Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Gaithersburg

Safety of Building Occupants Project

NIST will develop a model to predict evacuation decision-making during fires through a better understanding and quantification of the risk perceived by

Disaster and Failure Studies & Disaster Metrology Studies

Extreme events test buildings and infrastructure in ways and on a scale that cannot be easily replicated in a laboratory – buildings and infrastructure are

National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Coordination

This is an annually renewed project that supports NIST's Lead Agency coordination of National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP) research and

Coastal Inundation: Hazard Characterization and Structural Design

The project develops next-generation procedures for achieving designs that are safe, sustainable, and economical under coastal inundation, consistent with

Advanced Gas-Phase Fire Retardants Project

There is high motivation in industry to replace the widely used brominated fire retardants (and their antimony synergist). In order to aid in the development

International Biometric Performance Testing Conference (IBPC) 2012

March 5-9, 2012 April 15, 2014: The presentations from the IBPC 2012 conference are now available. February 28, 2012: IBPC 2012 Program The...

Redefining the SI Base Units

November 2, 2011

Note: Much more recent information is available about redefinition of the SI units. For a comprehensive general overview, see How to Weigh Everything from...

Functional Barriers for Low-Flammability Products

This project investigates the potential of functional barriers — defined as any layered material that reduces heat and mass transfer in a multi-layer product

Reduced Ignition and Flame Spread with Nano-Engineered Foam Project

This research will enable commercialization of a reduced flammability, inexpensive, and EHS [1] compliant polyurethane foam and a high smoldering reference foam

Reduced Ignition of Building Components in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires

Wildland fires that spread into urban areas, termed Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires, are becoming more and more common across multiple locations of the

Researchers burn a shed to measure the fire exposure to a nearby residential façade to determine safe separation distance and test WUI fire building code requirements.

Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Data Collection on Parcel Vulnerabilities

Gaining a deeper understanding of Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fire dynamics and the mechanisms of structure ignition is crucial for enhancing the resilience

Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Building and Fire Codes and Standards

Although over 46 million residential structures in the United States are in areas of risk of wildfires, building and fire codes and standards do not provide the

High temperatures and heat flows in NIST fire research melted a hole in a SCBA mask. A pressure sensor (brass fitting that was mounted on the face of the headform) is visible through the hole in the lens.

High Temperature Performance of Fire Fighter Equipment

Reliable performance of fire fighter equipment and gear is critical for the safety and effectiveness of fire fighters. Current equipment standards and test

111102_Single_Photons_Waveguide_Srinivasan

CNST Researchers Efficiently Extract Photons from Single Semiconductor Quantum Dots Directly into an Optical Fiber

November 2, 2011

Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology have led the development of a new technique for efficiently out-coupling photons from...

Steve VanRoekel at Cloud Computing Forum

NIST Releases Draft Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap for Comments

November 1, 2011

The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released for public comment a draft "roadmap" that is designed to...

NEHRP Extramural Research

Research performed by the EL Earthquake Engineering Group (2EG) consists of a combination of in-house and extramural research. Policy related work is awarded to

Validation of ASCE 41 Procedures in PBSE

Structural engineers are increasingly using Performance-Based Seismic Engineering (PBSE), instead of building code-based prescriptive procedures, in the design

Seismic Response of Reinforced Concrete Walls

This project includes two critical problem-focused tasks in Performance Based Seismic Engineering (PBSE): (1) the evaluation of reinforced concrete wall models

Strategy Integration: the Nerd (Scientist), the Car Guy (Design Engineer), and the Bean Counter (Accountant)

September 2011 Hopefully, the title of this column has caught your attention. I was going to call our first player just "the scientist," but...

Worker looks over the disaster site at New York City's World Trade Center

Structural Performance for Multi-hazards Program

This program addresses the gap between basic research and building codes, standards, and practice through measurement science research to: (1) predict

Earthquake Risk Reduction in Buildings and Infrastructure Program

The Earthquake Risk Reduction in Buildings and Infrastructure Program conducts critical research to advance measurement science and enhance performance of the

Fire Risk Reduction in Communities Program

The Fire Risk Reduction in Communities (FRRiC) program aims to reduce community fire risk by increasing the fire resilience of wildland-urban interface (WUI)

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Transport

The capabilities of the NIST National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL) will be extended to provide a test bed for performance evaluation of instruments and test

NIST researcher setting up air cleaner experiments in large stainless steel environmental chamber

Indoor Contaminants

NIST is developing the measurement science required to support strategies that maintain or improve indoor air quality (IAQ) in buildings. Changes that are being

L researcher Steven Emmerich adjusts a multi-gas analyzer that will measure carbon monoxide, oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons concentrations produced by such a generator located, against safety advice, in a garage.

Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in High-Performance Buildings

Current tools are not comprehensive when analyzing the energy use and indoor air quality (IAQ) of buildings, making it hard to analyze these factors together

Figure 1. NIST 500 mm diameter guarded-hot-plate apparatus: plate and edge guard (foreground), vacuum bell jar (background). The edge guards are partially separated revealing a white insulation specimen.

Assessment of High-Temperature and Innovative Insulation Thermal Performance

The use of thermal insulation in the building envelope is a primary approach for reducing heating and cooling loads in buildings, which account for

Energy Monitoring Systems promise to deliver real-time, detailed energy end-use information to building occupants.

Energy Measurements for Existing Residential Buildings Project

According to the most recent national census data, the median year in which owner-occupied homes were built in the U.S. is 1976 1. Furthermore, housing starts

Electrical Performance Measurements of Photovoltaics and Wide Band Gap Semiconductors for Power Electronics

A significant source of generated power for residential, commercial and small-system applications today are supplied by solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. PV

Fire Risk Reduction in Buildings Program

The Fire Risk Reduction in Buildings (FRRiB) program conducts research to address the two largest components of the U.S. structure fire burden: fire protection

Measuring the Performance of Net-Zero Energy Homes

A Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF) has been constructed and extensively instrumented. The facility incorporates a high-performance envelope, a

Was this page helpful?