“ I'm not a skyscraper architect, so I am unacquainted with other cases,”
Nor am I, but I have listened to lectures by architects looking precisely at this issue. There are a couple of other examples of modern concrete and steel high rise building burning for extended periods of time. No collapse. No loss of structural integrity.
Not burning with a profusion of aviation fuel and the prospect of burning aluminum vapor. The flame temperature of kerosene is 2,093 deg C. But the flame temperature of aluminum (vapor, in oxygen) is 3,732 deg C. That ups the ante considerably.
My apology. Bad mental transfer. I've been laboring under a regime of very high blood pressure and it interferes with my concentration. In any case, the point was that the flame temperature of available combustibles was adequate to melt steel and produce the tiny spheres.
I don’t think so. It might have been able to heat up some small bit of steel, but look at the massive thermal mass and then compare that to the energy output of the office fires. Not nearly enough energy there.
Same goes for the amount of energy in the kerosene / jet fuel from the two planes in wtc 1 and wtc 2. Most of that fuel was burnt up on impact and while it would generate heat, that heat would be dissipated throughout the whole core and the steel skin for the towers. There is not enough energy there to do the damage we saw.
“ I'm not a skyscraper architect, so I am unacquainted with other cases,”
Nor am I, but I have listened to lectures by architects looking precisely at this issue. There are a couple of other examples of modern concrete and steel high rise building burning for extended periods of time. No collapse. No loss of structural integrity.
Not burning with a profusion of aviation fuel and the prospect of burning aluminum vapor. The flame temperature of kerosene is 2,093 deg C. But the flame temperature of aluminum (vapor, in oxygen) is 3,732 deg C. That ups the ante considerably.
We are talking about wtc 7? Where is this aluminum coming from?
My apology. Bad mental transfer. I've been laboring under a regime of very high blood pressure and it interferes with my concentration. In any case, the point was that the flame temperature of available combustibles was adequate to melt steel and produce the tiny spheres.
I don’t think so. It might have been able to heat up some small bit of steel, but look at the massive thermal mass and then compare that to the energy output of the office fires. Not nearly enough energy there.
Same goes for the amount of energy in the kerosene / jet fuel from the two planes in wtc 1 and wtc 2. Most of that fuel was burnt up on impact and while it would generate heat, that heat would be dissipated throughout the whole core and the steel skin for the towers. There is not enough energy there to do the damage we saw.