Building codes & standards

News and Updates

A steel column with a deep web on the left and a steel column with a shallow web on the right.

Proposed Updates to Steel Building Standard Could Enhance Earthquake Resilience

January 7, 2022

Since the mid-1990s, a type of steel column that commonly features slender cross-sectional elements has become more prevalent in buildings along the West Coast

NIST Establishes Expert Team to Investigate the Champlain Towers South Collapse

August 25, 2021

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today the expert team members who will

A man in a construction hat points to damage on a concrete column lying on the ground while another researcher looks on.

NIST Will Conduct Technical Investigation Into the Collapse of the Champlain Towers South Condominium

June 30, 2021

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Today the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced it would launch a full technical

Projects and Programs

Collapse Assessment of Buildings under Seismic Loading

Ongoing

NIST recently completed a multi-year study of three structural steel framing systems to evaluate the correlation between ASCE/SEI 7 (ASCE 2010) and ASCE/SEI 41

Sustainable Engineered Materials

Ongoing

To develop and deploy measurement science tools that enable the manufacturing, construction, and transportation industries to reliably assess the performance of

National Fire Research Laboratory: Research Development and Operations Project

Ongoing

At present, there is no research facility in the world that allows scientists and engineers to conduct research on the response of real-scale structural systems

Assessment of Available Collapse Simulation Methods for Use in Performance-Based Seismic Engineering Project

Completed

While it is a key aspect of structural analyses that support current Performance-Based Seismic Engineering (PBSE), "structural collapse" is not clearly defined

Publications

Modeling of Combustion of Fluorine-Containing Refrigerants

November 17, 2021

Author(s)

Valeri I. Babushok, Donald R. Burgess Jr., Dennis Kim, Michael Hegetschweiler, Gregory T. Linteris

A gas-phase chemical kinetic model for the combustion of C1-C3 fluorine-containing refrigerants is presented, including a list of relevant species, their

Lessons on Return to Function After the 2018 Cook Inlet Earthquake

September 30, 2021

Author(s)

Katherine Johnson, Siamak Sattar, Christopher Segura, Steven McCabe

The magnitude 7.1 Cook Inlet Earthquake of November 2018 greatly affected Anchorage, AK area residents. Although shaking likely did not exceed the hazard level

Collapse estimates of U.S. code-compliant steel frames and implications for an ASCE 41 assessment

September 29, 2021

Author(s)

Matthew Speicher, Kevin K F Wong, Jazalyn Dukes

ASCE 41 is a standard that contains performance-based engineering procedures sometimes used to assess and retrofit existing structures. In 2015, the U.S

Energy Price Indices and Discount Factors for Life-Cycle Cost Analysis – 2021 Annual Supplement to NIST Handbook 135

April 12, 2021

Author(s)

Priya Lavappa, Joshua D. Kneifel

This is the 2021 edition of energy price indices and discount factors for performing life-cycle cost analyses of energy and water conservation and renewable

Tools and Instruments

The National Fire Research Laboratory

The National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL) is a unique experimental facility dedicated understanding fire behavior and structural response to fire. The