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4.2
- Webinar No: WBNR-1147
- PDH Units: 2
Webinar No: WBNR-1147
PDH Units: 2
$139.00
4.2
- Webinar No: WBNR-1147
- PDH Units: 2
Webinar No: WBNR-1147
PDH Units: 2
$139.00
Intended Audience: All Engineers
Credits: 2 PDH Units
When: Thursday 9/7. 2 - 4 pm EST
We promise you a very special webinar . This is not your ordinary boring ethics webinar. We are very proud to bring this webinar to you. This Engineering Ethics Webinar on the tragic collapse of the World Trade Center towers first discusses the engineering aspects of design, construction, and the damage due to the planes’ impact and the ensuing fire. Then, Dr. Astaneh summarizes his findings of several weeks he spent in New York, supported by the National Science Foundation, to conduct reconnaissance and collection of perishable data and more than five years of analytical studies of the collapse that followed. The last part of the Webinar will focus on engineering ethics and discuss the ethical problems of the collapse investigation by a team organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers and funded by FEMA. Dr. Astaneh spent a year (2001-2002) investigating and documenting the debris from the WTC collapsed towers. Then, in May 2002, he testified before the Committee on Science of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress on his findings. After hearing his testimony, the Committee on Science provided him with the drawings of the WTC Towers so he could continue his studies of the engineering aspects of the collapse. Unfortunately, the drawings of the WTC Towers were, and still are, under the seal, with no public access. Having received the drawings, Dr. Astaneh and his team of volunteers spent five years (2002-2007) and more than 4,000 hours performing structural analysis of the impact of airplanes on the north tower. The main conclusion of the studies was that the unique and unusual structural system used in the World Trade Center, which was “Steel Bearing Walls,” without a “framing system” used in both WTC towers, was at the root of their collapse. Because of the thin steel bearing walls, the airplane easily entered the towers almost intact. It delivered a large amount of jet fuel to the core of the building, starting a fire that caused a reduction in the strength of the outside Steel building, leading to the towers' collapse. References and Recommended Further Readings:
- World Trade Center Archives from Professor A. Astaneh, Website containing all of Professor Astaneh’s documents, photos, reports, PowerPoints, and other material he generated for his investigation of the World Trade Center collapse sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
- WTC Steel Wreckage at Claremont Scrapyard Feat. Dr. Astaneh-Asl,
- World Trade Center: Anatomy of the Collapse” (TLC, 2002) on DVD. com.
- Fresh Air’s Terry Gross Interview with Prof. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl on His WTC Reconnaissance, Public Broadcasting System, 22:13 minutes Audio Broadcast
- WTC Hearing of Committee on Science of U.S. House of Representatives Hearing (with Dr. Astaneh-Asl testifying his findings),
- Code of Ethics for Professional Engineers, by National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)
- NSPE Ethics Reference Guide
- ASCE Code of Ethics
- Ethics, Technology, and Engineering, a textbook by Ibo van de Poel and Lambèr Royakkers, Wily-Blackwell, 2011.
- Concepts and Cases-Engineering Ethics, a textbook by Charles E. Harris et al., published by Cengage2019.
Date: Thursday. September 7. 2023. Starts: 2 - 4 pm EST/EDT Credits: 2 PDH Units
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of the course, the student should understand:- What was the “unusual” structural system of the World Trade Center Towers? It was a Steel Bearing Wall.
- What were the Fire Protection Systems in the WTC Towers, and were they adequate?
- Were the exits and staircases in the WTC Towers adequate for timely evacuation in case of a fire?
- Was the structure designed for the impact of a plane, as the designers claimed? It was not.
- Was there any evidence of an explosion or blast, as the conspiracy theorist claims? The answer is no.
- What was the engineering cause of the collapse?
- Would the same towers, designed using a known structural system instead of the unusual Steel Bearing Walls, survive the attack? The answer is yes.
- How the “conflict of interest” in the ASCE Building Performance Assessment Team members investigating the performance and tragic September 11, 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center towers prevented finding the actual engineering cause, which was the use of “Steel Bearing Wall” system, which was very vulnerable to fires.
The material presented was unique, I have not seen any similar analysis of the technical side of the event.
The continuous negative commenting by Jon Magnusson was distracting both to the audience and to the presenter – PDH should have “muted or tuned out” his comments during the presentation. He obviously is not at all objective since he was involved in creating the structural analysis for the towers.
Professor Astaneh is not a great presenter but what he presented was factual and eye opening. As someone who works on safety related products in the auto industry, I was shocked to see how little attention seems to have been given to Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. And shocked to see such a major structure built without the normal oversights that come with building permits. The ethical considerations have broad implications wherever engineers work on anything that involves safety.
I would recommend the professor give attention to even more of the technical analysis and some editing to reduce redundancy in the comments regarding the ethical problems. They are very important but could become even clearer with more technical facts.
Also, the sound quality could use improvement.
Was an informative course that gave me a new perspective on construction of the Towers, and generally building construction, that I was not aware of. There was some distraction from one of the attendees who may have had a personal issue with Dr. Astaneh.
Unfortunately, the course did not address any of the key evidence of the WTC collapse. No mention of: The uniform downward acceleration with no jolts or impacts, no discussion of eutectic formations “Swiss cheese” melting of steel or the source of sulfur found in FEMA Appendix C, why there were no stacks of floors at ground zero (unlike the Miami Condo collapse) , no discussion of the observed lead-lagging of floor /corner destruction during collapse wave, the “squibs” observed in the collapse wave, why the core columns stood for many seconds after everything else was pulverized, why NIST stopped their investigation at “collapse initiation”, why NIST didn’t support the pancake theory, why the “pile driver theory” violates Newtons laws, why no real world experiment has ever demonstrated the collapse observed, the source of the iron (not steel) microspheres found, and the peer reviewed paper of the active nano thermite found.
The hundreds of eyewitnesses, oral testimonies of the firefighters and audio sounds of explosions were simply dismissed as a “no”, but no reason given why all those first responders, oral testimonies and audio recordings are wrong.
On a positive note, during discussion the Professor did seem to agree that the University of Alaska study for the collapse of WTC 7 made more sense than the NIST study. The University of Alaska study concluded that all columns had to have been severed simultaneously to produce the free fall of WTC 7.
Dr. Astaneh offered a lot of information and firsthand knowledge. It was interesting to hear his opinion on what caused the collapse, what could have been done differently when designing the towers, and the ethical issues that came up during the investigation.
The analysis of the failure of the towers was very good. The detail and first hand knowledge were fantastic. Overall I enjoyed the presentation. The ethical discussion was a bit far reaching at times, but again a very interesting presentation.
Extremely informative course in regards to the design and construction of the WTC. The Ethics portion provides excellent guidance on how to view code, engineering best practices, and clients wishes. I highly recommend this course.
A very interesting topic and the moderator kept it simple and interesting.
The course provided sufficient information concerning the WTC’s design, construction, and collapse investigation to raise ethical questions. Overall the course was informative as to the various factors that may have led to the collapse. The speaker occasionally drifted off on short tangents at times.
Excellent course, the author explains in a rational and scientific manner the findings in his investigation.
Professor Astaneh-Asi provided a fascinating summary of the engineering, ethics, and maintenance factors that contributed to the horrific collapse of the WTC. Excellent course!
This was a very informative webinar. The content was thorough and well documented. The speaker has extensive experience as a first hand investigator of the WTC towers collapse. There was an excellent balance of technical issues and the ethical implications. The speaker was attentive to questions and took time to answer them. The speaker did a good job of explaining rationale for his assessment of violations of ethical standards. This was well worth my time. I highly recommend this webinar.
Although the presenter definately has his own perspective on the issues, there is definitely a lot to learn from this material.
In 45 years of attending technical presentations, I have never seen one with so many misleading, inaccurate, and flat-out wrong statements.
Excellent course and wealth of information that is not usually available.
The instructor provided good overview of the building design and construction and the cause of the building collapse.