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Abstract

In the analyses of the WTC collapse carried out so far the kinetic energy of fuel of the impacting aircraft was accounted for, but the chemical energy content was not. This paper addresses the problem by means of analysis as well as well as Finite Element simulation. The effect of fuel detonation is evaluated with only 10% of fuel acting in this manner. The fuel in the model was distributed in the impact area according to what is known from the official reports. The extensive damage resulting from this, as demonstrated below, appears to be a strong contributing factor to what happened afterwards. The attention of the reader was drawn to the fact that at present the official reports are unable to explain the mechanism of collapse, when attributing those to the fires burning after the impact.

Keywords

Fuel detonation effects nonlinear dynamics large distortions fragmentation

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