World trade Centre Collapse

[Name of the Institute]World Trade Centre Collapse

Abstract

This report is an investigation done on the subject of World trade Centre`s Collapse on September 11, 2001 in New York. An investigation on the mechanics of the aircraft impact and events of collapse is done in this report. The potential and kinetic energy transfer processes from the aircraft impacts on the buildings, through the concurrent fireballs, to the final collapse of the building are studied. The energetic of the event are discussed. This study helps in analyzing whether the collapse of the buildings could have occurred without any external energy source.

Introduction

The twin towers in New York of the world trade centre got completely destroyed on September 11, 2001. This occurred due to 9/11 attacks on the buildings. The Centre experienced a severe, sudden and synchronised collapse. Terrorists belonging to the Al-Qaeda group hijacked commercial aircrafts. They attacked the building by hitting one of the aircrafts into the northern building and the other into the southern building of the twin towers. The FEMA agency of US along with several other federal agencies and various professional organizations established a team of structural, fire protection and civil engineers to study the details of world trade centre collapse. The teams carried out observations of field at the site of northern and southern tower of world trade centre. They tested and removed samples of the structure that got collapsed. The available time and information and the series of events that resulted in a complete collapse of the structure were not adequate to determine the exact and precise causes of the collapse. Still, useful observations and findings were determined by these specialized teams. The teams completed its investigation and found out that the structural design of the WTC twin towers was completely robust and sound. The incidents occurring after the twin tower attacks were titled as the worst disasters that could occur to any building. These disastrous events caused enormous loss of lives that were ever witnessed from collapse of a single building in US in the history. The agency attributed the destruction completely to extraordinary factors that were not under the control of building designers.

The main aim of this report is to evaluate the destruction caused by these events, gather data, create an understanding of each impacted building`s response, and recognize the reasons of the observed behaviour. The sudden impact of the aircraft`s attack on each tower, the rapid spread of fireballs across the towers, the weakened structure due to fire ignition and the engineering mechanics that led to twin towers` collapse are discussed. This report summarizes the investigation done on the reasons of the massive collapse of the twin towers.

General

The world trade Centre towers are also called WTC 1 and WTC 2. WTC 1 was the northern tower and WTC 2 was the southern tower. These two towers included 110 floors each above the level of Plaza and 7 floors below. The north tower`s height was 1,368 feet. This was the tallest building of ...