Why did the steel beams melt in the World Trade Ctr Towers -- are we to conclude the temperature inside created by the exploding airliner was approximately 2000 degrees F?

Answer 1

Below, please find some links. Some (the first five) are to hoaxbuff sites, which try to compare building fires (of very different construction, weight, and with no jet impact or jet fuel), to what happened to the Towers. Others will be to sites which have long since debunked all that. Please note that even the buff sites admit that the Towers had undergone the stresses of fires and the terrorist bomb, and were therefore not in pristine condition when they were hit.

Only the conspiracy buffs claim that the steel melted. The available facts are that the steel was simply heated to the point it could no longer support the floors, which started cascading downward, leaving only a horribly damaged outer shell to take the full weight of the floors above. Since no sideways push existed, the buildings fell straight down.

Secondly, steel that has incredible pressure on anyway needs not melt to bring down a building. When you have steel stressed at high levels naturally then you weaken it by warming it, you certainly can see the metal reach a point where it is overstressed. It need not melt to twist.

The planes did not explode. They collided with a building. This hit caused some support issues by itself. This also added uneven stress to the remaining steel in place.

The shafts of the building became great air/ fuel mixing areas that certainly could cause extreme temps.

The building also remained standing for a long period after the hit. This is typical for stressed steel structures. The metal began shifting and slowly the metal twisted beyond it's tolerance.

The most interesting fact about this concept of the Government doing this deed is the logic behind it. The idea that somehow our Government wanted to hurt itself in the manner it did is beyond absurd.