Before I start this, I want everyone to know that I am making a good effort to keep this from going into paranoia. This thread is simply here to examine facts and claims surrounding the 9/11 attacks. I'm not here to hypothesize about larger issues.
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Originally Posted by Dilbert1234567
Well here is the first problem, you are trying to heat everything, when actually the heat will not be spread evenly, it will be hotter in the center of the fire, and less in the outskirts. The center of the fire would be much hotter and the outsides would be cooler, as well as the top being hotter then the bottom.
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This is an interesting point. Tow things pop into my head when I read this:
1) If the heat is localized around the center of the buildings, that would mean that the perimeter columns were not subject to the same heat and thus the same fatigue as the center of the building. This means that when the building collapsed, one would expect to see free standing portions of perimeter columns that are buckling. This is not the case. There is no photo or video evidence that shows any of the perimeter columns standing for even a frame as the building was collapsing.
2) If the heat of this fire was able to collapse - at almost free fall speed - a steel reinforced building, how is it the same fire didn't show any effects on the aluminum on the outside of the building? I have no answer for that question.
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Originally Posted by Dilbert1234567
This is incorrect, saying ‘it is impossible that the jet fuel, by itself, raised the Average temperature of this floor more than 257° C (495° F)’ is more accurate but in reality the you also have a large plane (87,135 kg) hitting at 850km/h, kinetic energy = .5 mass * vel*vel, so this is an additional 31,477,518,750 joules of energy. Not much, but this energy is transferring not as heat, but as kinetic motion, deformation to the structure of the towers, remember that this is hitting in a piercing motion, it’s not evenly distributed, it’s punching through the tower, severing supports all the way through. This weekend the towers to such a point that the addition of the heat weakening the steel brought the towers down.
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I understand what you're saying here, but what I keep wondering is how much of a beating this building can take. According to public records, WTC 1 and 2 were designed to withstand a direct hit from a plane not much smaller than the ones that hit them. This to me suggests considerations in structural integrity (the tower can stand despite the loss of several perimeter columns) AND fire from airline fuel. WTC 1 and 2 were designed so that the perimeter columns supported some of the weight of each floor plate, but the core supports held the building up. I can understand that the core did heat up a great deal, but we're talking about a core that extended from its bedrock foundation to its roof. The cores were rectangular pillars with numerous large columns and girders, measuring 87 feet by 133 feet. The core structures housed the elevators, stairs, and other services. The cores had their own flooring systems, which were structurally independent of the floor diaphragms that spanned the space between the cores and the perimeter walls. The core structures, like the perimeter wall structures, were 100 percent steel-framed. I need to stress that jet fuel (lamp oil) cannot burn hotter than about 350 degrees C without assitsance. There was nothing in either of the buildings that would burn hotter than jet fuel. That temperature simply is not hot enough to decrease the tensile strength of the steel used in the twin towers.
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Originally Posted by Dilbert1234567
You are right that if the heat was spread evenly through out a floor, it could not heat it very much, but it is not even. As I stated above the plane hit and pierced the building, this would spread the fuel in a line/cone pattern, it would be stopped by walls not destroyed by the plane, and shaped into an area much smaller than the entire floor. If the fuel was reduced in its area by half that would double the raise in temperature, but it would be more than half, much more. The wings would fold back near the start and no longer widen the path, the fuselage of the plane would continue further, but the total area covered by the fuel would only be several times the size of the plane, no where near the size of the floor. This would allow for more heat to be transferred to a smaller area, heating the beams up much more than you state.
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Most of the fuel ignited upon contact. Jet fuel will not keep getting hotter and hotter as it burns, no matter how much you have. There is a limit, and that limit falls short of the ability to warp or bend steel, espically the steel core of the WTC.
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Originally Posted by Dilbert1234567
The pentagon is not some office building, it’s a fortress. The windows are several inches think and designed to withstand bombs, a plane will not create enough force to break them unless it hits it directly. In the bottom pictures, look how thick the walls are, that’s about a foot thick of reinforced concrete, that’s why the structural damage was not as sever. As for the plane penetrating so deeply, as I stated earlier it’s hitting with 30 billion joules of force.
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So a plane that can punchture a 1'+ steel reinforced wall, multiple supports, and go through all the wings of the Pentagon can't break bullet proof glass?
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Originally Posted by Dilbert1234567
Easily. The fact that the tip would break is irrelevant, you have a heavy cylinder crashing into a wall at an incredible speed, and it will go through. The body of a 757 is about 15 feet a cross, the same size as the hole, the wings would be ripped off, but the body would remain to continue to penetrate. It’s all about force per square inch. The 757 is a huge plane, going really fast, it will punch through anything, period. Just because the nose would break does not mean it would stop, everything behind would keep coming and punch through it. the roof is still intact is because the building is built like a fortress, the impact was able to penetrate the wall, but did not hit enough support beams to bring it down, and since it was on the ground, fire suppression was able to be used relatively quickly, stopping the fire from getting out of hand.
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According to the testimony of the fire fighters, the fire was almost out when they arrived on the scene, only about 15 minutes after he crash.
Either jet fuel is hot enough to bring down two steel reinforced buildings in a matter of hours, despite there was no prescedent for ANY fire bringing down ANY steel reinforced buildings...but it was also cool enough that it would essentially put itself out in 15 minutes. You can't have it both ways, and it really confuses me.