The 9/11 Forum

Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft into the World Trade Center
J. Engrg. Mech., Volume 131, Issue 10, pp. 1066-1072 (October 2005)

Mohammed R. Karim1 and Michelle S. Hoo Fatt2

1Graduate Student, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Univ. of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-3903. 2Associate Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Univ. of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-3903 (corresponding author). E-mail: hoofatt@uakron.edu
(Accepted 1 December 2004)

A numerical simulation of the aircraft impact into the exterior columns of the World Trade Center (WTC) was done using LS-DYNA. For simplification, the fuselage was modeled as a thin-walled cylinder, the wings were modeled as box beams with a fuel pocket, and the engines were represented as rigid cylinders. The exterior columns of the WTC were represented as box beams. Actual masses, material properties and dimensions of the Boeing 767 aircraft and the exterior columns of the WTC were used in this analysis. It was found that about 46% of the initial kinetic energy of the aircraft was used to damage columns. The minimum impact velocity of the aircraft to just penetrate the exterior columns would be 130 m/s. It was also found that a Boeing 767 traveling at top speed would not penetrate exterior columns of the WTC if the columns were thicker than 20 mm.

The second of the two authors seems familiar.
Did you publish at SILOS or DAPS conferences?
I have published on that topic too, but I am not familiar with your article.
I will be interested to read it, if you can spare a copy.

Sincerely, Gregory

Dr Gregory Szuladzinski, FIEAust
Analytical Service Pty Ltd
10 Coolawin Rd
Northbridge 2063, Australia
Tel. 612 9967-0998
www.simulate-events.com

Hi, Dr. Szuladzinski. I think you may be directing your query to a dead letter office. Hambone was not the author and Hambone isn't around anymore. You could try the email shown in the post.