Steel Not Seen As Factor in WTC Collapse
DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press

GAITHERSBURG, Md. - Early tests on steel beams from the World Trade Center 
show they generally met or were stronger than design requirements, ruling 
them out as a contributing cause of the collapse of the towers, federal 
investigators said Wednesday.

Engineers with the National Institute of Standards and Technology have 
conducted preliminary tests on some of the 236 pieces of steel from the 
wreckage, said Frank Gayle, who is leading NIST's review of the steel.

The tests found that, typical for construction steel used in the 1960s 
when the World Trade Center was erected, the steel beams exceeded 
requirements to bear 36,000 pounds per square inch. Often they were 
capable of bearing around 42,000 pounds per square inch.

"What that is showing us is that the steel that was applied certainly met 
the specifications, but was also significantly higher in some instances," 
lead investigator Shyam Sunder said.

A group of victims' families, the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, had 
complained that a majority of the beams from the site were quickly shipped 
off and reprocessed into new steel before it could be tested.

Sunder cautioned the NIST's results were preliminary, but said if those 
findings continue in further testing, that would rule out weak steel as a 
contributing factor in the collapse.

The steel testing was discussed Wednesday at the end of a two-day meeting 
with NIST officials about the Sept. 11 investigation.

The two-year probe is designed to create a model of the fire and collapse, 
enabling NIST, which is part of the Commerce Department, to make 
recommendations for improved fire and safety codes in building 
construction.

The Skyscraper Safety Campaign's Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son 
was killed at the site, said she doubted NIST's findings.

"I don't really feel that they have a representative sample of all the 
steel," Regenhard said.

James Quintieri, a professor at the University of Maryland who is 
consulting with the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, said key questions, about 
the steel's strength under intense heat, and the overall design of the 
building, remain unanswered.

In coming months, NIST will recreate sections of the building's floor 
trusses, and conduct large-scale fire endurance tests on them to determine 
how the floors of the towers responded to the twin stresses of impact by a 
jet plane and a continuing fire.

The NIST group also discussed its investigation of the Rhode Island 
nightclub fire last February, which killed 100 people. Investigators will 
use the results of their investigation to make recommendations for 
improvements to fire and building codes.

At the meeting, some complained investigators were being delayed by 
prosecutors and civil lawyers denying them access to critical information, 
including the exact makeup of the soundproofing foam that burst into 
flames at the nightclub.

Lead investigator Bill Grosshandler said his team has to date gathered 
only about 20 percent of the information on the makeup of different 
materials in the building, but said it was still early in the 
fact-gathering process.

Others, including NIST's Dr. Jack Snell, seemed frustrated with the 
agency's access to information. The investigation is proceeding under an 
act of Congress passed last year aimed to use NIST expertise to probe 
building disasters.

"The whole motivation for this law was timely investigations," said Snell. 
"We're not doing timely investigations."

ON THE NET

National Institute of Standards and Technology: http://www.nist.gov