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Meme: Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams (16 posts)

1. truthmod
   Administrator

   http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jet-fuel-can-t-melt-...

   “Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams” is an assertion made by September 11th, 2001 attack conspiracy theorists that the burning fuel from crashed planes would not have been able to melt the supporting beams of the World Trade Center. The claim is widely mocked online for being based on flawed evidence. Origin

   On April 13th, 2005, the first installment of the Loose Change[1] film series was released, which argued that the September 11th, 2001 attacks were orchestrated by the United States government. The film claims that the burning fires within the World Trade Center towers would not have been hot enough to compromise its structural integrity, alleging that a controlled demolition actually brought down the two buildings.

   

   Posted 8 years ago #
2. BrianG
   Member

   Jet fuel can't melt steel beams. Engineer Jonathan Cole demonstrated this when he burned steel beams in the presence of various mixtures of kerosene, powdered gypsum drywall, and aluminum--and found that after several days of burning, no damage was done to the steel. Jet fuel burns at a maximum theoretical temperature of 1800 degrees F, while steel needs 2800 F to melt.

   But the issue is more complicated than that. In the days after 9/11, a lot of authorities that should have known better told us that the jet fuel melted the beams. The first two minutes of this five-minute video catalogue some of that.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF4C6qtU_Fc

   The meme that jet fuel CAN melt steel beams was there first. It was a lie. So along came the meme that jet fuel can not melt steel. A fact. So now anyone who can find their way to 911myths.com can tell you it's not necessary to melt the steel to cause a collapse, but only to weaken it. A fact. But few are well-enough informed to tell you that NIST's study of the core steel samples from the towers found that none of them had been heated beyond 480 F. That's not enough to weaken it.

   Meanwhile we have the truthers circulating conflicting memes: jet fuel can not melt steel--but there was melted steel. Americans like their memes simple. Thus the melted steel reported by 5 PhDs and a FDNY Captain and Appendix C to the FEMA report must be -- well, let's just forget the whole thing, shall we? It makes my dumbass American head hurt. Not my problem. I'm not an engineer experienced in the design of 100-story buildings. The government report was thorough--and so what if they didn't analyze the collapses? It was 10,000 pages for crissakes! What do you want? What are you, a conspiracy nut?

   AE911Truth now has 30 PhD engineers signed on to its petition calling for new 9/11 investigations. 3 of those are Stanford PhDs.

   Posted 8 years ago #
3. mark
   Member

   Steel loses strength long before it "melts."

   That's the principle of blacksmithing.

   I assume in this post modern age most people have never witnessed blacksmiths doing their craft.

   It doesn't matter how many people sign a petition, the laws of physics are not changed by politics.

   Arguing over alleged melting of the WTC makes as little sense as debating how many bullets were fired in Dealey Plaza.

   The contents of the towers burned with high winds intensifying the fire.

   Aluminum cladding, on the other hand, melts at much lower temperatures than steel, not that this fact matters at this late date.

   It's fortunate the WTC stayed standing as long as they did, since that allowed most people below the impacts to escape.

   The only "controlled demolition" was of the 9/11 Half Truth Movement.

   Posted 8 years ago #
4. truthmover
   Administrator

   Ae911truth does not support 9/11 truth.

   Posted 8 years ago #
5. BrianG
   Member

   mark, as I said,

   "Anyone who can find their way to 911myths.com can tell you it's not necessary to melt the steel to cause a collapse, but only to weaken it. A fact. But few are well-enough informed to tell you that NIST's study of the core steel samples from the towers found that none of them had been heated beyond 480 F. That's not enough to weaken them."

   tm, so is it your position that the 30 PhD engineers who have put their professional reputations on the line by calling for new 9/11 investigations are not supporting 9/11 truth?

   How exactly are they not supporting 9/11 truth? What does Nick Levis think, Janice Matthews, Michael Berger, Eric Salter?

   I supported 9/11 truth only because, as a failed novelist, I had nothing to lose. Were I a PhD engineer I would invent elaborate reasons for refusing to address the facts--which is why I never considered becoming any kind of professional at all. I knew it would corrupt me. I have enormous admiration for the professionals who have the courage to risk everything for which they have sacrificed. And risk it for what? For ridicule, for ostracism, for slander, for doors slamming closed throughout their world--and for science and for truth.

   Posted 8 years ago #
6. mark
   Member

   Arguing about the collapse of the towers is like arguing whether the Reichstag was burned with gasoline or kerosene.

   "Just because someone says the government is lying does not mean they are telling the truth." - John Judge, Coalition on Political Assassinations (1947-2014)

   ---

   implosionworld.com

   A Critical Analysis of the Collapse of WTC Towers 1, 2 & 7 From an Explosives and Conventional Demolition Industry Viewpoint By Brent Blanchard August 6, 2006

   "for explosives to be considered as a primary or supplemental catalyst, one would have to accept that either a) dozens of charges were placed on those exact impact floors in advance and survived the initial violent explosions and 1100+ degree Fahrenheit fires, or b) while the fires were burning, charges were installed undetected throughout the impact floors and wired together, ostensibly by people hiding in the buildings with boxes of explosives. There is no third choice that could adequately explain explosives causing failure at the exact impact points.

   "The chemical properties of explosives and their reaction to heat render scenario A scientifically impossible and scenario B remarkably unlikely."

   Posted 8 years ago #
7. BrianG
   Member

   So mark, do you have good reason to believe that heat-resistant explosives do not exist? AFAIK, binary explosives are inert until they are mixed.

   Why would it be necessary to place the explosive or incendiary charges on only the exact impact floors? One could simply place charges on the entire region, and then after the airplane had struck select the appropriate charges on one's Apple II computer for detonation.

   The Saudet video seems to show that the initial collapses of floors were several stories above the impact zone in WTC1. The fact of the antenna drop before the inception of collapse suggests a core failure (and hat-truss failure) as the initiating factors. NIST's core steel samples do not show heating adequate to weaken them.

   Mr. Blanchard's vision is limited by his profession. He's like an expert executioner who will tell you that no one gets killed by bricks, pistols, shotguns, automobiles, hungry hogs, falling pianos, or poison darts because executions are always done by lethal injection.

   Posted 8 years ago #
8. mark
   Member

   A good example of the wild speculation that sank the 9/11 Half Truth Movement.

   Posted 8 years ago #
9. BrianG
   Member

   What speculation are you referring to? Do you deny that fireproof explosives exist?

   Do you deny that charges placed up and down from the impact zone could be detonated under the control of an Apple II computer?

   Posted 8 years ago #
10. truthmod
    Administrator

    https://www.rt.com/usa/326180-blacksmith-911-jet-f...

    A frustrated Georgia blacksmith made a video to debunk a common argument made by 9/11 sceptics that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.” The viral video racked up more than two million views in just a day.

    Posted 8 years ago #
11. BrianG
    Member

    Interestingly, Mr. Tye does not put his powerful pinkie exerting axial (lengthwise) pressure on his piece of steel, a demonstration that might actually be relevant to the issue of weakened steel in the towers.

    Instead he did a demonstration exploiting enormous leverage, which has nothing to do with the initiating failures of the towers, and it exploits an unrealistically massive anchor (the anvil) which is also outside the realm of the towers.

    Also interesting is that he found it necessary to heat his steel in a furnace to 1800 F, while stating that jet fuel burns at 1500 F tops. Would it be too much to ask that his demonstration heat the steel in an actual kerosene fire instead of an oxygen-fed furnace?

    I'm sorry the conflicting memes are confusing, but that's how it is.

    First the media's experts assured us that jet fuel had melted the steel structure. This 5-minute video provides some clips and quotes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF4C6qtU_Fc

    After a few months, the experts got wise and stopped making that claim.

    The problem was, there was melted steel. 5 PhDs attested to it. Two were professors of engineering at Berkeley and MIT. Dr. Astaneh-Asl told PBS "I saw melting of girders". He has photos. The FEMA Appendix C report brings in 3 more PhDs who wrote about "intergranular melting" in the steel samples they studied. The New York Times called this "vaporized" steel "perhaps the deepest mystery" of the investigation.

    Jet fuel can not melt steel. A fact. But there was melted steel. Another fact.

    Enter the distraction meme: "It is not necessary to melt steel to weaken it." Another fact. But it's irrelevant to the fact of the melted steel. And it's made moot by the fact that the government's carefully-selected core-steel samples only show heating to 480 F--not the 1800 F we saw in Mr. Tye's demonstration. I would be curious to know how a steel bar heated to 480 F would fare in the demo. But I don't expect that Mr. Tye would want to demonstrate that.

    Posted 8 years ago #
12. truthmover
    Administrator

    Dude, you are overdoing it. He pulls the rod out of a furnace. Example irrelevant.

    Posted 8 years ago #
13. truthmod
    Administrator

    Is there any explanation/theory for the melted steel or is it denied or ignored? Could the energy created by the collapse do that or were there other fuel sources?

    Posted 8 years ago #
14. mark
    Member

    The contents of the towers were other fuel sources and the large holes in the side of the buildings ensured they acted as blast furnaces.

    Blacksmithing temperatures facilitate the weakening of the steel far below melting temperatures. It's fortunate the towers stayed standing as long as they did, which allowed most of those underneath the impacts to escape.

    I'm unaware of any adherent to the demolition claim who discusses in detail the shattering impacts on the structure that caused tremendous damage to the towers, or the fact that WTC 7 had a huge hole gouged into it by part of the collapsing north tower. It's a reason the rest of the country think the truthers are nuts and long ago moved on.

    Posted 8 years ago #
15. BrianG
    Member

    That's a perceptive question, tmod. Some people have suggested that frictional interactions during the collapses could have created sufficient heat to melt some of the steel. I'm not aware that any of them ever ran any numbers. Of course this is why it would have been nice if they had retained the steel for scientific examination instead of shipping it off to China lickety split.

    The NIST FAQs address the melted steel issue. http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/faqs_wt...

    The statement, as do many of the FAQ statements, contains some very weasely language.

    First they say the investigators and experts "found no evidence that would support the melting of steel in a jet-fuel ignited fire in the towers prior to collapse." Well, duh. Jet fuel does not melt steel. Did they find evidence supporting the melting of steel outside of the context of jet fuel? They don't say.

    Then they plead that melted steel, if any, "was irrelevant to the investigation of the collapse since it does not provide any conclusive information on the condition of the steel when the WTC towers were standing."

    If NIST were to restrict themselves to "conclusive" evidence, they wouldn't have any report at all. They frame their analysis of the towers' failure as a "Probable Collapse Sequence". Their REPORT is not conclusive.

    Then they claim that "under certain circumstances it is conceivable for some of the steel in the wreckage to have melted after the buildings collapsed." Unfortunately they can not be bothered to specify the circumstances under which this could happen. AFAIK the report makes no such claim--only the FAQs.

    Finally they claim that "high temperature resulting from long exposure to combustion within the pile" could have melted the steel. This is a satisfying argument intuitively. Unfortunately it is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which provides that it is impossible for a heated object to exceed the temperature of its heat source no matter how long it is heated. (The apparent exception is a refrigerator, but it functions only by putting energy into the system to run a compressor so the energies of evaporation and condensation can be exploited to move the heat.)

    NIST's report was in 2005. The FEMA report, Appendix C, (2002) discusses steel samples that the NYT called "evaporated" and "vaporized". http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf

    The PhD scientists concluded that the steel suffered a "sulfidation attack" that caused "intergranular melting" of the steel. They recommended that further studies be done to try to find the source of the sulfur. NIST did not undertake such studies.

    It has been suggested that powdered drywall could have been the sulfur source, but this is not possible. Drywall (CaSO4) is already fully oxidized, so it is chemically inert. That's why it's used for fireproofing. Jonathan Cole burned steel in a fire for several days in the presence of diesel fuel, aluminum, and drywall and no damage to the steel was produced.

    Posted 8 years ago #
16. BrianG
    Member

    Mark, the contents of the towers were computers, office furniture, and paper. According to NIST, office fires burn only 20 to 30 minutes in one location before the fuel is exhausted.

    Blast furnaces are called blast furnaces because air is blasted into them. Dr Thomas Eagar of MIT was one of the first relatively level-headed analysts to take a look at the issue.

    "The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1,000°C—hardly sufficient to melt steel at 1,500°C. But it is very difficult to reach this maximum temperature with a diffuse flame. . . . [B]lowing on a campfire or using a blacksmith’s bellows increases the rate of combustion by adding more oxygen. . . . It is known that the WTC fire was a fuel-rich, diffuse flame as evidenced by the copious black smoke. . . . However, it is highly unlikely that the steel at the WTC experienced temperatures above the 750–800°C range. All reports that the steel melted at 1,500°C are using imprecise terminology at best. . . . It is known that structural steel begins to soften around 425°C and loses about half of its strength at 650°C. . . . But even a 50% loss of strength is still insufficient, by itself, to explain the WTC collapse. It was noted above that the wind load controlled the design allowables. The WTC, on this low-wind day, was likely not stressed more than a third of the design allowable, which is roughly one-fifth of the yield strength of the steel. Even with its strength halved, the steel could still support two to three times the stresses imposed by a 650°C fire. ">

    http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Ea...

    Dr. Eagar tells us that a 650°C fire was survivable. NIST tells us that their core steel samples showed heating only to 250°C.

    Brian Clark was executive vice president at Euro Brokers on the 84th floor of WTC2. He was also a volunteer fire marshal. He walked down from 84 through the fire floors. At 31 he stopped to make phone calls. When he got to the street one of his co-evacuees looked back at the building "You know, I think those buildings could go down." Clark said, "There is no way. Those are steel structures. That's furniture and paper and carpeting and draperies and things like that that are burning." Then the building collapsed.

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/twin-towers-surv...

    As to the damage to the towers, Dr Eagar characterized the plane impact as "like a bullet hitting a tree."
    NIST considered a range of 1 core column to 6 core columns severed to be reasonable estimates for WTC1. When 1 column and 3 columns severed failed to generate a collapse, they decided that 6 columns must have been severed. It's interesting that they didn't test 4 and 5 columns severed.

    According to NIST, any south side damage to WTC7 played no part in collapse initiation. The reason for this position is obvious. Asymmetrical damage yields asymmetrical collapse.

    Posted 8 years ago #

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