Simulating Tragedy

Researchers at Purdue University have created a simulation that uses scientific principles to study in detail what likely happened when a commercial airliner crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001.

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, the researchers say.

The simulation represents the plane and its mass as a mesh of hundreds of thousands of "finite elements," or small squares containing specific physical characteristics. The software tool uses principles of physics to simulate how a plane's huge mass of fuel and cargo impacts a building.

--LiveScience Staff

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Credit: Purdue University, Department of Computer Science