The evidence of molten steel or iron cannot be called “irrelevant,” given the fact that the building fires, as NIST pointed out, cannot explain it. The only explanation NIST suggested was that, if there was molten steel or iron, it would have been “due to the high temperature resulting from long exposure to combustion within the pile.” But NIST claimed that the buildings were brought down by building fires, which at most could have reached 1,000°C (1,832°F.) So the idea that burning debris from these buildings could have reached anywhere close to the temperature needed to melt structural steel (1,482°C, 2,700°F), [11] without the help of explosive or incendiary material, is implausible.
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I-A. The 2002 FEMA Report
New York Times journalist James Glanz, writing near the end of 2001 about the collapse of WTC 7, reported that some engineers said that a “combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down,”
but that this “would not explain,” according to Dr. Barnett, “steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures.” [13]
Glanz was referring to Jonathan Barnett, a professor of fire protection engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Early in 2002, Barnett and two WPI colleagues published an analysis of a section of steel from one of the Twin Towers, along with sections from WTC 7, as an appendix to FEMA’s 2002 World Trade Center Building Performance Study. [14] Their discoveries were also reported in a WPI article entitled “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” which said:
“
teel – which has a melting point of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit [1538°C] – may weaken and bend, but does not melt during an ordinary office fire. Yet metallurgical studies on WTC steel brought back to WPI reveal that a novel phenomenon – called a eutectic reaction – occurred at the surface, causing intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.”
Stating that the New York Times called these findings “perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation,” the article added:
“A one-inch column has been reduced to half-inch thickness. Its edges – which are curled like a paper scroll – have been thinned to almost razor sharpness. Gaping holes – some larger than a silver dollar – let light shine through a formerly solid steel flange. This Swiss cheese appearance shocked all of the fire-wise professors, who expected to see distortion and bending – but not holes.” [15]
Point TT-6: The Claim That There Was No Molten Steel or Iron in the WTC Buildings | Consensus 911
