Scholars for 9/11 Truth

[Makalakumu]

"The buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel."

An executive of the company that certified the steel used in the construction of the World Trade Center has questioned the common theory that fuel fires caused its collapse, in a letter yesterday to the head of the government team that has spent two years studying how the trade center was built and why it fell.

The author of the letter, Kevin Ryan, is site manager at Environmental Health Laboratories in South Bend, Indiana, a division of Underwriters Laboratories, the product-compliance and testing giant. Because UL certified the WTC steel for its ability to withstand fires, its performance on September 11 is obviously of concern to the company.

From Kevin R. Ryan Site Manager of the Environmental Health Laboratories South Bend, Indiana (Company site - www.ehl.cc) A division of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (Company site - www.ul.com)

To Frank Gayle Deputy Chief of the Metallurgy Division Material Science and Engineering Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST and the World Trade Center at wtc.nist.gov Dr. Gayle biography wtc.nist.gov/pi/wtc_profiles.asp?lastname=gayle

From: Kevin R Ryan/SBN/ULI
To: [email protected] Date: 11/11/2004

Dr. Gayle,

Having recently reviewed your team's report of 10/19/04, I felt the need to contact you directly. As I'm sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I'm aware of UL's attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.

There continues to be a number of "experts" making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). He states "What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel ? burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts." Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says "Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown's theory." We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2).

Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all. The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team's August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse". The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation. However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building's steel core to "soften and buckle"(5). Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C". To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.

This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I?m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9/11 were due to a safety-related failure.

That suggestion should be of great concern to my company. There is no question that the events of 9/11 are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror. And the issue of the WTC collapse is at the crux of the story of 9/11. My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux. Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and "chatter".

Thanks for your efforts to determine what happened on that day. You may know that there are a number of other current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth. I've copied one of these people on this message as a sign of respect and support. I believe your work could also be a nucleus of fact around which the truth, and thereby global peace and justice, can grow again. Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.

1. http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html
2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st edition, pg D-187
3. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P3MechanicalandMetAnalysisofSteel.pdf
4. http://www.voicesofsept11.org/archive/911ic/082703.php
5. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStatusFINAL101904WEB2.pdf (pg 11)
6. http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/ffaaMacSleyne.pdf

Kevin Ryan Site Manager Environmental Health Laboratories

 

[Blotan Hunka]

You would need WAY too much thermite to "burn" a skyscraper down. And Ive seen thermite in the military. It takes time to work. Its not used for demo. its used to destroy equipment. The effort of setting up thermite is even more wacko than the "controlled demo" theory in the set-up factor allone.

This concerns me from a teacher espically a science teacher

This is unequivical proof of its existence and it meets a standard of proof above mere eyewitness testimony.

Anybody who says this about something they saw on the internet raises real concerns. If thats all you need to be convinced, Im skeptical about many other things presented here as "proof". We have no idea what that is. I have seen housefires where all sorts of things glow and or melt. There was a lot of stuff in those buildings besides steel.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Free Fall Myth

http://www.911myths.com/html/freefall.html

How much greater? If the video evidence gives such a great ranges of guesses, then maybe another approach is required, at least as a crosscheck. We tried looking at the audio of each collapse, and came up with a minimum of 14 seconds in each case (see our South Tower and North Tower pages for more), and the potential for them to have taken several seconds longer. Calculating these times involves far too many judgement calls for us to claim proof of anything, but we do think it adds significantly more support to the 15+ seconds collapse time, and makes the 8.4 second end of the spectrum look particularly unlikely.

We can cross-check this by looking at the seismic evidence. Although often presented as supporting the shortest 8-point-something time, in our view there’s a case for arguing that this, too, indicates the collapse time was much, much longer.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

http://www.911myths.com/WTCTHERM.pdf

By far the largest source of aluminum at the WTC was the exterior cladding on WTC 1 & 2. In quantitative terms it may be estimated that 2,000,000 kg of anodized 0.09 aluminum sheet was used, in the form of 43,600 panels, to cover the façade of each Twin Tower.

The other major source of aluminum at the WTC was the aluminum alloy
airframes of the Boeing 767 aircraft that crashed into the Twin Towers on the
morning of 9-11. It may be estimated that, on impact, these aircraft weighed
about 124,000 kg including fuel; of this weight, 46,000 kg comprised the
fuselage and 21,000 kg made up the mass of the wings – all of which were
fabricated from aluminum alloys. Modern airframes are invariably constructed
from series 2000 aluminum alloys. Alloy 2024 is a typical example containing
93 % Al, 4.5 % Cu, 1.5 % Mg, and 0.5 % each of Mn and Fe. These metallic
additions to aluminum lower the melting point of the alloy from a value of
660 C, for pure aluminum, to about 548  C for alloy 2024. This relatively
low temperature indicates that the fires within the Twin Towers were quite
capable of melting at least some of the Boeing 767 aluminum airframe
structures remaining in the WTC before its collapse.

it is probable that as much as 10,000 kg of molten aluminum
formed in each Tower.

This natural passivation of Al, by the rapid formation of a thin film of impervious oxide, may easily be disrupted when Al is heated above its melting point of 660 C, (or ~ 550 C if the Al is alloyed to metals such as Cu or Mg). In its molten state, Al is susceptible to very violent and exothermic reactions with oxygen, even when the oxygen is chemically bound. A well-known example of the reactivity of molten aluminum is the aluminum water reaction that sometimes occurs with explosive violence when aluminum is cast into a mold unless precautionary masures are taken.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

http://astro.umsystem.edu/atm/ARCHIVES/OCT00/msg00433.html
where we read:

“Pouring molten aluminum in a concrete mold can be VERY DANGEROUS. If the concrete is of normal mix the mold has a very high chance of exploding violently showering you with molten aluminum.
For those that are interested, it is more than just a steam explosion that can result. The aluminum-water reaction that occurs with molten aluminum is highly exothermic, and will cause the aluminum to detonate with greater energy release than an equivalent weight of TNT. We at the department of Energy became painfully aware of this potential when we realized that the old reactors at Savannah River used metal aluminum fuel and target assemblies. Core meltdown took on a whole new meaning. I also have a friend that worked at the nearby East Alco Aluminum foundry. Everyone there knows that if a crucible full of molten aluminum spills on the concrete floor, they RUN!”

http://www.911myths.com/WTCTHERM.pdf

Occurrence of Thermite Type Compounds at the WTC If we look at H & K’s list of compounds that have the potential to induce “catastrophic explosions” in the presence of molten aluminum, namely, water, lime, gypsum and rust, we see that all of them were pesent in the Twin Towers during 9-11:

 

[Blotan Hunka]

So maybe Thermite WAS used. The melting aluminum from burning airplanes and melting cladding MADE thermite.

Interesting but far from a conspiracy.

 

[Makalakumu]

Free Fall Myth

http://www.911myths.com/html/freefall.html

The official NIST account lists the time of collapse as 10.6 seconds.

 

[Makalakumu]

http://www.911myths.com/WTCTHERM.pdf

For one thing, the slag was tested and those tests showed that it was composed of molten iron and aluminum. For another, the blackbody radiation given off by the glowing embers is way to hot for aluminum to remain partially solid. Burning jet fuel cannot melt aluminum or steel even in a perfect flame. The flame temps given by Dr. Gayle of the NIST were less then 500 degrees. Far below the melting point of aluminum and steel. So what melted both of these metals?

 

[Makalakumu]

So maybe Thermite WAS used. The melting aluminum from burning airplanes and melting cladding MADE thermite.

Interesting but far from a conspiracy.

That is very interesting...it could be possible. My only question is where did the elemental sulfur come from? Lots of stuff contains sulfur compounds, but it is not enough to cause sulfidation of large amounts of iron. This is despite the fact that nothing in the official story can actually get hot enough to melt either aluminum or steel...

 

[Makalakumu]

You would need WAY too much thermite to "burn" a skyscraper down. And Ive seen thermite in the military. It takes time to work. Its not used for demo. its used to destroy equipment. The effort of setting up thermite is even more wacko than the "controlled demo" theory in the set-up factor allone.

Yes, it takes time, but that is how steel buildings are demolished. When sulfur is used as an accelerant, the reaction speeds up and becomes so exothermic that it vaporizes steel. This doesn't take long at all.

Anybody who says this about something they saw on the internet raises real concerns. If thats all you need to be convinced, Im skeptical about many other things presented here as "proof". We have no idea what that is. I have seen housefires where all sorts of things glow and or melt. There was a lot of stuff in those buildings besides steel.

Even without a direct elemental analysis, we can rule out some metals based on available data. The photograph shows a chunk of the hot slag being extracted at ground zero. The hottest portion of the chunk is the lower portion, which was deepest down in the slag, and the metal is seen to be yellow-hot, certainly above cherry-red hot. The following table (see http://www.processassociates.com/process/heat/metcolor.htm ) provides data regarding the melting temperatures of lead, aluminum, structural steel and iron, along with approximate metal temperatures by color. Note that the approximate temperature of a hot metal is given by its color, quite independent of the composition of the metal.

​

Blackbody Material - Temeraptures given in °F °C K
Lead (Pb) Melts 621 327 601
Faint Red 930 500 770
Blood Red 1075 580 855
*Aluminum Melts 1221 660 933
Medium Cherry 1275 690 965
Cherry 1375 745 1020
Bright Cherry 1450 790 1060
Salmon 1550 845 1115
Dark Orange 1630 890 1160
Orange 1725 840 1215
Lemon 1830 1000 1270
Light Yellow 1975 1080 1355
White 2200 1205 1480
*Structural Steel ~2750 ~1510 ~1783
Melts
*Iron Melts 2800 1538 1811
*Thermite >4500 >2500 >2770

We see from the photograph above that solid metal slag existed at salmon-to-yellow-hot temperature (approx. 1550 - 1900 oF, 845 - 1040 oC.) The temperature is well above the melting temperatures of lead and aluminum, and these metals can evidently be ruled out since they would be runny liquids at much lower (cherry-red or below) temperatures. This peice of slag was being removed five weeks after the towers fell.

 

[Makalakumu]

An intriguing photograph (below right) taken by Rob Miller, photojournalist with the New York Post, provides additional photographic evidence (Swanson, 2003) for the use of thermite or a sulfur-containing derivative such as thermate. We see debris and dust as WTC 1 collapses, with WTC 7 seen in the foreground, across the street from WTC 1. The photograph in the link shows, for comparison, the thermite reaction with a grayish-white aluminum-oxide dust plume extending upwards from the white-hot molten iron "blob" from the reaction

http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/demolab/images/ironred.jpg

Mr. Miller captured two ladder-like structures in his photograph (middle left; a cleaner photo is being sought), consistent with steel structures observed in the core of WTC 1. Observe the grayish-white plumes trailing upward from white "blobs" at the left-most extremities of the upper structure. (The lower structure is mostly obscured by dust.) It is possible that thermite cut through structural steel and that what we now observe is white-hot iron from the reaction adhering to the severed ends of the steel, with grayish-white aluminum oxide still streaming away from the reaction sites. The observations are consistent with the use of thermite or one of its variants. However, further analysis of this and additional photographs from the series is necessary before any firm conclusions can be drawn about this line of evidence.

 

[Makalakumu]

Please note this for comparison

http://www.implosionworld.com/cinema.htm

This is the only way a symmetrical collapse has ever been observed for a building made of steel. Also, no steel building has ever fallen due symetrically, or asymetrically to fire damage and minor structural damage. Ever.

See for yourself how WTC 7 collapses.

http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/videos.html

The official FEMA 9-11 report admits a striking anomaly regarding the North Tower collapse:

Review of videotape recordings of the collapse taken from various angles indicates that the transmission tower on top of the structure began to move downward and laterally slightly before movement was evident at the exterior wall. This suggests that collapse began with one or more failures in the central core area of the building. (FEMA, 2002, chapter 2; emphasis added.)

North Tower showing antenna (top) at beginning of collapse.


Yes, we can see for ourselves that the antenna drops first from videos of the North Tower collapse.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/wtc1_close_frames.html
http://home.comcast.net/~skydrifter/collapse.htm

A NY Times article also notes this behavior:

The building stood for more than an hour and a half. Videos of the north tower's collapse appear to show that its television antenna began to drop a fraction of a second before the rest of the building. The observations suggest that the building's steel core somehow gave way first… (Glanz and Lipton, 2002; emphasis added)

But how? What caused the 47 enormous steel core columns of this building (which supported the antenna) to evidently give way nearly simultaneously? That mystery was raised by the FEMA report (FEMA, 2002) and the New York Times (Glanz and Lipton, 2002) yet not resolved in the official reports (FEMA, 2002; Commission, 2004; NIST, 2005). The NIST report notes that:

...photographic and videographic records taken from due north of the WTC 1 collapse appeared to indicate that the antenna was sinking into the roof (McAllister 2002). When records from east and west vantage points were viewed, it was apparent that the building section above the impact area tilted to the south as the building collapsed. (NIST, 2005)

However, we find no quantitative analysis in the report which shows that this tilting of the building section was sufficient to account for the large apparent drop of the antenna as seen from the north, or that this building-section-tilting occurred before the apparent antenna drop. Furthermore, the FEMA investigators also reviewed "videotape recordings of the collapse taken from various angles" yet came to the sense that "collapse began with one or more failures in the central core area of the building." (FEMA, 2002)

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Its also the only time 2 fully loaded passenger planes ever crashed into 2 skyscrappers.

I just discovered what Occams Razor was from this thread. This conspiracy theory is what it was made for. The idea of the government being able to pull this off when it cant drive a few Iraqi trucks laded with WMD into a desert alone makes all of this **** seem stupid.

 

[Makalakumu]

Its also the only time 2 fully loaded passenger planes ever crashed into 2 skyscrappers.

Again, all groups agree, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, NIST, and FEMA, that the mechanical damage done by the aircrafts wasn't even close to enough to bring the buildings down. 1-3 supporting steel beams were demonstrateably damaged in the actual crashes. The NIST and FEMA reports put the blame for the collapses of WTC 1, 2, and 7 solely on the fire. Shortly, I will be providing another argument that shows why this is not possible.

I just discovered what Occams Razor was from this thread. This conspiracy theory is what it was made for. The idea of the government being able to pull this off when it cant drive a few Iraqi trucks laded with WMD into a desert alone makes all of this **** seem stupid.

The official version of the story about the collapse of these buildings is physically impossible. It violates multiple laws of nature thus there is absolutely no possible way for it to be true. Therefore, in essence, we are left with no theory for the collapse of these buildings. We don't know how it happened...and that, in my opinion, is important on a whole bunch of levels.

Here is one example...

Lets assume for a moment, that these buildings were not intentionally demolished (I'm sure that won't be hard for a number of you ). If these buildings collapsed because of some reason inherit in their construction or for some other reasons. This poses a safety risk that must be corrected before any other buildings like these are constructed. Heaven forbid that the same mistakes are made because we refused to learn about them for political reasons.

The bottom line is that we really owe it to ourselves, and to the victims, to honestly get to the bottom of this. I am honestly not quite sure about the controlled demolition of these buildings. There is some evidence that seems to support that theory, but there is also alot more work that needs to be done before I'd totally buy into it. As far as the official explanation, however, I am convinced that it cannot be true. For whatever reasons, we are not being told the truth.

 

[Makalakumu]

I'm going to put one more nail in the coffin of the official story...

When I was in the 8th grade, I took a metal shop class. One of the projects that we had to do used a crucible and a furnace to melt aluminum to poor into a sand mold that we had designed. The furnace temperature was 2000 degrees. This is far above the melting point of aluminum. I took 2 kg of aluminum and placed it in the crucible and waited. And waited. And waited. 50 minutes went by. By the end of the class period, I was able to use the tongs to pour the molten metal into my mold.

50 minutes to melt 2 kg of aluminum in a furnace at 2000 degrees.

The reason why it took so long is because of something called specific heat. The equation for this is Q = cm (t2-t1). Where Q is the heat added, c is the specific heat of the material affected, m is the mass of the material and (t2-t1) is the change in temperature.

c is a specific property of a material that is based off of its chemical structure and it does not change. For aluminum, the value is .9 j/g*K. This indicates that the metal warms up relatively quickly and cools down relatively quickly. However, if we were to use a fire of 2000 degrees to warm up to warm up 1000 kg of aluminum 1000 degrees K that would take hours.

The specific heat of steel is .438 j/g*K. Steel is an even better conductor of heat then aluminum by nearly a factor of two.

In order for a "global failure" of the buildings to occur, the steel core of WTC 1, 2, and 7 had to fail. This is the only way that a symetrical collapse of the building is possible. And that total failure, due to fire, is what is listed as the collapse of all three buildings. How many tons of steel were in each building? How many tons of steel need to fail when the fires are only 500 degrees?

By now, it should be obvious that the amount of time that WTC 1 and 2 burned is not enough for the steel to have even warmed significantly. In fact, the seven hours that WTC 7 burned doesn't even come close to warming the steel up to where it would even lose strength! In order to warm only 1000 kg of steel to 1000 degrees (a temp at which is structural integrity would be compromised by 50%) in a 500 degree fire requires days. And this is in a well insulated furnace where hardly any heat escapes...not an open building where heat transfer is parts of the building uncontrolled.

Thus, it is impossible for the fire to have caused the collapse of these buildings. The fires weren't hot enough, they weren't big enough, and there wasn't enough time for them to burn. It should come as no wonder why the journal Fire Engineering refers to the official story of the collapse as a "half baked farce."

 

[Blotan Hunka]

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0621-02.htm

More to the point, evidence indicates that the FBI and CIA had information about a plot before Bush took office and did nothing. Was the Clinton Administration part of the plan, along with the FBI, CIA, FAA, and the airline industry? And why four planes? Why not just one? And why target a building with thousands of people in it when any symbol of America would stir patriotism and cause outrage? And why, if the government knew of or plotted the attack, didn’t the authorities pack the planes with undercover agents and stop the attacks as they started? What a coup that would have been. Bush could have parleyed that bit of heroism into election for life.

The conspiracists claim that Bush is a dim bulb, yet they give him credit for pulling off a complex and unprecedented attack. They claim, correctly I think, that he is only interested in protecting the rich; so why would he support an act that hurt the airline and travel industry and took the bottom out of an already declining stock market?

It doesn’t make sense, to put it kindly. Nine-eleven conspiracy theories are an ugly, ignorant and dangerous distraction from the real political problems that the policies of the Bush Administration represent. The fact that Bush is exploiting the situation for political gain doesn’t make him responsible for the situation itself; any politician would do the same. The conspiracists, to the degree they are identified with the left, will do more damage to the credibility of progressive politics than they will to the reputation of the Bush Administration. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the emergence of the 9-11 conspiracy theory is a FBI plot to discredit the left.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1230517.html

Don't get me wrong: Healthy skepticism is a good thing. Nobody should take everything they hear--from the government, the media or anybody else--at face value. But in a culture shaped by Oliver Stone movies and "X-Files" episodes, it is apparently getting harder for simple, hard facts to hold their own against elaborate, shadowy theorizing.

Fortunately, facts can be checked. For our special report, PM compiled a list of the 16 most common claims made by conspiracy theorists, assertions that are at the root of virtually every 9/11 alternative scenario. These claims all involve fields that are part of PM's core expertise--structural engineering, aviation, military technology and science.

We assembled a team of reporters and researchers, including professional fact checkers and the editors of PM, and methodically analyzed all 16 conspiracy claims. We interviewed scores of engineers, aviation experts, military officials, eyewitnesses and members of the investigative teams who have held the wreckage of the attacks in their own hands. We pored over photography, maps, blueprints, aviation logs and transcripts. In every single instance, we found that the facts used by conspiracy theorists to support their fantasies were mistaken, misunderstood or deliberately falsified.

Reasonable people are entitled to wish that our government had been better prepared and more alert. But those who peddle fantasies that this country encouraged, permitted or actually carried out the attacks are libeling the truth--and disgracing the memories of the thousands who died that day.

 

[Makalakumu]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1230517.html

The PM article was already posted. Points that are relavent have been dealt with above. And this article does nothing to address the physical imposibilities that have been addressed. Some of the points the article makes regarding the stuff on the pentagon and on the supposed shooting down of 193 seem to be back with some facts.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=9&c=y

PM consulted more than 300 experts and organizations in its investigation into 9/11 conspiracy theories.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

"Reasonable people are entitled to wish that our government had been better prepared and more alert. But those who peddle fantasies that this country encouraged, permitted or actually carried out the attacks are libeling the truth--and disgracing the memories of the thousands who died that day."