9/11 simulation

The Hoofnagles gave us an entertaining view of a troofer a few weeks ago. This gentleman tried to simulate the fall of the twin towers on 9/11 using office supplies. It's clearly a mess.

Researchers at Purdue University recently released a slightly higher quality simulation of the crash:

The simulation could be used to better understand which elements in the building's structural core were affected, how they responded to the initial shock of the aircraft collision, and how the tower later collapsed from the ensuing fire fed by an estimated 10,000 gallons of jet fuel, said Mete Sozen, the Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of Structural Engineering in Purdue's School of Civil Engineering.

It took about 80 hours using a high-performance computer containing 16 processors to produce the first simulation, which depicts how the plane tore through several stories of the structure within a half-second, said Christoph M. Hoffmann, a professor of computer science and co-director of the Computing Research Institute at Purdue.

Their findings? The towers lost 25% of their core support beams:

The researchers are analyzing how many columns were destroyed initially in the building's core, a spine of 47 heavy steel I-beams extending through the center of the structure, Sozen said.

"Current findings from the simulation have identified the destruction of 11 columns on the 94th floor, 10 columns on the 95th floor and nine columns on the 96th floor," he said. "This is a major insight. When you lose close to 25 percent of your columns at a given level, the building is significantly weakened and vulnerable to collapse."

It remains to be seen if this has much effect on the troofer movement. (Don't hold your breath).

Apparently the researchers at Purdue are currently working on modeling the fall of the towers:

In the coming months, we will explore how the structure reacted to the extreme heat from the blaze that led to the building's collapse, and we will refine the visual presentations of the simulation.

The video of the simulation is below. It's fascinating to watch, even if it is disturbing.