Can hydrocarbon-fuel air fires melt steel & demolish buildings?

Question

PLEASE explain how air fires can create molten metal in an
oxygen starved environment (open air, 101.3 kPa)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa7PN-8T2VY

Also consider the important questions at:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070821154616AAqOpIO&r=w

and

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070821070257AAUAhWC&r=w

Apparantly, some very dumb people on TV (even some here)
want us all to believe that air fires can melt steel, and totally
weaken giant buildings to the point of complete collapse,
even causing unburned, undamaged, unheated structural
beams (not exposed to fire) to fail and turn into molten metal.


FACTS:

Melting point of steel = 1532 C

Temperature of air fire fed by hydrocarbon fuel (even jet fuel
which is highly refined kerosene) = 250 C

(due to limited available oxygen in 1 atm or 1 Bar or 101.3 kPa
open air)

Do not bother answering this post unless you have an
explanation for the molten metal evidence.

Do you research and look at all the
photographic & video & eyewitness
evidence of molten metal. Explain how
an air fire can melt steel, even partially
vapourize it into gaseous form, and keep
Ground Zero at red-hot temperatures,
(much hotter than air fire temperatures)
for up to 6 weeks after 9/11...

Think about this... most of the jet fuel
would have been combusted in the first
initial impact or fireball, when each jet
hit a tower... and those Towers showed
no signs of weakness, buckling, bending
over, etc. for 56 minutes & 102 minutes
respectively.

Also, how did WTC 7 collapse for air
fire, when it was not hit by any jet plane?

Air fires have NEVER caused any steel
framed building to collapse in the past,
before 9/11, because steel is fire-proof.
(The reason they put fireproofing
asbestos, is to reduce the rate of
thermal expansion which could distort
or warp the buildings). Even if the steel
was super-heated, it would still be
intact up to 1532C

When steel is superheated and softens,
it still remains intact... it does not

EXPLODE

violently and detatch itself... it behaves
like soft, weak rubber... it would not have
separated from other connected steel
structural members. Those 3 WTC
buildings should have bent over, or
leaned over side-ways like a chopped
felled tree, if all the damage was indeed
due to weakening throuh high
temperature.

You try it yourself. Heat up a wire
basket or a steel structure with a very
hot oxy-torch. It does not explode and
disintegrate into many tiny pieces. In
fact, it would bend and soften like rubber
and slowly convert into a puddle of very
hot molten liquid, like melting wax.

Buildings like the WTC 1 & 2 were all
made from steel columns, so that is how
the steel should have behaved under
intense heat. Even the bolts & welds
were all made from steel.

There was also no good reason for all
the concrete floor slabs to be converted
into fine dust / powder.

Find out what really happened:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=molten+metal+wtc&search=Search

Also, watch the videos at:

http://www.truth911.net

EVEN IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH
WHAT I SAY, YOU SHOULD AT LEAST
LOOK AT THE VIDEOS & PHOTOS
& EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY WITH AN
OPEN MIND...

These are not ideas of conspiracy
theorists and left-wing anarchists... they
are conclusions of scientists, engineers,
demolition experts, first responder clean
up crews, firefighters and eyewitnesses
so saw and heard strange explosions
going off through all 3 WTC buildings,
on 9/11. Even magnitude 2.0 and 2.1
level earthquakes were measured in NY
just moments before the twin towers
collapsed. The basements of both of
the Twin Towers also experienced major
explosions and damage to the lobby
areas, after the planes collided.

Watch these documentaries with an
open mind. It will NOT hurt to know what
the majority of Americans now know:

http://www.truth911.net

Then ask yourself one more important
question:

Why DON'T controlled-demolition
engineers use kerosene or jet fuel air
fires to completely demolish buildings?

It would be much quicker, cheaper and
achieve the same results than using
conventional explosives & steel cutting
chemical charges like thermate!

Why don't these experts use air fires to
demolish high-rise steel buildings like
what happened on 9/11 ?

Maybe because: "It just won't work!"

So why believe it can, just because your
TV or newspapers tell you so? Because
WTC 7 magically collapsed 7 hours after
the Twin Towers collapsed, supposedly
due to air fire damage alone... It would
make sense that demolition engineers
should make use of this new method of
destroying buildings, because it would
save them much money and much time
in having to set up steel-frame buildings
full of linear cutting charges, explosives
and timers (often taking several days or
usually over a week for a skyscraper).

Answer 1

Oh! Oh! Oh! I want to get picked as the best answer by the asker.

There is no way for that to happen. It is all a vast government conspiracy involving thousands of people, and millions of dollars. September 11th happened for only one reason, so that the US government could award huge defense contracts to Halliburton, just like it could before 2001, but now no one is going to ask TOO many questions. A brilliant ploy on their part, if you ask me. It is impossible for it to happen any other way.

Can I be picked as best answer Mr. Blackcat06? Can I? Please?

Answer 2

alright, #1 your facts are wrong. Where did you get them?
Hydrocarbon fuels can burn at temperatures up to 1600C.
Even paper fires are about 800C. If the fire appears red, then its at least 800C. If is yellow its probably 1200C and if its white is 1600C or greater. Color of fire can be a good indicator of temperature.

Heres how steel gives way under moderate fire temperatures. Lets just say that the fire from that jet fuel was hot, but not really hot for a hydrocarbon fuel, say 800-1000C.
Definitely not enough to melt steel (some steels melt as low as 1148C, but we dont need to go there to explain this).

Okay so now we consider what happens to steel at 800-1000C. The structure of steel is hard and strong because it has many deformations, sort of like tiny cracks and bends in the metal structure. These are put in place intentionally during heat treatments and/or cold working. When metals are heated up, the structure has more ability to move around and it resettles into a aligned crystal structure. The structure is not as rigid. In fact most steels less than 1.5% carbon will actually change structure back to gamma iron (austenite). Austenite at this teperature is soft and bends easily. This is why blacksmiths heat steel swords before they smash them. They are soft and more easily change shape.

Now if you knew anything about material sciences before you asked the question you would have known that jet fuel would easily soften the steel. And considering the tons of concrete it was holding, the instant once bar began to bend because of lost strength, all of them would have because more and more weight would have been applied to each.

Answer 3

You people just don't give up do you?

Fuel-air fires cannot produce temperatures hot enough to melt steel, but they can produce temperatures high enough to weaken the steel in the structures sufficiently so that the steel members will not support the loads that were designed for.

In designing a structure, structural steel members have to start being derated for their tested support loads in any structure that will be subjected to temps on excess of 300 degrees F., and for every degree above that temperature the design strength of the structural members must be decreased.

So don't try to tell an engineer that a structure cannot be weakened sufficiently by fuel air temps in the range of 900 to 1200 deg F. to make a structure collapse.

Answer 4

It is not necessary to melt steel, just weaken it sufficiently so that it buckles under the weight of the load it is carrying. Once confined in a collapsed building, fires reach very high temperatures even in oxygen-starved conditions because of the insulating effects of the rubble. This would easily be hot enough to melt steel.

Fuel-air combinations are used in weapons called Fuel-Air Explosives (FAE). They work by generating a fine spray of fuel and then igniting it. FAE were used in the first Gulf War where in once instance when a 15,000lb BLU-82 FAE was detonated it killed everyone within a radius of two miles and was reported by Allied Special Forces many miles away as being a nuclear weapon. A fully-fuelled airliner shortly after taking off and crashed into a building at high speed is easily capable of generating a mist of fuel which would have a similar effect.

People who propagate unsubstantiated conspiracy theories need get in touch with reality once in a while (if they are ever allowed out without supervision by a responsible adult)

Answer 5

It has already been concluded by an engineering panel much more qualified than any of your sources that the burning jet fuel in the 9/11 attacks heated the steel to the point that it lost over 50% of its strength, not the point it became a liquid. Once one floor fell, the impact with the next floor down destroyed that floor, in a chain reaction.

There is nothing mysterious about it at all.

Answer 6

Nobody is considering the linier expansion co-efficient of steel. As the temperature increases,every member of a steel structure expands, even though they retain sufficient strength, and exerts tremendous stress on the joints in the structure. This can be seen in construction of bridges and rail tracks where precautionary measure is taken Wilie designing for normal variation of temperature due to change of weather. For WTC the increase in temperature was much more higher compared to increase due to change of weather. The stress generated due to expansion can certainly rupture a steel structure.

Answer 7

You don't have to melt it, just weaken it enough that it cannot take the impact and kinetic energy of the explosion and crash itself. Then the nest, weakened or not, will yield to the weight of the floor above it. IT keep0s going. You don't need to go to the point of melting to destroy a building with a massive amount of force.