Engineering and Organizational Issues Related to the World Trade Center Attack, Volume 2, Reconnaissance and Preliminary Assessment of a Damaged Building Near Ground Zero

Keywords: World Trade Center (WTC).  Ground Zero.  Building damages.  Community resilience.  Emergency responses.  Terrorism.  Banker's Trust Building.  130 Liberty Plaza.  Debris.  New York City.

Abstract: This second volume in the series of MCEER Reports on the engineering and organizational issues related to the World Trade Center terrorist attack focuses on the 39-story Banker's Trust Building at 130 Liberty Plaza, which sustained severe damage from falling debris during the collapse of WTC Tower 2.  The report documents exterior and interior damage to the building and includes numerous color photographs of structural and nonstructural damage observed during reconnaissance efforts.  Also included are findings of preliminary linear elastic, simple plastic, and nonlinear static analyses of a building frame with characteristics similar to those of the damaged building.