Thanks for this. I was a machinist but not a foundry worker and never knew the specifics. I WOULD add that that wind speed mentioned is SERIOUSLY underestimated. The WTC was at the absolutely windiest spot on Manhattan and even on a calm windless day at ground level the wind at the top of the building is probably higher than 20mph.
Rr
-------- Original message --------
From: Peter Fairbrother <peter@tsto.co.uk>
Date: 9/18/18 5:11 AM (GMT-08:00)
To: cypherpunks@lists.cpunks.org
Subject: Re: latest false flag attack?
On 18/09/18 07:21, juan wrote:
> The rest of the fires were low temperature fires. Ask Peter.
1st stage: After the fireball, the first flames were jet fuel burning, with a limited air supply, so the smoke was black (lots of unburned carbon). Flame temperature was probably about 600-700 C.
Comparatively low temperature, but still plenty hot. It would have set everything which would burn in probably the entire floorspace on fire - I doubt any partition walls would have survived the impact and initial fuel/air fireball blast.
2nd stage: After the jet fuel burned away, the contents of the offices and the aircraft began burning. The smoke cleared a bit, there was proportionally more air in the fuel/air mix, and carbon started burning to CO2 rather than CO. Flame temperature around 900-1,000C.
3rd stage: Many of the windows were gone, and there was a wind of about 10-20mph. This made a through draft from the windward side of the buildings to the downwind sides. As the air passed through, it heated, and got lighter - the lighter air rushed out the downwind side, increasing the draft a little.
In terms of the rate the fire was producing it (a bit over a gigawatt), the space was pretty well-insulated against loss of heat: partly by its shape, partly by the concrete floor and roof. The heat would build up rapidly.
A prolonged fire with good insulation and draft can increase the flame temperature in the center to maybe 1,250C. [1]
We know the fires hadn't run out of fuel when the buildings collapsed because we could see the flames inside the windward side - the place with the best air supply, and therefore the place which would run out of fuel first.
-- Peter Fairbrother
[1] Yes, that's hotter than you would get if both fuel and air started off at room temperature - but after the fire has burned for a while the fuel is already hot.
Even hotter temperatures, enough to actually melt steel or even iron (steel melts at 1,370C, iron melts at 1,510C - almost all alloys work that way, the pure metal melts at a higher temperature than the alloy), are possible if the "hot blast" stage is reached.
That's where the fuel is already hot, and the air is preheated by passing over hot things which aren't actually burning before it meets the fuel. Old fashioned blast furnaces and even-older-fashioned long kilns used to work that way.
In a long kiln the idea is that you build a long insulated tunnel, usually about 60 to 120 feet long, often on a slight upwards slope, and fill it after 20 feet with green pottery. You then fill the space between 10 and 20 feet down the tunnel with hardwood logs (or coal if you can get it).
You then burn straw, soft wood, wood chips, twigs, anything you can get your hands on, in the first ten feet. You replenish the straw as fast as you can, adding new material to the fire for maybe three days. This is b+*+y hard work, you can't leave it or the hardwood will burn or the tunnel will cool off.
Then you add a last load of straw, partially close up the end, and leave it. The last load of straw burns, then the hard wood or coal - which has been turned to red hot charcoal by all the straw burning, but hopefully hasn't burned up itself yet - burns in hot air which has been preheated as it passed down the first ten hot feet of tunnel.
Hot air plus hot charcoal fuel means very hot flames, which can reach over 1500C and heat the pottery in the kiln to over 1100C - temperatures you can't reach without the hardwood etc.
But I don't think the hot blast/long kiln effect happened in WTC1/2, or at least not to any great extent.