27-09-2011, 11:01 AM
I don't believe this engineer's thesis is correct. But he does raise the notion that the collapse of all three towers was ITSELF a very energetic event and involved the crushing and pulverization of virtually all the building materials and contents except the much heavier steel sections.
A gravity driven collapse would involve the release of enormous amounts of heat from the mechanical grinding of the concrete. What was created was a collection of all sorts of finely ground materials... iron, aluminum, sulfur, copper iron oxide and so forth... all mixed with some water and lots of heat.
It's likely that the heat was so intense that it was able to ignite exothermic reactions, such as Iron Oxide and Aluminum which is essentially thermite. This chemical soup filled up the sub basements and became *the pile* where the reactions continued without the need of oxygen. The heat was so great and the mass of the pile so large... hundreds of thousands of tons that it remained for months... with many of the steel beams acting like heat sinks.
NIST should have studied the chemistry of the pulverized contents and tested to see if it could produced exothermic reactions. I don't recall any explanations given to explain the long lasting temperature of the *pile*. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the reaction of aluminum and iron oxide was a result of the collapse not a cause of it. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the heat of the *pile* and the heat which drove those massive billowing clouds which propagated from the site were the result of the collapse... the heat of friction from the mechanical grinding to fine grains particulates of hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete and contents in about 10 seconds.
Kevin Ryan recently posted a video where he does a backyard chemistry lab experiment to create thermite. It seems that the collapse was not unlike what he had done. Of course, this wasn't a uniform precise process with calibrated quantities of chemicals... but it might explain some of what we witnessed (heat residue).
If the plane did provide enormous heat to the columns of the structure it wasn't enough to melt the core columns or weaken them instantly because both towers stood after the planes slammed into them. Perhaps this heat did contribute to the progressive failure of the core which took between an hour and two. That explanation bears closer scrutiny because the towers' destruction were either initiated in an *instant* or it was a progression of column failures which reached a point and then the remaining core was so weakened it could no longer support the floors/structure above and it let go in an *instant*.
I tend to favor a progression of *weakening* of the core. This is the same as loss of reserve strength or a progressive lowering of the factor of safety... from column destruction or column weakening from heat. And we don't what was actually going on inside the core... aside from fires from the fuel and the office contents... both of which don't appear to have enough energy to sufficiently weaken the columns... in such as short period of time. I don't rule out some other weakening / destructive process including explosives or incendiaries or the *chemistry* referred to by this scientist.
A gravity driven collapse would involve the release of enormous amounts of heat from the mechanical grinding of the concrete. What was created was a collection of all sorts of finely ground materials... iron, aluminum, sulfur, copper iron oxide and so forth... all mixed with some water and lots of heat.
It's likely that the heat was so intense that it was able to ignite exothermic reactions, such as Iron Oxide and Aluminum which is essentially thermite. This chemical soup filled up the sub basements and became *the pile* where the reactions continued without the need of oxygen. The heat was so great and the mass of the pile so large... hundreds of thousands of tons that it remained for months... with many of the steel beams acting like heat sinks.
NIST should have studied the chemistry of the pulverized contents and tested to see if it could produced exothermic reactions. I don't recall any explanations given to explain the long lasting temperature of the *pile*. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the reaction of aluminum and iron oxide was a result of the collapse not a cause of it. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the heat of the *pile* and the heat which drove those massive billowing clouds which propagated from the site were the result of the collapse... the heat of friction from the mechanical grinding to fine grains particulates of hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete and contents in about 10 seconds.
Kevin Ryan recently posted a video where he does a backyard chemistry lab experiment to create thermite. It seems that the collapse was not unlike what he had done. Of course, this wasn't a uniform precise process with calibrated quantities of chemicals... but it might explain some of what we witnessed (heat residue).
If the plane did provide enormous heat to the columns of the structure it wasn't enough to melt the core columns or weaken them instantly because both towers stood after the planes slammed into them. Perhaps this heat did contribute to the progressive failure of the core which took between an hour and two. That explanation bears closer scrutiny because the towers' destruction were either initiated in an *instant* or it was a progression of column failures which reached a point and then the remaining core was so weakened it could no longer support the floors/structure above and it let go in an *instant*.
I tend to favor a progression of *weakening* of the core. This is the same as loss of reserve strength or a progressive lowering of the factor of safety... from column destruction or column weakening from heat. And we don't what was actually going on inside the core... aside from fires from the fuel and the office contents... both of which don't appear to have enough energy to sufficiently weaken the columns... in such as short period of time. I don't rule out some other weakening / destructive process including explosives or incendiaries or the *chemistry* referred to by this scientist.