The myth of thermate 'explosives'

Discussion in '9/11' started by Kokomojojo, May 27, 2023.

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  1. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    Thermate cutters do not explode, they are simply cutting torches that while they burn they shoot jets of white hot steel at a target slicing though the target like a hot knife through butter.

    Here is the sound of a thermate cutter demonstrated in action. Pffft...and the steel is cut instantly!



    NIST used a well known fallacy which means false logic, a (composition fallacy) in their cover up by claiming that 'we didnt hear any explosions' to forward their fraudulently concluded 'there was no demolition' theory.

    We now know for a fact that we do not need to hear loud explosions to cut through steel.


    As a result many claims have been made that thermate explosives were used to demolish the building.

    This is false.

    This thread is an opportunity for those who believe thermate cutters do in fact explode at volumes levels that are claimed by NIST as a requirement for demolition to put up their hard evidence to prove the point.

    Thermate cutters consume themselves, leaving only molten steel that everyone saw but NIST.
     
    modernpaladin and Bob0627 like this.
  2. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure if thermite is classified as a high explosive or a low explosive.

    In my somewhat limited knowledge on the subject.... I do know a couple of important distinctions between the two of these.

    A low explosive is something that simply Burns very rapidly and does not detonate. It's called a deflagrant..... Smokeless gunpowder and black powder are an example.

    A high explosive on the other hand is something that actually detonates. I don't remember exactly what detonation means but somewhere along these lines..... The shockwave being pushed out in front of the detonation exceeds the burn rate of the material.....

    I think high and low explosives share one thing in common.... Both are a reaction that feeds into itself and is increased by the reaction of the reaction if that makes any sense...?

    I do know that high explosives detonate in the open atmosphere for the most part with no confinement.

    A low explosive either needs to have a giant pile of it or needs to be confined in some sort of pressure vessel in order for the reaction to accelerate.

    Look what happens when you burn a pile of smokeless gunpowder in the open atmosphere..... It slowly catches fire and consumes all of the material. Now you put that same amount of gunpowder inside of a sealed vessel like the cartridge of a bullet inside of the chamber of a gun.... And that same amount of powder that took so long to burn in the open atmosphere now Burns in a tiny fraction of a millisecond.

    Thermite is a binary explosive.... You can legally buy it and it comes in two separate containers and until it is mixed it is completely stable and harmless.

    It is commonly detonated from a distance by the energy produced from being struck by the bullet of a gun. I'm not sure but I think that it can also be ignited and or possibly detonated by a hot enough flame or enough friction but I am not certain.

    I do know they use thermite to weld railroad rails together.

    Everything I said above is what I remember from limited research sometime ago and it's very possible I got some of the information incorrect.
     
  3. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Normally it is not considered to be an "explosive" at all. Would fall much more into the "pyrotechnic" category, like a firework.
    The type "allegedly" used in the WTC towers would have been a special type ("nano thermite"), that could have been a little bit more "explosive", but would definitely have fallen into the "low explosive" category.
    Normally if you're trying to melt and cut through steel, explosiveness is NOT a desirable quality. That type of "explosive" force would be very ineffectual on steel beams, and in any case the heat is actually what would cut through the steel. Any sudden explosive force would dissipate the heat away from the steel beams too quickly.
    It gets more complicated though, since the steel beams were coated in a fire retardant, so an explosive force (or simply the impact of the plane crash) could have shattered and shaken loose the fire retardant covering, then allowing heat to be absorbed into the metal beams. This still would not really be so efficient, since the large volume of air would need to be heated up as much as the steel beams, probably requiring much larger volume of thermite, like probably at least twenty-five times more.

    The theory that thermite may have been used is largely based on the alleged finding of traces of nano-sized particles of aluminum. These do not really have much of any commercial use but are used in more advanced cutting-edge military applications.

    I think some of you may be forgetting that this "nano-aluminum" could not only have been used in thermite but could be used in several other military applications. There are several possibilities.
     
  4. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    Well a giant aluminum tube did crash into them and part of that violent impact could have been Trace amounts of very small amounts of aluminum.

    Powdered aluminum is a common part of pyrotechnic devices.

    Many explosives contain a fuel and an oxidizer and I do believe powdered aluminum is indeed an oxidizer.... Finely powdered iron oxide is also common as a fuel
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Kokomojojo, I respect you as a poster, but you yourself have made several logical fallacies in this opening post.

    You seem to make many false assumptions.


    Here are three possibilities for you to consider:

    The thermite might have been used along together with something else.

    There may exist a different type of thermite, different than the one shown in the video, or some different formulation that may have been partially similar to thermite.

    The finding of nano-aluminum could be evidence that some sort of advanced military grade explosive was used on the support beams, but having nothing to do with thermite.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  6. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    Basic thermite is nothing but powdered aluminum and powdered iron oxide.

    I'm certainly no expert and there may be other forms but that is the basis of thermite.
    A fuel and an oxidizer
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    But the question is how did that aluminum get transformed into nano-aluminum (a very small particle size of aluminum) ? I am not saying it is impossible, but it is unusual. A normal impact or even a high temperature fire would not have been able to do it.

    Nano-aluminum is different from normal aluminum. It will burn in intense heat exposed to air.


    Not nano-aluminum. That is not used in common pyrotechnic devices. That is very much a smaller particle size.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think what you may be doing is a logical fallacy, one of categorization.

    If I can give you an example, it would kind of be like if you had only ever seen or tasted unsweetened biscuits and cake, and you were unable to imagine sweetbreads or scones.

    You are over-simplifying things into established categories, but it seems rational and reasonable to consider other categories could exist which may be in-between the two categories you know.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  9. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    The basic
    physics and chemistry of thermite is not dependent on anything I tell you, you can go and look it up for yourself if you feel like it.

    But I will go ahead and erase 90% of your post like you do for everyone else so I return the favor as far as that goes.
     
  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're making another logical fallacy now, one known as the equivocation fallacy, wrongly equating two different things under one vague concept.

    "basic physics and chemistry" would inform us that there are more possibilities beyond just one simple type of formulation.

    You seem stuck with the mental conception of "thermite" as one type of thing, with certain rigidly defined qualities.
    If you consider that there could be other varieties of thermite, or other similar things, then it opens up more possibilities.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  11. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    Its not like you cant get thermite to explode, it is possible but that is more for military to destroy say a bunch of file cabinets inside a safe after using thermate cutters to cut their way in. Thats a pretty rare usage but it has been done. Thermate is like 99.9% of the time used as a pryro device.


    Thermate

    is a variation of thermite and is an incendiary pyrotechnic composition that can generate short bursts of very high temperatures focused on a small area for a short period of time. It is used primarily in incendiary grenades.

    The main chemical reaction in thermate is the same as in thermite: an aluminothermic reaction between powdered aluminium and a metal oxide. Thermate can also utilize magnesium or other similar elements in place of aluminium. In addition to thermite, thermate sometimes contains sulfur and sometimes barium nitrate, both of which increase its thermal effect, create flame in burning, and significantly reduce the ignition temperature.[1] Various mixtures of these compounds can be called thermate, but to avoid confusion with thermate-TH3, one can refer to them as thermite variants or analogs. The composition by weight of Thermate-TH3 (in military use) is 68.7% thermite, 29.0% barium nitrate, 2.0% sulfur and 0.3% binder (such as polybutadiene acrylonitrile (PBAN)). As both thermite and thermate are notoriously difficult to ignite, initiating the reaction normally requires supervision and sometimes persistent effort.

    Because thermate burns at higher temperatures than ordinary thermite,[1] it has military applications in cutting through tank armor or other hardened military vehicles or bunkers. As with thermite, thermate's ability to burn without an external supply of oxygen renders it useful for underwater incendiary devices.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermate

    Thermites have diverse compositions. Fuels include aluminium, magnesium, titanium, zinc, silicon, and boron. Aluminium is common because of its high boiling point and low cost. Oxidizers include bismuth(III) oxide, boron(III) oxide, silicon(IV) oxide, chromium(III) oxide, manganese(IV) oxide, iron(III) oxide, iron(II,III) oxide, copper(II) oxide, and lead(II,IV) oxide.[2]

    The reaction, also called the Goldschmidt process, is used for thermite welding, often used to join railway tracks. Thermites have also been used in metal refining, disabling munitions, and in incendiary weapons. Some thermite-like mixtures are used as pyrotechnic initiators in fireworks.

    Chemical reactions
    [​IMG]

    A thermite reaction using iron(III) oxide. The sparks flying outwards are globules of molten iron trailing smoke in their wake.

    In the following example, elemental aluminium reduces the oxide of another metal, in this common example iron oxide, because aluminium forms stronger and more stable bonds with oxygen than iron:

    Fe2O3 + 2 Al → 2 Fe + Al2O3
    The products are aluminium oxide, elemental iron,[3] and a large amount of heat. The reactants are commonly powdered and mixed with a binder to keep the material solid and prevent separation.

    Other metal oxides can be used, such as chromium oxide, to generate the given metal in its elemental form. For example, a copper thermite reaction using copper oxide and elemental aluminium can be used for creating electric joints in a process called cadwelding, that produces elemental copper (it may react violently):

    3 CuO + 2 Al → 3 Cu + Al2O3
    Thermites with nanosized particles are described by a variety of terms, such as metastable intermolecular composites, super-thermite,[4] nano-thermite,[5] and nanocomposite energetic materials.[6][7][8]

    Although the reactants are stable at room temperature, they burn with an extremely intense exothermic reaction when they are heated to ignition temperature. The products emerge as liquids due to the high temperatures reached (up to 2500 °C (4532°F) with iron(III) oxide)—although the actual temperature reached depends on how quickly heat can escape to the surrounding environment. Thermite contains its own supply of oxygen and does not require any external source of air. Consequently, it cannot be smothered, and may ignite in any environment given sufficient initial heat. It burns well while wet, and cannot be easily extinguished with water—though enough water to remove sufficient heat may stop the reaction.[21] Small amounts of water boil before reaching the reaction. Even so, thermite is used for welding under water.[22]

    The thermites are characterized by almost complete absence of gas production during burning, high reaction temperature, and production of molten slag. The fuel should have high heat of combustion and produce oxides with low melting point and high boiling point. The oxidizer should contain at least 25% oxygen, have high density, low heat of formation, and produce metal with low melting and high boiling points (so the energy released is not consumed in evaporation of reaction products). Organic binders can be added to the composition to improve its mechanical properties, but they tend to produce endothermic decomposition products, causing some loss of reaction heat and production of gases.[23]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite
     
  12. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    well the finer you grind the aluminum and iron oxide the more surface area and the more surface area the more heat from the exothermic reaction.

    Course aluminum and iron wont work at all for this sort of thing, it has to be close to a dust or very fine powder to work well.
     
  13. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  14. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    not sure what you are referring to, but if that is the case they should be corrected.
    I 300% agree with this :)
    their are, cutter charges are doped to generate more oxygen to get a cut down to the low millisecond range.
    A lot more, but I wont get into that
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  15. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I've certainly seen people claim actual explosive demolition of the buildings, and even citing supposed evidence based on audio recordings or videos showing puffs of smoke/dust emitted from the buildings before they fell. Countering those specific claims remain valid.

    Obviously the claim that thermite was somehow used to demolish the buildings is distinct, but counters to the actual explosion claims doesn't relate to that either way. Those specific points don't counter the thermite claim but nor do they in any way support it and you'd still be a long, long way from supporting the idea that it was possible, let alone that it actually happened.

    The thermite itself is consumed but the devices that would be needed to apply it wouldn't be though. The video you linked yourself shows that.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  16. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    That is not a commercial device, thats made up in a back yard to demonstrate they make literally no noise. you could set that up in your basement and your wife would never know you ignited it till she smelled the smoke.

    There are numerous highly qualified people that seen molten steel, I doubt NIST actually went on the site, seems to me they only went to the steel dump off.
    I posted a clip in the other thread where we could see squibs coming from literally every window of the dark side of the building less than seconds before the top section was literally blasted to dust.

    Remember they even had a couple inches of dust in jersey, that a hullava lotta cement to put down a couple inches even in jersey!
    Again it all depends on the design, they only need to stay in tact long enough to squirt the metal.

    Combine that with no det cord required digital rf.

    Pretty easy peasy.

    well to get to that you have to drill down into a plethora of facts and I have found this section leans heavily political rather than factual.
     
  17. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sure, but you stated unconditionally that "thermate cutters consume themselves". Do any of the examples you listed actually do that? This kind of lazy language and casual claims are the bane of this kind of discussion.

    So you're now asserting that there were both thermite cutters and (small) explosives used?

    I'm not really interested in the "plethora of facts" (or scattergun of claims) or the politics for that matter. I've always wanted to hear answers for more fundamental questions around all the alleged conspiracies, specifically who, how and why. I've never seen a clear or consistent description of the proposed sequence of events, right through from planning through to "cover-up". Do you have one?

    Regardless of motive the whole thing just sounds unnecessarily complicated as the various conspiracies suggest, with multiple plane hijacks, multiple targets/locations, all sorts of different explosives or devices to set up in multiple buildings. If you wanted to demolish the buildings on the cheap and/or frame terrorists to justify conflicts in the Middle East, and had the scale or resources and power to commit and cover-up such a grand crime, it feels like there would be much, much easier ways to achieve those ends.
     
  18. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    Not true, you interpreted what I stated to be unconditional, I did not state ALL thermate cutters consume themselves.

    It requires use of an adjective such as ALL to make such a conclusion.

    Best is to start a thread and you can argue that till kingdom come.
    I deal almost exclusively in material evidence.
    Sure! All you need do is read the literally thousands of posts Bob has put up out here, starting with the evidence in the ongoing case in the SE District of NY that he posted.
    I dont know, its not what Im into, sorry.

    Anytime I have ever seen exploding thermate was with the help of an explosive, and it was not used to blow something up, it was used to spread fires and bur through whatever it landed on.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  19. Betamax101

    Betamax101 Well-Known Member

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    Show some please. Baseless speculation doesn't count.

    The OP video shows a device to cut a tiny piece of metal. So you would need quite a significantly bigger one of these loaded to the brim with the appropriate materials to produce the necessary redox:
    • How big do you figure just one would need to be to cut one column? Your tiny one is not going to do much.
    • 47 columns just on the inner core. So how many do you figure to rig the whole building?
    • Did any of the emergency workers see remains of one of these, there would need to be a considerable number of them?
    • Who designed and built them, where, how? Got any "material evidence"?
    • How do you figure they got all that done - with "super-secret" phone calls?
    • No paper/electronic trails for any money, materials, staff payments etc. for these machines. These things would need loads of specialist parts built.
    • No staff wondering why they are building thousands of these huge thermite cutters? None coming forward after the event and going "hang on a minute"!
    • Then we need to get god knows how many people to commit to invisibly planting them, knowing they are going to murder thousands of Americans!
    • No way are you going to answer this, but how many people to rig both buildings? How many to plan it "so perfectly"?
    Here's a short scenario:
    Al, the psychopath, rolls up in the underground trade car park with his van loaded with say 20 of these. He's got to get them up to the 90th floor around the inner core. He's got his amazing disguise on "an ACE elevator t-shirt" and he has 3 psychopathic workmates. Using trolleys and boxes (designer built to say "special-elevator-bits") as a team they unload 10 of these per trip. It takes around 30 minutes to load/go up, unload/back down. Once all 20 are up an hour later they install them around 20 of the 47 columns on the 90th floor - this includes fixing all the brackets and fire coverings. This is specialist stuff, it has to be correctly aligned. They do 1 per hour(at least!), they have to be sturdy, fixed properly and fire-resistant. Takes 5-6 hours to do all 20. Day over, time for a beer. Tell nobody! Repeat next day and maybe, just maybe, they get one inner core done for the 90th level.

    If anyone thinks that plausible (times 90 floors just for one building) and it most certainly isn't a strawman, then I think they need to stop watching Mission Impossible and get real! It is ludicrously complicated, bound to be discovered, absurd that there is zero evidence for any of this and relies on the most exact timing to synchronize the whole lot. Timing, that relies on where each plane hits, NOT damaging any of the invisibly placed devices.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  20. Bob0627

    Bob0627 Well-Known Member

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    Re-posting (yet again) for the purpose of this thread:

    Part two of Jonathan Cole’s incisive webinar series: ‘9/11 and the Scientific Method’

    In part two of this series, Cole summarizes the results of his experiments regarding the extreme temperatures observed at the World Trade Center. He shows how none of the various hypotheses put forward — except controlled demolition using some form of thermite — can explain the multitude of evidence related to extreme temperatures.




    https://www.ae911truth.org/news/890...tHZImATN-_dXcckURPF9m4YU4wotObOQ0gTxUEJFf0CBM
     
  21. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    I see that silver fulminate is on the list. Fun fact..... A snap pop has a trace of silver fulminate equivalent to a dose of LSD on the pinch of gravel that is used for the substrate and the frictioning agent.

    It's very unstable as you can tell from a snap pop
     
  22. Shinebox

    Shinebox Well-Known Member

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    you've previously tried to make the case for high explosives that hurl chunks of steel out of the buildings and now you are trying to make case for thermite … so now it’s both?
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  23. Bob0627

    Bob0627 Well-Known Member

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    Please re-read for comprehension, I posted "Jonathan Cole’s incisive webinar series: ‘9/11 and the Scientific Method’". Email Jonathan Cole if you have an issue with his experiment. It's not my experiment or my case but having said that I can't find any problem with it.

    I do find numerous (hundreds if not thousands of) problems with the official 9/11 conspiracy theory though (especially all of NIST's hypotheses), as posted and demonstrated all over this section of the forum. These problems include but are not limited to video recorded (i.e. documented) massive explosions that hurl multi-ton structural components at 50-70+ MPH horizontally and in all directions at distances of up to 600 ft (give or take), many embedding into and/or damaging adjacent buildings at upper floors (including WTC7). (see "North Tower Exploding" and "South Tower Coming Down" for reference).
     
  24. Betamax101

    Betamax101 Well-Known Member

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    So, his theory is that the recorded temperatures at ground zero are where all the thermite has somehow got together and heated things up? Most "scientific". I didn't see where he considered the totally obvious hot/burning segments within the collapsed tower, being trapped within tons and tons of debris, all aerated perfectly to produce the effects you would get in a forge.

    Under such conditions it could stay hot for some considerable time AND melt certain metals. Once the reactive elements with any thermite residue are used up, you would be left with the same scenario. Trapped hot areas, aerated and just like a forge.

    To conclude that these obvious conditions are caused by the least likely of all things is a bit of a stretch.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2023
  25. Betamax101

    Betamax101 Well-Known Member

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    There is nothing fraudulent about saying there were no detonations, when pretty much every "911-truther" claims we are seeing a controlled demolition. Cite me one building ever demolished using thermite - then cite me how many "thermite machines" used and the quantity of reactants.

    We know for a fact that "911-truthers" point to compressed air ejections as evidence for demolition charges - inaudible ones.

    Strawman.

    The one in your example didn't. No molten-steel was measured/checked at any point. Molten metal was witnessed, almost certainly aluminum and/or other lower melting point metals. Molten steel would melt everything around it.
     

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