Extreme Steel Wastage from WTC 1 or 2 and WTC 7

Written by JamesSpecial thanks to an independent researcher whom provided material I did not know
existed.
I have been interested in the extreme steel wastage that was studied from a steel beam
and column after three steel framed buildings collapsed on September 11, 2001. The
circumstances around the steel wastage has been described in various articles and
journals as "unusual", "unexpected", "novel", "very unusual" , "perhaps the deepest
mystery uncovered in the investigation", and a Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
article states it has "confounded the scientific community." The WPI fire-wise professors
were "shocked" by the "swiss cheese" appearance of the steel. There was half an inch
thickness wasted away from the WTC 7 beam. The steel from WTC 1 or 2 showed "a oneinch column has been reduced to half-inch thickness. Its edges--which are curled like a
paper scroll--have been thinned to almost razor sharpness." [1] This shows how much
steel wastage we are discussing.
I have read and reread the FEMA and NIST reports concerning the sample from WTC 1 or
2 and the sample from WTC 7. Something did not sit right with these samples in my mind.
FEMA and NIST determined that a corrosion/erosion mechanism was behind the attack. I
became interested in the actual microstructure of the steel where the attack occurred. I
have determined that the attack on the steel was fast, as it happened in less than 10's of
hours, and it was localized. This is all from reading the FEMA and NIST reports and
determining a timeframe from a couple of articles where severe steel wastage was
observed shortly after 911. Last but not least I will expound upon the FEMA statement in
regards to the attack on the steel resulting in the severe wastage; "It is also possible that
the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel
structure.

FAST
After the NIST studied the microstructure of the steel from K - 16 (sample from WTC 1 or
2) from a "corroded" area, they stated in report NCSTAR 1-3C:
However, it did not appear that normalization (heat treatment designed to produce a
uniform microstructure) nor homogenization (heat treated designed to eliminate or
minimize compositional segregation) of the material occurred. If normalization had
been completed, the ferrite grain size would be far more uniform throughout the
plate than observed in Fig. 6-2 la. Further, the fact that the pearlite was heavily

banded indicated that homogenization did not occur. This heat treatment
requires relatively high temperatures (typically well above A 3 ) for extended
periods (tens of hours). In fully achieving this heat treatment, the alloying
elements, such as Mn, Si, or Cr, could diffuse uniformly throughout the structure. As
seen by the present banding in the material, this was not the case. Instead, it
appears that at some point in this sample's history, it reached a relatively high
temperature (above the A 3 line) in which the original microstructure was
eliminated, but did not remain for an extended period of time in the austenite
region in order to obtain an equilibrium ferrite grain size or to reduce the chemical
segregation within the structure. [2]
Did you get that? The severe steel wastage occurred in less than 10's of hours. Now for
the sample from WTC 7. NIST did studies on different types of steel at 625C for varying
times up to 2 hours. [3] The microstructure changes drastically in just 2 hours. The WTC 7
steel microstructure in the journal article "Metallographic Examination" showed near
surface transformations in figures 4,5, and 6. [4] Unlike the microstructures in the NIST
report that changed drastically when heated for two hours at 625C, the original
microstructure of the A36 steel did not change that much. The temperature range for the
start of spheroidization of lamellar cementite is 550-850C. The temperature range for the
recrystallization of ferrite in the areas where the pearlite has been partially dissolved is
also between 550-850C. If you look at figure 3, the sample is only about three inches long
and shows severe wastage. From a WPI presentation, they even state, concerning figures
5 and 6, that for those microstructures to occur the steel needs to be heated to about 727C
and held for a SHORT TIME. [5] As with the sample from WTC 1 or 2, it looks as though
normalization and homogenization did not occur in the WTC 7 steel either considering the
small microstructural changes that occurred in a short time around 727C.
Professor Sisson tries to explain to us in a BBC documentary what happened to the steel:
"Well, it was attacked by what we determined was a liquid slag. When we did the
analysis, we actually identified it as iron a liquid containing iron, sulfur, and
oxygen. You can see what it does is it attacks the grain boundaries, and then this bit
would have eventually fallen out, and it would have continued the attack."
Basically a eutectic reaction involving iron, sulfur and oxygen occurred at the surface of the
steel "causing intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss
cheese."
The WPI article states "a eutectic compound is a mixture of two or more substances that

melts at the lowest temperature of any mixture of its components." It takes temperatures in
the range of 940C to create the eutectic that attacked the steel. That means the steel did
not just sit around in an atmosphere of 940C temperatures for multiple days, weeks, or
months. The whole microstructure would have changed if it had! There is slag on top of
the steel in figure 4 with intergranular penetration which means that an external source hit
it hard to cause the wastage and at high temperatures (940C or greater) for a relatively
short period of time.
What does that mean exactly? If one looks into books about corrosion/erosion, you will not
find an example of corrosion/erosion that occurs that fast with that amount of steel wastage
involved. In the journal article "Metallographic Examination", the preliminary laboratory
simulation states that they placed iron sulfide powder on the steel and heated to 1100C for
12 hours to try and replicate the attack. What they don't tell you in the journal article is
what Professor Sisson stated in an email exchange. He was only able to get a "little" metal
to dissolve after 24 hours 1100C. I have tried to email Professor Sisson to find out how
little that "little" is but he did not reply. That is double the amount of time in the journal
article and extending up into the 10's of hours max timeframe for the severe wastage to
occur. Another point to add is that Professor Sisson was putting iron sulfide powder on the
steel, bypassing how a eutectic would form to attack the steel in the office/debris fire
naturally. Another point to add is apparently the eutectic works better at attacking the steel
at higher temperatures. Take for instance this abstract of a seminar that WPI had on their
website:

To simulate the extreme wastage experienced by WTC building 7 structural steel

during the fires experienced on September 11, 2001, A36 steel was reacted with
powder FeS/FeO/SiO2/C in an open air furnace environment at 900C and 1100C.
Initial investigations of the WTC structural steel revealed an apparent liquid "slag"
attack and penetration down grain boundaries by liquid iron oxides and sulfides. The
current laboratory simulation results show grain boundary penetration by a liquid
slag at higher temperatures regardless of powder reactants applied to the
steel samples. Eutectic structures within the Fe-S-O and Fe-Si-O systems were
observed along with elemental segregation within the near surface microstructure.
In all cases, grain boundary penetration appears to be strongly influenced by the
addition of alloying elements and contaminants.
A Metallurgical Examination and Simulation of the Oxidation and Sulfidation of the
World Trade Center Structural Steel (WPI Seminar, September, 2003. Presented by
Erin Sullivan)

From reading articles just weeks after 911, I have found two articles of interest. In a New
York Times article, Professor Astaneh saw a "charred horizontal I-beam from 7 World
Trade Center" that "endured searing temperatures." [6] The article goes on to state "parts
of the flat top of the I, once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized." So we have
15.9mm gone in around eight days after 911 according to the timeframe of the article. I
have tried to email Professor Astaneh and he will not respond to any questions regarding
this observation. He basically said he does not want his research to be used for alternate
theories. He never did research on WTC 7. This is not his research but his observations
which shed light on a corrosion rate timeframe. To note, Professor Astaneh has related
steel wastage to fire damage in another article. In a Berkeleyan article it states "For
example, valuable information could come from analysis of the blackened steel from the
floors engulfed in flame after the airplane collisions. Steel flanges had been reduced
from an inch thick to paper thin, Astaneh said." [7] This observation shows that one
inch turned paper thin. According to the article, the steel was in the debris pile somewhere
between 8-18 days before Professor Astaneh saw it. What I believe he was observing
was exactly what FEMA and the NIST studied, severe steel wastage. His observations put
a time limit on the corrosion rate. NIST stated that the wastage occurred in less than 10's
of hours so his observations reinforce a short timeframe. I understand there is a FOIA
request for all of Professor Astaneh's pictures. Hopefully this will shed more light on the
steel wastage he was observing. The beam in the Berkeleyan article had a date stamp of
September 21, 2001. If he is speaking of this beam, then it is steel from WTC 7 and only
10 days after the building collapsed.
Dr. Barnett worked on the FEMA study. He stated "A combination of an uncontrolled fire
and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some
engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to
have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures." [8] From what I
understand, he was speaking about samples 1 and 2 from the FEMA BPAT appendix C
report but there could be more. We just have to pin him down and find out exactly how
many he saw. I have emailed him about how many steel members he was speaking of. I
also asked about if the "evaporation" was localized in regards to connection points or in the
middle of the column. He has not replied. This article was written late (Nov. 29th) and
does not describe how much steel wastage there was. So it does not provide much in
regards to a corrosion rate.

LOCALIZED
This will be short and sweet. The FEMA report shows that the microstructure of the steel
from WTC 7 away from the wastage was not even heat affected. [9] The beam from WTC
1 or 2 shows that the steel away from the wastage did heat up but only to the temperature
that caused spheroidization (about 727C). It did not sit in a 940C temperature
environment that could have formed the eutectic to attack the steel.

Pre collapse scenario

FEMA stated in their paper that it was "possible that the phenomenon started prior to
collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure." It boils down to who
believes the steel wastage was done pre collapse or in the debris pile. An accelerant could
have done the job in X seconds or minutes and the steel could have fallen in the debris pile
and cooled. The end product of the accelerant is the extreme steel wastage along with the
slag and altered steel microstructure. The object that produced the conditions for the slag
could have been burning much hotter than 940C. Remember, Sisson went all the way up
to 1100C and only got a "little" metal to dissolve. NIST stated "as sulfur was not readily
available in large amounts in the steel (0.02 weight percent max.), an external source must
have supplied this species (e.g., plastic, rubber). Viewing the column, this external
source was in all probability burning directly on top of the outer web while the
column lay in a prone position." NIST is thinking the wastage occurred in the debris pile,
that is why they state "prone position." But as I laid out above, I highly doubt that the
wastage could have happened in less than 10's of hours laying in a debris pile. There is
NO corrosion rate that fast in any books about corrosion that I have seen.
My case is that it was done pre collapse because the wastage was localized and the
microstructure showed that the areas of the wastage did not stay long above the A3 line
(less than 10's of hours). The beam from WTC 7 away from the wastage was not even heat
affected according to the FEMA study. The beam from WTC 1 or 2 away from the wastage
showed that it did heat up to a temperature that causes spheroidization (727C). The
eutectic temperature has to be around 940C for the eutectic system to work. So it's not
like the environment, such as heat in the air outside these localized areas were even at the
point to create such a eutectic. If the high temperatures were there, the steel
microstructures would show it. Also, the scale formations from the un-corroded region on
the outside of the steel (WTC 1 or 2) away from the wastage was different. According to
NIST, the scales consisted of oxides. There was no sulfur or chlorine there. So something
external, localized, in close proximity, giving off tremendous heat was burning in order to
get that area above the A3 line in less than 10's of hours. The localized areas may have
been connection points or in the middle of the column in order to help it buckle. Take this
example from the New York Times article mentioned earlier where five-eighths of an inch
of steel was gone from this WTC 7 beam:
Less clear was whether the beam had been charred after the collapse, as it lay in
the pile of burning rubble, or whether it had been engulfed in the fire that led to the
building's collapse, which would provide a more telling clue. The answer lay in the
beam's twisted shape. As weight pushed down, the center portion had buckled
outward. ''This tells me it buckled while it was attached to the column,'' not as
it fell, Dr. Astaneh-Asl said, adding, ''It had burned first, then buckled.''

[1] https://www.wpi.edu/News/Transformations/2002Spring/steel.html
[2] http://www.nist.gov/manuscript-publication-search.cfm?pub_id=101019 (pages 281282)
[3] http://www.nist.gov/manuscript-publication-search.cfm?pub_id=101019 (pages 291299)
[4] http://www.georgevandervoort.com/images/fa_lit_papers/World_Trade_Center.pdf
[5] http://www.georgevandervoort.com/images/Failure-Analysis/WTC_Talk.pdf slides 25-26
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/science/scarred-steel-holds-clues-and-remedies.html
[7] http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2001/10/03_grou.html
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/29TOWE.html?pagewanted=2
[9] http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pd
[10] http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/wtc/502-WTC-Astaneh-PPT-containing-photosshot-on--Oct-8-2001-Final-for-Archives.pdf
[11] http://www.nistreview.org/WTC-ASTANEH.pdf

It looks as though the heat source came from underneath this air duct. This is a piece
from WTC 7. Professor Astaneh is looking at the piece of steel in a flatbed truck. That
means it was early in the cleanup process. The trucks stopped coming this route on Friday
September 28 and the Professor had to shift his study to the scrap yards. This piece of
steel was most likely photographed September 21, 2001. A timestamp from the
Berkeleyan article photo proves this steel beam sat in the rubble pile about 10 days . This
is the same truck and same background as in the Berkeleyan article photo. See Professor
Astaneh's powerpoint presentation for a closer look. [10 ]

Another angle of the same piece that shows a somewhat twisted shape of the steel along
with deformations. Professor Astaneh wrote a report for the National Science Foundation

and submitted it on 11-07-2005 with this photograph attached. He stated that the steel
indicated that there was very intense fire inside the building. [11] Sounds like he thinking
the wastage was from the fire precollapse at this point in time.

Here is a piece of steel most likely from WTC 7 that shows wastage at the end of a beam.
Seems like that would help aid the collapse a building if it happened pre collapse. This is
the Berkeleyan article picture with the timestamp of September 21, 2001.

We do know where the localized steel wastage occurred in regards to the WTC 1 or 2
piece.

I have asked Professor Sisson where on the WTC 7 steel did the wastage occur for the
piece they studied in the FEMA report. No reply.

Now we DO know where the wastage occurred in regards to sample 1 from the FEMA
BPAT report! This is the steel from WTC 7. My gut feeling was correct. This is the beam
where the FEMA team got their sample. The wastage occurred at the end of a beam.
This picture was aquired via a FOIA request.

Closeup of the steel sample from WTC 1 or 2.