NIST Works For You

From large international deals to retail sales at your local gas station, NIST’s volume measurement standards play a significant role in billions of dollars of transactions annually. Accurate volume measurements are crucial for determining the amounts of fuels transported via America’s pipelines, waterways, roads and railways. Calibrated containers are key to guaranteeing that consumers receive the precise amount of gasoline they purchase at gas stations across the United States. While states are responsible for regulating gas pumps, NIST supports state weights-and-measures officials by providing accurate and traceable measurements of the volume of liquid containers, ranging in size from one gallon to 500 gallons. Learn more.

In the buying and selling of natural gas, a flow meter acts as an accountant, accurately measuring and recording the flow of millions of dollars’ worth of product. Even a single imprecise measurement in a high-pressure natural gas pipeline can lead to sizeable financial losses. NIST’s role in natural gas flow measurements promotes fairness and transparency by calibrating flow meters at “best in the world” accuracy. NIST-calibrated flow meters are used by commercial laboratories to calibrate thousands of industrial-grade meters across multiple sectors, including those that measure manufacturing emissions that can have negative environmental impacts. NIST calibrations support the needs of the Department of Defense, as well as a diverse range of industries and applications where accurate flow measurements are critical, including the semiconductor, aerospace and automotive industries. They also are used by companies involved in general manufacturing, power generation and chemical processing. Trillions of dollars of commerce in these sectors are traceable back to NIST calibrations. Learn more.

NIST’s Office of Weights and Measures helps protect consumers and businesses and ensures fair trading for grocery stores, restaurants and customers. For example, ice glaze is applied to many frozen seafood products to maintain the quality of the product, but it can add 10% to 40% extra weight to each package — weight that customers should not be charged for. NIST Handbook 133 provides a test for “Checking the Net Contents of Packaged Goods,” along with many other test procedures that are adopted as part of regulation in most states. NIST develops and updates inspection procedures and trains state regulatory officials on these tests. 

The United States invests billions of dollars in vaccine manufacturing and distribution. However, if vaccines are exposed to inappropriate temperatures, they can lose their potency. To avoid wasteful spending and modern-day outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, failures in the “cold chain” (vaccine storage and delivery) must be prevented. Between 2009 and 2022, NIST conducted a comprehensive study of temperature control for vaccine storage and transport and developed best-practice guidance for public health stakeholders. As a result of the program, certain refrigerator designs and data-logging methods were identified as ineffective. NIST’s work led to a significant reduction in vaccine waste — more than 30% in some instances. NIST’s renowned technical expertise and commitment to scientific integrity led to the establishment of the first-ever standards for vaccine storage. These standards represent a resounding success that will continue to benefit the nation long after the completion of the study.

Laser trackers have significantly enhanced production quality and reduced measurement time by orders of magnitude, bolstering domestic manufacturing competitiveness of large-scale products ranging from airplane wings and vessel hulls to windmill turbine blades. However, this transformation was only possible after thoroughly understanding the accuracy and reliability of laser trackers and scanners. Today, every laser tracker worldwide is bought, sold and warranted using well-understood specifications, thanks to NIST-led documentary standard development in collaboration with industry experts. To maintain U.S. leadership in future innovations, NIST maintains unique facilities dedicated to evaluating new measurement technologies for large-scale dimensional measurements.

Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines help doctors diagnose a range of diseases, from brain tumors to bone deficiencies, but in common use, they only provide qualitative information. In other words, they merely display differences between adjacent areas. More valuable information is available if we collect and analyze those images quantitatively — providing measurements of those differences. To support these quantitative analyses, NIST has developed measurement “phantoms” — objects with carefully measured properties that mimic human tissue and can be used to calibrate MRI systems or support research. NIST maintains a lending library that enables quantitative MRI research for improving health outcomes. Recent studies show that with quantitative MRI, glioblastoma patients could learn if a particular treatment works for them within days, allowing for rapid adjustment of a treatment regimen. While research continues, doctors believe that quantitative MRI could improve the diagnosis of other diseases, such as stroke, dystrophy and a range of cancers.

The NIST Nanofabrication Facility, or “NanoFab,” is like a machine shop of the 21st century for high-tech U.S. industries. It provides researchers from industry, academia and other government laboratories with rapid access to state-of-the-art nanotechnology fabrication and measurement tools for applications in nanoelectronics, photonics, microelectromechanical systems and nano-biotechnology. NIST technical experts help NanoFab users make the most of its unique ability to process and characterize a wide range of nanoscale materials, structures and devices, from standard techniques such as thin film deposition and wet etching to more exotic, high-accuracy technologies such as electron beam lithography. The NanoFab allows industry researchers to easily modify nanofabrication processes and to rapidly improve materials and devices, helping to improve American competitiveness by speeding the transition of industrial research to production.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked NIST to develop standards for radiation detectors that could be used to spot the movement of nuclear and radioactive materials. The main challenge is that the illicit cargo needs to be distinguished from natural background radiation, from commercial commodities (such as tiles, fertilizers, granite and sand), and from legal radioactive sources used in medical diagnostic procedures and cancer treatments. NIST ensures that radiation detectors and sensors are working as intended and that their capabilities are understood by providing calibration and validation services, not only to help secure our national borders but also to protect our first responders and troops. In supporting the DHS in its mission, NIST uses its measurement science expertise to strengthen radiation security efforts.

Each year, 40 million mammograms are performed in the United States at 8,800 facilities certified to follow the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA), which requires that all mammogram facilities be calibrated and tested for accurate X-ray exposures. NIST’s calibration laboratory for mammographic X-rays helps to ensure that patients receive the appropriate X-ray exposures, which means fewer repeat tests and lower radiation doses. NIST provides accurate references and a biennial proficiency testing program for mammography inspectors to ensure that they have the tools they need to support accurate diagnoses and minimize radiation exposure for everyone receiving a mammogram.

The proper functioning of the supply chain involves manufacturing parts with precise dimensions. This precision varies by applications, but high-end mechanical parts sometimes require an accuracy of a few micrometers (just a fraction of the diameter of a human hair). NIST provides precision measurement of length for high-value manufacturing industries and scientific research institutions. Calibrated gage blocks ensure that accurate size standards are used in the thousands of manufacturing sites and machine shops throughout the United States. Billions of accurate dimensional measurements performed each day guarantee that the parts will fit and operate as intended, regardless of their source.

Today, almost every sector of our economy depends on fast, reliable and affordable internet, from financial services to health care to national security. Optical fibers form most of the data routes of the internet, including its intercity “backbone.” NIST validates the accuracy of laser power meters used by internet technicians to monitor network links and verify signal sufficiency. When an insufficient signal arrives at a network receiver, technicians may need to replace fiber lines, install additional amplifiers, or make repairs until the system functions properly. Well-calibrated power meters ensure a reliable network connection for internet users and can prevent unnecessary service costs.

With modern high-speed trading, stock market activity generally exceeds one billion dollars per minute. Financial service firms need precise time stamps at every step of a transaction to ensure robust and fair financial markets and to allow for accurate audits. U.S. stock markets are required to synchronize to NIST time. They receive real-time, remote calibration of precision clocks and oscillators through NIST’s Time Measurement and Analysis Service (TMAS). The calibration is traceable to NIST standards for time and frequency, at an accuracy better than a microsecond (one-millionth of a second). In addition to the stock market, this service benefits many other sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, aerospace, aviation, calibration laboratories and communication. Owners and operations that critically depend on knowledge of time rely on the precision and accuracy of NIST’s TMAS.

For more than a century, NIST radio stations have made the precise time available for free to everyone in the United States. Today, the NIST time broadcast serves as a dependable time reference independent of GPS, offering a backup for timing applications reliant on GPS synchronization. From TV networks to massive data centers, applications requiring precise time synchronization benefit from this reliability, including commercially available network time servers that use the WWVB signal for synchronization with computers and equipment across the United States.

In our connected world, information systems must agree on at least one thing to operate properly: the time. This is particularly useful for network-distributed applications such as the Internet of Things and for tracing failures in communications networks. NIST provides official U.S. time over the internet so that users and customers can have a traceable, unbiased reference. The best part is that a time request is quick, easy and free for everyone. No wonder the NIST Network Time Service receives approximately 1 million web requests per second, which makes it the most requested service provided by the U.S. government. Users of the NIST Network Time Service include many financial institutions and federal departments, including the Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, Health and Human Services and the State Department. Additionally, at least 16 state governments use the time service for general government operations.

With applications that range from weather forecasting to natural disaster monitoring and precision agriculture, satellite remote sensing has changed the world. The commercial remote sensing market is valued at more than $5 billion per year and is predicted to grow at nearly 10% annually. To meaningfully image Earth from space, and to provide accurate measurements of storms, wildfires and floods, the components of a sensor must be accurately calibrated. NIST maintains a portfolio of calibration services, ranging from detector sensitivity to the optical properties of lenses and mirrors. By providing these calibrations, NIST enables space innovation and helps U.S. companies lead in the “commercial space race.”

Americans spend about $233 billion per year on residential energy, and an estimated 10% to 15% of that energy is lost to improper air sealing and insufficient insulation. NIST is helping to address this nearly $25 billion annual loss by measuring the thermal resistance of building insulation materials as a calibration service for insulation manufacturers and to create standard reference insulation materials. Builders, suppliers and third-party calibration laboratories use the NIST calibration services and standard reference materials to accurately characterize the thermal properties of their insulation products. The NIST services are also helping them develop next-generation insulation materials so that new buildings can be designed to reduce energy usage and consumer costs.

Concrete is one of the most commonly used materials in the world, yet amazingly, is not completely understood. NIST provides concrete standard reference materials that the industry uses to calibrate devices that measure how concrete flows, called rheometers. To create these materials, NIST researchers carried out measurements and computer simulations, a novel approach for a standard reference material, using unique in-house computational resources and expertise. The resulting standard reference materials help industry improve the quality of cement and mortar products and ultimately help provide more predictable behavior of cement materials for construction and residential use.

NIST is helping industry improve concrete durability while reducing its cost and environmental impact. Concrete has the highest worldwide per-capita consumption of any material after water, with 30 trillion kilograms (30 billion metric tons) used each year. For almost 90 years, NIST has provided a special standard reference material to calibrate instruments used for testing the fineness, or size, of materials used for the cement in concrete. NIST recently collaborated with industry to create the newest update of this standard reference material — the 18th in the series. This standard reference material is one of the largest sellers by number of units yearly, helping manufacturers and builders worldwide ensure that their concrete will perform as expected and the finished product will have the desired properties, which amounts to faster construction and safer, more reliable structures.