Calculations on the Possible Use of Thermite to Melt Sections of the WTC Core Columns by D. P. Grimmer
Version 1.1, June 20th 2004
Abstract
Anomalies involving the collapse of WTC buildings on 9-11 are discussed from the perspective of possible controlled demolition implosion rather than of aircraft impact and fuel-fire damage. Considered is the possible use of thermite to melt sections of the columns of the WTC towers inner cores, thus aiding in their collapse. This paper will discuss the structure of the WTC core columns, and estimate the mass of metal to be melted; calculate the sensible and latent heat energy needed for melting this mass; discuss the nature and specific energies of the thermite reaction; estimate the mass and volume of thermite necessary to provide the energies for melting; and discuss the possible locations where such thermite could be placed to cause melting, both internal and external to a core column.
Prologue
The motivation for this paper was to apply physical and mathematical analysis to probably the most observed and least ephemeral 9-11 event: the collapses of the WTC towers. Uncounted millions have seen video footage of these collapses (and the later collapse of WTC-7). To an impartial observer, somehow unfamiliar with the 911 events, it would be difficult to distinguish between interspersed videos of the WTC collapses and those of controlled demolitions (particularly if the pre-collapse fire/smoke were digitally removed). In addition to the video evidence and eyewitness accounts of the many squib explosions associated with WTC events, the problem of the collapse of the central cores of the WTC towers remains. These cores were substantial structures unto themselves. They were probably capable of standing on their own (at least for a while), even if the outer tube walls and floors collapsed around them rings-around-a-tube style (assuming the "official" explanations of failed floor joist bolts are to be believed).
Thermite has been proposed as a chemical reactant that is capable of achieving the collapse of the central cores of the WTC towers. The thermite reaction produces great heat, capable of melting steel, and since it does not produce reactant gases, there would not be the high explosive signature of a massive shock wave. It is the rapid production and heating of gas reaction products that causes destructive shock waves from high explosives. The possible use of thermite was analyzed only because other researchers have proposed it and because the properties of the reaction are relatively easy to obtain. Undoubtedly, any number of heat producing, relatively non-explosive reactants that are more sophisticated and compact than thermite exist, but for the purposes of initial analysis, and determining the boundary conditions, it was felt that thermite was a reasonable first choice. Clearly the perpetrators of 911 did not want to leave the explosive signature of a controlled demolition. The purpose of this paper was thus to put forth a quantitative analysis of various phenomena surrounding the WTC towers’ collapses, in order to see what is possible. Because the government authorities have destroyed much of the forensic evidence at the WTC building collapse scene, calculations such those done in this paper must remain speculative. However, the strength of this paper is to show how scientific analysis and critical thinking can show what is possible — or impossible. Whether or not conventional chemical reactants are sufficiently powerful to achieve column section melting, the outcome is equally valuable scientifically. This is the scientific process, to use quantitative analysis to discard the improbable theory: putting a number on observations makes a great difference (some might say all the difference) in the process of determining what is reality and what is fairy tale.
Introduction
Of the events of 11 September ’01, perhaps the most dramatic were the collapses of the WTC towers. Re-played repeatedly on TV, the images of the collapsing towers and their pyroclastic clouds of debris are seared into our memories. What immediately struck some observers, this author included, is how much these collapses resembled a controlled demolition. Indeed, this was the first reaction of V. Romero of New Mexico Tech, until he recanted days later [Ref. (1)]. There has been much discussion on the internet of the observed anomalies associated with the WTC building collapses (including the delayed collapse of the unstruck WTC7). Interesting sites can be found at www.serendipity.li, www.americanfreepress.net , www.misternet.org, www.911-strike.com , www.plaguepuppy.net, www.whatreallyhappened.com and many others ( a google search is always useful).
One site deals directly with aircraft impact and fuel-fire physics [Ref. (2)]. The very anomalous case of the WTC7 building collapse was archived at Ref. (3); especially interesting are the observations by the inspection engineer at WTC7 of evidence for vaporized steel. As always, information about controversial events like 911 must be approached with some caution, and are not to be taken at face value. Careful analysis and appraisal is necessary. The internet has gained a reputation as a refuge of "conspiracy theorists," but recent events (e.g., the falsehoods told by US officials leading up to the Iraq war) have shown that "reputable" media are not to be trusted. They may themselves be regarded as purveyors of "official" conspiracy theories. This present paper hopes to achieve some level of objectivity about a very controversial subject.
(Occasionally, the media slips up. One noted instance is in the case of WTC7 where in a Sept. 2002 PBS documentary "Rebuilding America, A Year at Ground Zero," Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder of the WTC complex, admitted that he and the NYFD made the decision to "pull" the badly damaged WTC7: i.e., to bring down the building in a controlled demolition [Ref. (14)]. To the author’s knowledge, the major media have yet to comment on Silverstein’s statement that directly refutes the FEMA report on the WTC7 collapse).
Total objectivity is of course impossible. Subjectively, for this author, several subevents of the WTC collapses stand out: the reported seismic spikes associated with the collapses; the observed near free-fall times of collapse; the pyroclastic clouds of debris; and the pools of molten steel found in the basement of the WTC tower complex, steel still warm weeks after 9-11. Analysis of the seismic spikes indicate that the seismic spikes correlate with the collapses themselves rather than any pre-collapse explosion [Ref. (4)].
Calculations done by the author correlated the collapse energies with the seismic signal of explosions at a quarry in the vicinity of the seismic observatory. These calculations indicate that the seismic spikes of the WTC events represent energies close to those of the collapses themselves (see Appendix A for these seismic energy correlation calculations). A sole video clip purported to show, by video image shaking, evidence of a pre-collapse WTC2 explosion is not conclusive. A video with shake-free periods for several minutes before and after collapse is not available. Therefore, wind flutter has not been disproved as a cause of camera shaking. A second video from another perspective is not available to show pre-collapse shaking temporally correlated with the first video. The existence of such a second video from an independent source would make such video evidence more credible [Ref. (5)]. From these observations, the author has concluded that there is no firm evidence of pre-collapse explosions that left seismic signatures.
[A brief note here about the mathematical notation used in this paper:
subscripts, superscripts and exotic math symbols have not been used. Unlike most word processor programs, most email formats do not support these fonts. So, for example, ten to the nth power is denoted here by 10+n; the square root of N is SQRT(N); a quantity N with the exponent n (i.e., N to the nth power) is given by N exp(n); an so forth. This was done so individuals can communicate about this paper in any common email format].
The observed near free-fall times of the WTC towers (and WTC7) were a dramatic signature of a controlled demolition. (The articles at http://members.fortunecity.com/911 are a valuable resource for presenting and then challenging the "official" explanation for WTC collapses). Measured times are all around 10 seconds, which is close to calculated free-fall time, indicating the tower floors fell without much impediment. They essentially fell into air [Ref. (6)]. The theory put forth by T. Eagar of MIT and other "establishment" engineers is that while no steel members actually melted or failed, the floor assemblies, bolted at their joists to the outer walls and inner core structures, did fail [Ref. (7)]. The floor joists attachment bolts were weakened and gave way, twisting sideways and allowing the initial floor to "unzipper" itself all the way round and collapse to the floor below. The remaining floors then pancaked all the way down. Never mind that floor joist cross-members, placed to resist twisting, and additional support structures were not included in the MIT/FEMA/NOVA calculations and presentations (nor was the inner core collapse mechanism explained at all).
Consider the following: if the pancaking effect caused the total building failure, why is it that no video of either of the WTC collapses shows any sign of stutter between floor collapses, which should have been very apparent especially in the first few floors of collapse when the speed of gravitational collapse was small? Consider also that apologists for the official conspiracy theory propose that 30% of the gravitational collapse energy was necessary to create the pyroclastic cloud of debris: that is, in their own analysis, this energy came out of the gravitational energy. This means that the time of fall would have been slowed further than what was observed. When a body of mass m falls from a height h, acted upon by gravitational acceleration g, it converts its potential energy PE = m x g x h into kinetic energy KE = (1/2) x m x (v exp2). Here h = (1/2) x g x (t exp2), t = time of fall, and v =g x t, where v = velocity. Removal of 30% of the PE to pulverize concrete essentially reduces the amount of energy available from falling, effectively reducing the gravitational acceleration to something less than g.
Substituting, in the above equations we have (1.0 – 0.3) x PE = 0.7 x PE = m x g’ x h, where PE, m and h are as before and g’ = the effective gravitational acceleration. Hence, comparing terms for PE, g’ = 0.7 g. The time of collapse under g’ will also increase. If we let the effective collapse time be t’, then comparing terms for constant h, (1/2) x g x (t exp2) = (1/2) x g’ x (t’ exp2) = (1/2) x 0.7g x (t’ exp2). Hence, (t exp2) = 0.7 x (t’ exp2), or (t/t’) = SQRT (0.7) = 0.837. Or, t’ = 1.195 t. Now the observed time t = 10 seconds (a free fall time, the fastest possible time under g = 9.8 m/sec/sec = 32 ft/sec/sec = 32 ft/s exp2). For the cloud debris creation to absorb 30% of the gravitational energy, the observed time of fall would be 10s x 1.195, or almost 12 seconds. This long a collapse time was observed by no one. Clearly, there are serious flaws in the official explanation/conspiracy theory.
The implication from the above is that there were major energy sources other than gravitational involved in the WTC towers collapses. Certainly that is the conclusion of J. Hoffman in his thorough discussion of the north WTC tower dust cloud [Ref. (8)]. By calculating the major sources and sinks observed, particularly the sink of the pyroclastic cloud expansion, Hoffman establishes that a large amount of energy had to be available to drive that expansion, in a (minimum) range of 2,706,000 kWh to 11,724,000 kWh (see his Summary table). Hoffman does not propose an energy source to balance that sink. In Appendix B, an estimate, for discussion purposes only, of the amount of thermite-equivalent to provide this energy source is discussed. It is large, but physically possible.
A discussion of the melted steel found at the base of the WTC complex, not explained by any official, forms the bulk of the remainder of this paper. The following discussion explores the possibility of whether it is possible to get sufficient volume of a relatively slow-reacting chemical compound, like thermite, either on or inside the inner columns to melt a section of them or otherwise weaken them to allow for the inner core to collapse. As Mark Loizeaux of Controlled Demolition, Inc., commenting on the pools of molten steel he observed at the bases of the towers’ elevator shafts, said: "If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure" [Ref. (9)]. Controlled Demolition, Inc., incidentally was the company contracted to remove the debris from both the WTC and from the 1995 bombing of the Murrah building in OKC. Also, in the 15 December 03 edition of Sam Smith’s Progressive Review [Ref (15)] there is an excellent discussion of the collapse of the WTC buildings from the perspective of professional firefighters. Included is an excerpt of an article by Jim Malott, a San Francisco architect, in the Nov/Dec 2001 issue of Designer/ Builder magazine. Malott states regarding a WTC tower collapse: "The outside of the building did not fail, it did not get hot enough…It was the core that failed."
To summarize so far: the discussion in the text above and in Appendix A indicates that the energy of the seismic signal (best viewed as a semi-logarithmic plot) and the gravitational collapse are very close to being the same. This coupled with the fact that there is only one short video clip allegedly showing shaking before collapse of one of the towers leads an objective observer to conclude that there is no actual proof that the seismic "spike" signal is nothing more than building collapse. This is not to say that the seismic signal is 100% guaranteed to be non-explosion related, just that there is no firm evidence so far for the alleged massive explosion. That is, this is not an area on which to stake a lot of credence. The seismic event must be regarded as a "red herring" unless a second, longer video showing the same behavior appears.
The free-fall times and pools of molten steel are entirely different matters. They are a matter of public record, observed by many individuals. So we have evidence of molten steel in the basement; the FEMA report saying molten steel was not to blame, just weakened floor joist bolts; collapse times close to free fall; no real record of a massive explosion (although numerous claims of sounds of smaller explosions and observations of demolition squibs). The immediate conjecture supported by direct observation is the following: controlled demolition, characterized by a (relatively) non-explosive, huge energy release necessary to melt (some) steel. M. Rivero of whatreallyhappened.com and others have proposed the use of thermite, familiar to those of us who had the high school chemistry course with an impressive thermite demonstration. So the question arises: can one get enough thermite close enough to melt sections of the inner core columns, as part of a controlled demolition scenario? The following calculations in this paper indeed do show that it is possible (and I stress possible). Until simple chemical reactants like thermite can be discarded there is really no need to invoke the use of highly speculative and sophisticated devices like thermobaric bombs and scalar EM weapons.
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Poster Comment:
You need to put on your thinking cap for this one.
It is important that we bring up this subject again and again to expose the greatest crime and robbery in the history of the world.
Certain parties made untold billions of dollars by selling short the stocks of the airline companies involved in the events of the day.
The collapse of WTC 7 into its own footprint was a sure sign of a demolition. The computer hard drives of the stock broker Smith Barney were pulverized thus destroying the evidence of who profited from the short sales. But I do not believe anyone has ever checked overseas stock markets regarding these trades.