Title: Can anyone show me a controlled demolition company that uses Thermate? Source:
None URL Source:http://None Published:Jul 1, 2006 Author:Self Post Date:2006-07-01 17:55:03 by Critter Keywords:None Views:3298 Comments:98
I find only that RDX is used in controlled demolitions. I can't find any link between thermite, or thermate and controlled demolition except on pages discussing 9/11.
Fed:Thermite nasty stuff, but like fertiliser has legitimate use
AAP General News (Australia); 9/23/2004
AAP General News (Australia)
09-23-2004
Fed:Thermite nasty stuff, but like fertiliser has legitimate use
CANBERRA, Sept 23 AAP - The Anarchist's Cookbook describes thermite as nasty stuff and, like ammonium nitrate fertiliser which has been used to fuel car bombs, it has entirely legitimate uses.
Thermite is a mixture of powdered aluminium and iron oxide, or rust.
It burns at spectacularly high temperatures, as hot as 3,500 degrees Celsius, which is hot enough to melt steel.
That makes thermite particularly useful for welding. It is most commonly used to join the ends of railway lines.
Because the basic ingredients are so readily available, anyone with the inclination could produce their own thermite, aided by some very basic internet research.
However, it is relatively difficult to ignite and requires an ignition source much hotter that a cigarette lighter, for example.
Magnesium ribbon fuse appears to be the recommended method to ignite the substance.
There has been at least one workshop mishap in Australia where the use of a bench grinder produced the ingredients for a thermite reaction with the resulting fireball leaving the operator with serious burns.
Thermite is used in hand grenades and charges for military demolitions.
The US AN-M14 TH3 incendiary hand grenade contains about half a kilogram of a thermite compound called thermate.
I'm looking for an instance where it was/is used for controlled demolition. The latest theory basically claims that it is commonly used for the purpose, yet I don't find mention of that anywhere except in articles related to this latest theory.
Like I said, I just like to double check things. :)
Nor can I find any military or defense suppliers of thermite cutting charges (or lances or rods for that matter). For example, goto http://www.the-dma.org.uk/Products/main.asp?Start=T which lists defense products and if you scroll to "thermite cutting charges" and click you get no manufacturers found.
Now it may be that information on where to get "thermite cutting charges" has been supressed in recent years, and maybe the military gets their own made up special and outside GSA-procurment, but legitimate commercial applications ought to still be listed if there were any (similar to those for welding) but there seemingly are none.
I find this troublesome for the latest theories.
Agreed.
There seems to be a lot of hypothetical presumption about "thermite cutting charges" and I've looked for the BYU professors paper on his thermite research and findings but it doesn't seem to be available yet (I don't mean his general paper http://www. physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html but supposedly he has a newer paper specifically "proving" the use of thermite). His general chemistry & physics seem to be in order, assuming "thermite cutting charges" are real items available commercially or militarily, but as mentioned above, I can't find any.
My simple understanding of the thermite reaction is that it is difficult to ignite and its reaction rate is not precisely controllable, which would seem to make it unreliable for controlled demolition wherein the timing of cutting through support beams and columns must be thorough and exact to a second or two, otherwise the structure won't collapse as planned. As the thermite reaction is also a slower burning rather than an explosion, it's cutting direction is downward where ever gravity pulls the 'molten thermite' (see http://www. amazingrust.com/Experiments/how_to/Thermite_pics-videos.html) which means making thermite cut laterally across vertical support columns (orthogonal to gravitational pull) instead of dripping/running down the sides would seem to add great difficulty to controlled demolition.
While "thermite cutting charges" provide plausible explanations for some of the WTC collapse phenomena, it also introduces some new complications, namely procurring said charges, installing them, and triggering them precisely. Whereas regular demolitions are procurable and triggerable, but still need to be placed/ installed without notice.
Dr Jones`s papers are multi peer reviewed. Thermate cuts like butter. Very fast. Placed at an angle, not flat, will slice girders. It is ignited by electronic "matches". This whole opp was radio/computer run.
Thermate doesn`t explode, but nano thermite does. Very powerful. How else can oe explain pools of molten iron, metal and some copper. It takes around 4000 degrees for this.
"...nearly all the sulphur present is in sulphate form, calcium sulphate. All that will happen if you heat it in a kero fire is that any water present will be driven off. In fact that is the method used to make drierite, a dehydrating agent, obtained by heating to 650 deg C.
Even materials like rubber will, if burnt, release SO2, not free sulphur. To penetrate steel free sulphur would be required."
There are other molecules and chemicial fingerprints that have been found. Jones would not reveal them at the conference. He stated he needed more research and review.