Ever since the dawn of human
civilization, Civil Engineering has been dealing with designing and executing
structural works that serve the general public such as dams, bridges, canals,
highways and other infrastructures. In the 21st century, Civil engineering has
taken a unique turn. Through Modernization, new structures are being formed and
civil engineering is the fundamental foundation that holds society up.
Innovative and new found creativity is creating the greatest structures of the
century ...For mankind, Civil engineering is a gift that just keeps on
giving...A pure reflection of the wonders of civil engineering, The world Trade
center which composed of 7 buildings with 2 of the buildings being identical
and humongous and thus called the twin towers was built in New York, America.
The world trade center symbolized globalization with the aim of providing a way
to supplement existing avenues of international commerce in the United States.
David Rockefeller was the Picasso behind this wonderful work of art. It took a
total of 9 years and 400 million dollars back then to complete the core
complex. The original plan for the towers was to be 80 story tall but to meet
the port Authority's requirement, the buildings would each have to be 110
stories tall.
The WTC after completion housed
more than 430 companies that were engaged in various commercial activities. It
soon caught the attention of the whole world. The establishment of the 7
buildings paved the way for civil engineering to prosper in the commercial sector.
. On September 11,2001 at 8:46 am, America was awestruck. The twin towers were
struck by two hijacked commercial airplanes. One WTC building was hit at 8 46
am and collapsed at 9 59 am. This severely damaged or destroyed more than a
dozen other nearby structures which ultimately led to the collapse of 7 WTC
buildings at 5 21 PM. Nearly 3000 People were killed in the crashes, fires, and
collapses. Al-Qaidaa multinational radical Muslim extremist network spearheaded
by Osama Bin Laden claimed the attack. The collapse of the WTC was as sudden as
it was dramatic. The complete destruction of such gigantic buildings with such
ease left everyone with their hands on their heads... Before that day, no human
beings on this Earth could imagine that someone would be bold and cruel enough
to enact such violence. No one could imagine that 2 iconic 110-storied skyscraper would collapse in broad daylight, in the middle of a US state,
Crushing other buildings for hundreds of feet in all directions.
Immediately afterward, researchers pondered about the dismantling of the WTC buildings and began to speculate that the buildings were structurally deficient. Engineers of the University of New south Wales worked tirelessly on the effects of heat on steel and high-performance concrete. Mark Bradford, a senior engineer from UNSW waved his fingers at the design of the building. He said that the building had very stiff beams, because they were very long beams spanning right from the left core in the building, out to the perimeter column. so the buildings did not have internal columns that would compromise the ability to rent floor space. He further said that the colliding aircraft would have knocked the fire protection off. When the beams in fire expanded, they pushed against the very flexible columns and knocked the columns out of alignments which eventually led to the collapse. Also, fine research found that using less rigid steel beams supported by columns at regular intervals was preferable. Due to this cold-blooded Terrorist attack, how to better construct buildings and prevent loss of life has occupied engineers ever since. Like everyone, we, halfway there to be a civil engineer mourn the human, physical and societal losses of 9/11. We dread the possibility of Catastrophic structural failures in the future. But engineers and other partners to the construction industry are not complacent when there are failures. After all, we study, we learn and we improve.
-Prajwal Gautam
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