Engineering Laboratory

The Engineering Laboratory promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology for engineered systems in ways that enhance economic security and improve quality of life.

Two firefighters look over the last flames inside a compartment where the flammability of cross-laminated timber buildings is being tested.

New NIST Roadmap Charts Path to Reduced Fire Hazards from Materials

white office building with a wedge top among other skyscrapers

Blown Away: Revisiting a Famous Engineering Case

A home in the mountains of Puerto Rico lies in ruins as a result of the extreme force winds of Hurricane Maria.

NIST Launches Study of Hurricane Maria’s Impact on Puerto Rico

News and Updates

The remains of what was once a home improvement store in Joplin, Mo., showing the destructive power of the tornado that struck the area in May 2011.

NIST Awards $6.6 Million for Research to Help Structures Better Withstand Earthquakes, Wind and Fire

August 08, 2019

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is awarding...

10 NIST Researchers Receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

July 25, 2019

WASHINGTON — Ten researchers from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (...

Global City Teams Challenge Smart and Secure City Expo Convenes July 10-12 in Washington, D.C.

June 20, 2019

WASHINGTON — Teams of innovators and municipal governments around the world who are using technology to address...

Flammability Reduction Group Members Present at the 2019 BCC Flame Meeting

June 01, 2019

Two members of the NIST Flammability Reduction Group (FRG) recently traveled to San Antonio, Texas for the 30th Annual...

Events

MACE Consortium

September 20, 2019

The Metrology of Additive Construction by Extrusion (MACE) consortium will meet to discuss progress toward advancing the measurement science of concrete...

IEA Heat Pumping Technologies Program Executive Committee Meeting

November 12, 2019 to November 14, 2019

The International Energy Agency (IEA) Heat Pumping Technologies (HPT) program, https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/ , is one of 38 active Technology...

Industrial Ontology Foundry Meeting

December 04, 2019 to December 05, 2019

SAVE THE DATE The Industrial Ontology Foundry (IOF) is a group working to co-create a set of open ontologies to support needs of the manufacturing and...

NIST/UL Workshop on Photovoltaic Materials Durability

December 12, 2019 to December 13, 2019

Scope: With intensified pricing pressure, low cost and emerging materials/technologies are increasingly used in photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing. To...

Industry Impacts

Photo of a burnt faceplate from a firefighter's gear

Firefighter Protective Equipment

Firefighters rely on self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBA) to protect them from dangerous heat and toxic smoke. NIST research helped to improve industry...

Cityscape in the background. Solar panels in the foreground.

Framing the Future of the Electric Grid

The U.S. electrical distribution system is a patchwork of 100+ years of upgrades that create basic reliability issues and expose entire regions to unnecessary...

Net-Zero Energy House

To decrease the $225 billion that U.S. consumers spend each year in household energy costs will require accurate, reliable information about how new...

Structural Resilience of Infrastructure

The best way to prevent buildings, bridges and other structures from collapsing—whether because of natural forces, human error or malicious attacks—is to learn...

Software

FDS and Smokeview

Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow. The software solves numerically a form of the Navier-...

BEES

The BEES ( B uilding for E nvironmental and E conomic S ustainability) software brings to your fingertips a powerful technique for selecting cost-effective,...

CONTAM

CONTAM is a multizone indoor air quality and ventilation analysis computer program designed to help you determine: (a) airflows: infiltration, exfiltration,...

STEP File Analyzer and Viewer

The free STEP File Analyzer and Viewer (SFA) opens a STEP (ISO 10303 –STandard for Exchange of Product model data) Part 21 file (.stp or .step or .p21 file...

EVAP-COND

EVAP-COND is a software package that contains NIST's simulation models for a finned-tube evaporator and condenser. The "tube-by-tube" modeling scheme allows...

CFAST

The Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport, CFAST, is a computer program that fire investigators, safety officials, engineers, architects and builders...

VCCTL Software

(Return to Cement Hydration and Degradation Modeling Software) The Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory (VCCTL) software provides a virtual testing...

Tools & Instruments

Manufacturing Robotics Testbed

The NIST manufacturing robotics test bed consists of several labs located in three buildings on the main NIST campus. Combined, these serve as a resource for...

Micro-Combined Heat and Power Device Test Facility

NIST has developed a test facility for micro-combined heat and power (micro-CHP) devices to measure their performance over a range of different operating...

Smart Manufacturing Systems (SMS) Test Bed

The Smart Manufacturing Systems (SMS) Test Bed is comprised of three major components: Computer-Aided Technologies (CAx) Lab Manufacturing Lab Data publication...

Integrating Sphere-based Weathering Device

In the artificial ultraviolet (UV) weathering of materials, a need exists for weathering devices that can uniformly illuminate test specimens with a high level...