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Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
And it could have been studied at the FBI's lab which has a structure designed to recreate a 3 floor building fire. They could have reconstructed the floors hit by the plane and determined if the jet fuel fire got hot enough to melt steel. Generally this could only take place in a very well controlled fire (blue flame) with little or no smoke. But the video of the fire shows it was billowing black smoke which means it was oxygen starved and therefore not hot enough to melt steel. But for some reason the US government decided it was not a priority to them to study this fire. One wonders why we built the lab if we weren't going to use it for 9/11.
Also, if you think the jet fuel is the reason the steel collapsed, then how do you explain the fire burning at 2,000 degrees F for over a month? Do you really think jet fuel would take that long to burn?
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Black smoke is not just indicative of oxygen starvation, but also the combustion of plastics and numerous petrochemicals.
Recently I read about a bridge failure in Pittsburgh. Some PVC pipes caught on fire on the lower deck. The heat was sufficient to soften structural steel and cause serious damage. It shutdown the city.
The jet fuel provided a tremendous ignition source. The fuel tanks were filled for cross country flights, yet had traveled only a short distance. The fuel is liquid, and as soon as it is vaporized, with sufficient oxygen, it will vaporize and burn hot. The confined space within the tower probably kept much of the fuel liquid for a considerable time, constantly feeding the fire. But, of course, there were other sources of ignition within the building. Once the building collapsed, who knows how much unburnt fuel within drenched ignition sources remained. Apparently, even after collapse, there was sufficient oxygen to maintain the fire, which was not extinguished, and sufficient insulation to keep the fire extremely hot for weeks. At 2,000 degrees, aluminum also burns, which is quite nasty.
I watched a video about the engineer who designed the towers. They never imagined that failure scenario; never crossed anyone's minds. Had the sprinkler system survived, had the fuel tanks been relatively empty, or had the steel insulation remained intact, the building still had a chance to survive. Unfortunately for both buildings, once the planes crashed, the building itself became a ticking time bomb. That became a double tragedy especially for all the first responders, since none could know the buildings would soon collapse.
As the buildings collapsed, each successive floor beneath the fire damaged floors was forced to withstand the impact of dynamic loads, something never designed for. As I watched them fall, I could almost see each floor buckle in succession, like dominoes striking one another. The floors above the fire zone, especially the top floor, had the best chance of survival since those floors remained relatively intact throughout the fall, until probably the end.