World Trade Center Post-Disaster Reconnaisance and Perishable Structural Engineering Data Collection

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

On September 11, 2001, World Trade Center towers collapsed because of a terrorist attack. The twin 110-story buildings had tube steel structures steel and were the fifth and sixth tallest buildings in the world with a height of about 1365 feet. The tragic collapse due to this criminal act will require comprehensive analyses of the structure subjected to initial impact of airplane as well as the intense fire that followed. Such analyses no-doubt will be conducted in the future to establish the cause(s) of the collapse and failure sequence in order to improve design of new buildings and retrofit existing structures. The studies will need reliable data on mechanical properties of materials used in the towers, actual as-built steel connections and members as well as floor systems. The objective of this SGER is to conduct post-disaster reconnaissance and collection of perishable data. Specifically, samples of material and structural members and connections that later can be used to establish their properties will be collected. Of particular interest is to collect samples of steel from areas that were heavily affected by heat of the jet fuel and/or impact of the planes. The PI is collaborating with David McCallen of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who is providing expertise in computational mechanics, modeling and analysis of large structural systems. He is also collaborating with Frederick Mowrer of the University of Maryland who is collecting perishable data on the fire protection engineering aspects of the WTC. Together, the data obtained in these projects will be of critical importance to future analyses of the WTC collapses.