Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft into the World Trade Center
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 131, Issue 10
Abstract
A numerical simulation of the aircraft impact into the exterior columns of the World Trade Center (WTC) was done using LS-DYNA. For simplification, the fuselage was modeled as a thin-walled cylinder, the wings were modeled as box beams with a fuel pocket, and the engines were represented as rigid cylinders. The exterior columns of the WTC were represented as box beams. Actual masses, material properties and dimensions of the Boeing 767 aircraft and the exterior columns of the WTC were used in this analysis. It was found that about 46% of the initial kinetic energy of the aircraft was used to damage columns. The minimum impact velocity of the aircraft to just penetrate the exterior columns would be . It was also found that a Boeing 767 traveling at top speed would not penetrate exterior columns of the WTC if the columns were thicker than .
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgement
The writers wish to thank Professor Tomasz Wierzbicki for bringing this idea to their attention and all his helpful discussions on the problem.
References
Bazant, Z. P., and Zhou, Y. (2001). “Why did world trade center collapse? Simple analysis.” Arch. Appl. Mech., 71(12), 802–806.
Bazant, Z. P., and Zhou, Y. (2002). “Why did the world trade center collapse? Simple analysis.” J. Eng. Mech., 128(1), 2–6.
Boeing (2003). “Boeing Aircraft Technology.” ⟨http://www.boeing.com/assocproducts/aircompat/acaps/7672sec2.pdf⟩ (December, 2003).
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (2002). “World Trade Center building performance study.” ⟨http://www.fema.gov/library/wtcstudy.shtm⟩ (May, 2002).
General Electric Company (2004). “GE transportation aircraft engines, Model CF6–80C2.” ⟨http://www.geae.com/engines/commercial/cf6/cf6–80c2.html⟩
Johnson, G. R., and Cook, W. H. (1985). “Fracture characteristics of three metals subjected to various strains, strain rates, temperatures and pressures.” Eng. Fract. Mech., 21(1), 31–48.
Kroo, I. (2005). “Aircraft design: Synthesis and analysis.” ⟨http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/structures/wingweight.html⟩ (April 18, 2000).
Newland, D. E., and Cebon, D. (2002). “Could the world trade center have been modified to prevent its collapse?” J. Eng. Mech., 128(7), 795–800.
Quan, X., and Birnbaum, N. K. (2003). “A general numerical approach to model the impact and collapse of the WTC buildings.” Proc., Response of Structures to Extreme Loading (CD-Rom), Elsevier, Toronto.
Quintiere, J. G., Marzoa, M., and Becker, R. (2002). “A suggested cause of the fire-induced collapse of the World Trade Towers.” Fire Saf. J., 37, 707–716.
Usmani, A. S. (2003). “How did the WTC towers collapse: a new theory? Fire Saf. J., 38, 501–533.
Wierzbicki, T., and Teng, X. (2003). “How the airplane wing cut through the exterior columns of the World Trade Center. Int. J. Impact Eng., 28, 601–625.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 131 • Issue 10 • October 2005
Pages: 1066 - 1072
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 30, 2004
Accepted: Dec 1, 2004
Published online: Oct 1, 2005
Published in print: Oct 2005
Notes
Note. Associate Editor: Raimondo Betti
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.