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Originally Posted by Rochard
You tell me that an airliner has hit a building, and to me it's only common sense that the airplane is going to win.
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The differences between the Empire State and WTC are enough that they don't have to come up in these discussions. The speed of the aircraft probably made all the difference.
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Originally Posted by Rochard
Simple. The outer structure was damaged, nothing was holding up the floors, and then fell - down.
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If the outer structure was damaged - and we know only one quarter of the outer structure at the uppermost portions of the buildings was affected - how can you say nothing was holding up the floors. Even NIST says this isn't so. About seven percent of the structure encompassing those floors at that elevetion was compromised.
And even if this would lead to collapse - how could it lead to uniform collapse? Why wouldn't it just collapse on one side...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
I never said anything about "softening steel". It was weakened. You have balls and jet fuel, it's common sense that steel can be weakened.
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When these NIST and engineer people refer to weakened steel, they mean softened by exposure to heat.
Taking this into account, modern skyscrapers, beyond using complex infrastructural design to create stronger steel constructs out of equal or lesser volumes of material, are also built to take massive fires and heating into account so that softening or "weakening" distributes gravity loads equally to absorb the weight and prevent failure, effectively turning the weakened areas into a spring or shock absorption system.
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Originally Posted by Rochard
How many times do we have to cover this? The debris was on fire underground for weeks. It was so hot they mapped hot spots from airplanes. This simmered for weeks.
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It wasn't "debris" however. It was described by first responders, fire professionals and others as "flowing rivers" of liquid and molten magma-like material, glowing dark orange, like liquefied steel.
Normal building "debris" wouldn't burn for weeks, or cause massive steam explosions when firefighters dropped water on it.
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Originally Posted by Rochard
You haven't researched this, have you? The lines for the hydraulic fluid that ran lifts for the window washers were located in all four corners of the towers every few floors. That hydraulic fluid had to go someplace, and being as it had an outlet (read: weak point) every few floors where they hooked up to it, it's pretty plausible that this was hydraulic fluid bursting out of the buildings at high speed, taking debris with it.
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Hydraulic fluid, I feel confident in stating, is not composed of anything potentially explosive; regardless of it's rapid expansion potential, I doubt it could take out cross-welded industrial steel connections or it wouldn't be used.
One video in particular taken from nearby, not miles away and zoomed in, clearly shows WTC building corners disintegrating explosively.
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Originally Posted by Rochard
These were not buildings in the traditional sense at all. They were in fact air tight - there was a massive hvac system that was larger than most buildings that pumped air in and out of the buildings. The elevator shafts were hermetically sealed, and not all floors were compromised.
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All agreed, all until they were severely compromised. Regardless, temperatures that were about 20% less of what would have weakened steel did not occur. And if they were so hermetic, how could the fire have had the oxygen it needed to propagate and generate temperatures sufficient to weaken steel?
[QUOTE=Rochard;18828344]Dude, seriously, Wikipedia:
Thermite is not an explosive; instead it operates by exposing a very small area of metal to extremely high temperatures. Intense heat focused on a small spot can be used to cut through metal or weld metal components together both by melting metal from the components, and by injecting molten metal from the thermite reaction itself.
Thermite may be used for repair by the welding in-place of thick steel sections such as locomotive axle-frames where the repair can take place without removing the part from its installed location.
Dude, seriously - this is a description of what I told you about welding with thermite. It's done outside, usually with copper for big electrical connections or things like railway ties; it's not used indoors.
Also, I never said it was explosive; in fact I distinctly cited "incendiaries" and metal cutting - and thermate, which is generally iron oxide mixed with sulfur or "super thermite". However it burns very hot and very fast and cuts steel like butter, producing molten iron (which was observed in the basements and beneath the rubble after the collapses).
What's described above is when you used a very small amount of thermite; and thermite and thermate (especially the military application) can be used to coat areas, or directed by devides, to simply slice through steel beams from railway ties to the incredible thick and strong core columns of the WTC.
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Originally Posted by Rochard
Your telling me that Thermite is an explosion that was used to bring down buildings, and wikipedia is telling me it's not an explosive. Wikipedia is also telling me it's used in welding. The caption I grabbed says "thick steel sections" - as one would imagine would be used in a skyscraper.
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I never said it was an explosive, or even explosive. I said unignited flakes of thermate (and possibly thermite, I don't remember) as well as thermite residue were found in the dust.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
Of course thermite is going to be present. The entire skyscraper was built using it.
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From what I know, the steel beams of the WTC were bolt-welded, unless the very earliest foundational components were done with thermite, which I doubt; I might look it up if it's possible, though from what I understand exothermic welding or whatever it's called is usually done to bond two different types of metal or for major electrical copper and other conductive electrical joints. Not for steel skyscraper frame construction...