Some Misunderstandings Related to WTC Collapse Analysis

[Tony Szamboti]

You keep going on about heating doing it, but don't seem concerned that there is no physical evidence of high steel temperatures. NIST only found three spots out of 236 pieces they got where the temperature of the steel had gotten above 250 degrees C.

How could NIST say, therefore, that fire weakened the steel causing the collapse? Who needs proof when you already know the answer?

I think this is the big gray area about the collapse of those buildings. What was the temperature of the steel? What parts of the steel were at those elevated temperatures? How do we know?

I don't think we know with any certainty or precision much about the steel and elevated temps. There were no transducers measuring the temps... no video cameras recording the locations of the fire... or the amount of fire protection left/removed from the steel.

We don't know for sure.

We do know that steel frames rely on applied fire protection which give its a 2 hr rating to resist typical office fires and failure. All the towers experienced extensive fires, probably fuel assisted, no fire suppression from sprinklers and likely loss of fore protection on the steel.

Even in 7WTC where I believe the initiating failure occurred in the load transfer region...there were reported explosions early in the day. I believe they were electrical equipment caused explosions... and I would suggest that these explosions ALSO dislodged fire proofing from steel and may have started fuel fed and unfought fires. THIS IS SPECULATION. I don't know if there is a way to determine if this actually of occurred. Perhaps this could be modeled. I do not know.

The non CD explanation seems logical to me and matches the observations from the public record... however incomplete that record is. CD is an explanation with NO supporting evidence... which ignores contrary evidence (movements of the buildings prior to release).

You don't need thermocouples measuring the temperature of the steel during the fire. The steel itself provides a metallurgical record and the temperature it reached can be determined afterward. However, you need the steel afterward to do that. NIST got only 0.25 to 0.50% of the steel from the towers but what they got showed no metallurgical evidence of having reached temperatures where it even lost any strength.

Essentially, there is no evidence whatsoever that fire took those buildings down.