Melting steel?

originally posted by: and14263
a reply to: charolais

Good idea. As you probably know already - a steel is much stronger stressed against the grain than with the grain.

That is how 'spurious' metals pass charpy tests. The tester can examin the structure and look for stronger points.

Test samples would be used (10x10, etc) from the intended batch (or heat) of material to be used so there would be no getting away from poor material, if it is indeed poor. Also you have to test a number of times (usually 3 times) both in the longitudinal and transverse direction. The average is then taken from the tests and the person(s) performing the test will simply deem it a pass or fail.

A tester would not look for stronger points to find a pass park, the tester simply wouldn't care if it passed or failed.

a reply to: kwakakev

But for the steel to reach the same temperature as its flame infested environment there is a massive heat sink the size of the building that must be overcome first before any significant degradation of the steel can take place.

Then you have to explain why the steel rods used by the anvil guy only glowed white at one end.
Go back to his video and pause it at 1:50.
You will see that the rod goes from white hot to dull grey in less than 3 inches.
Then look up the conductivity of various materials.
copper 401
aluminum 205
carbon steel 54
Steel 1%carbon 45
Stainless steel 16
solid rock 2-7
All forms of steel make very poor heat sinks.
Try looking things up before believing conspiracies.

originally posted by: charolais
The thing is... the steel beams don't need to melt in order to lose a lot of their strength.

If you look at a stress vs strain chart for carbon steel at elevated temperatures you will see that the tensile strength and ultimate strength plummets over 1500F.

Since part of the building may have been damaged due to the collision with the plane, some of the beams will be put under elevated stress. Then take into account the increase in temp and bad things can happen.



But when it comes to WTC 7... it's anyones guess

this whole thing is BS....sure, when those steel temps get up to 1500F, you lose tensile strength.....but, has anyone ever seen glass-blowing?....they put the steel rods that has the glass component on one end and human hands on the other, only separated by a few feet of steel tube, into a 1000+ degree furnace to soften up the glass...what I'm saying is that those high temps are not at ALL locations of the metal itself, it dissipates rapidly according to the distance from the heat to your hands. a steel girder on the 20th floor that is 1000+ degrees in temp, may be 100 degrees on the 18th floor.....all the rest of those steel girders along all those floors underneath the airline impact, are much cooler, and have "the strength of steel" still in them.....I thought this was high school science, I learned this along time ago....now, if the entire structural steel frame in the many floors below were all at a constant 1000+ degrees (which it wasn't), the free fall effect might come into play, but, unless I missed something, the official governments report is BS.

a reply to: jimmyx

the official governments report is BS.

Prove it.

Steel beams can collapse under little more than their own weight in a structure fire. Even structure fires that don't involve large amounts of high btu value liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

State Journal Register


The Bressmer Co. Building fire 1948.

a reply to: and14263

You ever used an oxy cutter on thin 8mm steel? I have. That's how I know those columns in the WTC didn't melt.

I'm 56 and I've cut and welded steel most of my life and I have no idea what this response means. The beams (certainly not 8mm) do not require "melting" in order for them to turn to putty. Long before it would melt, it would lose virtually all of it's structural strength. What is your point? Thanks.

a reply to: Chadwickus

The man in the video is presenting a straw man argument, at-least with regards to molten steel.

Hes making the point that steel does not need to be exposed to 2700 degrees in order to WEAKEN. He tells us that his piece of steel was exposed to 1800 degrees.

He almost disproves his own argument.

We dont know for what length of time the metal was exposed to 1800 degrees. In addition, it was exposed to a CONSTANT +300 degrees HOTTER than jet fuel...



The truth movement is making the point that molten or MELTED steel was observed running down the sides of the WTC towers as well as the basement core columns.

Even this guy would have to agree that steel needs to be exposed to 2700 degrees in order to MELT.

Furthermore, we know that abnormally high temperature (for jet fuel) hot spots were present for days after the implosion AND that it took MONTHS to extinguish the WTC fires...

A jet fuel fire would not be burning at 1350 degrees 5 days later... Especially when you consider the fact that it had already been exposed to hundreds of thousands of gallons of water between the rain on the 14th and the firefighters.

Underground fires raged for months. O'Toole remembers in February [2002] seeing a crane lift a steel beam vertically from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero. "It was dripping from the molten steel," he said. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

It doesnt take months to extinguish a jet fuel fire unless of-course there was something else present in addition to jet fuel, say for example, thermite.

Thermite contains its own supply of oxygen, and does not require any external source such as air. Consequently, it cannot be smothered and may ignite in any environment, given sufficient initial heat. It will burn just as well while underwater, for example, and cannot even be extinguished with water, as water sprayed on a thermite reaction will instantly be boiled into steam. [Answers.com]

It was determined that 3 million gallons of water were hosed on site in the fire-fighting efforts between 9/11 and 9/21 (the day of the tritium measurement; samples 6 and 7 in Table I) (42).

In addition, there were two episodes of rain during the same 10-day period: on 9/14 and 9/20,21 (18), totaling 0.9 million gallons of water in the Bathtub area.

Considering the neighboring areas, we take 1 million gallons from the rain.

Therefore, a total of 4 million gallons of water percolated through the debris in the first 10 days and collected at the bottom of the Bathtub. [llnl.gov]

WTC Fires All But Defeated - December 19, 2001

Firefighters have extinguished almost all but the last remnants of underground fires that have burned at the World Trade Center site for more than three months since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

The fires that began with the Sept. 11 attacks had been strong enough that firetrucks had to spray a nearly constant jet of water on them. At times, the flames slowed the work of clearing the site.

"You couldn't even begin to imagine how much water was pumped in there," said Tom Manley of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest fire department union. "It was like you were creating a giant lake." [CBS News]

originally posted by: samkent
a reply to: jimmyx

the official governments report is BS.

Prove it.

prove what? thermo-dynamics?.....it's been around for a while, as has the simplified logic of my post above.

originally posted by: donktheclown
a reply to: and14263

You ever used an oxy cutter on thin 8mm steel? I have. That's how I know those columns in the WTC didn't melt.

I'm 56 and I've cut and welded steel most of my life and I have no idea what this response means. The beams (certainly not 8mm) do not require "melting" in order for them to turn to putty. Long before it would melt, it would lose virtually all of it's structural strength. What is your point? Thanks.

the entire beam wouldn't turn to putty or soften, and how far away from the weld point itself, could you put your bare hand on? 2 feet?, 4 feet? 6 feet?

originally posted by: jimmyx

this whole thing is BS....sure, when those steel temps get up to 1500F, you lose tensile strength.....but, has anyone ever seen glass-blowing?....they put the steel rods that has the glass component on one end and human hands on the other, only separated by a few feet of steel tube, into a 1000+ degree furnace to soften up the glass...what I'm saying is that those high temps are not at ALL locations of the metal itself, it dissipates rapidly according to the distance from the heat to your hands. a steel girder on the 20th floor that is 1000+ degrees in temp, may be 100 degrees on the 18th floor.....all the rest of those steel girders along all those floors underneath the airline impact, are much cooler, and have "the strength of steel" still in them.....I thought this was high school science, I learned this along time ago....now, if the entire structural steel frame in the many floors below were all at a constant 1000+ degrees (which it wasn't), the free fall effect might come into play, but, unless I missed something, the official governments report is BS.

The whole thing rests on NIST's assertion that the steel just softened enough to ensure a collapse, along with the damage done when the jets hit the towers. Neither NIST or most anyone have much to say about the jet fuel melting the steel, most of the fuel was burnt off in the collision anyway, that means that the jet fuel was only a means of ignition for what was in the building that would burn.

That will never explain the molten steel that firemen and others noted running in rivers on the ground for yonks afterward. Nor does it explain how the structural steel remains were whisked away so quickly to China.
Was some one afraid that some smart dick might attempt to compare the volume of remaining structural steel after the collapse, to what the standing volume of the towers should have been?
NIST tried to poo hoo the idea of any molten metal running in rivers at ground zero, and even a reporter tackled a NIST spokesman on that subject. The NIST spokesman just said I will give you my e-mail after to discuss it...the reporter never got the e-mail.

a reply to: gladtobehere

It doesnt take months to extinguish a jet fuel fire unless of-course there was something else present in addition to jet fuel, say for example, thermite.

Thermite burns away in seconds not days or weeks.
Try again.

a reply to: smurfy

Nor does it explain how the structural steel remains were whisked away so quickly to China.

Can you show us a date that ships left the US with WTC steel?
Do you think you can call for a ship like a taxi cab?
Yes it was removed from the site but I'll bet it was months before it left the US.

a reply to: Chadwickus

I have a theory (but it doesn't explain WTC 7) that the columns melted because every 4th prefab section of the towers outer shell was actually low quality cast iron, rather than steel. This was, most likely, done to reduce the cost and was probably allowed as the design was perceived to be 'over engineered' for strength. The engineers and architects would not necessarily know about the substitution. This also was more likely to have occurred further up the towers as the load was less than lower down.

Each prefab section consisted of three upright columns joined together by horizontal beams to make an open, box section, grid.

Testing on such a large project would not have been 100% but would have been a statistical sampling, so someone who had access to the engineering and could control the testing schedule could ensure that none of the 'compromised' sections were ever tested.

The casting could have been made with 'bolt heads' and 'weld lines' to prevent detection. To the riggers assembling the prefab sections together, the cast iron sections (after finishing, cleaning and coating) would appear exactly like the steel sections.

Cast Iron melts at a much lower temperature than steel (in the range of 1,150 to 1,200 degrees C) and not only that, because of the inclusion of impurities, begins burning and adds more heat to the process.

In earlier times, steel was made in open hearth furnaces. These usually used a regenerative process to heat the fuel and air so that when they combusted, the heat was increased further. Once the iron itself began to combust the heat increased further melting the steel out of the iron.

In the case of the towers, the rising heated air would have ignited the iron panels on the floors above the fire line. These melting and burning panels would have provided sufficient molten steel to weaken and melt the steel panels immediately below, especially where there was a horizontal obstruction.

In some of the footage, you can see what appears to be molten steel pouring out of the building. If you look at other footage, you can see three brightly heated columns, then six darker columns, then three bright columns. My suggestion is that the brighter columns are the burning Iron ones.

I always thought it odd the rapidity with which the steel from the towers was removed. At the time, I recall that there were some who said that it should have been tested first, to establish a better idea of what had actually occurred.

originally posted by: samkent
a reply to: smurfy

Nor does it explain how the structural steel remains were whisked away so quickly to China.

Can you show us a date that ships left the US with WTC steel?
Do you think you can call for a ship like a taxi cab?
Yes it was removed from the site but I'll bet it was months before it left the US.

Steel from the site began to be removed on September 12, 2001. By September the 29th, 130,000 tons of debris (most of it steel) had been removed from the site. The towers and WTC 7 had about 200,000 tons of steel in them.

Before 12 October, 2001, instead of shipping the steel to to Fresh Kills which was the FBI-controlled dump on Staten Island, where it was intended to go, the steel was driven to three independently-owned scrapyards, two in New Jersey and one on Long Island. This was officially considered a "theft" and on November 26, the city put GPS units in all its trucks so that they could track them and prevent further "theft" (by the city's contractors).

The entire site was cleared of all debris by May 29, 2002 - eight months after. During that time, very few were allowed access to the site (including FEMA investigators who, in their report of May 1, 2002, say that their report is based upon "photographic evidence and eyewitness accounts"). The NIST laboratories only tested 0.25% to 0.5% of the WTC steel. The comment from the NIST labs was that there was a “scarcity of physical evidence that is typically available in place for reconstruction of a disaster.”

a reply to: chr0naut

I have a theory (but it doesn't explain WTC 7) that the columns melted because every 4th prefab section of the towers outer shell was actually low quality cast iron, rather than steel.

I don't believe that you can pull the wool over eyes of life long steel workers.
Cast iron would react differently as they were attempting to wrangle sections into place.
I would expect holes would chip as they pounded drift pins into place.
Or sections would chip off when the crane bumped one section into another.

originally posted by: samkent

Can you show us a date that ships left the US with WTC steel?
Do you think you can call for a ship like a taxi cab?
Yes it was removed from the site but I'll bet it was months before it left the US.

That's a very misleading piece of work Sam,
and I'll bet you know very well that what China and India received in January 2002 was not a pile of girders, it was processed metal, scraps in other words.
ISRI, October 4th 2001,
"Two contracts for 25,000 tons each of heavy steel were awarded on a bid basis on September 26, 2001. These materials are being loaded onto barges for delivery to the winning bidders."

a reply to: smurfy

bet you know very well that what China and India received in January

That I did not know.
But if you want to sample WTC steel there is a one ton section less than 2 miles from my house.
There are sections all over the US used in memorials.

The conspiracy suggests that no steel was inspected.
But there are plenty of photos showing inspectors examining WTC steel.

a reply to: jimmyx

the entire beam wouldn't turn to putty or soften, and how far away from the weld point itself, could you put your bare hand on? 2 feet?, 4 feet? 6 feet?

In a structure that size, ever bit of load and stress is accounted for. There sure as hell wasn't only one beam weakening, but many. As far as how far away? Who the heck knows? That was way more than one ox-acetylene torch preheating the steel but more like a million of them working in concert. That's how I feel about it, IDK.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: Chadwickus

I have a theory (but it doesn't explain WTC 7) that the columns melted because every 4th prefab section of the towers outer shell was actually low quality cast iron, rather than steel. T

Interesting, but I'm not sure about the low quality idea cast. There would be far less tensile strength and ductility than needed since the towers were designed to sway to some extent bending to the high winds, while the small windows helped to reduce sway to some extent. There are malleable forms of cast iron, but again I don't think they could be considered. Cast Iron is used in columns being strong in compression, but outside of that it would not be much good for anything else in construction, besides it's highly corrosive and needs protecting.

a reply to: chr0naut

In some of the footage, you can see what appears to be molten steel pouring out of the building.

That was molten aluminium, not molten steel. That particular location of WTC 2 is where much of the aluminum airframe of United 175 came to rest.