lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on Feb 13, 2007 8:01:22 GMT -4
William Rodriguez claims the explosion of the ‘bomb in the basement’ set of the sprinklers. But AFAIK sprinklers aren’t shock activated and can only be triggered by heat. Is his claim possible?
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Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 13, 2007 8:31:10 GMT -4
sts60 might have a better answer, but from the ones I have looked at close up, the sprinkler head is made up of a pipe blocked with a glass bulb filled with red alcohol. When the liquid heats up, it expands, breaking the blub and unblocking the head of the tube, allowing the water to be released. As such I'd imagine that a large enough shock would shatter the bulb and set them off.
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Post by sts60 on Feb 13, 2007 11:24:20 GMT -4
I don't know what kind of sprinkler system was in use down there. It could have been the glass-bulb type, as PW said, or another type such as a "pellet" head. (That would make a good insult - "you pellethead!" But I digress.) Such sprinklers are thermally fuzed, and each head is controlled by its own fuze - which means that the movies showing somebody holding up a match to one sprinkler and setting them all off get it wrong.
But there are other variants in which various sensors control the sprinkler flow, and systems in which a single activation causes all the heads in a sector to start flowing (deluge systems). Without knowing more about the particulars, there are a variety of possibilities:
1. Sprinkler systems are not "shock-activated", but a mechanical shock of sufficient magnitude could break one or more sprinkler heads, or sprinkler system piping. Hypothetically, that could have been a bomb, or impact shock transmitted through the building structure.
1a. It would not be inconsistent with terrorist methods to set off bombs in the lower levels after the aircraft struck the building. Such devices are intended to take advantage of panicked crowds and hurt and delay first responders. AFAIK, there is no credible evidence that such secondaries were used.
2. An overpressure broke the heads. But an overpressure sufficient to do that would likely have broken any witnesses too.
3. He simply remembered things wrong or out of sequence. Very likely given his natural excitement during the event.
4. Fire in one location could have triggered sprinkler activation in a wide area.
5. Damaged sprinkler control systems could have triggered the sprinklers.
(4 and 5 apply to deluge-type systems.)
Take your pick. Sorry, but I don't have the time or inclination to research the system or this guy's story any further.
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