can you demonstrate molten aluminum glowing orange at temps below 1000C simply by mixing in carbon-residues/plastics?
 
Please explain to me how these scattered fragments of aluminum managed to melt, coalesce, and pool in such a quantity against an exit point that tons upon tons of it would go pouring out of the building more or less all at once.


Can you explain why you think the amount of material coming out is "tons upon tons"? I am not saying its not- but watching the video Mick posted above, it does not appear to me to be tons and tons...

Moreover, the plane probably was not the only source of aluminum in the office building...as I write this I sit in a similar building, in a typical office at what appears to be an aluminum desk- or at least a very cheap, thin metal desk of some kind.
 
A post back you insisted it could have been just about anything, now you agree that it has to be molten aluminum? That was a quick turn. :p

I agree that the most likely explanation for the molten substance in the video was aluminum. By mentioning plastics, I was trying to point out that in an office building there at multiple materials that might behave in a similar manner. I am constantly amazed that when presented with a number of valid options, people like you always choose the most diabolical one.
 
Consider the scale of the event, SR. You've got a relatively continuous flow lasting a couple of minutes which makes it all the way from the impacted floor to the ground largely 'unbroken'. Its not a continuous stream of course, but the volume of materials required to go from the 80th' or so floor to the ground and -still- be pouring would have to be quite large. Keep in mind that the video Mick posted is by no means the only one, and only features brief, slow-mo glimpses of particular events he was emphasizing. In other, fuller videos of the event, you can see the stream lasts quite a while.

And certainly you're not wrong, aluminum is a prominent metal. I wager the only aluminum in my own office is in the laptop/chair, but there is a lot of it kicking around most buildings. I'm not saying there wasn't lots of aluminum in the towers, or that the planes weren't made of aluminum, or that molten aluminum wasn't present in the towers. I'm saying that I fail to see why a bright-orange flow gushing profusely out of the impact-site mere moments prior to the building's collapse and long after the impact is 'obvious', not suspect, and doesn't warrant a little more investigation than an untested supposition of aluminum.

Mick has shown us plenty of 'verniage' videos of towers being collapsed by taking out a single floor at a mid-to-high point in an effort to point out how the Tower collapses more resemble verniage demolition than an explosive demolition. He's not wrong in that, the tower collapses (obviously excluding building 7) do seem to better resemble a verniage demolition. So if the collapse resembles a verniage demolition, and there's video evidence of a large amount of molten orange substance pouring out of the impacted floors in the moments leading up to this verniage style collapse, isn't it worth considering/investigating what that substance really was, and running tests to prove it was just aluminum and crud? The whole 9/11 investigation has been full of bold suppositions around extremely important issues with no actual experiments/demonstrations/disclosure of data. When people ask 'What the hell..? Why all this secrecy/inadequacy/general dicking around by the authorities...?' the general reaction is to label them as mentally ill or supremely stupid as quickly and as loudly as possible.

Discussing, exploring, testing and investigating every possible aspect of that horrible event should be in the very ethos of North America. That it's not, and that in the United States, and even here in Canada, it was being treated like old news and taboo to mention as early as 2002, is and has been highly disturbing to me. I wasn't a 'conspiracy theorist' when it happened, or in the months afterward. George Bush was just a source of comedy and then grave dismay, Dick Cheney just another brutal old white guy. I just watched horrified like everyone else, first the tower-collapses, and then later in the day building 7, which inspired in my family an almost immediate chorus of 'Oh my God, they blew it up.'. It was the way the American media/authorities handled the situation that left me with little to no doubt something highly suspect was going on, and it wasn't until we were a few years into rampaging wars that I started to actually research the subject.
 
I don't think you need to get down to "carbon-residue" - simply stuff that is burning. If there's a small stream of aluminum, then it can carry along burning debris, and indeed spark new fires as it goes along and collects debris, then the whole lot finds its way out of the building.

I mentioned this earlier as "embers", which I think lee misinterpreted as "sparks", suggesting they would go up, not down. But I was thinking more along the line of chunks of burning debris.

Come off it, M. That bit in bold - have a look at what you said! Occam's razor? Little aluminium streams behave just like real streams [in flood].

And it isn't me misinterpreting what an ember is

ember - definition of ember by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus ...

www.thefreedictionary.com/ember
A small, glowing piece of coal or wood, as in a dying fire. 2. embers The smoldering coal or ash of a dying fire. [Middle English embre, from Old English merge.] ...
Content from External Source

it's you.

That's why I said definitely not embers. It's not embers. It's molten metal. It's orange, and it stays that way all the way. There's several tons of it pouring off the side of a huge skyscraper just minutes prior to and immediately before its global collapse, an event unique to that day, er, x2....oh, and then there was that building 7.


Meanwhile, everything is lovely and normal in Happy Valley.
 
Consider the scale of the event, SR. You've got a relatively continuous flow lasting a couple of minutes which makes it all the way from the impacted floor to the ground largely 'unbroken'. Its not a continuous stream of course, but the volume of materials required to go from the 80th' or so floor to the ground and -still- be pouring would have to be quite large. Keep in mind that the video Mick posted is by no means the only one, and only features brief, slow-mo glimpses of particular events he was emphasizing. In other, fuller videos of the event, you can see the stream lasts quite a while.

And certainly you're not wrong, aluminum is a prominent metal. I wager the only aluminum in my own office is in the laptop/chair, but there is a lot of it kicking around most buildings. I'm not saying there wasn't lots of aluminum in the towers, or that the planes weren't made of aluminum, or that molten aluminum wasn't present in the towers. I'm saying that I fail to see why a bright-orange flow gushing profusely out of the impact-site mere moments prior to the building's collapse and long after the impact is 'obvious', not suspect, and doesn't warrant a little more investigation than an untested supposition of aluminum.

Mick has shown us plenty of 'verniage' videos of towers being collapsed by taking out a single floor at a mid-to-high point in an effort to point out how the Tower collapses more resemble verniage demolition than an explosive demolition. He's not wrong in that, the tower collapses (obviously excluding building 7) do seem to better resemble a verniage demolition. So if the collapse resembles a verniage demolition, and there's video evidence of a large amount of molten orange substance pouring out of the impacted floors in the moments leading up to this verniage style collapse, isn't it worth considering/investigating what that substance really was, and running tests to prove it was just aluminum and crud? The whole 9/11 investigation has been full of bold suppositions around extremely important issues with no actual experiments/demonstrations/disclosure of data. When people ask 'What the hell..? Why all this secrecy/inadequacy/general dicking around by the authorities...?' the general reaction is to label them as mentally ill or supremely stupid as quickly and as loudly as possible.

Discussing, exploring, testing and investigating every possible aspect of that horrible event should be in the very ethos of North America. That it's not, and that in the United States, and even here in Canada, it was being treated like old news and taboo to mention as early as 2002, is and has been highly disturbing to me. I wasn't a 'conspiracy theorist' when it happened, or in the months afterward. George Bush was just a source of comedy and then grave dismay, Dick Cheney just another brutal old white guy. I just watched horrified like everyone else, first the tower-collapses, and then later in the day building 7, which inspired in my family an almost immediate chorus of 'Oh my God, they blew it up.'. It was the way the American media/authorities handled the situation that left me with little to no doubt something highly suspect was going on, and it wasn't until we were a few years into rampaging wars that I started to actually research the subject.

Well said, G.




Omar Khayyam. I have a small book which was my father's. The great human being, Martin Luther King, was fond of quoting the line. Though I feel sure you already know that.
 
Oh, and G - the only thing I'd say is that Verinage would never be considered as a viable means of taking down those wtc buildings - Verinage is used on buildings of completely different nature, vastly inferior, so it's a whale-shaped red herring. You couldn't demolish those buildings like that. The term 'progressive collapse' is another - how else would it collapse? Backwards? Progressive global collapse describes any structure completely collapsing - totally regardless of means.
 
the airplane impacted the building in a powerful, massive explosion
Stop you there. The plane impacted the building first. Around each impact point the structure of the plane would shear and the sheared-off pieces would continue straight on, spinning from coupled rotational accelerations. The parts not in direct collision with floors and columns and beams would continue straight on to the far end of the building on each floor. The denser parts exited the far side. Typical photos of that corner show that behind the window spaces is a huge jumble of material - office and aircraft fragments. That's visual evidence.

The first response of the floors was to bow in the increased temperatures of the fire. This bowing allowed a lake of the material to collect. It was probably the concentration of mass in that area which caused the bowed floor to detach and destroy the stability of the column line to which it was attached and then initiate collapse.

The explosion of the fuel didn't occur immediately upon impact. Time was required for fuel to disperse, ignition to occur, and then internal pressure to build up to thermobaric propensities. Then shazam.



Can you demonstrate molten aluminum glowing orange at temps below 1000C simply by mixing in carbon-residues/plastics?
An object glowing orange is hotter than 1000C full stop. It's a law of physics. But the burning office was also hotter than 1000C. It is also orange.

That group of burning floors was fed by air from a gash to the outside, and then helped by a central chimney that also helped to induce a fast through flow of air. A muffle furnace with seventy tons of aluminum fragments, and an hour to burn, will definitely get you a few tons of melt. By the time the melt began (it wouldn't be immediate!) I reckon the floor had already begun to sag.
 
An object glowing orange is hotter than 1000C full stop. It's a law of physics. But the burning office was also hotter than 1000C. It is also orange.

That group of burning floors was fed by air from a gash to the outside, and then helped by a central chimney that also helped to induce a fast through flow of air. A muffle furnace with seventy tons of aluminum fragments, and an hour to burn, will definitely get you a few tons of melt. By the time the melt began (it wouldn't be immediate!) I reckon the floor had already begun to sag.

Indeed, there was no shortage of glowing orange stuff in the WTC, as it was on fire.


My theory is simply that some of this glowing orange stuff (embers, small pieces of burning or glowing stuff) was carried out of the building, perhaps by a stream of molten aluminum, or perhaps just by the wind, and then flowed out.

Embers:


The video shots are just too far away to identify it as pure molten metal.

And, the exterior columns were clad in aluminum, another potential source.
 
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Where do you guys get that there are tons of it? Comments like this show that you have know idea what you're talking about and are just pulling shit out of you ass.
Pulling shit out of my arse? That's polite. It's a visual estimate, based on the visual evidence. No claims to any figure or great accuracy - how much do you estimate?
 
Y'all should make some reasoned estimates as to how much material there is, based on the video. It would be helpful.
 
Example of falling embers looking a bit like falling stream of molten metal:

Skip to 4:30 unless you want the history:
 
This video shows them pouring steel out of a 28 ton crucible at about the 2:00 mark. Unfortunately they don't show the full pour to get an idea of how long it takes, but it does do a nice job of showing the sparks coming off of it.

 
Here is an iron pour video with pour volumes that look similar to the WTC video. Keep in mind this is iron which behaves very different that steel when molten.

 
Roland, the melting points of steel and iron are quite similar (depending on the type of steel, but without much variation) and is roughly 1500 centigrade. In fact, steel is essentially modified iron; iron that has been combined with other elements. If you're suggesting that the substance pouring out of the WTC is molten Iron, then you're suggesting temperatures were hot enough in the pre-collapse fire to melt steel. If this is true, or even plausible, why does NIST insist its not even possible?

Mick, something you should note about your video of the fire-fall, and your various photographs of glowing orange embers: they are all universally night-time images. Embers do not glow that obviously in broad daylight. They still glow, but under direct sunlight the greys and blacks, and ash-whites of embers become the dominant color-features, even when blown upon. I've done a fair bit of camping, but if you have your doubts, see here:
3047099160_6fcd6b0b87.jpg
At night the embers of this fire would be glowing a rather brilliant orange, but under direct sunlight the glow becomes a muted, almost pinkish hue.
The material pouring out of the WTC did not have the look of embers at all, considering the bright orange glow was consistent throughout under direct sunlight until they seemed to reach a cooling/solidifying point.
 
Stop you there. The plane impacted the building first. Around each impact point the structure of the plane would shear and the sheared-off pieces would continue straight on, spinning from coupled rotational accelerations. The parts not in direct collision with floors and columns and beams would continue straight on to the far end of the building on each floor. The denser parts exited the far side. Typical photos of that corner show that behind the window spaces is a huge jumble of material - office and aircraft fragments. That's visual evidence. The first response of the floors was to bow in the increased temperatures of the fire. This bowing allowed a lake of the material to collect. It was probably the concentration of mass in that area which caused the bowed floor to detach and destroy the stability of the column line to which it was attached and then initiate collapse. The explosion of the fuel didn't occur immediately upon impact. Time was required for fuel to disperse, ignition to occur, and then internal pressure to build up to thermobaric propensities. Then shazam.


An object glowing orange is hotter than 1000C full stop. It's a law of physics. But the burning office was also hotter than 1000C. It is also orange.

That group of burning floors was fed by air from a gash to the outside, and then helped by a central chimney that also helped to induce a fast through flow of air. A muffle furnace with seventy tons of aluminum fragments, and an hour to burn, will definitely get you a few tons of melt. By the time the melt began (it wouldn't be immediate!) I reckon the floor had already begun to sag.

It really isn't acceptable to go trotting out your fantasies and attaching phrases like - it's a law of physics.

Nist says that the maximum temperature reached by the fires in the towers was in the upper air and was 1000C - maximum. Anyone can check this.

Jazzy says
the burning office was also hotter than 1000C

Who to believe? Ofcourse, Mick pounces on this and re-posts the last two paras with the obligatory large-as-you-can-find-pic-to-make-the-fires-look-as-big-as-possible when really Jazzy should be corrected for making false claims. Again.

An object glowing orange is hotter than 1000C full stop. It's a law of physics. But the burning office was also hotter than 1000C. It is also orange.

Really? That's what is known as Cobblers. http://www.derose.net/steve/resources/engtables/flametemp.html gives a table:

For more theoretical/ideal values, consider this table (which also includes a few temperatures other than for gas/oxidixer mixtures):

Fuel and Oxidizer typeTemperature (Celsius)
Fluorescent light60-80
Incandescent light100-300
Cigarettes - unventilated conditions288
Cigarettes - ventilated400-780
Cigarettes - insulated and smoldering 510-621
Stove element>550
Match600-800
Tungsten halogen light600-900
Candle flame600-1,400

Content from External Source
Note these are ideal/theoretical values, that means that in 'real life' they are lower - because heat always equalizes with what's around it, doesn't it? It flows from hot to cold, doesn't it? Thermodynamics, isn't it? Cigarettes, matches, oven elements and a lot more things have lower than 1000c temperature, yet all are orange glowing. I'd like to see someone lead solder a copper pipe joint using a cigarette end - and lead solder liquifies at about 330c. Jazzy should fit that one into his video of him and 16lb hammer and concrete pulverizing.

The rest of the nonsense about 'furnaces' and 'chimneys' was actually also dealt with by Nist. The towers were designed to not be a chimney in the event of fire and Nist says that the system worked and prevented the fires from spreading. Again, you can check Nist's report for that. Anyone who has ever chucked a few wet leaves on a fire knows what happens - the fire is deprived of oxygen and the smoke thickens and blackens - a classic sign of oxygen deprivation and/or exhausted fuel.

As for all the fantasy in the first bit, I give 8/10 for imagination - 'lakes of molten metal' etc. But poor old Occam must be at a loss as to what to use his razor for.
 
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