Citation

Quintiere JG, di Marzo M, Becker R. Fire Safety J. 2002; 37(7): 707-716.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An analysis is presented that calculates the temperature of the steel truss rods in the World Trade Center towers subject to a fire based on the building ventilation factor. The CIB correlation is used for the fire. Conduction analyses are made taking into account variable properties for the steel and the insulation. A structural failure model is described based on compression buckling of the truss rods due to a reduction in the Young's modulus. The computed times for the estimated failure or incipient collapse of the floors in both towers has been computed as 105+/-20 min for WTC 1 (north) and 51+/-9 min for WTC 2 (south), compared to the collapse times from the aircraft impact of 104 and 56 min, respectively. The insulation thickness and the difference of 19.1 mm () and 38.1 mm () between the two towers appear to have been the root cause of the collapses.