World Trade Center Building 7 Evaluation Introduction

My name is Leroy Hulsey. Im a forensic engineer, and a professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Steel is a very fire-resistant material  When a structure fails, my job is to figure out, WHY? Over the next year, with a team of PhD students, I will be rebuilding World Trade Centre, Building 7. How does floor 13 respond, with respect to 12? Using the same drawings that were used to build it originally, we will reconstruct it virtually.

Our goal is to figure out why it collapsed, late in the afternoon on September 11th, 2001, even though it was not hit by an airplane. The investigation conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded What we found, was that uncontrolled building fires caused an extraordinary event. The collapse of World Trade Centre 7 was primarily due to fires. OUR investigation will evaluate the probability that this was the cause of the collapse.

We are making this study open, and transparent. Whether you are a physicist, engineer, architect, fire expert, or specialist in another field, or just an ordinary citizen, we want your participation. We are making all of our data available online. Every aspect of our process regarding the modeling will be shared.

And we will be giving regular updates from the lab as we continue our work. Join us in getting to the bottom of why World Trade Centre 7 collapsed on September 11th, 2001..