LashL
23rd August 2006, 10:16 PM
I'm not sure if this has been posted before. If so, my apologies.
It's an August 17, 2006 article about a five year study that has been conducted by Professor Abolhassen Astaneh-Asl, a prof of structural engineering, operating on a grant by the National Science Foundation. He was on the site within a week of Sept. 11/01 and expects the results of his analysis to be published soon.
Seven days after the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001, Professor Abolhassen Astaneh-Asl was in New York, armed with a digital camera and a notebook and documenting what he could of the devastation. A Professor of structural engineering at the University of California Berkeley working under a grant from the National Science Foundation to collect perishable data and conduct a reconnaissance of the collapsed towers from a structural engineering point of view, Astaneh-Asl knew he had a very brief window of opportunity in which to gather evidence that might be useful in any future analysis of the buildings’ collapse.
“The simulation model shows the plane slicing right through the outer walls of the as-built building like it was a thin soda can,” Astaneh-Asl explained to the spellbound crowd.
Astaneh-Asl says that the reason for undertaking his studies is not to implicate the designers, but rather to look into the design and answer the basic question that has bothered him since September 11: “Why did these towers collapse so quickly and so completely while other steel structures, including skyscrapers, under intense fire for hours, have not failed?”
He says that he feels he is closing in on the answer. “These structures were so unique that their collapse does not represent the performance expected of any other existing steel high-rise structure subjected to the same scenario,” he says.
More here:
http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6363426.html
It's an August 17, 2006 article about a five year study that has been conducted by Professor Abolhassen Astaneh-Asl, a prof of structural engineering, operating on a grant by the National Science Foundation. He was on the site within a week of Sept. 11/01 and expects the results of his analysis to be published soon.
Seven days after the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001, Professor Abolhassen Astaneh-Asl was in New York, armed with a digital camera and a notebook and documenting what he could of the devastation. A Professor of structural engineering at the University of California Berkeley working under a grant from the National Science Foundation to collect perishable data and conduct a reconnaissance of the collapsed towers from a structural engineering point of view, Astaneh-Asl knew he had a very brief window of opportunity in which to gather evidence that might be useful in any future analysis of the buildings’ collapse.
“The simulation model shows the plane slicing right through the outer walls of the as-built building like it was a thin soda can,” Astaneh-Asl explained to the spellbound crowd.
Astaneh-Asl says that the reason for undertaking his studies is not to implicate the designers, but rather to look into the design and answer the basic question that has bothered him since September 11: “Why did these towers collapse so quickly and so completely while other steel structures, including skyscrapers, under intense fire for hours, have not failed?”
He says that he feels he is closing in on the answer. “These structures were so unique that their collapse does not represent the performance expected of any other existing steel high-rise structure subjected to the same scenario,” he says.
More here:
http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6363426.html