House Hears Testimony on WTC's Structural Lessons

WASHINGTON, DC-The US House of Representatives Committee on Science conducted a hearing Wednesday afternoon to address what can be learned from the World Trade Center collapse in an effort to prevent or minimize such structural devastation in the future. Entitled “Learning from 9/11–Understanding the Collapse of the World Trade Center,” the hearing offered testimony from an array of fields, including fire science, environmental engineering and civil engineering, as well as government agencies.

Dr. W. Gene Corley, chair of the World Trade Center’s Building Performance Assessment Team spoke on behalf of the American Society of Engineers. He pinpointed two areas of civil engineering that must be researched in an effort to help standing and future high-rise buildings better absorb the physical ramifications of a structural attack. He first spoke of the progressive collapse of structures, which is dependent upon the load a building is made to endure and the strength of the structure itself. Currently there are no tools of assessment to evaluate a building’s load versus strength ratio.

“We must now live, build and function in a world where the performance demands placed on our built infrastructure have been altered,” Corley explained, “thereby necessitating the development of engineering-based tools to guide our profession in the future.” Secondly, Corley noted that a structure’s capacity to interact with fire must be enhanced. “[Improving] the performance of structures in a fire environment will require the development of new tools and design methods through the collaboration of the fire engineering and structural engineering communities,” he said.