What created the giant pools of molten steel found in the basements of WTC 1, 2 and 7?

Question

Please watch these videos first, and try to explain how 233 C (451 F) temperature flames can cause steel to melt, knowing that the melting temperature of steel is 1532 C (2790 F).

What could cause steel to melt below it's melting temperature? Do you notice your frying pan, steel spatula, or even your car or lawnmower petrol engine falling apart or melting when exposed to air fire and internal combustions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_jiCyMkrRM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JithuVAIb7Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nr1eK0sAsY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx33GuVsUtE

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yx9NRX37SM

Answer 1

"What created the giant pools of molten steel"

Probably not thermite explosions.  Those explosions wouldn't melt that much steel.  Besides, the explosions would blast the steel it did melt AWAY, not directly down into the basement.

Answer 2

Your first assumption is that the burn occurred at 233C, the temperature at which PAPER burns.  Jet fuel burns closer to 800-1000C.  Steel begins to soften and lose half its strength around 400-500C.  If this was sufficient to allow the building to begin collapsing, stress and friction of the bending steel can allow it to lose strength and create further increase in temperature.

While I don't know if there were any other sources of fuel that could increase the temperature to the 1500C necessary to melt steel, added factors like burning aluminum (the plane bodies) and materials inside the building could have pushed the temperatures closer to this high.

Nobody's come out with a cut-and-dry answer as to how steel melted in the WTC, but the conspiracy theorists claiming that 233C isn't enough to destroy the WTC buildings are already working off of false assumptions.

Answer 3

It was probably lead and not steal, lead has a lower melting point. The only people that want you to believe that terrorist didn't blow up the World Trade Center is our enemies. 2 767 airplanes, piloted by terrorists, blew up the World Trade Center.

Answer 4

I definitely have an idea about that, but will leave the explaining to the scientists.

This document may help.  It is a peer reviewed article recently published in the Open Civil Engineering Journal

"Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction"

(ABSTRACT: "Reports by FEMA and NIST lay out the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. In this Letter, we wish to set a foundation for productive discussion and understanding by focusing on those areas where we find common ground with FEMA and NIST, while at the same time countering several popular myths about the WTC collapses.")

Get it here, the blue words "Fourteen points..." in the first paragraph are hyperlinks)

Journal of 9/11 Studies

http://www.journalof911studies.com/

or you can get it directly from this page

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/conten...

It is a PDF download.   For convenience for people who cannot read PDF files online, I'll caption the conclusion:

"... We have enumerated fourteen areas where we are in agreement with FEMA and NIST in their investigations of the tragic and shocking destruction of the World Trade Center. We agree that the Towers fell at near free-fall speed and that is an important starting point. We agree that several popular myths have been SHOWN TO BE WRONG, SUCH AS THE IDEA THAT STEEL IN THE BUILDINGS MELTED DUE TO THE FIRES, OR THAT THE TOWERS WERE HOLLOW TUBES, OR THAT FLOORS "PANCAKED" to account for total Tower collapses. We agree that the collapse of the 47-story WTC7 (which was not hit by a jet) IS HARD TO EXPLAIN FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A FIRE-INDUCED MECHANISM and that NIST has refused (so far) to look for residues of explosives [3, 22, 27]. Our investigative team would like to build from this foundation and correspond with the NIST investigation team, ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY HAVE CANDIDLY CONCEDED (IN A REPLY TO SOME OF US IN SEPTEMBER 2007): "... WE ARE UNABLE TO PROVIDE A FULL

EXPLANATION OF THE TOTAL COLLAPSE" [25]. ..."

(capitalization added for emphasis)

People still believing the pancake collapse theories of FEMA and Popular Mechanics should read this document (and the NIST report itself) .  It isn't common knowledge among government fans that the government's TOP lap-dog, NIST, has debunked its other lap-dogs, FEMA and NIST as to explaining the collapses of the towers.  

NIST is clearly covering up.  They take their theory only up to where collapse is "inevitable", but don't take it further. How is that a proper explanation?  They refuse to disclose for peer review data that is key to support their theories.   They claim there is no evidence of explosives, but fail to disclose that they did not look for such evidence.  NIST will be forced to come out and admit the presence of the molten steel eventually. Then the house of cards will collapse faster than the twin towers.