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PARIS — A mix of sprinkling system water and melted aluminium from aircraft hulls likely triggered the explosions that felled New York's Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, a materials expert has told a technology conference.
"If my theory is correct, tonnes of aluminium ran down through the towers, where the smelt came into contact with a few hundred litres of water," Christian Simensen, a scientist at SINTEF, an independent technology research institute based in Norway, said in a statement released Wednesday.
"From other disasters and experiments carried out by the aluminium industry, we know that reactions of this sort lead to violent explosions."
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"The aluminium industry had reported more than 250 aluminium-water explosions since 1980," he said.In a controlled experiment carried out by Alcoa Aluminium, 20 kilos (44 pounds) of molten aluminium was allowed to react with 20 litres of water, along with a small quantity of rust.
"The explosion destroyed the entire laboratory and left a crater 30 metres (100 feet) in diameter," Simensen said.
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Aluminum is a very reactive element when molten. It can eat through steel under the right conditions.
Fine and good. But there is still tower 7. Does this explain that buildings collapse as well? If so, please enlighten.
ReplyDeleteIt possibly explains how curtain wall skyscrapers can fall after being pierced by fuel-laden passenger planes.
ReplyDeleteIf there's an issue with other buildings, what's your thoughts?
The issue is the fact that there were 3 buildings that fell that day at ground zero. The two twin towers and tower 7. If it was true that the twin towers fell due to the planes and the reactions that you have described. Then I would like to know if you also have an explanation for the cause of tower 7 collapsing into its footprint. I'm really interested to hear something explain this. As I have not been able to find any. There were buildings that were fatally damaged by the towers falling on them yet they remained standing. Tower 7 only suffered a small fire and yet came down. I am genuinely perplexed by this. And was hoping that you also had an explanation for this.
ReplyDeleteI'm an engineer, but not a structural one - perhaps the shock of the big towers coming down cause the damage on an adjacent building. Something that tall collapsing must have been the local equivalent of an earthquake.
ReplyDeleteWay back when Nikola Tesla had a lab in Manhattan, he produced a small vibration engine - http://www.excludedmiddle.com/earthquake.htm - that he clamped to a beam sunk into bedrock under his lab. The story goes that he turned the thing on, and let the vibrations build until there was actual structural damage beginning in his building, and enough external effects to have the neighbors call the police, who supposedly arrived in time to see Tesla smashing the engine to stop it. Apocryphal, perhaps, but the story mentioned the underpinnings of Manhattan as being ideal for this kind of effect.
Occam's Razor tells us to accept the simplest explanation barring evidence to the contrary. I would accept the shock / vibration theory in lieu of solid evidence of human intervention.