WTC - What Rusted all that Steel?

So there are plenty of examples I could dish out of steel beams and sections of the building and the surfaces look corroded and covered in rust.

Huge sections of steel of the face of the building once shiny and gleaming went through some instant corrosive rusting process!


Check out this page:
redeye.chicagotribune.com...

Large pieces of steel and other artifacts preserved in Hangar 17 of Kennedy International Airport.

I think this could be another strong point for nuclear charges. With the heavy amount of sulfidation and oxidation of the steel it maybe down to sulphuric acid clouds/vapour produced by neutrons in the h-bomb fallout.


[edit on 6-5-2007 by Insolubrious]

[edit on 6-5-2007 by Insolubrious]

The first picture you submitted was the steel columns but they are surfaced with aluminum facia. They can't leave steel exposed to the weather, it would rust way too fast so they re-surface it with aluminum siding.
See here for pictures of the said aluminum siding:

redeye.chicagotribune.com...


Furthermore, the buildings were over 40 years old, I wouldn't be surprised if some rust would appear after all that time. And furthermore even, the rust protecting paint used on steel is almost always rust colored.

I don't really care about the rust, it really should be rusted but everyone of these beams and columns were surfaced with Asbestos ..... some great force had to wipe all that Asbestos off of those beams .... what kind of force would do this?

[edit on 6-5-2007 by PepeLapew]

Well, if you believe the various government reports (I don't), the impact of the planes knocked off a lot of the asbestos cladding. LOL! Also, the rumor was that the towers had a problem of asbestos contamination because much of the cladding had already come away from the girders. Some say this was one of the reasons why the towers were demolished - the cost of solving this problem was just too much but had to be done otherwise the City of New York would have had to declare the towers a health hazard or something like that. So Silverstein was in a bind because he had on his hands two buildings that were becoming white elephants, yet their insurance and rent still had to be paid. Solution: knock them down. Problem was, there were people in them at the time.....

ok I was half asleep when I posted this and your right the outer steel columns had a shell of aluminum cladding and had a rusty red color to it even before the towers were constructed.. doh silly me! Still there was some heavy corrosive event taking place, the last image i posted suggests some type of rapid oxidizing process was in effect, not to mention extreme amounts of heat.

Not really on topic but:

Rust actually helps steel to a degree. It provides a protective coating against further deterioration. Same applies to copper. After it gets it's coating of blue tarnish, the copper deteriorates at a much slower rate. At least, that is what I think I was taught. I could be wrong on the steel though.

Some have suggested galvanic corrosion as a culprit of the degration of the steel. Aluminum and steel will have galvanic corrosion if not properly separated.

You don't suppose that the steel had been corroding for a long time, and that that meant it was all ready greatly weakened before the impact?

I still think the idea of a cover up because some fault with the towers caused them to collapse is at least as likely as the idea they were brought down by mini nuclear bombs

Last time i checked, rust punches holes through metal over time.

I don't think this will help the metal to stay stronger, he he.

Unless you meant it in another way?

[edit on 7-5-2007 by selfless]

Originally posted by selfless
I don't think this will help the metal to stay stronger, he he.

I may be wrong with the rust being a protective coating. I thought it was the same as copper but I might be wrong. I have to look into it more.

I was wrong.

Hydrated rust is permeable to air and water, allowing the metal to continue to corrode - internally - even after a surface layer of rust has formed. Given sufficient hydration, the iron mass can eventually convert entirely to rust and disintegrate. Corrosion of aluminium is different from steel or iron, in that aluminium oxide formed on the surface of aluminum metal forms a protective, corrosion resistant coating, a process known as passivation. Stainless steel similarly resists rusting by forming a passivation layer of chromium(III) oxide. This is also true of magnesium, copper and zinc.

Source: en.wikipedia.org...

Edit: I must have been thinking of stainless steel in which I use more often than reugular steel.

[edit on 5/7/2007 by Griff]

ok well I done some more digging on the rust issue in general and there was some heavy corrosion going on. Check out these pictures for example:



Notice these rusty coloured clouds, is this instant rusting into the air? Fire does not cause instant dust.

I recall reading something about h-bombs creating clouds of sulphuric acid, which could explain this hyper accelerated corrosion.



Look at the front of that vehicle! It can take months for this sort of corrosion to occur naturally! Its ridiculous..

How sure are you that is corosion, it could just as well be rust particles that blew onto the cars. The third pic that Insolubrious shows doesn't look like its corroted at all. But hey, I'm no expert on this stuff so if I am way off let me know, just thought it was an interesting point.

Originally posted by AcesInTheHole
How sure are you that is corosion, it could just as well be rust particles that blew onto the cars. The third pic that Insolubrious shows doesn't look like its corroted at all. But hey, I'm no expert on this stuff so if I am way off let me know, just thought it was an interesting point.

How far can you push your head into the sand????

Rust particles?? I don't mean to be cruel here, but rust particles don't just adhere in that fashion and not over a greater area. And if it were dust particles, you'd have to assume, from my amateur standpoint, that the entire structures were built from rust and that all the clouds formed after the collapse were brownish red.

Is there any indication that any of the dust clouds formed from the collapse was red or reddish brown in any significant amount?

Help me out here...

Originally posted by AcesInTheHole
How sure are you that is corosion, it could just as well be rust particles that blew onto the cars. The third pic that Insolubrious shows doesn't look like its corroted at all. But hey, I'm no expert on this stuff so if I am way off let me know, just thought it was an interesting point.

My apologies for jumping on your post like that. The idea that rust particles is a sufficient alternate explanation next to nuclear blast...

Who knows?

Really, who does know?

Originally posted by newtron25

Originally posted by AcesInTheHole
How sure are you that is corosion, it could just as well be rust particles that blew onto the cars. The third pic that Insolubrious shows doesn't look like its corroted at all. But hey, I'm no expert on this stuff so if I am way off let me know, just thought it was an interesting point.

My apologies for jumping on your post like that. The idea that rust particles is a sufficient alternate explanation next to nuclear blast...

Who knows?

Really, who does know?

Well my line of thinking was that if every beam was covered in half a millimeter of rust, that could mean a few clouds of dust could be carrying a fair amount of rust along with the other particles. Like I said, I'm no expert in this area, and I'm just throwing some ideas around.

Originally posted by AcesInTheHole
Well my line of thinking was that if every beam was covered in half a millimeter of rust, that could mean a few clouds of dust could be carrying a fair amount of rust along with the other particles.

Wouldn't the rust be mixed with all the other particles enough to make it not appear to be significant? What I mean is, you say a few mm of rust mixed with 4 inches of concrete per floor. That's alot of concrete-to-rust ratio. Nice train of thought though.

Any chemists want to fill us in on what could instantly rust those vehicles like that?

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :

Buildings come down,

Dust everywhere,

Fires,

Firemen use water on fire and dust!!!!

I'll leave the rest up to you?

Minute quantities can cause cancer

Plutonium is a metal which is one and one-half times as heavy as lead. It is silver-colored, becoming yellow when it "rusts." Plutonium exists in nature in only very small quantities, but nuclear power plants can manufacture large quantities of this radioactive material. Yellow plutonium "rust" is a powder which can be carried in the air and easily inhaled into the lungs. Once in the lungs, plutonium is extremely toxic-Small amounts may cause quick death, and minute quantities can be lethal because of its cancer-producing radiation. In the lungs, plutonium dust causes inflammation that leads to swelling, hemorrhage, and death of the lung tissue. Death from suffocation can occur within weeks of the first exposure. Over a period of years, radiation from tiny amounts of plutonium embedded in the lungs can be responsible for the development of malignant tumors.


In reference to the post above yes the firemen used water that is a corrosive and causes rust but the question is would that amount of rust been created by just water?

[edit on 29-5-2007 by SR]

Originally posted by nerbot
Firemen use water on fire and dust!!!!

I'll leave the rest up to you?

How long before they moved those vehicles? Also, I didn't see any of those vehicles on fire. How long does it take to rust a vehicle from pouring water on it? Keep in mind that vehicles are constantly having water poured on them via rain and washing. So, I doubt if it was water and dust particles.

Unless you mean that the dust particles rusted? But that thinking opens a whole new pandora's box. How did the steel turn to dust by a gravity driven collapse?

Fire and intense heat accelerate the corrosion of most metals. Rust is just steel combining with oxygen. If you have ever used a chemical hand warmer the heat is generated by the oxidization of iron filings. You can easily verify this by taking two pieces of sheet steel and putting one in a fire and leaving one near by and seeing which one rusts first.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
Fire and intense heat accelerate the corrosion of most metals. Rust is just steel combining with oxygen. If you have ever used a chemical hand warmer the heat is generated by the oxidization of iron filings. You can easily verify this by taking two pieces of sheet steel and putting one in a fire and leaving one near by and seeing which one rusts first.

So, can you verify that a vehicle can rust in a matter of days from heat and water? I don't think we are argueing that heat will cause rust to form more quickly, what we are argueing is that it takes longer than seen at ground zero. At least that is what my take on it is.