A team of engineers with expertise in high-rise design, collapses and blasts will investigate why the damaged World Trade Center buildings and part of the Pentagon crumbled after last Tuesday's deadly attack and determine how future buildings can be designed to preserve more lives during catastrophes.

　　A roster of well-known engineers and members of the American Society of Civil Engineers will begin analyzing videotapes and photographs of the attack and the subsequent collapse of the two 110-story towers as soon as the rescue efforts cease.

　　The teams also will analyze the size, velocity and fuel load of the speeding jets and their positions as they cut through the buildings.

　　“From this, we anticipate we will be able to make some recommendation related to better construction of buildings that might be subjected to this sort of attack,”experts said.

　　The WTC towers, built in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 jetliner. But those plans did not factor in the effect of the fuel explosion which created fireballs at the giant towers on Tuesday.

　　Based on a preliminary review of the events, experts said the WTC steel-framed towers collapsed not so much because of the impact but because of the fire that followed. As the temperature from the fire rose, the steel weakened.

　　The teams also will try to determine how the points of impact of the airplanes -- the first plane torpedoing the center of the upper North Tower and the second crashingsintosa corner of the upper South Tower -- affected the results.

　　Experts said the team does not expect to find anything wrong with the World Trade Center's design.

　　Although the towers once were the tallest buildings on earth, their height was not a factor in their collapse, or the fire, one of the experts said.