Earthquake Risk Reduction in Buildings and Infrastructure Program

The objective of the Earthquake Risk Reduction in Buildings and Infrastructure Program is to develop and deploy advances in measurement science related to earthquake engineering, including performance-based tools, guidelines, and standards for designing buildings to resist earthquake effects, improve building safety, and enhance disaster resilience of buildings, infrastructure, and communities.  

The objective of this program is to develop and deploy advances in measurement science related to earthquake engineering, including performance-based tools, guidelines, and standards for designing buildings to resist earthquake effects, improve building safety, and enhance disaster resilience.  The program fulfills the NIST applied research role in the statutory four-agency National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) and involves in-house and extramural research concentrated in five major areas: technical support for building code development, performance-based seismic engineering, national design guideline development, evaluated technology knowledge dissemination, and evaluation and strengthening for existing buildings. The program also includes the statutory NIST role as the NEHRP Lead Agency to coordinate the research and implementation activities of the four NEHRP agencies – the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), NIST, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

In addition to fulfilling statutory requirements, this program supports the Engineering Laboratory (EL) mission of promoting U.S. innovation and competitiveness by anticipating and meeting measurement science, standards, and technology needs of the U.S. building and fire safety industries in ways that enhance economic security and improve the quality of life.  It also supports the EL core competency in resilience and reliability of structures subjected to multi-hazards, and provides knowledge transfer that is not well-supported by the fragmented U.S. construction industry.

Some recent accomplishments for the Earthquake Risk Reduction in Buildings and Infrastructure Program include:

• The NEHRP Secretariat was created at NIST in 2006, and the EL Earthquake Risk Mitigation R&D Program was re-started in 2007.
• The NEHRP Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction (ACEHR) was formed in mid-2007 and has has provided annual assessments on the program to the NIST Director in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
• The NEHRP Strategic Plan was released in October 2008. In March 2011, the NRC produced for NEHRP a twenty-year roadmap of all research and implementation activities needed to support improved national earthquake resilience.
• NEHRP activated the first generation of the “NEHRP Document Clearinghouse,” where all NEHRP-related documents available through the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) are available on-line at no cost to the user.
• Seven techbriefs have been produced: Downloads available Here
  
• • Seismic Design of Reinforced Concrete Special Moment Frames: A Guide for Practicing Engineers, NIST GCR 08-917-1;
  • Seismic Design of Steel Special Moment Frames: A Guide for Practicing Engineers, NIST GCR 09-917-3;
  • Seismic Design of Cast-in-Place Concrete Diaphragms, Chords, and Collectors: A Guide for Practicing Engineers, NIST GCR 10-917-4;
  • Nonlinear Structural Analysis for Seismic Design: A Guide for Practicing Engineers, NIST GCR 10-917-5;
  • Seismic Design of Composite Steel Deck and Concrete-Filled Diaphragms: A Guide for Practicing Engineers, NIST GCR 11-917-10;
  • Seismic Design of Cast-in-Place Concrete Special Structural Walls and Coupling Beams: A Guide for Practicing Seismic Design of Reinforced Concrete Mat Foundations: A Guide for Practicing Engineers, NIST GCR 12-917-22.