Why the Observed Motion History of World Trade Center Towers Is Smooth
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 137, Issue 1
Abstract
The collapse of the World Trade Center towers was initiated by the impact of the upper falling part onto the underlying intact story. At the moment of impact, the velocity of the upper part must have decreased. The fact that no velocity decrease can be discerned in the videos of the early motion of the tower top has been recently exploited to claim that the collapse explanation generally accepted within the structural mechanics community was invalid. This claim is here shown to be groundless. Calculations show that the velocity drop is far too small to be perceptible in amateur video records and is much smaller than the inevitable error of such video records.
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References
Bažant, Z. P., and Cedolin, L. (1991). Stability of structures: Elastic, inelastic, fracture and damage theories, 2nd Ed., Dover, New York.
Bažant, Z. P., and Le, J. -L. (2008). “Closure to ‘Mechanics of progressive collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and building demolitions’.” J. Eng. Mech., 134, 917–923.
Bažant, Z. P., Le, J. -L., Greening, F. R., and Benson, D. B. (2008). “What did and did not cause collapse of WTC twin towers?” J. Eng. Mech., 134, 892–906.
Bažant, Z. P., and Verdure, M. (2007). “Mechanics of progressive collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and building demolitions.” J. Eng. Mech., 133, 308–319.
Bažant, Z. P., and Zhou, Y. (2002). “Why did the World Trade Center collapse?—Simple analysis.” J. Eng. Mech., 128(1), 2–6.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 137 • Issue 1 • January 2011
Pages: 82 - 84
Copyright
© 2011 ASCE.
History
Received: May 8, 2010
Accepted: Jun 18, 2010
Published online: Jun 21, 2010
Published in print: Jan 2011
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