Thermite Cutting Steel Experimentally Demonstrated

Originally posted by Yankee451
reply to post by pteridine

 

Do not equate a structure like the WTC with anything less than a mountain of steel.

You posted a diagram above that shows the outline of an aircraft where it penetrated the steel columns. How did that happen to the mountain of steel?

reply to post by pteridine


If you are claiming the full mass of the airplane, and all of it's interconnected parts, I get to claim the full mass of the building and all of its interconnected parts.

Wanna go for just the mass of the wing against the mass of three or four pillars? One pillar? My Wood Stove?

Originally posted by pteridine


You posted a diagram above that shows the outline of an aircraft where it penetrated the steel columns. How did that happen to the mountain of steel?

Great question.
How DID that happen?

reply to post by Yankee451

If you are claiming the full mass of the airplane, and all of it's interconnected parts, I get to claim the full mass of the building and all of its interconnected parts.

This isn't a board game. The plane, as a unit hit one particular section of the building. Thats how life works. The plane did not hit the whole building. It only challenged those pieces of the building it made contact with. It can't be any simpler than that.

Originally posted by pteridine
Why do you think "bulk" would have a quantity attached? Bulk in this case means bulk and not painted on, a la Jonesy.

Oh, so now you think I'm Steven Jones. Delusion noted.

But, then again, a thin layer of red paint wouldn't cause anything to collapse by CD, would it?

I wouldn't know, now would I? And neither would you, but unfortunately you're too pompous to admit as much, though I'm sure you've never stepped foot inside a military explosive research lab or had any earthly experiences even remotely bordering on that.

You could refer to many things but there is still that lack of evidence problem that plagues you. You do love the "eutectic" part, which also proves nothing related to CD.

That's not my problem because it's not my position. You are the only one who can't seem to come to terms with this.

Why do I have to prove a theory of my own just to show you that the theories you believe don't have evidence? Over here in reality, science doesn't work like that. You just flip out on everyone else and start irrationally demanding answers from civilians whenever someone tries to point out this fact.

Originally posted by hooper
reply to post by Yankee451

 

If you are claiming the full mass of the airplane, and all of it's interconnected parts, I get to claim the full mass of the building and all of its interconnected parts.

This isn't a board game. The plane, as a unit hit one particular section of the building. Thats how life works. The plane did not hit the whole building. It only challenged those pieces of the building it made contact with. It can't be any simpler than that.

Each part of the plane will react differently as it impacts each part of the building, relative the materials that are colliding and speed of impact. IE, a piece of wing hitting a steel column will behave differently than a piece of wing missing a column.

However, the entire mass of the building is what's backing up every impact point, whereas the entire mass of the plane is not backing up the wing tip. Unless a part is knocked loose from the building, it's still part of a mountain of steel.

reply to post by Yankee451


The kinetic energy of the airplane against the the steel preventing its penetration is a more realistic equation. I asked you how the hole matches the profile of the aircraft. What is your logical conclusion?

reply to post by pteridine


That it roughly matches the profile of a plane.

reply to post by pteridine


The kinetic energy would be equally applied to both bodies. Agreed?

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by pteridine
Why do you think "bulk" would have a quantity attached? Bulk in this case means bulk and not painted on, a la Jonesy.

Oh, so now you think I'm Steven Jones. Delusion noted.

But, then again, a thin layer of red paint wouldn't cause anything to collapse by CD, would it?

I wouldn't know, now would I? And neither would you, but unfortunately you're too pompous to admit as much, though I'm sure you've never stepped foot inside a military explosive research lab or had any earthly experiences even remotely bordering on that.

You could refer to many things but there is still that lack of evidence problem that plagues you. You do love the "eutectic" part, which also proves nothing related to CD.

That's not my problem because it's not my position. You are the only one who can't seem to come to terms with this.

Why do I have to prove a theory of my own just to show you that the theories you believe don't have evidence? Over here in reality, science doesn't work like that. You just flip out on everyone else and start irrationally demanding answers from civilians whenever someone tries to point out this fact.

If the 'eutectic' bit is not part of your position why do you keep bringing it up? It is also apparent that your grasp of language is tenuous at best. I didn't say I thought you were Steven Jones and don't know why you would interpret my comment that way. You do seem to defend Jones whenever he is the topic.

You wouldn't know how science works because you haven't done any. It seems that you were the one mainly demanding answers from people. You said that you wouldn't know that red paint wouldn't cause anything to collapse. Paint something red and see if it falls apart.

You are also sure I've "never stepped foot inside a military explosive research lab or had any earthly experiences even remotely bordering on that," are you? You know what they say about assumptions.

I haven't made any of the new nanoparticulate materials but I am familiar enough with them to synthesize them if necessary. The red paint that Jones "discovered" isn't remotely like any of the nanoparticulate thermites and Jones knows it.

If you have evidence that would cause a reinvestigation, now is the time to bring it forward. Someone not satisfying you with the depth or directions of their investigation is not cause.

reply to post by Yankee451


Agreed, but the building is not a rigid body, so your calculations have to take into account that it doesn't behave as such. Sectional density, mass per cross sectional area is also important. Needles penetrate more than spheres.
For example, a 40 grain [2.6 gram] .22 LR rimfire bullet with a velocity of 1080 fps [330m/s] has a kinetic energy of 141 Joules. This is calculated as 1/2 MV^2. If you look only at the kinetic energy you can easily calculate various mass-velocity combinations that give this number. Now, consider a ten tonne truck. To provide the same kinetic energy, it only has to travel at about 7 inches/ second.
Consider the effect on your body by being struck with either. In one case you are pushed slowly for a while and in the other you are holed without being pushed very much.

reply to post by pteridine


Make your bullet out of aluminum and shoot it through multiple layers of quarter inch structural steel.

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by Yankee451

 

Agreed, but the building is not a rigid body, so your calculations have to take into account that it doesn't behave as such. Sectional density, mass per cross sectional area is also important. Needles penetrate more than spheres.
For example, a 40 grain [2.6 gram] .22 LR rimfire bullet with a velocity of 1080 fps [330m/s] has a kinetic energy of 141 Joules. This is calculated as 1/2 MV^2. If you look only at the kinetic energy you can easily calculate various mass-velocity combinations that give this number. Now, consider a ten tonne truck. To provide the same kinetic energy, it only has to travel at about 7 inches/ second.
Consider the effect on your body by being struck with either. In one case you are pushed slowly for a while and in the other you are holed without being pushed very much.

This is really a fine piece of work. However impressive, let's focus on wings and buildings.

First of all, let's talk about this "non rigid building" as compared to the jet, and what my calculations "have to take into account", shall we? Remember, we're agreed that both bodies will absorb the KE equally, I want to make this clear to all the KDNY343 wannabes out there.

Since both bodies will absorb the KE equally on impact, the deciding factor then becomes what? Mass and material, right?

reply to post by Yankee451


Non-rigid doesn't mean that the building isn't strong or the components don't have any strength, it just means that it doesn't behave as a single unit. The kinetic energy is dissipated in the mutual plastic deformation of the metal structures of the aircraft and the parts of the building that were struck.
It isn't a trivial calculation and I remember a paper from MIT or Purdue on it that I will look for. The conclusion was that the plane would easily cut the outer columns and would get some of the core also, depending on the amount of floor it had to roll up.

reply to post by pteridine


So is that a fancy way of saying the deciding factor would be mass and material, or was that just a clumsy way of slipping MIT into the conversation?

reply to post by Yankee451


Mass, sectional density, material properties, velocity.

No, Purdue did some models and I thought that there was a paper from MIT. MIT is a good school but others are just as good and MIT is not at the top in all fields of engineering. It is a matter of who writes the paper and the professors do move from school to school. You can google it if you like. Use Purdue or MIT and WTC Impacts.

reply to post by Yankee451


Here is the MIT paper. It is a far more complex calculation than some would have you believe.

web.mit.edu...

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by Yankee451

 

Here is the MIT paper. It is a far more complex calculation than some would have you believe.

web.mit.edu...

So it's important to trust the experts.

reply to post by pteridine

Taking the estimated airplane mass at the point of impact to be M = 127 tons and the impact velocity of 240m/s o V = , the energy of the striking aircraft was 3658MJ KE.

3.3 Engines and wing damage The engines are the only components of the aircraft that can be considered approximately as rigid bodies. Their devastating power is unmatched until they encounter an object of similar weight and strength.

In the experimental study in which an engine of a transport aircraft hit a thick concrete wall, the engine itself was crashed and fractured, so it was not rigid, [28]. However, in contact with less substantial members the engine could cut and plow through the various structural members of the WTC Towers until all their kinetic energy is absorbed.

I don't see them calculate the mass of the whole building anywhere, where is that figured? They calculate the mass of the 747, which like a building's mass, is just the sum of it's parts. Are they conducting an honest study? The part about the engine hitting a thick concrete wall will help over on the Pentagon thread though...thanks. Otherwise it looks like they're setting up a whitewash study, judging by the parameters they're limited to.

Wings of modern transport aircrafts are quite complicated structures consist of open section beams, ribs and a skin reinforced by stringers. Together they form a very stiff and strong box-type section. Determination of the strength of the wing relative to the strength of the floor structure will require a detailed finite element analysis, which we believe has not been performed to date. In order to retain the needed degree of simplicity, two models were developed.

In one model the wing material is lumped into single box-type beam. In the second model, the solidity ratio are determined for both the wing and the floor and then are compared. The main structural part of the wing is the spar – a continuous beam that extends from one tip of the wing to the other. For modeling purposes, we assumed that the mass of the wings (excluding engine) was approximately 21300kg wing M = . This mass does not include the mass of the fuel in the wing tanks.

Assuming that this mass is now uniformly distributed over the whole wing span

It isn't. Most of the mass is between the fuselage and the engine.

and the wing is modeled as a thin-walled square section crosssection (c ´4c ) with the thickness ( eqw t ), the equivalent thickness of the wing beam can be found from the equation (10 ) eqw w Al wing ct l r = M (8) Taking an average height of the spar to be c = 480mm and the span of the aircraft 47.57m w l = , the equivalent thickness becomes 34.5mm eqw t = . The wings are swept at approximately 35o so that upon impact, external columns are contacted sequentially, one by one. However, the problem of a hollow beam striking another hollow column at a right angle and a speed of 240 m/s has not been analyzed in the literature. Therefore it is not possible, at this point in time, to give any detailed account on this interaction, between the wings and outer column, with a higher degree of accuracy than our approximate engineering analysis.

What? Therefore it is not possible? Therefore it is not possible this report proves squat. Why would 35 degree swept wings strike the individual columns at right angles anyway? Wouldn't the swept wing strike the corner of the first column at 240 m/s, and slow down as it hit the next column, as the fuselage is slowing down against the lateral resistance of at least two floors? Their modeling appears to be done to explain how a plane could do it, not how it was done. Note their language throughout the report...the plane "could" have struck here...why are they guessing? Don't they have the Naudet footage? Aren't they the experts?

The equivalent thickness of the hollow wing beam is approximately four times larger than the
thickness of the exterior columns, 9.5mm ext t = . It is therefore reasonable to treat wings as
rigid bodies upon impact with exterior columns. By the same token, the equivalent thickness of
wings is smaller (about half) than the equivalent thickness of the floor structure (to be
calculated in the next section). Consequently it would appear that the floors will cut through
the wings without being severely damaged themselves. In actuality the wings are constructed
as a 3-dimensional lattice of open section beams, ribs and sheet metal skin that maybe of
comparable strength to the floor trusses. However, interaction between two 3-dimensional
space frames impacting each other is too difficult to carry out analytically at the present level
of approximation.

Can you explain this one to the class please? Do I see them rolling all the material that would comprise a wing into a big ball of aluminum play doh, and reforming it all in wing shape so that the wing is now equally massive from tip to root, and all the material is equally distributed to a thickness of 9.5 mm? Why is this model wing approximately four times the thickness of the model column? On the next page they're saying they really don't know that either but they're guessing it's about 9.5 mm, so that one threw me for a loop, but I'm no expert so can you help me out? Isn't a real wing's skin thickness about 2 or 3 mm at most?

So now the wing has half the mass at the tip, and is 9.5 m thick, what do they do to the building? Do they include the mass, or make a big ball of steel play doh and reconstruct it so it will be easier to model? From what I see they take out the core and treat the model to only 40% of the building. When they're done tweaking these things, then they start the test using a flurry of hieroglyphic gibberish sure to dissuade curious eyes.

They even try to convince their readers the wings were comparable in strength to the WTC tower floors, but my eyes glazed over at that point.

Is there any need to continue with this vaunted study from MIT?

Originally posted by bsbray11I could refer you back to FEMA appendix C for residues exactly mirroring a eutectic reaction such as thermate occurring on WTC steel.

Um, you do realize that thermite does not leave the same marks as an acid attack, right? Which, BTW, is what a eutectic reaction is. It's an acid attack that occurs over a long period of time. Thermite/thermate/nano-thermite do not do long periods of time. They are, by nature, very fast.