----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Horn, John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 9:25 AM
Subject: RE: "Let's Roll"


> On Behalf Of Dave Land

> And it's not just that people described the plane hitting the
> tower as "an explosion", it's the reports -- many of them at
> the time they happened -- of "there goes another explosion".
> There are radio recordings of lots of firefighters reported
> "secondary explosions"
> throughout the building at various times, and footage of
> reporters reacting to explosions way after the both planes had
hit.

I don't think I was clear enough earlier.  I was actually referring
to these reports of secondary explosions not the initial explosion
from the airplane hit.

>Again, there probably were lots of things happening that could be
>described in the chaos of the moment as explosions.  But that
>doesn't mean they were caused by bombs preset in the building.  I'm
>not sure that I buy the argument that the average firefighter is
>trained to know the difference between an explosion caused by a bomb
>and by other things.  I'm sure they are trained to know about the
>"normal" fire-related explosions and such.  But nothing about the
>WTC attacks was normal.  It was all outside of their experiences and
>training.  The scale of the damage and the chaos was beyond anything
>I'm sure most, if not all, of them had ever seen.

To add to this argument, I'll quote from one of ( the scientific American
site) the technical web sites I listed:


<quote>
Others have pointed out the possibility that the aviation fuel fires burned
sufficiently hot to melt and ignite the airliners' aluminum airframe
structures. Aluminum, a pyrophoric metal, could have added to the
conflagrations. Hot molten aluminum, suggests one well-informed
correspondent, could have seeped down into the floor systems, doing
significant damage. "Aluminum melts into burning 'goblet puddles' that
would pool around depressions, [such as] beam joints, service openings in
the floor, stair wells and so forth...The goblets are white hot, burning at
an estimated 1800 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the water of
hydration in the concrete is vaporized and consumed by the aluminum. This
evolves hydrogen gas that burns. Aluminum burning in concrete produces a
calcium oxide/silicate slag covered by a white aluminum oxide ash, all of
which serve to insulate and contain the aluminum puddle.
<end quote>

Such a scenario is consistent with multiple explosions.  Indeed, since
aluminum, iron, and oxygen are the prime components in thermite...and I
know from trying to find cast aluminum blocks that the melting and the
flash point of aluminum are close, one has the potential for lots of
explosions with the hot materials at hand.

Second, the amount of kinetic energy produced by each collapse was truly
amazing: a trillion joules.  To put it in perspective, using the specific
heat of stainless steel at 25C, this is enough to heat 2000 metric tons of
steel from 0C to 1000C.

Dan M.


_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l

Reply via email to