[ExI] Melted steel

[BillK]

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.

Quote:
The WTC used tubular steel bearing walls, fluted corrugated steel
flooring and bent bar steel truss floor supports.

Guess what? Tubular steel and corrugated steel weakens much faster
than solid steel girders when exposed to a very hot fire. Once one
floor gave way, the weight of all the floors above smashing down
exceeded the design limits of the floor below and the whole thing
collapsed.

See:  <http://vincentdunn.com/wtc.html>
and many others.


BillK