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 second 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, which included three weeks in New York and New Jersey investigating actual steel members and connections of the collapsed 110-story 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. 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:

1. World Trade Center Archives from Professor A. Astaneh, Website at:  https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/wtc/ The above site contains Professor Astaneh’s documents, photos, reports, PowerPoints, and other material he generated from the investigation of the World Trade Center collapse sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
2. WTC Steel Wreckage at Claremont Scrapyard Feat. Dr. Astaneh-Asl, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aeoZrHpD_E
3. World Trade Center: Anatomy of the Collapse” (TLC, 2002) on DVD. com.
4. Fresh Air’s Terry Gross Interview with Prof. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl on His WTC Reconnaissance, Public Broadcasting System, 22:13 minutes Audio Broadcast, https://freshairarchive.org/segments/abolhassan-astaneh-asl
5. WTC Hearing of Committee on Science of U.S. House of RepresentativesHearing (with Dr. Astaneh-Asl testifying his findings), https://www.c-span.org/video/?168982-1/world-trade-center-collapse
6. Code of Ethics for Professional Engineers, by National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/Ethics/CodeofEthics/NSPECodeofEthicsforEngineers.pdf
7. NSPE Ethics Reference Guidechrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/Ethics/EthicsReferenceGuide.pdf
8. ASCE Code of Ethics chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.asce.org/-/media/asce-images-and-files/career-and-growth/ethics/documents/asce-code-ethics.pdf
9. Ethics, Technology, and Engineering, a textbook by Ibo van de Poel and Lambèr Royakkers, Wily-Blackwell, 2011.
10. Concepts and Cases-Engineering Ethics,a textbook by Charles E. Harris et al., published by Cengage2019.

Date:  Wednesday. September 10. 2025.  Starts: 2 - 4 pm ET

Credits: 2 PDH Units

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the course, the attendees 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.

Special Webinar Instructions

After payment, please visit this webinar page, click "Start Course" and fill out the Webinar Registration Form.  You'll receive email notification and details on how to join the webinar.  You will then be able to access the webinar slides, test your system and receive webinar reminders.  After completing the webinar requirements, your certificate of completion will be saved and available for download in your profile. We value yur feedback! Please rate this webinar after completion.

Group Discounts Available

Biography: Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh is a professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a 2013 Minner Faculty Fellow in Engineering Ethics and Social/Professional Responsibility in the College of Engineering. He won the 1998 T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award of the American Institute of Steel Construction, the most prestigious award in his field. He is a licensed civil engineering Professional Engineer (P.E.) in California. Dr. Astaneh is currently a structural engineering and bridge engineering consultant. He has been an expert witness in several court cases on structural and bridge engineering and construction failures. He continues his research and publication and gives lectures and seminars in structural engineering, earthquake engineering, bridge engineering, and engineering ethics. He has published over 300 journal papers, conference proceedings, technical reports, and book chapters. He has had hundreds of press interviews on technical aspects of subjects in his expertise. He has been involved in design and construction and has done extensive research and studies of buildings and bridges for 53 years, including buildings of up to 73 stories and long-span bridges such as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. Dr. Astaneh has performed the failure analysis of several collapsed structures, including the World Trade Center Towers and the Florida Pedestrian Bridge. Both cases involved engineers not abiding by the first canon of engineering ethics, which says engineers should hold safety paramount.