[ExI] Melted steel

[Samantha Atkins]

On Oct 6, 2007, at 9:12 AM, BillK wrote:

> On 10/6/07, hkhenson wrote:
>> It's clear from the pictures that there was little or no *melting* in
>> this crash and fire.  Not that it mattered, the metal got hot enough
>> it could no longer hold up its own weight and sagged.
>>
>> It is certainly possible to melt iron with hydrocarbons, but it takes
>> a rather special setup to do it, forced draft among them.
>>
>> On the other hand the WTC could well have provided that from a
>> chimney effect.  Jet fuel pouring down the elevator shafts would
>> result in forced air combustion that could have melted steel or at
>> least got it to yellow heat.  That might have caused the interior
>> steel to fail first.
>>
>> It kind of amazes me that the buildings they are putting up look like
>> they would be subject to the same kind of failure if the same thing
>> happened to them.
>>
>
> The WTC was a special case. There was very little load-bearing steel
> in the interior,  except  around the elevators. The outer walls
> supported the weight of the building.
> The WTC didn't use the 'old-fashioned' steel girders and concrete.

I have heard that it was part of the known design of WTC that it had  
massive central support structure.     I am attempting to find pre-911  
details of WTC construction as I don't automatically trust claims on  
either side afterwards about those details.  They should be somewhere  
on the web.  I am looking for clean architectural and engineering  
documents preferably.

- samantha