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

[Jazzy]

Was it? I never actually thought that the fires were started by "impact heat". I thought it was from burning debris.

That's not so likely. Flammable materials would have a lower terminal velocity. One of those 70-ton external steel column assemblies entirely on its own, doing around 120 mph, cutting through several floors, would seem to fit the bill rather better.

 

[Jazzy]

they often seem to treat each tower collapse as a single massive kinetic event, as opposed to thousands of smaller kinetic events stretched out over several seconds.

The collapse WAS a single massive kinetic event. The tower, formerly erect, became collapsed.

the total kinetic energy generated was somehow concentrated.

Of course it was. The force of gravity concentrated it against the ground.

One went so far as to state the towers collapsed 'with kinetic force to rival the Hiroshima blast', for which he had calculations to demonstrate how/why.

0.85 trillion Joules is equivalent to 95 tons of TNT so he was wrong.

The fact is though, even if you add up all the kinetic energy that would have resulted from the collapse, and that number comes to rival the force of a nuclear blast, it's quite entirely clear that force wasn't concentrated, or there would have been a major blast.

Hey, man, the building fell DOWN. Its mass was CONCENTRATED against the ground. Didn't you notice?

Similarly, adding up all the kinetic energy of the collapse and saying that figure could result in enough heat to melt steel is dependent on the accuracy of the calculations used to reach those figures, and whether they treat the tower collapse as a single kinetic event or not. If they don't account for every influencing factor, they can't be considered fact-based.

Is [wrong]

Still, I would love to see a mathematical formula which can effectively and accurately calculate how much concentrated heat a collapsing building could generate, and isn't composed by a hobby-physicist. If you have such a reference Jazzy, please share it if you can.

^ means the exponent.
* means multiplied by.
weight of tower = M = 450,000,000 Kg = 4.5*10^8 Kg *
height of tower = h = 387 meters
g = 9.81 m / sec / sec
specific heat of iron = c = 0.49 KJ / Kg, assuming it is constant. (It isn't, and varies across this temperature range.) *
ambient temp = t1 = 20 deg C *
melting point of structural steel = t2 = 1545 deg C *

The potential energy of a building, assuming a certain homogeneity, is half its mass times its height, times the acceleration due to gravity.
http://www.tjhsst.edu/~jleaf/tec/html/10/potent.htm

PE = 0.5*M*g*h = 0.5*4.5*10^8*9.81*3.87*10^3 = 8.54*10^11 Joules - the heat potential equivalent

The heat (Q) necessary to raise the temperature of a unit mass of steel m (say 1000 Kg) is the specific heat times that mass times the temperature difference.
http://cnx.org/content/m42224/latest/?collection=col11406/latest

Q = m*c*(t2-t1) = 10^3*4.9*10^2*1.525*10^3 = 7.47*10^8 Joules for 1000 Kg of steel

Then the maximum amount of steel (in metric tons) that could have been raised to melt temperature is PE over Q = 8.54*10^11 / 7.47*10^8 = 1,140 tons.

The towers had full occupancy, were fully-fitted and also had floors devoted to service functions loaded with machinery, pipes and tanks. There is some dispute how much mass that added up to. If the towers weighed 5*10^8 Kg (seems to be consensus here) then the amount of steel that could have been raised to melt temperature would be 1,270 tons. If they were heavier still, then so much the more.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

It's a long time ago since I lost my original figures. Twelve years is a time long enough for these equations to be generally understood by any really competent and interested lay person. They are childrens' arithmetic, of a standard I repeatedly performed in Form Trans X at King George V Grammar School way back in 1956. No calculus or complex mathematics at all.

Suggesting that unless every single event has its maths calculated then there is no basis in fact is exactly like suggesting that because one cannot predict A WAVE one cannot therefore predict THE TIDE.

Really.

So that's it for "hot spots". Of course they were more than "just possible" as natural consequences of the collapses. They were inevitable.

* These figures are marginally incorrect, but, of course, that lack of accuracy is entirely irrelevant to the above proposition.

 

[Joe]

got a Lab ? I got some wtc dust in the bag

 

[Mick West]

The collapse WAS a single massive kinetic event. The tower, formerly erect, became collapsed.


Of course it was. The force of gravity concentrated it against the ground.

Not really, it was (mostly) concentrated into a volume about five acres in area, and 120 feet high, over a second or so. That's very different to a single instantaneous impact at a point or a plane. From a physics point of view it was a lot of individual events in both space and time. To describe it as a single event, and perform calculations thusly, is an over simplification that just gives the bounds of the problem, not the reality.

 

[Mick West]

got a Lab ? I got some wtc dust in the bag

You and thousands of other people. The dust has been analysed quite extensively. What would you test for?

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=wtc+dust

 

[Joe]

You and thousands of other people. The dust has been analysed quite extensively. What would you test for?

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=wtc+dust

nothing because I dont belive in the 9/11 conspiracy at all . it contains asbestoes concrete and ? thats it nothing else .my brother in law who was there at the time NYPD and NYFD is dying from cancer and has about a year to live . they did however lie to them about how toxic the air was after the towers fell .

 

[Grieves]

g = 9.81 m / sec / sec

So this is the only aspect of that calculationmyou present which even begins to take time into account, being representative of the pull of gravity, and the rate of acceleration of objects under it's influence. However:

This means that, ignoring air resistance, an object falling freely near the Earth's surface increases its velocity by 9.81*m/s (32.2*ft/s or 22*mph) for each second of its descent. Thus, an object starting from rest will attain a velocity of 9.81*m/s (32.2*ft/s) after one second, 19.62*m/s (64.4*ft/s) after two seconds, and so on, adding 9.81*m/s (32.2*ft/s) to each resulting velocity. Also, again ignoring air resistance, any and all objects, when dropped from the same height, will hit the ground at the same time.

So because there's no room in your 'simple, indisputable' calculation for anything but free-fall speeds under the wholly unresisted force of gravity, nor is there room form the influence of the atmosphere and obstructing objects, your calculation is inherently flawed, is it not? Especially considering the anti-'truthers' have tried to make it terribly clear the towers did not reach free-fall speeds, which are the conditions your calculation applies too, if any.The official account demands that the descent of most of the steel mass was repeatedly obstructed.

 

[lee h oswald]

They only require a red hot billet because they cannot deliver sufficiently energetic impacts. Have a look at any destroyed battle tank. How did that come about? Magic?

The columns were candidates for a lot of friction welding (and sparks) as dozens of floors sheared by them.

Recall the stranded center columns standing, all slagged up, before their final buckling instability collapse...

Am I right in reading that you think/believe that the vast majority of the energy created by the collapses of the towers went to heating the steel to near its melting point of 1500C or thereabouts? And then it stayed that way for weeks? By what mechanism?
Also, you stated that crushing concrete doesn't require much energy - but just how much energy does it take to pulverise 440.000 sq metres of steel RC (per tower) 100-125mm thick with a compressive strength of 3-3500 psi and set in corrugated steel decking? And after reducing said concrete to very small bits, in the main, distribute it over a wide area in the form of a - hot - pyroclastic dust cloud? What about all that energy? You haven't mentioned it.

Have a look at any destroyed battle tank. How did that come about? Magic?

Magic? No. Explosives.

The columns were candidates for a lot of friction welding (and sparks) as dozens of floors sheared by them.

Friction welding in a few seconds of chaos? I don't think so. Sparks would be normal, but sparks don't weld anything. It's quite hard to light a fire with a spark - even when you've got the best of conditions set for it.

Recall the stranded center columns standing, all slagged up, before their final buckling instability collapse...

No. But I recall the video showing a pretty long view of one tower after collapse in which you could see the remnant of the core teetering for a few seconds at most, largely obscured by smoke/dust post collapse. Is that what you're referring to? And when you say 'all slagged up' do you mean by that the core is covered with slag from previously molten metal?

Putting it politely, I think the buckling instability is inherent in your absurd hypothesis.

 

[Clock]

No. But I recall the video showing a pretty long view of one tower after collapse in which you could see the remnant of the core teetering for a few seconds at most, largely obscured by smoke/dust post collapse. Is that what you're referring to? And when you say 'all slagged up' do you mean by that the core is covered with slag from previously molten metal?

Could we see this video?

 

[lee h oswald]

Could we see this video?

This slow motion video is cropped before final failure, but is from the one I recall - if you look around you can find the whole

​

 

[Oxymoron]

Perhaps Jazzy would like to back up his as yet completely unsupported opinion, (other than his schoolboy math fantasy), with something more factual... i.e. instances where collapses have generated enough heat to melt steel, cause fires and pools of melted steel.

Jazzy may well be advised to refresh himself on the core basis of scientific methodology.

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false
Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable

http://concretecore.741.com/

The Core Structure Of The World Trade Center Towers Was A Steel Reinforced, Cast Concrete, Tubular Core

THE SPIRE Below is image of a spire that stood for 14 seconds comprised of one corner of the interior box columns that were fastened to the outside of the concrete core. This connection between interior columns and the concrete made the core a load bearing and anti torsion element for the steel framework configured as a tube around the concrete tube comprised of four smaller vertically interrupted tubular elements formed by the interior core walls.

 

[soundsalad]

Those claiming that WTC 7 was so badly impacted by the debris from WTC 1 and 2: How did WTC 5 and 6 remain standing, considering they are pretty much in between WTC 1 and 2 and WTC 7. They received much more damage than building 7..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/WTC_7_aerial_photo.jpg

 

[MikeC]

There is nothing fantasy about his schoolboy math - it checks out with the exception that the height of the twin towers was 409 and 411 metres (according to wiki), so he has underestimated the value by about 2.5%. IIRC I was taught about potential energy = mgh - in about 4th or 5th form - that is year 10 or 11 - in the 1970's. I don' think the equations have changed much.

Of course if you would like to discuss the actual math rather than just flinging around unsubtle insults that would possibly make you look like you are actually begin serous about finding out the facts - and not just tossing around bits of information that suit a conclusion you have already made that you are not willing to accept may be wrong.

What do you think happened to all that energy?

 

[Mick West]

Those claiming that WTC 7 was so badly impacted by the debris from WTC 1 and 2: How did WTC 5 and 6 remain standing, considering they are pretty much in between WTC 1 and 2 and WTC 7. They received much more damage than building 7..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/WTC_7_aerial_photo.jpg

Different fire spread. Fire is a fickle thing. And possibly different building construction.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say WTC6 "remained standing" though. Here it is:

 

[Grieves]

The math is based on a false premise, though... that the towers, and all its separate segments, were in free-fall all the way down, and it doesn't seem to account for the fact (unless I'm totally missing something in the equation) that it didn't all hit the ground at once. There was undoubtedly a whole lot of kinetic energy involved in the collapse, and assuredly it produced a fair deal of heat, but there was ample opportunities for dissipation throughout.

Also, on the subject of Friction Welding, I think this may be pertinent:

Friction welding (FW) is a class of solid-state welding processes that generates heat through mechanical friction between a moving workpiece and a stationary component, with the addition of a lateral force called "upset" to plastically displace and fuse the materials. Technically, because no melt occurs, friction welding is not actually a welding process in the traditional sense, but a forging technique. However, due to the similarities between these techniques and traditional welding, the term has become common. Friction welding is used with metals and thermoplastics in a wide variety of aviation and automotive applications.

Friction welding techniques are generally melt-free, which avoids grain growth in engineered materials, such as high-strength heat-treated steels.

Just taken from the wiki. That aside, I don't think an industrial process involving speeds as high as 2000+ rpm concentrated to produce a deliberate effect is a fair example of what might have happened in the collapse. http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/amm.2011.56.issue-4/v10172-011-0107-8/v10172-011-0107-8.xml

In any event, given that there's seemingly enough evidence of Molten steel to have Jazzy and Mike arguing for its presence being an obvious result, can someone tell me what the hell John Gross was talking about?

 

[Mick West]

There is nothing fantasy about his schoolboy math - it checks out with the exception that the height of the twin towers was 409 and 411 metres (according to wiki), so he has underestimated the value by about 2.5%. IIRC I was taught about potential energy = mgh - in about 4th or 5th form - that is year 10 or 11 - in the 1970's. I don' think the equations have changed much.

Of course if you would like to discuss the actual math rather than just flinging around unsubtle insults that would possibly make you look like you are actually begin serous about finding out the facts - and not just tossing around bits of information that suit a conclusion you have already made that you are not willing to accept may be wrong.

What do you think happened to all that energy?

Let's take the amount of energy as correct, as it gives a useful upper bound. It's not really important, as the amount of molten steel we are talking about is very small - the heat in the pile is thought to have come from fires, and there were plenty of sources of ignition.

The question is if there's a realistic mechanism whereby the energy could be concentrated in a volume of steel enough to melt it. Now we can theorize about girders bending really fast, or something under extreme pressure sliding down the "spire". But would that actually result in molten steel? Would it be much? It does not seem particularly plausible to me.

It seems pretty obvious that if you drop an individual girder from 1000 feet onto concrete, then it's not going to melt, it's probably not even going to get particularly warm. There has to be a particular mechanism, sudden bending or prolonged friction or extreme impact pressure with additional weight, to make this happen.

It's all interesting from a thought experiment though, but I don't think it really has much bearing on the plausibility of the conspiracy theory, or the validity of the OS.

 

[Oxymoron]

There is nothing fantasy about his schoolboy math - it checks out with the exception that the height of the twin towers was 409 and 411 metres (according to wiki), so he has underestimated the value by about 2.5%. IIRC I was taught about potential energy = mgh - in about 4th or 5th form - that is year 10 or 11 - in the 1970's. I don' think the equations have changed much.

Of course if you would like to discuss the actual math rather than just flinging around unsubtle insults that would possibly make you look like you are actually begin serous about finding out the facts - and not just tossing around bits of information that suit a conclusion you have already made that you are not willing to accept may be wrong.

What do you think happened to all that energy?

I keep trying to have sensible and constructive dialogue, I have offered out many an olive branch and had abuse in response... so yes, let's by all means have a constructive and polite discussion.

Perhaps we can start with an instance or two where kinetic energy has produced molten steel in a collapse.
Followed by a documented instance or two where Jazzy's equation has used to account for the production of said volume of molten steel.

And finally perhaps some instances of experiments conducted which predict the production of a set quantity of molten steel from a collapse; followed by the actual quantity of molten steel produced by each experiment.

I would humbly suggest that the majority of that energy went into pulverizing the constituent parts of the building. Unsurprisingly reinforced concrete does actually take considerable energy to be converted into dust.

 

[Oxymoron]

That aside, I don't think an industrial process involving speeds as high as 2000+ rpm concentrated to produce a deliberate effect is a fair example of what might have happened in the collapse.

Funny you should say that... I had a similar thought pop into my head.

 

[Mick West]

In any event, given that there's seemingly enough evidence of Molten steel to have Jazzy and Mike arguing for its presence being an obvious result, can someone tell me what the hell John Gross was talking about?

He said he did not know of any evidence of pools of molten steel. I agree with him.

​

The problem is that the vast majority of the testimony is verbal descriptions. Look at the video above. You have the two firefighters saying there were rivers of molten metal, like "lava". Nothing to indicate it was steel - it could have been aluminum or lead.

Then, consider what people mean by "molten". Consider what the guy says about the WTC Cross, something the above video presents as evidence for molten steel:

"and there, this cross, fully extended, melted together with the intense heat, the two beams were never initially part of the same structure, heat literally melted them together, and the piece of metal that's draped over was molten metal that had literally fallen over one of the arms"

Quite frankly, that's nonsense. The cross was NOT melted together, there's nothing melted at all about the beams other than their original welds. The two beams obviously WERE part of the same structure. And the piece of metal "draped" over them is about as far from "molten metal" as you can get. It looks more like it was crushed around the one arm.

So here you've got a guy going on about "molten metal" and things "melted together", when the thing he's talking about is STANDING RIGHT BEHIND HIM, and quite obviously is entirely unlike what he is talking about.

So, yes, things got very hot in the pile. Maybe even melted some metal. But not every account of "molten metal" is actually molten metal.

 

[Grieves]

Fair, not every single testimony can be considered accurate. It's still evidence though, one way or another... Plus the photos, plus Astaneh-Asl's unpublished findings. Many of these claims of molten steel were sourced in news agencies NIST itself used for evidence, and his interview was years after the event/most of the NIST report, so what in the hell is he talking about? How could he, a lead engineer of NIST, the organization that's supposed to be thoroughly investigating the events, have not even heard that there might have been molten steel present? That's either indicative of a lie or that NIST bungled the investigation even more spectacularly than previously imagined. His narrow stare and his thin-drawn smile when the topic comes up doesn't do him any favors either.

 

[George B]

This discussion seems to be way into speculation . . . kinetic energy weapons and focused welding techniques are one thing but suggesting that bending steel in a collapse would create molten steel as was suggested at WTC 1,2 & 7 is a stretch IMO . . . show me one example of such a phenomenon outside of a laboratory, warfare or welding . . .

The modern KE weapon maximizes KE and minimizes the area over which it is delivered by:


being fired with a very high muzzle velocity
concentrating the force in a small impact area while still retaining a relatively large mass
maximizing the mass of whatever (albeit small) volume is occupied by the projectile—that is, using the densest metals practical, which is one of the reasons depleted uranium is often used.
This has led to the current designs which resemble a long metal arrow.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_penetrator

 

[lee h oswald]

[h=1]WTC: Molten Steel - Was there any?[/h]
Yes, according to these two videos, there was molten steel (or iron), both of which require sustained temperatures of over 1500C. The only other possibility is that the molten metal seen is aluminium, which itself requires sustained temperatures of 660C to become molten (Al alloys have a lower and higher melt point depending on make up). However, it's a moot point because molten aluminium is silver in colour on its surface, especially as it cools (as it would falling through the air). Molten steel and iron are orange. It needs to be remembered that carbon based fires will only reach 800C in perfect conditions - and we know the conditions were far from perfect, black smoke = oxygen deprivation/exhausted fuel - not hot enough to cause steel or iron to liquify as seen in the videos.

​

​

[h=1]Why?[/h]
Because something in that tower, other than carbon based fire, caused temperatures in excess of 1500C for a sustained period and just prior to collapse in the case of the south tower as shown in video. I'd estimate the volume of that molten material as being a few tons.

What? and How? Would be better questions.

 

[Mick West]

Because something in that tower, other than carbon based fire, caused temperatures in excess of 1500C for a sustained period and just prior to collapse in the case of the south tower as shown in video. I'd estimate the volume of that molten material as being a few tons.

What? and How? Would be better questions.

Where? I think would be the better question. Where did all this molten metal go? Why did nobody find any blobs, or solidified rivulets, or large spheres (solidified while falling), or splats (distorted on impact), of melted steel?

If there's tons of the stuff, then where did it go?

 

[lee h oswald]

Where? I think would be the better question. Where did all this molten metal go? Why did nobody find any blobs, or solidified rivulets, or large spheres (solidified while falling), or splats (distorted on impact), of melted steel? If there's tons of the stuff, then where did it go?

Where did it go? China probably. The site wasn't preserved, it was cleared by huge machinery picking up tons at a time and dumping it into huge buckets to be quickly shipped off. But where did it go in the first instance - after pouring off the building, that what you mean, too? If so, I reckon the answer to that is it was hitting the ground just outside the tower and then the tower collapsed all over it....then came the machines..... So you agree the videos show molten steel or iron pouring off?

 

[Mick West]

Where did it go? China probably. The site wasn't preserved, it was cleared by huge machinery picking up tons at a time and dumping it into huge buckets to be quickly shipped off. But where did it go in the first instance - after pouring off the building, that what you mean, too? If so, I reckon the answer to that is it was hitting the ground just outside the tower and then the tower collapsed all over it....then came the machines..... So you agree the videos show molten steel or iron pouring off?

No, they show something red hot falling. Maybe embers. Who knows?

If there's these eyewitness account of molten steel, then why so hard to find any solidified steel? Why in the THOUSANDS of photos of the site, is there nothing that resembles a blob or pool of steel?

 

[SR1419]

It's still evidence though, one way or another... Plus the photos, plus Astaneh-Asl's unpublished findings. .

You have mentioned Astaneh-Asl a few times- can you elaborate on what "unpublished findings" you think there are? Perhaps you should ask him yourself. He is certainly very open, active in his research, testified before congress, and saw no evidence of planted explosives when he examined steel from the collapsed towers and WTC 7...nor do his conclusions vary greatly from NIST conclusions

http://www.astaneh.net/

One week after the 9/11/2001 tragedy, started reconnaissance and investigation of the collapsed World Trade Center towers in New York supported by the National Science Foundation. Later, in May of 2002, I testified before the Committee on Science of the House of Representatives on my findings and received drawings of the WTC from the Committee to continue my studies of the WTC structure. Since then, I have led a team of more than 11 highly qualified volunteer researchers and engineers and have completed the analyses of the impact of various airplanes on the World Trade Center towers in order to learn lessons from this tragedy that can be used to prevent such catastrophic collapses and to save lives.
Since the 9/11, each year, I have given a Memorial Lecture on the WTC, remembering the victims and first responders who so heroically gave their lives to save others, and then providing an update on engineering aspects of the collapse and reconstruction of the WTC buildings. This year, I am devoting most of the Memorial Lecture to release, for the first time, the results of our five- year studies of the structural aspects of the WTC design and the collapse. Our 5-year analysis primarily focused on finding an answer to the question of: "What would have happened if instead of the unusual and relatively light bearing wall structural system with no framing, used in the WTC towers, a more traditional system of structural framing used in almost any other structure, was used? Very few people are aware of the fact that the WTC towers did not need to follow any design code and did not need to obtain the construction permit from the City. The structural system used in the towers was an unusual system of "Steel Exterior Bearing Walls and Interior Compression Columns" with no framing system in between. There is no record of use of such a system before or after the design and construction of the World Trade Center. The issue of structural design of the WTC and its effects on the fate of these towers on that tragic day has not been studied or reported by other studies of the WTC. The results presented here will show what would have happened if the towers were designed following the code and using the structural systems used in almost any other building structure instead of the unique system used in the collapsed WTC towers.

He does believe he saw melted girders and does lament the quick dispersal of the wreckage but his opinion of the collapse does not vary greatly from NIST:

"The collapse of the [Twin Towers] was most likely due to the intense fire initiated by the jet fuel of the planes and continued due to burning of the building contents."

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=abolhassan_astaneh_asl_1


Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl examines steel from the World Trade Center.

 

[lee h oswald]

No, they show something red hot falling. Maybe embers. Who knows?

If there's these eyewitness account of molten steel, then why so hard to find any solidified steel? Why in the THOUSANDS of photos of the site, is there nothing that resembles a blob or pool of steel?

Something red hot falling, yes; but better - pouring. Embers? They blow away, upwards usually, definitely not embers.

If there's these eyewitness account of molten steel, then why so hard to find any solidified steel?

Because it was at the bottom of the pile - I'm talking about the videos put up to answer the main question of the thread - what we've seen there - and I say it's most likely to be molten steel or iron. The pile wasn't preserved as a crime scene - it was destroyed like a demolition site, by big Hi-Macs - scary things - cleared without care in double quick time. Not very forensic, the Hi-Mac.

Why in the THOUSANDS of photos of the site, is there nothing that resembles a blob or pool of steel?

Never mind those, I've not seen them - but I have seen these two videos up there ^^^ with molten metal

 

[Jazzy]

Not really, it was (mostly) concentrated into a volume about five acres in area, and 120 feet high, over a second or so. That's very different to a single instantaneous impact at a point or a plane. From a physics point of view it was a lot of individual events in both space and time. To describe it as a single event, and perform calculations thusly, is an over simplification that just gives the bounds of the problem, not the reality.

Well, that's wrong, isn't it?

Most of the energy ended up in the steel. Neither air nor concrete had a hope of extracting a majority of the energy involved.

The core columns punched the basement foundations every time they reacted to punching off the next floor in an aggregating mass of floors. That would have been 50+ times.

The forces were at their strongest the deepest down in the maelstrom of the core column basement foundations. The column bases would have been upset. That's a technical term. Their girth would have increased as they shortened. A significant proportion of the original potential energy would have been concentrated right at the foundations in the steel pressing down against them by virtue of the design of the building.

"Hot spots" were inevitable because they were the reaction points against which each floor was being sheared off during the collapse.

So this is the only aspect of that calculation you present which even begins to take time into account, being representative of the pull of gravity, and the rate of acceleration of objects under it's influence.

The inclusion of time is necessary to make the summation of the energy in the statement PE = 0.5*Mgh. "It's" means "it is".

However: (quotes an irrelevance). So because there's no room in your 'simple, indisputable' calculation for anything but free-fall speeds under the wholly unresisted force of gravity, nor is there room for the influence of the atmosphere and obstructing objects, your calculation is inherently flawed, is it not? Especially considering the anti-'truthers' have tried to make it terribly clear the towers did not reach free-fall speeds, which are the conditions your calculation applies too, if any.

The atmosphere does very little to obstruct the passage of descending steel. "Obstructing objects" are part of the above equation. The towers fell at 2/3 free fall, but that isn't material, except to say that a portion of that retardation was taken up by heating the reacting column bases.

It is your understanding of the nature and purpose of calculations in physics that is at fault.

The official account demands that the descent of most of the steel mass was repeatedly obstructed.

Not in the report I read.

Am I right in reading that you think/believe that the vast majority of the energy created by the collapses of the towers went to heating the steel to near its melting point of 1500C or thereabouts?

No.

And then it stayed that way for weeks? By what mechanism?

The way your fridge works.

Also, you stated that crushing concrete doesn't require much energy

Just give me a sledgehammer and I'll show you.

but just how much energy does it take to pulverise 440.000 sq metres of steel RC (per tower) 100-125mm thick with a compressive strength of 3-3500 psi and set in corrugated steel decking? And after reducing said concrete to very small bits, in the main, distribute it over a wide area in the form of a - hot - pyroclastic dust cloud? What about all that energy? You haven't mentioned it.

Yes I have. I have already said it was an insignificant part. The WHOLE of the energy was equivalent to this:

​

Have a look at any destroyed battle tank. How did that come about? Magic?

Magic? No. Explosives.

Sometimes a solid round does the job, so explosives? No. Kinetic energy.

The columns were candidates for a lot of friction welding (and sparks) as dozens of floors sheared by them.

Friction welding in a few seconds of chaos? I don't think so. Sparks would be normal, but sparks don't weld anything. It's quite hard to light a fire with a spark - even when you've got the best of conditions set for it.

Wedding would take place AFTER things were stopped. Prior to that there would be flow. Hot iron moving in friction against itself will produce sparks.

And when you say 'all slagged up' do you mean by that the core is covered with slag from previously molten metal?

It has just had a hundred floors slide by it in an unfriendly manner. That will have melted stuff.

Putting it politely, I think the buckling instability is inherent in your absurd hypothesis.

You shouldn't make claims beyond your means. I am glad the phrase "buckling instability" stuck in your mind. You should grasp the straw and test the proposition.

it checks out with the exception that the height of the twin towers was 409 and 411 metres (according to wiki), so he has underestimated the value by about 2.5%.

I didn't include the radio masts.

What do you think happened to all that energy?

Yes indeed. Where DID it go? Grieves? Lee?

The math is based on a false premise, though... that the towers, and all its separate segments, were in free-fall all the way down

No. It isn't, and you are wrong. It is based on the energy available for release if a collapse occurs.

There was undoubtedly a whole lot of kinetic energy involved in the collapse, and assuredly it produced a fair deal of heat, but there was ample opportunities for dissipation throughout.

Well, no. The kinetic energy was one and the same as the potential energy, and there were places where that energy couldn't so easily dissipate.

Friction welding techniques are generally melt-free, which avoids grain growth in engineered materials, such as high-strength heat-treated steels.

That isn't true at all. Grain growth typically occurs in solid solution in solid metal at temperatures much lower than melt.

I don't think an industrial process involving speeds as high as 2000+ rpm concentrated to produce a deliberate effect is a fair example of what might have happened in the collapse.

Let's see, shall we? 2000 rpm is 33.3 turns per second, and a six-inch diameter pipe surface would therefore be traveling at 52.4 feet per second. The 50,000 ton floor sandwich reached 200 feet per second.
You are correct. It doesn't even begin to provide a fair example. A sixteenth of a fair example would be closer to the truth. Oxymoron take note...

In any event, given that there's seemingly enough evidence of molten steel to have Jazzy and Mike arguing for its presence being an obvious result, can someone tell me what the hell John Gross was talking about?

You misrepresent what has occurred. There has never been any evidence of molten steel. Talking about "evidence of molten steel" isn't actually evidence of molten steel, you know.

Let's take the amount of energy as correct, as it gives a useful upper bound.

Amen.

It's not really important, as the amount of molten steel we are talking about is very small

You […wrong]. We aren't talking about molten steel at all, just "hotspots". There were NO fires in the rubble capable of melting the steel at all. Not even steel already raised to melt temperature.

the heat in the pile is thought to have come from fires, and there were plenty of sources of ignition.

You cannot melt steel at 1535 deg C with an 1100 deg C flame.

The question is if there's a realistic mechanism whereby the energy could be concentrated in a volume of steel

Yes, and I have already described it.

It seems pretty obvious that if you drop an individual girder from 1000 feet onto concrete, then it's not going to melt, it's probably not even going to get particularly warm. There has to be a particular mechanism, sudden bending or prolonged friction or extreme impact pressure with additional weight, to make this happen.

It may seem "obvious" but the plain fact is that it still has the same amount of potential energy that it ever had, and when it came to rest the majority of its potential energy would reside as hotter steel. It will be severely distorted somewhere, and that place would be extremely hot - for a moment. The girder would then equilibrate to some warmer temperature.

The distinction you have to make is that the columns (particularly the inner ones) had a continual hand in arresting that downward motion of everything else which concentrated energy at their bases. Instead of being "mildly warmed" they were dealing with severe impact loads from many sources. Energy, in the loosest sense, was being channeled to the foundations via the columns.

It's all interesting from a thought experiment though, but I don't think it really has much bearing on the plausibility of the conspiracy theory, or the validity of the OS.

You could be right there. For want of the necessary.

I keep trying to have sensible and constructive dialogue, I have offered out many an olive branch and had abuse in response... so yes, let's by all means have a constructive and polite discussion.

I know it's hard. I'll try my best to help you out.

Perhaps we can start with an instance or two where kinetic energy has produced molten steel in a collapse. Followed by a documented instance or two where Jazzy's equation has used to account for the production of said volume of molten steel. And finally perhaps some instances of experiments conducted which predict the production of a set quantity of molten steel from a collapse; followed by the actual quantity of molten steel produced by each experiment.

Why? I don't believe there was any molten steel to be seen. Maybe molten metal. There were tons of cast zinc and cast aluminum furnishings, of course, and eighty tons of plane in a bonfire.

Try and understand that there were hundreds of tons of lower-melting-temperature alloys in the towers.

I would humbly suggest that the majority of that energy went into pulverizing the constituent parts of the building.

And you'd be wrong. There is very little energy in a twenty-second roar of noise and 50 million cubic feet of hot air. Not compared with 95 tons of TNT. Steel cannot actually be pulverized at ambient temperature. It needs to be deeply frozen for that to happen. The energy resides in the steel. It's where the mass is.

Unsurprisingly reinforced concrete does actually take considerable energy to be converted into dust.

The steel portion of it was never converted into dust. The concrete is brittle and converts to dust easily once it fails.

Fair, not every single testimony can be considered accurate. It's still evidence though, one way or another

It isn't evidence at all if it isn't evidence.

Plus the photos, plus Astaneh-Asl's unpublished findings. Many of these claims of molten steel were sourced in news agencies NIST itself used for evidence, and his interview was years after the event/most of the NIST report, so what in the hell is he talking about? How could he, a lead engineer of NIST, the organization that's supposed to be thoroughly investigating the events, have not even heard that there might have been molten steel present? That's either indicative of a lie or that NIST bungled the investigation even more spectacularly than previously imagined. His narrow stare and his thin-drawn smile when the topic comes up doesn't do him any favors either.

This does you none at all. Either.

Keep on stretching.

 

[lee h oswald]

Here is Leslie Robertson. Senior engineer on the original wtc design. In his own words, at 50-60 seconds in this video, he admits to molten steel at level B1. Date not specified.

​

 

[lee h oswald]

Well, that's wrong, isn't it?

Most of the energy ended up in the steel. Neither air nor concrete had a hope of extracting a majority of the energy involved.

The core columns punched the basement foundations every time they reacted to punching off the next floor in an aggregating mass of floors. That would have been 50+ times.

The forces were at their strongest the deepest down in the maelstrom of the core column basement foundations. The column bases would have been upset. That's a technical term. Their girth would have increased as they shortened. A significant proportion of the original potential energy would have been concentrated right at the foundations in the steel pressing down against them by virtue of the design of the building.

"Hot spots" were inevitable because they were the reaction points against which each floor was being sheared off during the collapse.


The inclusion of time is necessary to make the summation of the energy in the statement PE = 0.5*Mgh. "It's" means "it is".


The atmosphere does very little to obstruct the passage of descending steel. "Obstructing objects" are part of the above equation. The towers fell at 2/3 free fall, but that isn't material, except to say that a portion of that retardation was taken up by heating the reacting column bases.

It is your understanding of the nature and purpose of calculations in physics that is at fault.


Not in the report I read.


No.


The way your fridge works.


Just give me a sledgehammer and I'll show you.


Yes I have. I have already said it was an insignificant part. The WHOLE of the energy was equivalent to this:

​


Sometimes a solid round does the job, so explosives? No. Kinetic energy.


Wedding would take place AFTER things were stopped. Prior to that there would be flow. Hot iron moving in friction against itself will produce sparks.


It has just had a hundred floors slide by it in an unfriendly manner. That will have melted stuff.

View attachment 1409


You shouldn't make claims beyond your means. I am glad the phrase "buckling instability" stuck in your mind. You should grasp the straw and test the proposition.


I didn't include the radio masts.


Yes indeed. Where DID it go? Grieves? Lee?


No. It isn't, and you are wrong. It is based on the energy available for release if a collapse occurs.


Well, no. The kinetic energy was one and the same as the potential energy, and there were places where that energy couldn't so easily dissipate.


That isn't true at all. Grain growth typically occurs in solid solution in solid metal at temperatures much lower than melt.


Let's see, shall we? 2000 rpm is 33.3 turns per second, and a six-inch diameter pipe surface would therefore be traveling at 52.4 feet per second. The 50,000 ton floor sandwich reached 200 feet per second.
You are correct. It doesn't even begin to provide a fair example. A sixteenth of a fair example would be closer to the truth. Oxymoron take note...


You misrepresent what has occurred. There has never been any evidence of molten steel. Talking about "evidence of molten steel" isn't actually evidence of molten steel, you know.


Amen.


You […wrong]. We aren't talking about molten steel at all, just "hotspots". There were NO fires in the rubble capable of melting the steel at all. Not even steel already raised to melt temperature.


You cannot melt steel at 1535 deg C with an 1100 deg C flame.


Yes, and I have already described it.


It may seem "obvious" but the plain fact is that it still has the same amount of potential energy that it ever had, and when it came to rest the majority of its potential energy would reside as hotter steel. It will be severely distorted somewhere, and that place would be extremely hot - for a moment. The girder would then equilibrate to some warmer temperature.

The distinction you have to make is that the columns (particularly the inner ones) had a continual hand in arresting that downward motion of everything else which concentrated'/b] energy at their bases. Instead of being "mildly warmed" they were dealing with severe impact loads from many sources. Energy, in the loosest sense, was being channeled to the foundations via the columns.


You could be right there. For want of the necessary.


I know it's hard. I'll try my best to help you out.


Why? I don't believe there was any molten steel to be seen. Maybe molten metal. There were tons of cast zinc and cast aluminum furnishings, of course, and eighty tons of plane in a bonfire.

Try and understand that there were hundreds of tons of lower-melting-temperature alloys in the towers.


And you'd be wrong. There is very little energy in a twenty-second roar of noise and 50 million cubic feet of hot air. Not compared with 95 tons of TNT. Steel cannot actually be pulverized at ambient temperature. It needs to be deeply frozen for that to happen. The energy resides in the steel. It's where the mass is.


The steel portion of it was never converted into dust. The concrete is brittle and converts to dust easily once it fails.


It isn't evidence at all if it isn't evidence.


This does you none at all. Either.

Keep on stretching.

Blimey! I recommend a healthy dose of Dr Dade's medicine. Don't Read, Don't Answer, Don't Engage. This way madness lies, not to mention time wasted! Jazzy - your hypothesis is pretty bizarre, yet you seem convinced. Too much cafe con leche and too much soleil - can make you crazy in ze 'ead!

 

[MikeC]

The math is based on a false premise, though... that the towers, and all its separate segments, were in free-fall all the way down, and it doesn't seem to account for the fact (unless I'm totally missing something in the equation) that it didn't all hit the ground at once. There was undoubtedly a whole lot of kinetic energy involved in the collapse, and assuredly it produced a fair deal of heat, but there was ample opportunities for dissipation throughout.

Less than 30 seconds for each tower AFAIK. that does not sound like "ample time" for a nmassive amount of energy to dissipate "throughout"!

whether it is in freefall or not is completely irrelevant to the amount of potential energy they represent

 

[Jazzy]

Blimey! I recommend a healthy dose of Dr Dade's medicine. Don't Read, Don't Answer, Don't Engage. This way madness lies, not to mention time wasted! Jazzy - your hypothesis is pretty bizarre, yet you seem convinced. Too much cafe con leche and too much soleil - can make you crazy in ze 'ead!

Thanks, Lee. You met my expectations perfectly. Insults without engagement.

 

[Jazzy]

The only other possibility is that the molten metal seen is aluminium, which itself requires sustained temperatures of 660C to become molten (Al alloys have a lower and higher melt point depending on make up). However, it's a moot point because molten aluminium is silver in colour on its surface, especially as it cools (as it would falling through the air).

A great view of the buckling process.

The fact that it pours out from just below where the aircraft wreckage lay surrounded in flames isn't a clue, then?

Or the fact that it turns silver/white as it descends? Or that gouts of it appear as a floor collapses, and then the building lets go?

That cognitive bias never lets up, does it?

 

[lee h oswald]

The question is if there's a realistic mechanism whereby the energy could be concentrated in a volume of steel enough to melt it. Now we can theorize about girders bending really fast, or something under extreme pressure sliding down the "spire". But would that actually result in molten steel? Would it be much? It does not seem particularly plausible to me.

It seems pretty obvious that if you drop an individual girder from 1000 feet onto concrete, then it's not going to melt, it's probably not even going to get particularly warm. There has to be a particular mechanism, sudden bending or prolonged friction or extreme impact pressure with additional weight, to make this happen.

That's a very polite way of putting it, but perfect in its way.

 

[Mick West]

That's a very polite way of putting it, but perfect in its way.

Politeness is the oil in the Metabunk engine.

Speaking of which, I'm off travelling again with limited connectivity. So less opportunity to moderate. Y'all be nice now.

 

[Joe]

Politeness is the oil in the Metabunk engine.

Speaking of which, I'm off travelling again with limited connectivity. So less opportunity to moderate. Y'all be nice now.

Watch that Carbon Footprint

 

[Jazzy]

That's a very polite way of putting it, but perfect in its way.

I knew we could agree on something.

It seems pretty obvious that if you drop an individual girder from 1000 feet onto concrete, then it's not going to melt, it's probably not even going to get particularly warm. There has to be a particular mechanism, sudden bending or prolonged friction or extreme impact pressure with additional weight, to make this happen.

So let us put it to the test. The amount of falling steel is found both sides of the PE = Q equation, so may be ignored.

We are talking about 0.5*g*h equalling c*(t2-t1).

So (t2-t1) = 0.5*g*h / c = 0.5*9.81*387 / 4.9*10^2 = 3.87 degrees C

So that is what happens to a tower roof steel.

The core vertical columns didn't fall, then collide with Gzero. They instead reacted the shock loads caused by shearing 100 floor connections straight to the foundations. The civil engineering foundations - the plate-to-slab interfaces, were where the real action occurred.

One shouldn't be surprised that it was red hot down there. But red hot is NOT the color of molten steel. That is a BRIGHT YELLOWISH WHITE.

Fridges work by insulation. The rubble served as an insulator for the hot upset steel clumps which were formerly neat column bases.

 

[George B]

I knew we could agree on something.


So let us put it to the test. The amount of falling steel is found both sides of the PE = Q equation, so may be ignored.

We are talking about 0.5*g*h equalling c*(t2-t1).

So (t2-t1) = 0.5*g*h / c = 0.5*9.81*387 / 4.9*10^2 = 3.87 degrees C

So that is what happens to a tower roof steel.

The core vertical columns didn't fall, then collide with Gzero. They instead reacted the shock loads caused by shearing 100 floor connections straight to the foundations. The civil engineering foundations - the plate-to-slab interfaces, were where the real action occurred.

One shouldn't be surprised that it was red hot down there. But red hot is NOT the color of molten steel. That is a BRIGHT YELLOWISH WHITE.

Fridges work by insulation. The rubble served as an insulator for the hot upset steel clumps which were formerly neat column bases.

Sounds no more plausible than a controlled demolition . . .

 

[Jazzy]

Sounds no more plausible than a controlled demolition

Give your reasons.

 

[George B]

Give your reasons.

I have never seen it before . . .

Show me an example of structural steel in a controlled demolition showing significant (hundreds of degrees) heat generation because of deformation or collision . . . enough to cause hot spots lasting for days . . .