Engineering Video Achieves Stardom

9/11 World Trade Center Video Based on CAE

An animation produced by computer scientists and engineers at Purdue University may be the first engineering video ever to achieve platinum status -- viewed over a million times.

What makes it an engineering video -- rather than just game-like animation -- is that the behavior of the airplane and the resulting wreckage and debris was modeled with LS-DYNA, a program that solves inelastic, large displacement problems common to accidents and crash tests.

The director of the research that produced this video, professor Christopher Hoffmann, told us the details during CAD '07 Conference, currently being held in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Strangely, the video existed quietly for years on the Purdue University site. But it was a mention on the Digg.com newsite so overloaded the university's servers that the video (in lower resolution) was uploaded to YouTube.

The video seems to have raised the ire of many who dismiss the prevailing theories of the towers' collapse. See TRUTHERA.com.

For further viewing:

• The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cddIgb1nGJ8
• September 11, 2001 9/11 Attack Simulations Using LS-DYNA, Christopher Hoffman, Purdue University
• 9/11 Simulation Taxes Purdue Servers, New York Times, June 22, 2007