Ten researchers from four MIT departments contributed to The Towers Lost and Beyond. The collection features eight chapters, including a brief history of the WTC towers and technical analyses of the collisions, the fire, and the towers' collapse.
The book concludes with two chapters on the future. One addresses possible emergency escape systems from high-rise buildings; another the consequences of terrorism on industrial supply chains.
The Towers Lost and Beyond was edited by Eduardo Kausel, a professor in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). Kausel wrote the preface and chapters titled "Inferno at the World Trade Center, NY" and "Speed of Aircraft."
Other chapters and their authors are: "A Brief History of the WTC Towers" and "Escaping with your Life," by John E. Fernandez, an assistant professor in MIT's Department of Architecture; "Aircraft Impact Damage," Tomasz Wierzbicki, Professor of Applied Mechanics in the Department of Ocean Engineering (OE), and OE Graduate Students Liang Xue and Meg Hendry-Brogan; "The Fires," Ahmed F. Ghoniem, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering; "Materials and Structures," Professor Oral Buyukozturk and Associate Professor Franz-Josef Ulm, both of CEE; and "Supply Chains and Terrorism," CEE Professor Yossi Sheffi.