FEMA says melted steel at WTC 7

reply to post by Richard Gizinu


Aka corrosion and erosion from sulfuric acid effect, not melting from carbon based fire. Iron oxide corrosion is caused by oxidation - just like thermite and thermate cause to happen melting resulting in erosion and then corrosion residue (rust). Only it occurs a great deal more rapidly than erosion and corrosion by H2O in nature.

reply to post by Richard Gizinu


It is still melted steel, is it not? Or did FEMA just use the wrong words?

Originally posted by Griff
reply to post by Richard Gizinu

 

It is still melted steel, is it not? Or did FEMA just use the wrong words?

From what I've been able to unearth, the melting is at the microscopic level. If you decide to call that melted steel, be my guest, you'll get no more argument from me.

But I believe you're grasping for "smoking guns".

reply to post by Richard Gizinu


Actually melting is at the liquid stage, and is not normally microscopic with steel.

reply to post by Richard Gizinu


Now rust, sometimes it take a microscopic to see all the individual tiny little particles of iron oxide.

reply to post by OrionStars
Ahh news to me I was under the impression the demo was a result of a concussion type charge Thermate appears , from info provided and glancing other easily accessed info, to heat the steel then subsequently blow the molten out. My bad.

I assume the manner the metal was corroded and damaged as you say was attributed to the left over sulfer from the charge and heat degredation. This is leaps and bounds better than the explanation provided in initial reports, Which by the way a child who has spent any amount time with an erector set knows is B.S.!!

The simplest evidence is again the non-deviation from center evidenced in the video. People have treated me funny since I first brought this up the day of the accident.
THANKS

reply to post by Griff


Griff, I looked again at the photos provided in the FEMA report. If you look at the first one, you will see black along the edges and at the bottom. That may well be iron sulfide residue, which would result from thermate contact with steel. The bottom looks to be partially melted then unevenly cooled down, and has a black coating of residue. Iron sulfide is solid black.

Did that mess start out as a supporting H-beam? Can you tell used to be? Thermate can wicked.

Originally posted by azblack
reply to post by OrionStars

 

Ahh news to me I was under the impression the demo was a result of a concussion type charge Thermate appears , from info provided and glancing other easily accessed info, to heat the steel then subsequently blow the molten out. My bad.

I assume the manner the metal was corroded and damaged as you say was attributed to the left over sulfer from the charge and heat degredation. This is leaps and bounds better than the explanation provided in initial reports, Which by the way a child who has spent any amount time with an erector set knows is B.S.!!

The simplest evidence is again the non-deviation from center evidenced in the video. People have treated me funny since I first brought this up the day of the accident.
THANKS

You are welcome. Actually, it results from mixing sulfur with thermite causing FeS (iron sulfide) to result.

Originally posted by OrionStars
Did that mess start out as a supporting H-beam? Can you tell used to be? Thermate can wicked.

They don't go in to what those specimens used to be. It looks like it used to be an H-beam (I-beam).

Originally posted by OrionStars
You are welcome. Actually, it results from mixing sulfur with thermite causing FeS (iron sulfide) to result.

Which is what FEMA found on the specimens.

The "official" cause is gypsum some how being able to do this because it contains sulfur.

I'd still like to know why NIST didn't care to find out what caused this when steel buildings are built with gypsum every day. If the "official" cause is true, then we are still building death traps where a fire could potentially corrode the steel because of gypsum.

Are they afraid that, like their fire tests, it will show that this doesn't happen like we've been told?

Originally posted by Griff
Which is what FEMA found on the specimens.

The "official" cause is gypsum some how being able to do this because it contains sulfur.

I'd still like to know why NIST didn't care to find out what caused this when steel buildings are built with gypsum every day. If the "official" cause is true, then we are still building death traps where a fire could potentially corrode the steel because of gypsum.

Are they afraid that, like their fire tests, it will show that this doesn't happen like we've been told?

Maybe gypsum was the most abundant source of sulphur but I think they're clutching at straws to suggest it as the source of the observed effects.

Calcium sulphate is a very stable molecule with a melting point above 1400C. There'd be evidence of lime (calcium oxide) or limestone (calcium carbonate) if some exotic ion migration took place to liberate the sulphate component. The solubility is very poor too.

I used to make rocket nozzles out of plaster of paris (anhydrous calcium sulphate) to give an idea of how stable it is at extreme temperatures. Just HAS to be something other than gypsum IMO

Originally posted by Griff

The "official" cause is gypsum some how being able to do this because it contains sulfur.

I'd still like to know why NIST didn't care to find out what caused this when steel buildings are built with gypsum every day. If the "official" cause is true, then we are still building death traps where a fire could potentially corrode the steel because of gypsum.

Are they afraid that, like their fire tests, it will show that this doesn't happen like we've been told?

IMHO, I think you're safe using drywall.

The thing is, I'm sure drywall on steel fire tests have been conducted ad infinitum and this effect has never been noticed. The difference here is the length of time that the steel was heated and in the presence of drywall.

The piles were hot for months. Heat accelerates chemical reactions. You probably WOULD see the effects seen on the steel - corrosion, thinning, etc at normal temps, if given enough time, like say 100 yrs or something similar. I think it's a little outside the realm of possibility that an office fire would burn for months, so I doubt this will be a problem under any normal circumstances.

Originally posted by Pilgrum
I used to make rocket nozzles out of plaster of paris (anhydrous calcium sulphate) to give an idea of how stable it is at extreme temperatures. Just HAS to be something other than gypsum IMO

My thoughts exactly, but we are told that is what happened. Without scientific verification to back it up.

reply to post by Richard Gizinu



The thing is though that FEMA states that they don't know if this was caused before, during or after the collapse.

The rate of corrosion is also unknown. It is possible that this is the result of long-term heating in the ground following the collapse of the buildings. It is also possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure.

That last sentence is key. It is possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure. Meaning, they don't know if it was long term exposure to gypsum or not.

The fact remains: Why still no testing to find out? If it's possible that it happened before collapse?

So, just saying "well, in a normal circumstance, it wouldn't happen" doesn't cut it here.

Originally posted by Griff

The thing is though that FEMA states that they don't know if this was caused before, during or after the collapse.

That last sentence is key. It is possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure. Meaning, they don't know if it was long term exposure to gypsum or not.

The fact remains: Why still no testing to find out? If it's possible that it happened before collapse?

So, just saying "well, in a normal circumstance, it wouldn't happen" doesn't cut it here.

I kinda gave my opinion already, but I'll expand my answer.

Drywall on steel tests have been preformed before. No such effects have been observed under normal fire conditions. NIST would presumably be aware that this type of attack on the steel doesn't happen under normal circumstances and also be aware of the fire tests.

So if you're asking "why doesn't NIST test to see if this is a risk when I specify drywall? How do I know I'm not posing an increased risk to anything I design?", the answer is that due to past testing data, they alreadt know it isn't. So why do a redundant test when the results are already known? And to perform tests like this to find out what will happen the next time a plane flies into a building and mashes up the drywall, etc, etc..... sounds kinda overkill.

Besides, the source of sulfur is unknown. Lotsa things have sulfur in them, not just necessarily drywall. So we could do tests with drywall all year long and come to the conclusion that drywall is ok, only to find out the next time something similar happens is that the carpeting, or the plastic, or the ceiling tile, or whatever is THE most likely source of sulfur. You could search forever and never get an answer to what the source of sulfur was. Maybe it's multiple sources. See the problem?

And what would be the point of NIST doing months long tests to find out what could have happened in the piles when again, that falls outside their realm. This sounds to me like an interesting question, TBH, but I would expect these kinds of tests to be carried out at a university. It would make an interesting graduate project. Interesting to find the answer, but not really relative to NIST's job.

So in the end, we're left with making predictions using normal circumstances. And these variables are known.

reply to post by Griff


Griff, that made no sense to me when I read that. I know a few factors for certain when steel is in contact with gypsum. Corrosion is a long term process, and does not happen when fire takes place.

If that metal (looks like something lying around a junkyard for a very, very long time) had corroded to the point of what FEMA is showing people, WTC 7 would have collapsed on its own long before 9/11/2001. It was built in 1984. What an eerie number involving the WTC complex coupled with the Rockefeller name. Lest I digress.

The fact that gypsum has SO4, as one of the components of gypsum, is why NIST and FEMA have been able to lie their way through their entire reports. Gypsum will not melt steel. It will corrode it under certain conditions requiring H2O. SO4 can corrode it very badly but not rapidly and not melt it. That corrosion, in the photo, almost eliminated the entire base of that metal beam. That had to be some type of vertical support steel from the look of the base.

Corrosion occurs at a lower thermal energy level. Thermate (aluminum oxide, iron oxide, magnesium, sulfur) immediately puts out a much higher level of thermal energy, which does result in melting very rapidly. Which is also why it can effectively be used for cutter charges in steel in controlled demolition implosions.

You may find the following highly interesting concerning gypsum in contact with steel as part of the building materials. I know I did:

www.mpa.uni-stuttgart.de...

"In structural engineering, from a corrosion-technical point of view, contacts of metals and mineral building materials, that are produced with cement and gypsum, play an important role."

"5. CORROSION BEHAVIOUR IN CASE OF CONTACT WITH GYPSUM
PRODUCTS [1-3,6,12]

Structural gypsum (e. g. gypsum mortar), that is mixed with water, forms a union of needle-shaped dihydrate crystals CaSO4 · 2H2O, as soon as the fluid pulp reacts. Because of the usually high surplus water resulting from fresh gypsum, the porosity of the hardened building material is quite high. If the hardened gypsum products (gypsum plasters, gypsum pasteboards, gypsum wallconstruction boards) are kept moist, the pores are filled with a saturated calcium-sulphate solution. Since this salt has a corrosion-stimulating effect in neutral building materials, gypsum/gypsum mortar does attack zinc and iron (steel) very strongly in combination with humidity (Fig. 2 on the right and Fig. 4). Steel pipes and galvanized steel pipes, that are in contact with gypsum, which was moistened long-term, are attacked by thick rust products and can already be destroyed after few years. At relative humidity of < 99 % gypsum mortar completely
drains with time and does not cause steel corrosion and zinc corrosion
any more.

Aluminum materials and lead in general are not likely to be attacked by
the more neutrally reacting gypsum building materials. In case of lead, gypsum forms slightly soluble lead sulfates, that hamper the surface removal. In aluminum, that is free of copper, moist gypsum promotes a limited pitting corrosion.

Though, aluminum alloying, that contains copper, sometimes corrodes quite intensive in wet gypsum.

Copper materials are largely resistant to gypsum, too, because the surfaces are coated with an oxide film that is stable to sulphate."

If building materials pose that much danger of collapse to buildings because of fire, they best start looking for new materials. Because according to NIST and FEMA, no steel structure is safe when cement and gypsum are used. Both contain H2O, and both can cause corrosion if not dried out or kept perpetually very moist.

Or we best boycott all steel, concrete, and gypsum buildings until they tear them all down and build much safer new ones. They are all ready to collapse on us any minute per FEMA and NIST.

Originally posted by OrionStars
If building materials pose that much danger of collapse to buildings because of fire, they best start looking for new materials. Because according to NIST and FEMA, no steel structure is safe when cement and gypsum are used. Both contain H2O, and both can cause corrosion if not dried out or kept perpetually very moist.

Or we best boycott all steel, concrete, and gypsum buildings until they tear them all down and build much safer new ones. They are all ready to collapse on us any minute per FEMA and NIST.

My point exactly. Someone is getting what I'm saying.

One must ask what could corrode so much material so quickly? Notice the specimen top left looks razor sharp! Notice also the bolts are gone and all that is left is streaming orange rust. Almost like the bolts boiled and ran out of their sockets.

Isn't this pretty much proof of some extreme temperatures and unnatural and unusual exothermic type reactions taking place? This steel looks melted to me, although its not from WTC7 it is from the twins.

My jaw literally dropped after seeing this one. Had a very good discussion about it with my friends and we all come to more or less the same conclusion.

p.s great thread Griff! Thought I would hit up one of your threads with this picture as I wanted you to check it out, have you seen this one yet?


[edit on 27-1-2008 by Insolubrious]

Originally posted by Insolubrious
Thought I would hit up one of your threads with this picture as I wanted you to check it out, have you seen this one yet?

I haven't seen that yet. Where did you get it? Any more? Thanks BTW.

Originally posted by Griff
I haven't seen that yet. Where did you get it? Any more? Thanks BTW.

Griff, aren't those welds over those bolts at the joints? Or does that look like something else to you? If they are, what can you tell from those?

I wish someone could point arrows to the area to which I am referring, if they are not clear to anyone else.