Purdue Team Simulates 9/11 WTC Attack

June 22, 2007

The indelible images of planes crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 are baked into our minds, but questions remain as to what exactly perpetuated the structural damage that set off the landmark’s subsequent implosion.

A team of researchers and scientists at Purdue University’s Rosen Center For Advanced Computing, a division of the university’s Information Technology department, set out to find the answer. The team spent two and a half years working on a 3D animation and simulation project that would depict, using scientific evidence, exactly what brought the Twin Towers down. The difference between this and other computer simulations is the use of 3D technology and animation, which allows the average lay person, not just an engineer, to visualize for themselves what exactly happened, according to Chris Hoffman, one of the key Purdue faculty members behind the project.

The simulation was conducted to help civil engineers better understand from a scientific perspective what exactly happened to the Towers so they can ultimately prevent failures and design safer buildings. The simulation, which initially took about 80 hours using a high-performance computer containing 16 processors, concluded it was the weight of the 10,000 gallons of jet fuel that ultimately was responsible for most of the damage. The first simulation shows how the plane tore through several stories of the North Tower within a half-second and found that the weight of the fuel acted like a flash flood of flaming liquid, taking out steel structural columns and removing fireproofing materials, which ultimately led to its collapse.

The National Science Foundation helped fund the simulation research. The Purdue team conducted an earlier simulation to examine the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. The team plans to release additional simulations in the upcoming months to depict how the structures were affected by the extreme heat.

Posted by Beth Stackpole on June 22, 2007 | Comments (6)

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June 9, 2008

In response to: Purdue Team Simulates 9/11 WTC Attack
Darrin Rice commented:

Keep chuggin' the Kool-ade, Joe. Your puppet-masters are depending upon it for their ascendency to power, after which you'll be thrown under the bus. What the analysis shows is that a tank filled with 10,000 gallons of Jet-A acts as a blunt-force demolition instrument in the fractional seconds before the tanks rip apart from impact forces. I ran across an on-line video a couple years back of some guys firing a water-filled 16oz soft drink bottle out of a "spud gun". Their target? A 3/4" sheet of plywood. The result? Shredded plastic, a spray of water, and a gaping hole ripped through the plywood. A similar kind of effect could be created by taking a gallon plastic milk jug full of water, accelerating it to 350mph, and ramming into an unreinforced brick wall. The plastic would get shredded, but it would hold that gallon of water together just long enough to blow and amazing hole through the wall. Simply extrapolating that kind of dynamic by a factor of 10,000 gets you well into a region where you're doing catastrophic damage to structural steel members. Then, you take that 10,000 gallons of jet fuel getting sprayed all over everything, partially atomized in the interior of the structure, and then ignited... NOW you've got all the requisite elements for a VERY big, hot fire that, contrary to what reknowned PhD metallurgist Rosie O'Donnell said, WILL melt structural steel.

June 4, 2008

In response to: Purdue Team Simulates 9/11 WTC Attack
Joe commented:

Sounds like a whitewash to me. Even freshman physics students can tell it's a sham. For some truth, see wtc7.net

May 5, 2008

In response to: Purdue Team Simulates 9/11 WTC Attack
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December 24, 2007

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December 21, 2007

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July 6, 2007

In response to: Purdue Team Simulates 9/11 WTC Attack
ggE commented:

Since it happened, I have wondered what the comparative torque/impact load of the plane striking the building at speed, is compared to a high wind load. Due to t he plane breaking up and some of it passing through it must dissipate the impact much like a formula one racecar does when it comes apart during impact. As apposed to a blow from a blunt instrument.

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