Can Thermite Burn Steel?

[KanadaHye]

As most people know by now, independent Engineers and Scientists have been vocal about the misleading NIST report claiming that burning jet fuel would be able to melt steel and collapse the twin towers. Many have mentioned that there would have to have been a catalyst to create such a destructive scenario. The possible use of Thermite has been suggested however National Geographic claimed that thermite doesn't have the capability to burn through steel beams. This video clearly proves that National Geographics' 'education' to the public about thermite was incorrect.

[Haykakan]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

All facts including the scientific ones clearly point to a conspiracy regarding 911!

[Eddo211]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

One thing I know from my own experience (from accident aircraft to abnormal stresses) in aviation Kanada is that you don't need to reach the melting point of a metal to have it fail but heat it up enough and its ability to support the same load will be lost drastically.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

One thing I know from my own experience (from accident aircraft to abnormal stresses) in aviation Kanada is that you don't need to reach the melting point of a metal to have it fail but heat it up enough and its ability to support the same load will be lost drastically.

A structure failing and a structure melting are two different things. Molten, smoldering metal cannot be produced without having reached the necessary temperatures so either there was incendiary chemicals on the plane or in the building.

[Siggie]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

There wasn't any molten steel found in the wreckage. Why would we need to explain the existence of something that wasn't present?

Placing ourselves in the illustrious company of this most brilliant mind of our times... That's "winning" if I ever saw it. *sigh* This makes me sad...




For those who are openly actually seeking to understand this, there's an excellent WELL-RESEARCHED AND CITED piece here which examines all of these conspiracy claims.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11/

The 9/11 Truth Movement often states or implies that steel would have needed to melt in order for the structure to collapse at the speed of a free-fall. While there are varying assessments of the temperature of the fire at WTC, most agree that the temperature probably reached 1,000° Fahrenheit and possibly higher than 1,800° F. Flames of this temperature would be far short of the approximately 2800° F needed to melt steel, but they would have been sufficient to severely reduce the structural integrity of the metal. Best engineering estimates tell us that steel loses 50% of its strength at 650° F, and can lose as much as 90% of its strength at temperatures of 1,800° F.5 Even if we assume temperatures of no higher than 1,000° F during the fire, we would still have more than enough reasons to expect damage severe enough to result in eventual collapse.

...

What about the “melted steel” that 9/11 conspiracy theorists claim was at Ground Zero? Dr. Steven Jones’ popular article cites several anecdotal sources speaking about flowing or pooled samples of melted steel found at Ground Zero.8 However, the sources in question are informal observations of “steel” at Ground Zero, not laboratory results.9 To many people, any grayish metal looks sufficiently like steel to call it “steel” when speaking informally. To actually establish that the substance in question is steel, we need analytical laboratory results using atomic absorption (AA) or another suitable test. It seems far more likely that the metal seen by the contractors was aluminum, a component of the WTC structural material that melts at a much lower temperature than steel and can look superficially similar to it.

[Hyreniq]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

[Siggie]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

I posted something with peer-reviewed scientific references and you post a youtube video that doesn't even say where this originally aired to counter?

I addressed exactly this in my above post. Firefighters are not chemists nor metallurgists. What they observed was molten aluminum which has a much lower melting point, not steel. Further, the claim that the buildings were designed to withstand prolonged fire from jet fuel false; they, like many skyscrapers, were designed not to collapse if they were hit by a plane. This not the same thing and that's important because the buildings DID remain standing after being struck by the planes.

[Haykakan]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

Those who think 911 really was a few arabs with boxcutters either havent thought about it or are just plain dumb. The crap they showed to debunk 911 conspiracy theories proves beyond the shadow of any doubt they are hiding many things. These same people also think Israel is a true democratic and peacfull nation, that arabs are murerous monkeys, that USA is a force of good in this world, there is no global warming, god is great, that rock in the ocean is Russia, the whole world only exists if fox news says it does, we should preach abstenence while our teenage kids have babies, we should bash gays in public but have sex with them in the bathroom, red dawn is a true story, ....

[KanadaHye]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?

I posted something with peer-reviewed scientific references and you post a youtube video that doesn't even say where this originally aired to counter?

I addressed exactly this in my above post. Firefighters are not chemists nor metallurgists. What they observed was molten aluminum which has a much lower melting point, not steel. Further, the claim that the buildings were designed to withstand prolonged fire from jet fuel false; they, like many skyscrapers, were designed not to collapse if they were hit by a plane. This not the same thing and that's important because the buildings DID remain standing after being struck by the planes.

Jesus Christ... do you work/belong to an organization of paid shills?

[Hyreniq]

Re: Can Thermite Burn Steel?