Stuff pouring from South Tower

[tj15]

I know this has been disussed a lot, but what exactly was the stuff that was pouring out of the South Tower just before it collapsed?

Also, have there been any experiments done to show that this was exactly what it was?

Sorry if this question is stupid...

[firecoins]

I know this has been disussed a lot, but what exactly was the stuff that was pouring out of the South Tower just before it collapsed?

Also, have there been any experiments done to show that this was exactly what it was?

Sorry if this question is stupid...

You mean was there something pouring out of the building indicating the collapse was initated by mysterious explosives? The answer is there was nothing to indicate anything besides a complete structural failure from a deliberate plane crash and related fires.

[parky76]

I know this has been disussed a lot, but what exactly was the stuff that was pouring out of the South Tower just before it collapsed?

Also, have there been any experiments done to show that this was exactly what it was?

Sorry if this question is stupid...

the building was bleeding.

[tj15]

OK, I'm not a truther. I'm just wondering what it was so that I can know what to say when I debate truthers.

[parky76]

it was melted metal. what kind of metal? who knows. i wasn't up there.

[16.5]

I believe the NIST report stated that one of the financial firms had emergency battery backup for their servers on that floor. They suggested that it was molten lead mixed with other debris. Now to check my answer! Off to google.

[ElMondoHummus]

Paolo Attivissimo has an interesting theory about that (http://undicisettembre.blogspot.com/2008/03/nist-confirms-ups-on-81st-floor-of-wtc2.html). He points out that there was an Uninterruptible Power Supply system in the South Tower around that floor, and this was an enterprise class setup, not just a few small "under desk" setups. This means refridgerator-sized units, and whole banks of them. These batteries would contain copious amounts of lead, and he's forwarded that as the metal observed.

While it's not a proven, verified explanation, it's a far, far more reasonable theory than any of the conspiratorial fantasies involving thermite or explosives. I personally find it compelling enough to forward as my own opinion of what the flow is (lead). Others have supplied critiques of it in this forum; it's worth looking those up. Paolo may be wrong. And I may be wrong in believing it. Regardless, from what I've studied, I myself buy Paolo's explanation, feel it explains the flow the best, and consider it the most likely by far. Any counterproposals must supply arguments compelling enough to move me from that belief. Thermite doesn't do it. Neither do explosives.

[tj15]

Thanks for the info. The lead idea is interesting.

What were the temperatures of the fires in the WTC? What does lead look like at those temperatures?

[njslim]

Temperatures reached 1000 C (1800 F) in some of the most intense fires - Lead melts
at relatively low temperature of 327 C (620 F). When was young parents gave me and
my brother a lead casting set to mold model soldiers from molten lead. Lead had scum
(dross) on surface had to skim off before pouring into molds

[Redtail]

Thanks for the info. The lead idea is interesting.

What were the temperatures of the fires in the WTC? What does lead look like at those temperatures?


WTC topped off at 1,000C IIRC. Lead looks silvery molten but it's melting point is only 327C. I have no idea what it would look like at 1,000.

[A W Smith]

I read on another thread that it was watermelon juice. :)

[cyclonic]

I agree with RKOwens4s video.
it's from flight 175.
DhHzMttUKO0

as it falls you can see it cool to silver lumps which steel or lead would not do,they would be a dull grey color.

[WilliamSeger]

The more scientific "truthers" claim that it can't be aluminum or lead because both of those have emissivities that are too low (i.e. amount of radiated energy relative to a theoretical black body at the same temperature ), so even though they glow orange at ~1000oC, they don't glow as brightly as the stuff in the video. However, aluminum oxide, at least, has a fairly high emissivity, and a lot of the plane's aluminum could have been oxidized by the fire before it melted. Also, glass has a very high emissivity, and melted glass (or many other things) could have been mixed in there.

The current "truther" claim seems to be that it's a eutectic mixture of iron and sulfur from thermate: The sulfur mixed with the melted iron, and as the iron crystalized out of the mix, the sulfur concentration increased to about 31.4%, at which point it became a eutectic mixture. That eutectic mixture would have stayed molten until it cooled to a little less than 1000oC, at which temperature both the iron and sulfur would "freeze" at the same time. I really don't know if that's a viable theory, but it seems like it would take a LOT of thermate to produce that much orange stuff, since sulfur is usually only 2% of themate. It also seems very coincidental that the mixture was right above it's melting point, as indicated by that orange color, when it poured out the window.

[Bobert]

I read on another thread that it was watermelon juice. :)
The NWO needed a patsy so they poured 8 million gallons of Redbull into the tower.

[Sunstealer]

The more scientific "truthers" claim that it can't be aluminum or lead because both of those have emissivities that are too low (i.e. amount of radiated energy relative to a theoretical black body at the same temperature ), so even though they glow orange at ~1000oC, they don't glow as brightly as the stuff in the video. However, aluminum oxide, at least, has a fairly high emissivity, and a lot of the plane's aluminum could have been oxidized by the fire before it melted. Also, glass has a very high emissivity, and melted glass (or many other things) could have been mixed in there.

The current "truther" claim seems to be that it's a eutectic mixture of iron and sulfur from thermate: The sulfur mixed with the melted iron, and as the iron crystalized out of the mix, the sulfur concentration increased to about 31.4%, at which point it became a eutectic mixture. That eutectic mixture would have stayed molten until it cooled to a little less than 1000oC, at which temperature both the iron and sulfur would "freeze" at the same time. I really don't know if that's a viable theory, but it seems like it would take a LOT of thermate to produce that much orange stuff, since sulfur is usually only 2% of themate. It also seems very coincidental that the mixture was right above it's melting point, as indicated by that orange color, when it poured out the window.Got it hurts my eyes and destroys a small part of my soul when I read truther nonsense about metallurgy - they have so little understanding yet try to use big words.

They have absolutely no idea that we take great care in reducing the Sulphur content of steel to a minimum and therefore to get Sulphur into solid steel requires the mechanism of diffusion which takes high temperatures and a long time and the depth of penetration is governed by concentration gradient and therefore the sample's thickness.

It's the reason why you can't carburise anything more than just the very surface of steel (makes the surface hard) even with an atom such as Carbon which has a very high mobility in Iron. If we could do what truthers say, then we could carburise to an infinite depth, but that isn't possible because the thermodynamics show an "infinite sink" for thickness's above a certain value.

Truthers don't understand diffusion (in solids) but that never stops them spouting <rule 10>.

[JimBenArm]

I read on another thread that it was watermelon juice. :)
I proved it was molten orange sherbert, using the Christopher7 method of deducing materials and temperature in his epic thread.

[WilliamSeger]

Got it hurts my eyes and destroys a small part of my soul when I read truther nonsense about metallurgy - they have so little understanding yet try to use big words.

Here's the paper the "eutectic" hypothesis is based on, written by Jerry Lobdill and "peer reviewed" in the "JONES":
Some Physical Aspects of Thermite, Thermate, Iron-Aluminum-Rich Microspheres, The Eutectic, and The Iron Sulfur System as Applied to the Demise of Three World Trade Center Buildings on 9/11/2001 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/JLobdillThermiteChemistryWTC.pdf)

The purpose of the hypothesis is to explain why molten iron would be glowing yellow/orange when it poured out the window, since that indicates a temperature of only ~1000oC.

[ElMondoHummus]

In reality, the most probable explanation is that the flow was a mixture of metals and other components. Recall, a floor would have a variety of metals other than lead (from the power supplies), steel (obviously from the building itself, but which can be eliminated from this consideration for a variety of reasons), aluminum (multiple sources, not the least of which would be both the facade of the building and the Boeing jet that hit it), as well as various others (copper from wiring, whatever the water and HVAC "plumbing" would consist of, metals from electronics and furniture, etc.). I point out the lead thesis primarily because it's a proposal that has a sound backing behind it (unlike thermite): We know the UPS banks were there. We know the fire traveled through the floor they were on. The only question at that point is whether molten metals from the banks actually did contribute to the flow, whether they flowed elsewhere, or whether they were consumed in the fire in some sort of reaction. And since that question is probably unanswerable, at this point I advocate for the theory based on nothing more than likelyhood, given the proximity of the banks. A sound argument countering the possibility will of course cause me to change my opinion.

Conspiracy fantasists who eliminate lead based on emissivity have yet to produce an explanation that satisfies me. No attempt has been made to determine whether the color fidelity of the camera that recorded the event is sound enough to make such analyses. While it's insane to think that a camera could be so far off that it registers a completely false color, it is also similarly ridiculous to simply take on faith that it is accurate enough to produce the analyses they do, especially when no note is made of the white balancing of the camera, or any other settings that speak towards color calibration. If such calibration could simply be taken as givens in video cameras, tutorials on color and white balancing such as this one (http://www.videointerchange.com/color_correction1.htm) would be unnecessary. Now of course, how can anyone get that information? The video was just some random passer-by who recorded the event; no one bothers to save the sort of information that I'm referring to above. But that's my point: No one can obtain that unless the person who shot the video still happens to have the camera and happens to remember the white balance settings that were used on that day. And that is highly unlikely because such is normally not a manual setting, but an automatic one handled by the camera's electronics. So it's a wild goose chase to take that route.

What I'd like to see from people making emissivity arguments are envelope/limiting/boundary cases. All I've seen so far are those saying, essentially: "Lead has X emissivity at T temperature, this video shows that the flow's emissivity is different...". That doesn't take into account the possible error. If, however, they would bother to set bounding cases i.e. the video can indicate as low as X1 and as high as X2 emissivity, and if lead's emissivity is out of that range, then I'm willing to accept that the flow is indeed not lead. Or at least not pure lead, but that's getting into details well ahead of the argument; overall, I'd concede that the flow is at least not primarily from the UPS banks if that argument is made.

Regardless, even if the UPS proposal ends up getting disproven - and I think it's got a lot going for it, enough to where I believe it needs to be actively disproven - the ultimate point here is that it's based on far sounder foundations than any fantasy regarding thermite or some other tortured explanation invoking items not normally found in the towers. All you'd need for the UPS lead explanation is the presence of the banks and a fire. That's it. No need to have some secret agents enter and plant other elements for destruction.

[T.A.M.]

I know this has been disussed a lot, but what exactly was the stuff that was pouring out of the South Tower just before it collapsed?

Also, have there been any experiments done to show that this was exactly what it was?

Sorry if this question is stupid...

tj:

No one knows for certain. Given the number of different metals and glass,etc..., it could have been anything...glass, aluminum, copper.

There would be no way of determining what it was, as we only have video/photos as evidence of it.

truthers speculate it is evidence of thermite, and it is one of there big pieces of evidence. They claim because of the color, it could not be aluminum.

However, we have shown them lots of pictures of molten aluminum that appear orange just like the dripping material in the video. As well, we do not know if the video in question was color corrected. As well, with the LARGE (not a few wood chips or bits of plastic) amount of contaminant present, the color of the molten compound could have changed...

another one of those things that you will never win an argument with a truther over..

TAM:)

[AJM8125]

To even consider that it's thermite is laughable. The pics in ElMondo's link, post #7, are the best proof it was anything but thermite. It survived the aircraft impact and raging inferno, only to be deployed at the right moment? And why don't we see more fountains. Did they only need to cut one column? This one doesnt even require much thought to debunk. TAM is right though. Leave them to their ignorance.

[Sunstealer]

Here's the paper the "eutectic" hypothesis is based on, written by Jerry Lobdill and "peer reviewed" in the "JONES":
Some Physical Aspects of Thermite, Thermate, Iron-Aluminum-Rich Microspheres, The Eutectic, and The Iron Sulfur System as Applied to the Demise of Three World Trade Center Buildings on 9/11/2001 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/JLobdillThermiteChemistryWTC.pdf)

The purpose of the hypothesis is to explain why molten iron would be glowing yellow/orange when it poured out the window, since that indicates a temperature of only ~1000oC.Yes I'm aware of that paper. The problem with it is that there are parts that are correct and the mathematics and chemistry with regard to the thermal calculations is good (as far as I can see) but the author misunderstands a few things and gets others wrong.

This bit is correct

However, if the thermate contained only 2% S by weight (as specified for Thermate-TH3)12, thatwould not be enough to even produce a eutectic mixture using all the Fe produced in the thermate reaction, let alone all the added Fe from the cut column

The thing is any truther who thinks that Sulphur in thermite helps melt steel and supports Jones and his paper is guilty of supporting two contradictory positions at once. Look at Fig 7 in Jones' paper. Where's all the Sulphur???? ;)

[ozeco41]

To even consider that it's thermite is laughable. The pics in ElMondo's link, post #7, are the best proof it was anything but thermite. It survived the aircraft impact and raging inferno, only to be deployed at the right moment? And why don't we see more fountains. Did they only need to cut one column? This one doesnt even require much thought to debunk. TAM is right though. Leave them to their ignorance.

The thermate was collected from multiple columns cut by thermate and flowed across the building in little channels so it could all appear at the one point.

Since the space had been smashed by the aircraft the channels were rigged after the collision - a team of suicide workers in "dreadnought" fireproof suits rigged the channelling AND the therm*te plus extra therm*te used to reheat the steel as it flowed ot of the building.





...er...I think not but no-one can prove it wrong so it must be true....

:rolleyes:

:dig:

[TokenMac]

I proved it was molten orange sherbert, using the Christopher7 method of deducing materials and temperature in his epic thread.

I loved that theard and C7, they were so entertaining and eye-opening.

I don't think I have posted more than a short sentence since the theard closed.

[JimBenArm]

I loved that theard and C7, they were so entertaining and eye-opening.

I don't think I have posted more than a short sentence since the theard closed.
But you just posted two...