Floor Truss Bracket
date: label: Date made
content: late 1960s/early 1970s
notes: label: Description
content: Description: This damaged structural bracket from the World Trade Center was recovered from the debris pile.
label: Description
content: Context: This viscoelastic damper connected a floor truss to an exterior steel column of the World Trade Center. Building movement caused by wind was a major concern to the architects and engineers designing the 110-story towers. They cleverly mitigated apparent building movement by using these dampers to allow the exterior of the building to sway slightly under wind load, while the floor remained largely stationary.
label: Description
content: The damper and other floor attachment brackets were also a point of failure leading to the towers' collapse. When the intense fire heated the 60 foot-long floor trusses, they eventually distorted and pulled free of their attachments to the exterior columns. As the upper floors of the towers fell, the weight then “pancaked” the lower floors, breaking floor truss attachments unaffected by heat. Each of these huge towers collapsed in about ten seconds.
label: Location
content: Currently on loan
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Manhattan, World Trade Center
label: recovered
content: United States: New York, Manhattan, World Trade Center
topic: label: associated subject
content: September 11 Terrorist Attacks
label: related event
content: Attack on the World Trade Center
label: related event
content: September 11th Attacks
setName: label: See more items in
content: Military and Society: Armed Forces History, 9/11
label: See more items in
content: September 11
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2002.0205.04
label: accession number
content: 2002.0205
label: catalog number
content: 2002.0205.04
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Floor Truss Bracket
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 in x 9 in x 17 in; 15.24 cm x 22.86 cm x 43.18 cm