Dec 26, 2011

bookmark these links. they have everything you need to prove the 'kerosene can't melt steel' folks wrong.

the key point of error on their behalf is that they're trying to use the melting point of steel, which is when steel turns into liquid, as a reference point. it is true that kerosene will not liquify steel. but, you don't have to liquify steel to make it incapable of holding up tonnes and tonnes worth of mass. clearly? all you have to do is soften it up. think that through, it's obvious.

that means that they shouldn't be focusing on the melting point but on something called the critical point, which is a well defined engineering term. the critical point of steel is not absolute. thinking like that misunderstands what the term means. the critical point refers to a building, not a material. so, you ask what the critical point of a steel beam in a building is, and that depends on the weight that the building needs to hold up. more weight, lower critical point. there's a nice graph in the pdf that shows that it's as low as 200 C for very heavy loads.

that means that they're wrong. kerosene can burn plenty hot to get past the critical point.

http://dubious-maxims.blogspot.com/2006/08/kerosene-wont-melt-steel.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_steel - Fire_resistance
www.lmc.ep.usp.br/people/valdir/wp-content/artigos/jbsmse.pdf