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Extremely high temperatures during the WTC destruction

Extremely high temperatures during the World Trade Center destruction

Steven E. Jones

1

, Jeffrey Farrer

2

, Gregory S. Jenkins

3

, Frank Legge

4

,

James Gourley, Kevin Ryan,

Daniel Farnsworth, and Crockett Grabbe

5

.

1

S&J Scientific Co., Provo, Utah

2

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

3

Physics Department, University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland

4

Logical Systems Consulting, Perth, Western Australia

5

Department of Physics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

Abstract

In an effort to better understand the conditions that led to complete collapses of the World Trade Center

Towers and WTC 7, we apply scanning-electron-microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray

spectroscopy (XEDS) methods to analyze the dust generated, with an emphasis on observed micro-spheres

in the WTC dust. The formation of molten spheres with high iron contents along with other species in the

WTC dust required extremely high temperatures. Our results are compared with those of other laboratories.

The temperatures required for the molten sphere-formation and evaporation of materials as observed in the

WTC dust are significantly higher than temperatures associated with the burning of jet fuel and office

materials in the WTC buildings.

1. Introduction

The events of 9/11/2001 were tragic and at the same time remarkable in their physical aspects, such as the

completeness and rapidity of collapse of

three

skyscrapers and the large volume of fine toxic dust

generated. In order to better understand these events, we obtained and examined two independent dust

samples acquired very soon after 9/11/2001. The provenance of the two samples analyzed for this paper is

described in the appendix. It is worth emphasizing that both of the samples were collected indoors and

shortly after the 9/11/2001 event. One sample was collected on an indoor window sill on 9/14/2001, just

three days after the disaster while searching for survivors in the rubble was ongoing, and in a building four

blocks from ground zero. The other sample was acquired inside a fourth-floor apartment (whose upper

windows broke during the WTC collapse) a few days later. We sought for samples acquired very soon

after the collapses in order to drastically reduce any chance of contamination by clean-up operations (see

Appendix). Furthermore, as we shall see, samples independently collected by other researchers corroborate

the high-temperature indicators we observe.

2. Methods

A FEI XL30-SFEG scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an EDAX Genesis X-ray energy

dispersive spectrometry (XEDS) system was used to acquire XEDS spectra. A silicon detector (SiLi) with

resolution better than 135 eV was used. The display resolution was set to 10 eV per channel. The operating

conditions for the dust analyses were 20 keV, and 60-120 second acquisition time (livetime). The samples

were analyzed at a 10 millimeter working distance and were mounted on carbon conductive tabs. Optical

examination of the dust samples was conducted using a stereomicroscope (Nikon Epiphot 200) having a

magnification range from 10-200X .

3. Results

We found an abundance of tiny solidified droplets roughly spherical in shape (spherules) in the WTC dust

samples as shown in figure 1 (optical microscope) and figure 2 (Scanning Electron Microscope).