PhysicsProf:
So -- I challenge you to provide evidence to support your statement, "the fires in WTC1, 2, and 7 did melt steel and that resulted in the collapses of the buildings and the explanation is so easy and so simple..." Perhaps a video of a steel beam melting (not just bending) during an office fire? Thanks.
I can only give you my common-sense analysis without being able to cite specific evidence, although I have to assume it exists. I think I saw the Nova episode that ArtistGuy linked to a few years ago. I watched the first few minutes and saw that they made reference to the floor supports softening and sagging (a.k.a. deforming) from high temperatures leading to the overall structural failure of the towers. That's the real answer so let me explore this.
So for starters, I was using the term "melting" in the colloquial sense, meaning the deformation and/or melting of the the steel and other metals in use in the buildings.
So I suppose that we can look at this in two parts:
The first part is that with respect to the steel girders, I am saying that they deformed due to high temperatures which ultimately caused the buildings to collapse. This is in contrast to the statement that you cited in your paper, "The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1000 °C -- hardly sufficient to melt steel at 1500 °C." In the quote from the paper above, they may or may not be referring to "melt" in the colloquial sense, but I don't think we need to get hung up on this issue. Your paper goes into considerable detail about the temperature/melting/deforming issue and I linked to it. I heard the same line of reasoning repeatedly in the lay press over the years. Something like "The burning temperature of jet fuel and/or office furnishings was lower than the temperature to melt and/or deform the structural steel. Therefore something must be amiss and/or there was a conspiracy that brought the buildings down because it would be impossible to cause the structural steel to fail." From looking at some of your talks and writings I think that is also one of your central themes.
The second part is that I don't think that anyone would disagree that while the steel girders were heating up and softening and then deforming, that metal was indeed literally melting as the towers burned. Exactly what was melting I don't precisely know but we all know of two facts that we can all agree on. There was molten metal pouring out one of the corners of the towers, everyone knows the video clip. Then when they were cleaning up they found pools of molten metal at the bases of the towers. I think but I am not sure that you might use that to support your argument that thermite or nano-thermite was used to melt the metal. However, my gut feel is that the amount of thermite needed to melt the estimated mass of molten metal in the bases of the towers would not make any sense at all. The argument that thermite was used to cut through the main support girders was clearly rebutted as being invalid when you estimate how much themite it would take to cut through a main support beam and what the cut would look like. I think ArtistGuy linked to an analysis showing this. Then ArtistGuy linked to a clip that clearly showed that the diagonal cuts in the main support beams were done by the teams doing the clean up.
Okay, so back to the first issue, how did the temperature get high enough to "melt," or more appropriately deform, the floor supports and the main support girders, etc, when the combustibles don't burn at that high a temperature?
Now we go back to basic physics to arrive at the explanation. The planes crashed into the towers and created a "cavern" of destruction and death inside each tower. The jet fuel burned off fairly quickly and you were basically left with a 3D volume that was insulated from the outside world by the non-burning floors above and below the impact zone. Each 3D volume still contained an aggressive burning fire.
So let's examine what the equivalent electrical circuit looks like: The burning fire is is a
power source. (It's not a voltage source or a current source.) The 3D volume is a capacitor, i.e.; it has some thermal capacitance. The insulation with respect to the outside world is a resistor (i.e.; a thermal resistance).
The voltage is analogous to the temperature.
So you have a power source putting power into a capacitor in parallel with a resistor. If the resistor is a high value, the voltage across the capacitor and resistor will increase and increase until the resistor is finally dissipating as much power as is being supplied by the power source.
So the ridiculously simple thermal modeling using an electrical circuit with three components tells you that
"the sky is (possibly) the limit" as far as the temperature goes inside the 3D cavity inside each WTC tower.Putting it another way:
The maximum temperature inside the burning cavity inside each tower had nothing to do with the maximum burning temperature of the jet fuel and other combustible materials.I will put it another way:
You are beaming a strong flux of infrared thermal heat power at the steel girders at X watts per square meter and they simply will soak it up and increase in temperature until they get so hot that they get soft and start to sag. Heat is being wicked away from the girders but at a much slower rate than the continuous bombardment of infrared heat power flux.
So there is common sense laid out for you with simple modeling using a basic electrical circuit. This is what I said was "one level above what you will see in the lay press."
The bottom line is that it's no surprise at all that the steel girders got so hot that they deformed leading to the collapse of the buildings, no surprise at all.
This is somewhat analogous to "flashover." In flashover the temperature in a room rises linearly with respect to time for the reasons outlined above until it gets so hot that everything in the room spontaneously starts to burn at the same time.
http://www.workingfire.net/misc3.htmThe scientific definition of flashover states it is caused by the radiation feedback of heat. Heat from the growing fire is absorbed into the upper walls and contents of the room, heating up the combustible gases and furnishings to their auto-ignition temperature. This build up of heat in the room triggers flashover.
This stuff is so basic that I am puzzled as to why after looking at a fair amount of your material, Professor Jones, that there is no mention of this concept. I watched all eight parts of one of your talks and you never address this issue of the natural process where the temperature has the potential to go so high that steel can literally melt. Did you ever consider this?
MileHigh
P.S.: Like everybody, I was shocked when the towers came down. I had no idea that it was going to happen ahead of time. But then you start to think about it after the fact and contemplate things, apply the basic physical concepts, review the evidence, absorb the available information, etc, and it all makes sense.
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Topic: 9/11 debate - enter at your own risk! (Read 975237 times)
