The Failure of the World Trade Centre Towers

摘要

The World Trade Centre Towers in New York City collapsed on September 11, 2001 some time after they were hit by aircrafts. Failures official elements on impact led to the entry of aircrafts into the two buildings. The aircraft wings contained aviation fuel which caught fire inside the buildings. The buildings collapsed due to fire as the beated structural elements lost much of their strength capacities. It is explained through a consideration of the impact loads of the postulated (design) and attacking aircrafts that the structural discontinuity at end-to-end bolted connections between, three-storey high segment, of peripheral columns and at bolted connections between spandrel plates at each floor level, is well as the inability of bolted connections to transmit the stresspulse and the inadequacy of the bolts and bolted connections to resist the load of aircraft impact led to the easy failure of the facial columns and spandrel beams which were pieced together without any consideration of the required resistance against localized transverse loads, applied as shock loads. The computations show that if connections would have provided structural continuity and if the connections would have strengths matching those of the members they connected, the World Trade Centre towers would have survived the aircraft attacks without catastropbic failures.