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Title: New York visit reveals extent of WTC disaster[molten metal still red hot weeks after the event]
Source: Structural Times
URL Source: http://www.istructe.org.uk/about/files/president/Tour-2002-NewYork.pdf
Published: Sep 3, 2002
Author: Structural Times
Post Date: 2003-12-13 14:44:14 by honway
99 Comments

http://www.istructe.org.uk/about/files/president/Tour-2002-NewYork.pdf

New York visit reveals extent of WTC disaster

The Ground Zero site where the World Trade Center towers once stood was the focus of the visit by Prof. David Blockley and Dr Keith Eaton to New York, on the first leg of their North American tour. They discussed developments on the site with Pablo Lopez and Andrew Pontecorvo of Mueser Rutledge.

Dr Eaton said: ‘We were given a fascinating insight into what had been happening at the site. Our hosts, under the firm’s principal engineer George Tamaro (F), had been constantly involved at Ground Zero for several months. They had been called in as foundation engineers within a week of 11 September, and had spent several months examining the stability of the debris and the diaphragm wall all around the site, commonly known as the “bathtub” They had been key individuals in advising on the excavation of the site, with a great deal of care being needed before debris could be removed in order to maintain the stability of the original slurry walls.

‘They showed us many fascinating slides’ he continued, ‘ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster’.

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1. To: honway (#0)

molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event

This sort of claim impeaches the witness's credibility.

jlogajan  posted on  2003-12-13   14:46:49 ET  Reply   Trace


2. To: All (#0)

Link

Molten Steel at Ground Zero

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   14:47:11 ET  (1 image) Reply   Trace


3. To: jlogajan (#1)

This sort of claim impeaches the witness's credibility.

Look at the picture.

Let me guess your next response.

You should not believe your eyes.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   14:48:57 ET  Reply   Trace


4. To: All (#3)

Garry
: : Did you ever get hold of Loiseaux? What had he to say : : about your onager assertion there were "puddles of : : steel" in the basement of WTC?

: First, it wasn't "my" assertation, but Loiseax' claim that was reported : by The American Free Press. . . I was trying to guage what might have caused : the melting. The claim that he made was challenged so I emailed him about it, : and was going to try again this week. Second, I think perhaps the "oven" effect : proposed by Robert ASF, I believe, sounds the most plausible, but there isn't : any evidence that took place. The recodring of two seismic spikes prior to : the towers each collapsing is still a mystery, although I don't believe it was : a nuke, ther may have been charges in place to bring down the building in : the event of an imminent collapse as as safety measure that ignited prematurely.

: I will let you know what Mark says.

: Garry

Here is what he wrote to me today at 10:38 PST:

Mr. Bryan:

I didn't personally see molten steel at the World Trade Center site. It was reported to me by contractors we had been working with. Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile. There are both video tape and still photos of the molten steel being "dipped" out by the buckets of excavators. I'm not sure where you can get a copy.

Sorry I cannot provide personal confirmation.

Regards,

Mark Loizeaux, President
CONTROLLED DEMOLITION, INC.
2737 Merryman's Mill Road
Phoenix, Maryland USA 21131
Tel: 1-410-667-XXXX
Fax: 1-410-667-XXXX
www.controlled-demolition.com

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   14:52:46 ET  Reply   Trace


5. To: tom009 (#4)

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/9_11/articles/911memories.htm

They came to help at Ground Zero. What they experienced they can't forget

Slowly, the task force won them over. They threaded their fiber-optic cameras down whisker-size cracks probing for signs of life. And their four search dogs worked so hard unearthing cadavers that Turner's Aussie shepherd, Tough, was on the brink of burnout. Turner himself crawled through an opening and down crumpled stairwells to the subway, five levels below ground. He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam–but found no signs of life. Back on the surface, he knew there had been a breakthrough in trust when he heard a New York firefighter shout, "Hey, we need a yellow shirt over here."

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   14:54:45 ET  Reply   Trace


6. To: Fred Mertz (#5)

http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/cespk-pao/jan-02/jan02-01.html

New York City World Trade Center Disaster Deployment

The one word that can be use to describe the scene is AWESOME! The size of everything was enormous. The pile of debris after 30 days of removal operations was still gigantic, over three stories high, with structural steel projecting 7-10 stories into the air. The steam, dust, noise, steel and myriad activities were larger than anything I have ever seen. Temperatures in the pile were over 1,200 °F. Every time an area was opened, fire started in any buried combustible debris. Water trucks and fire engines were used continually. The high temperature debris and water created steam. Dust contained asbestos, silica, metals, molds and mildews.

The dust and other hazardous materials from the debris required sprayers to be set up to wash all trucks exiting the site. These sprayers were also used to cool the high temperature debris before it left the site. Several trucks were returned to the site for additional cooling because the law enforcement officers would not let them through the tunnels leaving Manhattan until they stopped steaming.

The large grapples (over 8’ long fingers) on large hydraulic excavators performed well and accomplished the vast majority of the debris removal. The debris was very hard on the equipment and created severe operating conditions.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   14:56:57 ET  Reply   Trace


7. To: OKCSubmariner, thinden (#6)

fyi

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   14:58:22 ET  Reply   Trace


8. To: honway (#3)

First, no date is given for the photo. Second, there is smoke everywhere, so something is still burning. Third, something is red hot, but whether it is steel or something else cannot be determined. Fourth, it is clearly not "molten" because it is still rigid enough to be picked up.

Proof of thermite? Hardly.

jlogajan  posted on  2003-12-13   14:59:43 ET  Reply   Trace


9. To: jlogajan (#8)

You are hilarious.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   15:02:55 ET  Reply   Trace


10. To: All (#0)

Molten doesn't mean liquid.

Molten means hot/warm and-or bright.

Thus, it's common for a home fireplace to have molten bits the morning after.

CodyToldMe  posted on  2003-12-13   15:06:26 ET  Reply   Trace


11. To: All (#9)

Here's Frank Silecchia with his crew. It's Franks photogragh and Frank calls it "molten steel."

Frank was there. I was not. Frank can call it the way he saw it, in my opinion.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   15:11:20 ET  (1 image) Reply   Trace


12. To: CodyToldMe, ALL (#10)

Molten doesn't mean liquid.

mol·ten

A past participle of melt.

adj.

1.Made liquid by heat; melted: molten lead.
2.Made by melting and casting in a mold.
3.Brilliantly glowing, from or as if from intense heat: “A huge red bed of coals blazed and quivered with molten fury” (Richard Wright).

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Molten

Mol"ten, a. [See Melt.]

1. Melted; being in a state of fusion, esp. when the liquid state is produced by a high degree of heat; as, molten iron.

2. Made by melting and casting the substance or metal of which the thing is formed; as, a molten image.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Molten

Melt Melt, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Melted (obs.) p. p. Molten; p. pr. & vb. n. Melting.] [AS. meltan; akin to Gr. me`ldein, E. malt, and prob. to E. smelt, v. [root]108. Cf. Smelt, v., Malt, Milt the spleen.]

1. To reduce from a solid to a liquid state, as by heat; to liquefy; as, to melt wax, tallow, or lead; to melt ice or snow.

2. Hence: To soften, as by a warming or kindly influence; to relax; to render gentle or susceptible to mild influences; sometimes, in a bad sense, to take away the firmness of; to weaken.

Thou would'st have . . . melted down thy youth. --Shak.

For pity melts the mind to love. --Dryden.

Syn: To liquefy; fuse; thaw; mollify; soften.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Molten

adj : reduced to liquid form by heating; "a mass of molten rock" [syn: liquefied, liquified]

Marine Inspector  posted on  2003-12-13   15:13:37 ET  Reply   Trace


13. To: All (#11)

It's Frank's photogragh and Frank calls it "molten steel."

Amid the wreckage, worker finds affirmation of faith.

Article by CNN.com. Photographs by James R. Tourtellotte.

NEW YORK (CNN, October 4, 2001) - - Two nights after two hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center, causing it to collapse in a mound of twisted wreckage, Frank Silecchia had just helped remove three bodies from the rubble when he looked up and saw a scene he says transfixed him.

Among the debris from Tower One that had crashed onto the floor of the atrium of Building 6, the laborer with Local 731 said he saw steel beams strewn about in the shape of crosses that reminded him of depictions showing Jesus Christ and two thieves being crucifies on Calvary.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   15:16:53 ET  Reply   Trace


14. To: All (#13)

Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile. There are both video tape and still photos of the molten steel being "dipped" out by the buckets of excavators. I'm not sure where you can get a copy.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   15:18:51 ET  Reply   Trace


15. To: honway, jlogajan (#9)

8. To: honway (#3) First, no date is given for the photo. Second, there is smoke everywhere, so something is still burning. Third, something is red hot, but whether it is steel or something else cannot be determined. Fourth, it is clearly not "molten" because it is still rigid enough to be picked up.

Proof of thermite? Hardly.

jlogajan posted on 2003-12-13 14:59:43 ET Reply Trace

You didn't comment on the fact that that picture is not dated. I thought the same thing. Why don't you comment on that instead of saying:

You are hilarious.

Makes one think you don't have an answer.

aligyrl  posted on  2003-12-13   15:20:04 ET  Reply   Trace


16. To: aligyrl (#15)

Makes one think you don't have an answer.

Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile.

"It appears from the evidence the photo was taken "during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile."

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   15:26:58 ET  Reply   Trace


17. To: All (#14)

Now we've got three dictionary definitions, a quote from Dryden, and an image of Calvary.

I've still yet to see a photo of puddly liquid metal.

Given the vast repository of historical analysis of other similar buildings collapse, we're waving hypothesis after hypothesis.

Who REALLY shot Lincoln and what REALLY happened to Atlantis?

CodyToldMe  posted on  2003-12-13   15:29:12 ET  Reply   Trace


18. To: All (#17)

Last fall we dug a cooking pit for clods of beef. Cooked for a day, dug and ate, shoveled it up. About a week later we dug out of curiosity and found bits that were still glowing.

If we'd cooked with a Boeing full of jet fuel and ninety floors of skyscraper, I'd bet we'd have a glow for a bit longer than a week.

So what's the theme here, that evil forces hid bombs in the basement to cause the floors to collapse from top to bottom?

Morris  posted on  2003-12-13   15:39:34 ET  Reply   Trace


19. To: honway (#16)

Molten Steel at Ground Zero

That's what it says under the picture. There's nothing molten about it. Red hot yes, but nothing dripping.

Furthermore, you used the picture as some kind of refutation of what jlogajan said about the credibility of this statement:

molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event

There is no date on that photo therefore cannot be used to refute a statement about molten steel being seen "weeks after the event".

aligyrl  posted on  2003-12-13   15:44:34 ET  Reply   Trace


20. To: Morris (#18)

So what's the theme here, that evil forces hid bombs in the basement to cause the floors to collapse from top to bottom?

Yep.

Marine Inspector  posted on  2003-12-13   15:44:47 ET  Reply   Trace


21. To: Morris (#18)

So what's the theme here, that evil forces hid bombs in the basement to cause the floors to collapse from top to bottom?

The question is :

What was the source of the energy that produced molten steel weeks after the collapse?

You are suggesting it was kerosene from the aircraft? How much kerosene do you think was left after those large fireballs?

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   15:46:44 ET  Reply   Trace


22. To: All (#19)

refute should be prove.

aligyrl  posted on  2003-12-13   15:51:07 ET  Reply   Trace


23. To: honway (#21)

What was the source of the energy that produced molten steel weeks after the collapse?

A number of possibilities.

Electrical explosions. Most major power distribution circuits are built to contain explosions...melt the inside first.

Most major buildings have emergency power generators somewhere, usually internal combustion engines.

Compression...squeeze anything hard enough and it will warm. Squeeze ninety floors of building into a basement, things will get hot.

Morris  posted on  2003-12-13   15:56:19 ET  Reply   Trace


24. To: Morris (#23)

Not to mention a likely huge gas main.

CV 66 snipe  posted on  2003-12-13   15:58:59 ET  Reply   Trace


25. To: All (#24)

And of course magnesium components from the plane itself as well as the building.

CV 66 snipe  posted on  2003-12-13   16:02:13 ET  Reply   Trace


26. To: honway (#21)

You are suggesting it was kerosene from the aircraft? How much kerosene do you think was left after those large fireballs?

Could be.

Historical data on how much jet fuel produces how big a fireball is scarce.

We do know that initial aircraft fires do not use all the available fuel....that's why airports have fire trucks to go out and extinguish what burns slowly......and jet fuel does not go POOF and all gone instantly. It drips and remains a flammable hazard well after it leaks and drips.

Usually drips down.

How much was burnt in those fireballs? Who knows. Did the remainder drip, gravity drip, to where? No data.

We do know that the DC-10 that crashed upon landing at LAX had immediate impact balls of fire, and we do know that residual unburnt fuel puddled all around the fuselage, which some exiting passengers waded through, and the fire department had a helluva time preventing the residual fuel from igniting.

Morris  posted on  2003-12-13   16:03:11 ET  Reply   Trace


27. To: Morris (#26)

You're being logical and rational.

That won't get your conspiracy book on the Amazon Best Seller list. <p

CodyToldMe  posted on  2003-12-13   16:11:04 ET  Reply   Trace


28. To: All (#27)

Thus ends another amway Breaking News post.

tribe  posted on  2003-12-13   16:21:44 ET  Reply   Trace


29. To: honway (#21)

What was the source of the energy that produced molten steel weeks after the collapse?

The fires in the wreckage continued for three months. There is a lot of stuff in the towers to burn, including the kerosene -- carpet, furniture, papers, bodies, plastics.

Take all the stuff out of your home office and set it outside in a pile and light it on fire. It will make quite a blaze. Multiply that by thousands.

Air supply was the limiting factor. As you dig down into the wreckage, you expose the immediate layers to more air, so the fires continue to propogate downward as does the uncovering operation.

There is nothing mysterious here. No thermite.

jlogajan  posted on  2003-12-13   16:25:46 ET  Reply   Trace


30. To: BeAChooser (#0)

Bookmark for later comment.

BeAChooser  posted on  2003-12-13   18:55:15 ET  Reply   Trace


31. To: honway (#7)

picture's worth a thousand words.

thanx for the flag.

thinden  posted on  2003-12-13   19:17:59 ET  Reply   Trace


32. To: all (#26)

http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_execsum.pdf

Executive Summary of the FEMA Report

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   21:44:34 ET  Reply   Trace


33. To: honway (#32)

The large quantity of jet fuel carried by each aircraft ignited upon impact into each building. A significant portion of this fuel was consumed immediately in the ensuing fireballs. The remaining fuel is believed either to have flowed down through the buildings or to have burned off within a few minutes of the aircraft impact.

The heat produced by this burning jet fuel does not by itself appear to have been sufficient to initiate the structural collapses. However, as the burning jet fuel spread across several floors of the buildings, it ignited much of the buildings’ contents, causing simultaneous fires across several floors of both buildings. The heat output from these fires is estimated to have been comparable to the power produced by a large commercial power generating station. Over a period of many minutes, this heat induced additional stresses into the damaged structural frames while simultaneously softening and weakening these frames. This additional loading and the resulting damage were sufficient to induce the collapse of both structures. The ability of the two towers to withstand aircraft

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   21:57:42 ET  Reply   Trace


34. To: thinden (#31)

It's a very rare photo. It may be worth saving.

I have been unable to find any other photo like it showing red-hot steel being excavated from Ground Zero.

From a photography standpoint, it's a powerful photogragh in my view.

In fact, I can not find another photo of an excavation of any kind, anywhere, at anytime showing the removal of red-hot steel from debris from any collapsed building or building fire.

The photo is unique, if nothing else.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   22:08:22 ET  Reply   Trace


35. To: All (#34)

http://www.fsgbooks.com/nothpointpress.htm

Link

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -

American Ground
Unbuilding the World Trade Center
by William Langewiesche

A National Book Critics Circle Finalist
A New York Times best-seller

"The most thoughtful and original [9-11] book to appear so far is American Ground, William Langewiesche's meticulous description of the rescue effort at Ground Zero and the subsequent excavation of the 1.8 million tons of debris at the literal and emotional heart of this calamity. Langewiesche was granted almost unlimited access to the site and the rescue staff, and he made the most of the privilege." --Malcolm Jones, Newsweek

A national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, where this book originated as a three-part series, William Langewiesche takes us inside the painstaking and often dangerous deconstruction of the World Trade Center during the nine months following the September 11 attacks. Amid molten steel, whispers of leaking freon, the potential collapse of the protective "slurry wall," and treacherous piles of shifting rubble, Langewiesche uncovered a case study in American resilience. American Ground reconstructs the ephemeral and unprecedented experience of the engineers, firefighters, police, construction workers, and officials to whom it fell to bring order to chaos. "This is a genuinely monumental story, told without melodrama, an intimate depiction of ordinary Americans reacting to grand-scale tragedy" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). More...

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   22:19:54 ET  Reply   Trace


36. To: All (#35)

The Collapse: An Engineer's Perspective

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   22:44:00 ET  Reply   Trace


37. To: honway (#35)

Amid molten steel, whispers of leaking freon,

Hum Trying to remember it's been about 10 years but I assume we are talking chillers that were used to cool the building. Likely 200 ton units & up. Probably era of installation R-11 units. R-11 with the unit off would depending on ambient tempatures be anywhere from a 3-5" vacuum to about 5 PSI in a very hot space. I'd need a PTR chart to get the exacts but that's in the neighborhood.

BUT here is the kicker on it. Chillers have pop off saftey devices. These release in large volume not small. As such from R-11 you would hear no hissing. Any R-12 or 22 units would not bleed off long if you could hear it. Which brings up a potentially fatal situation of being near burning refrigerant. It is deadly to be around. Phosgene gas is very unforgiving. And how exactally would they know for certain it was refrigerant? An electronic leak detector would say as much BUT with a fuel satuaration it as well would be useless. My guess would be hearing steam from water standing in a line somewhere. The refrigerant likely was gone minutes after the collapse definately within a few hours even on the big units.

CV 66 snipe  posted on  2003-12-13   22:56:54 ET  Reply   Trace


38. To: honway (#36)

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/07/77nwash.htm

The Atlantic Monthly | July/August 2002
77 North Washington Street

In his reporting for "American Ground," Langewiesche explored the shifting debris with construction workers and engineers, documenting the crises and questions as they arose. He crawled through "the pile" with survey parties and descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   23:54:16 ET  Reply   Trace


39. To: CV 66 snipe (#37)

The refrigerant likely was gone minutes after the collapse definately within a few hours even on the big units.

In his book, "America Ground", Langewiesche writes about the freon tanks that were of concern.It was difficult duty without a doubt.

honway  posted on  2003-12-13   23:57:08 ET  Reply   Trace


40. To: All (#39)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/03/nyregion/03TOWE.html? ex=1071550800&en=3ab541b53897ecb1&ei=5070

New Evidence Is Reported That Floors Failed on 9/11
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: December 3, 2003

GAITHERSBURG, Md., Dec. 2 — Federal investigators said here Tuesday that new evidence supported earlier suggestions that the floor supports in the World Trade Center began failing in the minutes before the towers fell and might have played a major role in their collapse.

The investigators, who are carrying out a two-year, $16 million analysis of the collapses, made it clear that they had not yet settled on a final explanation. They said, though, that their findings gave new weight to a theory that the failure of the floors weakened the towers' internal structure to the point that the entire buildings came down.

S. Shyam Sunder, who is leading the investigation for the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Commerce Department, said, "We are seeing evidence of floors appearing to be sagging — or that had been damaged — prior to collapse." Still, Dr. Sunder said, "The relative role of the floors and the columns still remain to be determined in the collapse."

According to an alternative theory of the collapse, the planes that smashed into the towers damaged the towers' vertical structural columns so severely that the buildings were virtually certain to fall. In that view, none of the buildings' many structural novelties — the towers were daring engineering innovations in their day — would have played a significant role in the collapses.

Last spring, the standards institute found the first photographic evidence on the east face of the south tower that a single floor — with its lightweight support system, called a truss — had sagged in the minutes before it started collapsing. Now, detailed analysis of photos and videos has revealed at least three more sagging floors on that face, said William Pitts, a researcher at the institute's Building and Fire Research Laboratory.

In addition, Dr. Pitts said, sudden expansions of the fires across whole floors in each tower shortly before they fell suggested internal collapses — burning floors above suddenly giving way and spreading the blaze below.

Finally, an unexplained cascade of molten metal from the northeast corner of the south tower just before it collapsed might have started when a floor carrying pieces of one of the jetliners began to sag and fail. The metal was probably molten aluminum from the plane and could have come through the top of an 80th floor window as the floor above gave way, Dr. Pitts said.

"That's probably why it poured out — simply because it was dumped there," Dr. Pitts said. "The structural people really need to look at this carefully."

The investigators also said that newly disclosed Port Authority documents suggested that the towers were designed to withstand the kind of airplane strike that they suffered on Sept. 11.

Earlier statements by Port Authority officials and outside engineers involved in designing the buildings suggested that the designers considered an accidental crash only by slower aircraft, moving at less than 200 miles per hour. The newly disclosed documents, from the 1960's, show that the Port Authority considered aircraft moving at 600 m.p.h., slightly faster and therefore more destructive than the ones that did hit the towers, Dr. Sunder said.

The towers did withstand the plane strikes at first, allowing thousands of people to escape, but then the fires, stoked by burning jet fuel, softened the steel of the towers. Potentially challenging other statements by Port Authority engineers, Dr. Sunder said it was now uncertain whether the authority fully considered the fuel and its effects when it studied the towers' safety during the design phase.

"Whether the fuel was taken into account or not is an open question," Dr. Sunder said. It is also unclear, he said, "whether the extent of the loss of human life as a result of that" was taken into account.

The studies of the floor trusses and the design of the towers are just two elements of the investigation, which is carrying out computer calculations of the collapses, rebuilding pieces of the towers in order to test them in real fires, and piecing together a highly detailed chronology of the response to the attack.

In one set of laboratory tests concerning the floor trusses, researchers used earthquake simulators to violently shake assemblages much like the ceilings in the twin towers. The shaking was meant to simulate the impact of the aircraft.

The findings, said Richard Gann, a senior research scientist at the Building and Fire Research Laboratory, showed that many of the fire-protecting ceiling tiles near the impact probably crumbled, exposing the undersides of the trusses directly to the fires.

honway  posted on  2003-12-14   00:41:49 ET  Reply   Trace



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