There is a new(The above title should be, "new(?) 911 bad science) site that seeks to explain the fireball in the elevator shafts as a new type of thermobaric bomb.
This site describes this bomb.

You have to wade through a short woo-woo MIB are following me section first to get to it.

A few things struck me as idiocy such as a piezoelectric crystal becoming a capacitor(they spell piezoelectric wrong too).

Other things bother me though as well.(actually was pointed out to me)
I can find no reference to simple aluminum silicate being flammable let alone explosive and it seems that this 'bomb' is comprised of this material and oxidizers. There is no 'fuel'.

At best all I can envision is that with the release of a lot of oxidizing material that any combustibles in the area would ignite and possibly burn quite hot but I fail to see that this would result in any blast wave at all.

My chemistry ended in high school and we had to end class early sometimes to go fight the saber-toothed tigers roaming about, lol.

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Just FYI, but the link is broken because of the filter on the forums. I think that most people can figure out what those four asterisks represent, though.

Other than that, it just sounds like an attempt to replace a common explanation with an "exotic" one. Par for the course I suppose...

Aluminiumsilicate is an food additive to prevent that is sticks together.
In Europe it is known under the Number E559.
Its a parting agent used in Salt, chewing gum, soft cheese, rice, sausages and food that is dry and in powder form.

People that have problems with their kidneys should not eat too much of it, as the Aluminium can accumulate in their body.

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Could anyone be so kind to explain to me what's a Thermobaric bomb?

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"A Wizard Did It!"

Hope it wasn't the Wizard of Oz, last time I checked he was heading out the Yellow Brick Road......

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Is this type of bomb even feasible for this CT ? I was under the impression that thermobaric bomb types were very large and unwieldy things, from 500-1000 lbs to the giganto- BLU-82B "Daisy Cutter" that uses a similar mechanism and is ~15000 lbs.

In a large, complex building with multiple materials and fire pathways (a firefighter could probably produce a better term), the patterns of how a fire spreads will be logically be more complex. Reconstructing those "pathways" and patterns becomes even more difficult when the large building then collapses.

I sincerely hope there was nothing about these last few posts that violated any forum rules...

Thanks

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So, your theory is that bunch of German tourists/businessmen were riding in a WTC elevator, chomping on chewing gum, and caused an explosion?

Hmmm.

I like it! It makes as much sense as some of the other ideas being promoted.

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In a large, complex building with multiple materials and fire pathways (a firefighter could probably produce a better term),

"fire pathways" works OK. There's no one definite term.

the patterns of how a fire spreads will be logically be more complex. Reconstructing those "pathways" and patterns becomes even more difficult when the large building then collapses.

Oh yes indeed. Fire can be sneaky enough without thousands of gallons of jet fuel going all over the place.

The problem with the term "thermobaric" is, that it is not clearly defined what is meant by it. Some call bombs that displace the surrounding air thermobaric, others call fuel-air boms thermobaric, others use that term interchangeably.
The idea of a thermobaric bomb is that it brings its fuel and oxidizer in one material. It spreads it by a first small initial explosion and ignites the material with a second larger one. These weapons are theory. At least the not fuel-air types. The US Army seems to have some bombs that you could call thermobaric. But no one would ever show one to you.

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They can apparently be made smaller easily enough, eg the GTB-7G for the RPG-7.

I stand corrected. Leave it to the Bulgarians- one could smuggle a couple of those RPG's and launcher in a laundry cart, or similar example. Would the yield be enough to produce the fireball described in the OP link ?

unbreak the link by going here and at the bottom of the page , the third reference is a link to the page I was speaking of.

Yes, indeed it is an exotic replacing a mundane answer to how there was an explosion in the lower levels as the plane hit. Yes, indeed it is par for the course for CT's.

My question is whether or not this particular 'bomb' would even explode(aside from the small amounts of conventional explosive used as detonators).

I don't think it would since I can find no reference for aluminum silicate as even being flammable let alone explosive. It would seem to be already oxidized and thus no surprise that it isn't.

Also what about 'baking' N2O4. This would seem at first glance by my long forgotton high school chemistry , to be a very good oxidizer and it would seem to me that heating it would be a very bad idea. One would especially have to be wary of the material the container was made of. Wouldn't one?

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"Man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than learn the multiplication table." - Somerset Maugham

A fuel-air device is what I was led to believe that a thermobaric bomb was.

They do exist but have limited use on 'soft' targets. It produces a very large fireball and an overpressure that can knock down barracks buildings, kill people, clear away tress (once you wait for the forest fire to move on), scatter and burn parked aircraft.

I saw a video of a test of one years ago.

Small detonation occurs about 100 feet agl dispersing a quantity of three flammable liquids, one of which , IIRC, was diesel fuel. The fuels expand in the open air for a short time allowing the fuel to form a 'cloud' and then an ignitor sparks this to life.

The result is a huge fuel explosion at an optimal height to cause blast and fire damage over a large area.

The 9/11 CT's want this to be the explosion in the basement levels.
They fail to notice that a large quantity of kerosene falling down the elevator shafts, propelled by the detonation of partially vaporized kerosene on the upper floors would essentially be the same as a fuel -air bomb of human manufacture.

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"Man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than learn the multiplication table." - Somerset Maugham

N204 is nitrogen tetroxide and it is the mother of all oxidizers. It's used in hypergolic reactions with hydrazine and its derivatives to create rocket propulsion.

"Baking" it is notoriously stupid, as it exposing it to air or to your skin. It can be stored in appropriate containers for a number of weeks.

If by "thermobaric bomb" the author means a fuel-air explosion, then that's exactly what occurred. He's simply proposing the intentional equivalent of what will happen accidentally in a variety of circumstances, including fuel dispersion in a collision. This type of reasoning is exactly why Occam's Razor is necessary. We don't need to propose an intentional device when the circumstances naturally produced a fuel-air explosion.

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If one assumes that the conspiracy theorists are correct and the government was responsible for September the 11th and thermobaric type weapons were used then presumably the individuals setting the bomb would have been supplied with one sufficiently big for the task. As thermobaric type weapons are available in both large and small sizes it is presumably possible to make a medium sized one, assuming that a suitable one isn't already available. Of course it is virtually certain that the government had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and even if they did then using anything that wasn't supposed to be on the planes or in the WTC would be just plain stupid, and therefor any FAE was most likely due to the jet fuel being sprayed around and ignited by the impact.

BTW here is an unmangled link to the page referanced by the OP in case anyone should have an urge to read it (tinyURL.com is handy for getting around filtered words in a URL)

You all seem to be talking about a BLEVE. I had occasion to watch the results of one when a camera crew was interviewing a volunteer fire chief as his crew was battling a fire involving a semi-truck container of liquid natural gas. The camera was recovered after the explosion (the fire crew, camera crew, reporter, fire chief, several police and a number of bystanders were all killed) and the expanding bubble of the vapour fed explosion was clearly evident up until the camera was engulfed.

While such an explosion would cause a lot of fire damage, it would not create a strong pressure wave per se--and certainly not one strong enough to knock out a building support.

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Fixed.

I think I saw that clip as well, but I thought no or little people were killed?

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Here is an MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for aluminum silicate. As I suspected (I have a PhD in chemistry) it is about as reactive as sand. The idea of using it as an explosive, even with a strong oxidizer like N2O4, is nonsense.

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Duane:
You all seem to be talking about a BLEVE.

I have to disagree. A BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) results from heating of a confined liquid to the point where the container ruptures catastrophically. The release of the vapor into a volume with oxygen can result in combustion - even explosive combustion - if the vapor is combustible but is not an essential feature of a BLEVE. It's the explosive release from containment that's the defining feature, and it could just as well happen with a liquid nitrogen tank.

A fuel-air explosive premixes the fuel and oxidizer before supplying the ignition source; an aircraft crash can (and did on 9/11/2001 in particular) have the same effect, though with lower efficiency.

Little people have lives to lead to you know.

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They wouldn't use a highly reactive substance as a food additive, wouldn't they?
Imagine the hint on the products, like:
"While eating our rice, don't breathe too stong."

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No I don't know to what their lives lead...

(NEVER put an unintended spelling mistake in a pun )

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Well, I've had some hot sauces that were pretty close to explosive...

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All moderation in purple

Well, I've had some hot sauces that were pretty close to explosive...


I hope they didn't detonate in the basement.

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Someone will be along shortly to tell us that we have to prove that an FAE/thermobaric bomb was not exploded in the building, imitating exactly the effects of airplane fuel igniting.

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Actually it was a thermobaric fuel-air bomb.
It was deliverd by Passenger Airplane

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Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916
our animal welfare board and organisation