WORLD
TRADE CENTER
T OWER S Fig. 1 — The World Trade Center in New York City be-
Frank W. Gayle,* fore the terrorist attack. Image courtesy Port Authority of This article is
Stephen W. Banovic,* Tim Foecke, New York and New Jersey. based on a paper
Richard J. Fields, William E. Luecke characteristic exterior. Figure 2 shows a prefab- to be presented
Metallurgy Division, ricated perimeter column panel being hoisted into at the ASM
place. Materials
National Institute of Standards and Technology Solutions
Gaithersburg, Maryland Once in place, the columns were bolted to the
Conference in
columns below, and the deep spandrels were Columbus,
J. David McColskey, Chris McCowan, bolted together side-to-side using splice plates. Ohio,
Thomas A. Siewert* Inside the building, each individual floor enclosed Oct. 18- 20,
Materials Reliability Division, an acre of wall-free, open space. Lightweight floor during the
National Institute of Standards and Technology trusses, also visible in Figure 1, spanned the open Fabricated Steel
Boulder, Colorado space between the core and perimeter columns Structures
in a two-dimensional lattice, and supported a Symposium II.
four-inch thick lightweight concrete floor. At the The actual paper
contains many
I
n September 2002, the National Institute of core and perimeter, truss seats supported the floor
Standards and Technology became the lead trusses. more details.
agency in the investigation of the World Because of the enormous size of the construc-
Trade Center (WTC) terrorist attacks of Sep- tion job, many different companies provided
tember 11, 2001. The investigation addresses structural elements for the buildings. Four dif-
many aspects of the building collapse, from oc- ferent fabricators were responsible for the fire and
cupant egress to factors affecting how long the impact zones relevant to the NIST investigation.
towers stood after being hit by the airplanes, with • The perimeter panel sections were fabricated
the goal of gaining valuable information for the on the West Coast and shipped to a staging area
future. The complete plan for the NIST investi-
gation is available at <http://wtc.nist.gov>. Splice plates
WTC1:
• Four perimeter panels directly hit by the
airplane
• 22 perimeter panels from critical floors
(91 to 101)
• Two core columns from the fire-affected floors
WTC 2:
• Four perimeter panels from near the impact
floors, and
• Two core columns from the impact floors with
possible impact damage.
Additionally, floor truss material and pieces of
channel that connected the floor trusses to the
core columns were recovered; however, the as-
built location of these structural elements within
the buildings could not be identified. Fig. 4 — Outline of airplane overlaid on impact damage with indications of
Based on the markings, all identified perimeter location and type of localized damage. Red boxes indicate cut metal components,
and core columns were found to correlate one-to- blue boxes indicate broken vertical column connection bolts, green boxes show
one with the minimum yield strength specified the failure of longitudinal welds in the box columns, and yellow shows areas of
by the design drawings, with the exception that indeterminate damage.
100 ksi steel was substituted for all specified 85 damaged panels are in a condition similar to that
ksi and 90 ksi plate. The recovered structural el- before the collapse. Some of the extraneous
ements provided representative samples of the damage can be attributed to the events during
12 grades of perimeter panel material actually and after collapse, but the general shape and ap-
used, two grades of core column material (repre- pearance of the recovered pieces correspond well
senting 99 %, by total number, of the columns), with the damage photographs. With this type of
and both grades of the floor truss material. knowledge, the response of the materials can be
ascertained with respect to the impact of the
Failure analysis planes, and the ability of the airplane impact
Documentation of damage features and failure models to reproduce the event can be validated.
modes of the structural steel components plays
an important role in Mechanical properties
• ascertaining the structural response of the Recovered steel was tested to determine
buildings, and the materials of construction, upon whether it met the required minimum properties
the impact of the plane, and to provide data for models of the airplane im-
• estimating the extent of internal damage, pact and the resulting fires. Mechanical property
• yielding insights into the structural integrity tests indicate that all the steels likely met all re-
of the towers leading up to collapse, and quired minimum test requirements.
• aiding in the determination of possible mech- In addition to room-temperature properties,
anism(s) responsible for the collapse of each tower. data were generated on the effects of high tem-
This aspect of the investigation was separated perature on the mechanical properties of the steels
into two sections: and on the effects of high strain rates on the me-
• Pre-collapse analysis concentrating on impact chanical properties of the steels.
damage sustained by the exterior panel sections, Steel properties are sensitive to strain rate, and
based upon photographic and video images, and can exhibit significantly enhanced strength at high
• Damage characteristics of the recovered struc- strain rates with important effects on building re-
tural steel elements. Of particular importance sponse to impact. A higher strength of a column
were the samples located near the airplane im- should lead to increased energy absorption and
pact region on the north face of WTC 1 and the reduction in momentum of the aircraft after im-
south face of WTC 2, and in those areas where fire pact, thereby reducing further damage done to
was known to be present. the interior of the building. As expected, the yield
Extensive image processing was used on pho- and ultimate strengths increase with increasing
tographs received from news organizations and strain rate. Baseline, high temperature, and high
the public to determine pre-collapse damage to strain rate properties have been supplied to the
the perimeter panels. Figure 3 shows the impact modeling efforts of the NIST investigation.
image used to extract perimeter column failure
For more information: Dr. Frank W. Gayle, National Institute of Stan-
mode information from WTC 1. Superimposed dards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20878; tel: 301/975-6161; email:
onto this figure is the outline of the aircraft (Fig. frank.gayle@nist.gov. Interim reports from the NIST investigation are
4). Careful examination of such images has al- available at <http://wtc.nist.gov>. A draft final report will be released
lowed the characterization of the types of column for public comment in December 2004 at the same site.
failures as indicated. Acknowledgements
Comparisons were made between such ob- The authors would like to acknowledge John L. Gross and Stephen A.
served pre-collapse damage and the present con- Cauffman who made arrangements to deliver the recovered steel to NIST;
dition of the four recovered panels that were hit. and William M. Pitts for obtaining permission to use the photograph of
This analysis indicated that two of the impact- Figures 3 and 4.