Ongoing NIST Research Into 9/11

Reliving 9/11, With Fire as Teacher, New York Times January 6, 2004, describes ongoing research by the National Institute of Standards and Technology into the causes of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Aspects of the NIST efforts discussed in this article include:

• Full-scale mockups and fire-testing of office workstation clusters to better understand the intensity and behavior of the fires that eventually weakened the building structure and lead to the collapse of the towers
• Testing of steel samples from salvaged structure to determine its strength characteristics under very rapid loading as was experienced during the planes' impacts
• Development of a detailed model of how heat from the fire seeped into structural elements and affected the structures' strength and stability
• Impact resistance testing of fireproofing insulation to determine the extent to which it may have been dislodged from structural elements during the intial impacts, thereby leaving the steel more vulnerable to the subsequent building fire

According to the article, NIST's findings could lead to new safety recommendations for ordinary high-rise construction. It is also expected to significantly advance the science of fire and how it affects structure.