Dramatic footage reveals salmon-to-yellow-hot molten metal dripping from the South WTC Tower shortly before its collapse:

video.google.com... =cameraplanet+9%2F11.

The yellow color implies a molten-metal temperature of approximately 1000 oC, evidently above that which the dark-smoke hydrocarbon fires in the Towers could produce. If aluminum (e.g., from the plane) had melted, it would melt and flow away from the heat source at its melting point of about 650 oC and thus would not reach the yellow color observed for this molten metal. Thus, molten aluminum is in fact ruled out with high probability. But molten iron with the characteristics seen in this video is consistent with a thermite-reaction attacking the steel columns in the Tower, thus weakening the building just prior to its collapse, since thermite produces molten iron at yellow-to-white hot temperatures. The reader may wish to compare the dripping molten metal observed on the corner of the South Tower just before its collapse with the dripping molten metal from known thermite reactions, shown here:

media.putfile.com...


If some variation of the thermite reaction was indeed used to sever steel beams as strongly suggested by the photos and video above, then along with molten iron, aluminum oxide should be found in unusual abundance and particulate-size in the toxic dust from the collapses of the Towers and WTC 7. We intend to look for these residual end-products, in particular, for iron and entrained aluminum oxide in solidified slag extracted from one of the WTC-molten-metal pools.

Other explanations for the observations are sought, of course. For example, F. Greening has suggested that aluminum from the planes which struck the Towers could melt, and that this aluminum might fall on "rusted steel surfaces inducing violent thermite explosions." [Greening, 2006] So a few students and I did straightforward experiments by melting aluminum and dropping molten aluminum on pre-heated rusted steel surfaces. There were in fact NO "violent thermite" reactions seen. We observed that the temperature of the molten aluminum in contact with the rusty iron simply cooled at about 25 C per minute (using an infrared probe) until the aluminum solidified, so that any thermite reactions between the aluminum and iron oxide must have been minimal and did not compete with radiative and conductive cooling, thus NOT supporting predictions made by Greening. There was no observable damage or even warping of the steel. (See photograph below.) Nor were violent reactions observed when we dropped molten aluminum onto concrete. [Jones, 2006] These experiments lend no support whatever to the notion that molten aluminum in the WTC Towers could have destroyed the enormous steel columns in the cores of the buildings, even if those columns were rusty and somehow subjected to direct contact with molten aluminum. [See Greening, 2006] We also noted that while the steel pan holding the aluminum glowed red hot, the molten aluminum inside retained its silvery color, adding to the evidence that the molten metal dripping from the South Tower shortly before its collapse was NOT molten aluminum-- besides the fact that the salmon-yellow color of the molten metal (video clip above) implies a temperature too high for the dark-smoke hydrocarbon fires burning in the building.



Molten aluminum poured onto rusted steel: no violent reactions observed at all.

Thus, we find substantial evidence supporting the current conjecture that thermite (solid aluminum powder plus Fe2O3, with possible addition of sulfur) was used on the steel columns of the WTC Tower to weaken the huge steel supports, not long before explosives finished the demolition job. Roughly 3, 000 pounds of RDX-grade linear-shaped charges (which could have been pre-positioned by just a few men) would then suffice in each Tower and WTC 7 to cut the supports at key points so that gravity would bring the buildings straight down. The estimate is based on the amount of explosives used in controlled demolitions in the past and the size of the buildings. Radio-initiated firing of the charges is implicated here. Using computer-controlled radio signals, it would be an easy matter to begin the explosive demolition near the point of entry of the planes in the Towers.

Since there were no other metals in the Twin Towers that could melt at the temperatures present in WTC 1 & 2 during 9-11 – i.e. less than 800 C, it must be concluded that molten aluminum was produced in significant quantities from the melting of airframe debris in a least one Twin Tower (WTC 2).

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