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Structural Analysis of a High-Rise Composite Frame Exposed to Fire
Published
Author(s)
Dat Duthinh, Kuldeep Prasad
Abstract
This paper presents a simplified, planar analysis of World Trade Center Tower 1 (WTC1), starting from a computer simulation of the fire using computational fluid dynamics, and progressing through a thermal and a structural analysis of the damaged structure. Two extreme situations were investigated: the first, on the North face of the tower, accounted for damage to the structure caused by the airplane impact in the form of supple-mental load transferred from the adjacent damaged columns; and the second, on the South face, where the fire was most intense, assumed complete damage to the thermal insulation. Whereas the North face appeared stable in the analysis, the South face showed floor truss sequential failure leading to large sag and high tension demand that could have exceeded the capacity of the floor-to-column connections.
Citation
ASCE
Pub Type
Journals
Keywords
fire, nonlinear finite-element analysis, steel-concrete cmposite, structure, World Trade Center