9/11 Animation EngineeringWords

Most Americans think they know what brought down the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but civil engineers aren't so sure. They're still seeking answers--answers that could save lives in future attacks--and the search continues with the help of a state-of-the-art animated visualization created by researchers at Purdue University.

Investigators at Purdue's Rosen Center for Advanced Computing have created an animation they say reveals more information than could be conveyed through a scientific simulation alone.

While a scientific simulation shows details essential to an engineer--the structural damage caused by a plane tearing through several stories of the World Trade Center within a half-second--it doesn't deliver details useful to a layperson, such as flames and smoke. In the animation, these details are clearly rendered, and that's important.

A damage picture that lacks them is scientifically inaccurate.

When a plane hits a building, it moves through the structure like flaming lava; the kinetic energy of the fuel associated with the moving aircraft causes a significant portion of damage. Thorough examination of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center revealed that the weight of the 10,000 gallons of fuel--more than the impact of the crash--caused the building's collapse. In fact, if it hadn't been for the fuel-driven fire, the structural damage to the WTC's north tower might haven been much less, comparable to that seen had the crashing aircraft been filled with water.

Purdue's animation detailing the impact of fire is the latest in a series of post-9/11 projects by the university team. The team's goal is to identify the structural damage that occurs when an airplane collides with a building, and ultimately, to prepare builders to design structures that will stand up to anything--even terror.

.MGW.