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Engineering Laboratory

News and Updates

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The New NIST Fire Calorimetry Database Is Available to Answer Your Burning Questions

January 7, 2021

This news article is reproduced from a blog post that originally appeared in the NIST TAKING MEASURE Just a Standard Blog on December 16 th, 2020. By: Matthew...

Diagram shows a mattress being set on fire by gas burners in a standard flammability test.

Mattress Flammability Standard Is a Lifesaver, NIST Report Finds

November 18, 2020

No matter how soft and cozy, beds that have gone up in flames are a source of some of the deadliest fires in the U.S. As large pieces of furniture loaded with...

New Use Cases have been Developed for the EDGe$ Tool Online

November 16, 2020

Two new use cases have been written for the Economic Decision Guide Software (EDGe$) Online Tool V 1.0. These new Special Publications highlight functionalities...

Data Collection Instruments Published Using New NIST Data Collection Instrument (DCI) and Best Practices Publication Series

November 16, 2020

The NIST Engineering Laboratory recently launched the Data Collection Instrument (DCI) and Best Practices publication series. This publication series is...

NIST Designs a Prototype Fuel Gauge for Orbit

November 12, 2020

Liquids aren’t as well behaved in space as they are on Earth. Inside a spacecraft, microgravity allows liquids to freely slosh and float about. This behavior...

NIST “Playbook” Helps Communities with Resilience Planning

November 4, 2020

Local officials, businesses, and residents who want to make their communities more resilient to hazard events – natural or otherwise – now can get...

A man faces away from the camera, taking a photo of a damaged storefront.

Natural Disaster Preparations May Aid Businesses’ Pandemic Response

October 19, 2020

The social and economic impacts of COVID-19 have battered small and medium-sized enterprises, putting millions of jobs in the U.S. at risk. And a year rife with...

Woman wearing protective face covering works in a lab.

Spotlight: Stephanie Moffitt's Search for the Causes of Solar Panel Failures

September 24, 2020

Solar panels face attack on all sides, so NIST researchers are coming to their defense and studying the causes of failures. Large fields of solar panels...

Insights Into Behavior During Chimney Tops 2 Fire Could Improve Evacuation Planning

September 2, 2020

As global temperatures continue to rise, cities and towns not historically prone to large wildfires may begin to face greater threats. An unsuspecting Tennessee...

A person wears an exoskeleton and 3D-printed knee apparatus fashioned with reflective markers.

Exoskeleton Research Marches Forward With NIST Study on Fit

August 20, 2020

A shoddily tailored suit or a shrunken T-shirt may not be the most stylish, but wearing them is unlikely to hurt more than your reputation. An ill-fitting...

Resilient Cedar Rapids: Rebuilding Better Pays Off

August 12, 2020

Many cities in the United States have experienced or will experience devastating losses caused by a natural disaster. In the aftermath of a disaster, the...

Remembering Randy Shields

July 27, 2020

John “Randy” Shields, a physical scientist in the Flammability Reduction Group of EL’s Fire Research Division, died suddenly of a heart attack on June 27, 2020...

Research Suggests Significant Benefits to Investing in Advanced Machinery Maintenance

June 15, 2020

The maintenance of machinery in the manufacturing industry consists of three primary approaches: reactive, preventive, and predictive. Reactive maintenance is...

A hospital room containing a nurse and patient exhaling aerosols carrying viruses. Air ducts and filters are depicted above and a portable air filter is shown in the room.

NIST Airflow Model Could Help Reduce Indoor Exposure to Aerosols Carrying Coronavirus

June 11, 2020

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built an online tool that could help decrease the concentration of aerosols...

Evidence suggests that the U.S. Loses Hundreds of Billions to Cybercrime, Possibly as much as 1 % to 4 % of GDP Annually

May 27, 2020

Cybercrime puts America’s competitive edge and economic future at risk; however, there is some debate as to the extent that this activity is impacting economic...

A shower head with steamy water coming out.

NIST Identifies Critical Needs for Improved Plumbing

May 11, 2020

We don’t use water like we used to. In recent decades, concerns about cost, water shortages and environmental impacts together with changes in plumbing design...

a large, hollow silver cylinder on a wheeled metal rack on the right, the guarded hot plate, another smaller cylinder festooned with wires that fits inside the larger cylinder is on the left

Spotlight: Thermal Insulation SRM in Space

May 8, 2020

Feeling hot, hot, hot … but this thermal insulation standard reference material (SRM 1450e) can help you take the heat, both in an apartment building and in...

A view through a door window of N95 masks being decontaminated.

NIST Tool Could Help Hospitals Repurpose Rooms for Disinfecting N95 Masks

April 16, 2020

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals across the United States are disinfecting N95 masks by placing them in repurposed rooms or shipping containers...

NIST Releases Online Economic Decision Tool to Help Communities Plan for Disaster

March 25, 2020

Preparing a community’s buildings and infrastructure for a hurricane or earthquake can be an incredibly complicated and costly endeavor. A new online tool from...

A fire test of an office building floor replica occurring in a fireproof compartment.

How Fire Causes Office-Building Floors to Collapse

March 24, 2020

Engineers and technicians at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) spent months meticulously recreating the long concrete floors supported...

NIST Community Resilience Guide Supports Maryland Counties Climate Resilience Planning

March 20, 2020

The NIST Community Resilience Program was invited by the University of Maryland’s (UMD) Center for Global Sustainability to support an initiative to aid local...

NIST Conducts Full-Scale Experiments to Demonstrate Flammability Risk of Residential Upholstered Furniture (RUF) and Potential Mitigation Strategies

March 12, 2020

The NIST Flammability Reduction Group (FRG) is conducting a series of full-scale fire experiments in collaboration with the National Fire Research Laboratory...

NIST Community Resilience Panel at HurriCon 2020

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