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NISTs Engineering Laboratory (EL-NIST) hosted Operation Tomodachi Fire Research on March 16-18, 2015 in Gaithersburg, MD USA. Tomodachi means friendship in Japanese. This workshop was organized by Dr. Samuel L. Manzello of EL-NIST in partnership with
Buildings, facilities, and infrastructure systems play a key role in the life of a community by supporting housing, business, government, industry, and other vital services. The concept of disaster resilience addresses the way that communities prepare for
Wildfires that spread into communities, referred to as Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires, have destroyed communities throughout the world. In the USA, over 46 million homes in 70,000 communities are at risk of WUI fires [1-2]. Historically, fire safety
Buildings and infrastructure systems play a key role in communities by supporting social needs and institutions, including housing, business, government, industry, and other vital services. The concept of community resilience addresses the way that
The NIST Firebrand Generator (NIST Dragon) has been used to quantify the vulnerability of structures to ignition by firebrand attack. The Firebrand Generator is also as useful device to study firebrand transport, and has been used to validate firebrand
A series of experiments were conducted to examine potential vulnerabilities of wood decks to continuous, wind-driven firebrand showers. Sections of wood decks (1.2 m by 1.2 m) were constructed and attached to a re-entrant corner assembly. The deck
Superstorm Sandy affected the functionality of a number of essential buildings and facilities in the flooded areas of New York and New Jersey. The flood elevations exceeded design-level floods in many locations, as defined by FIRM maps and codes and
Yihai Bao, Hai S. Lew, Fahim H. Sadek, Joseph Main
A simple debonding technique is proposed to reduce or eliminate strain localization in reinforcing bars in the region of wide flexural cracks in RC beams, and as a result enhance the resistance of RC buildings to disproportionate collapse. In this study
Fahim H. Sadek, Joseph Main, John L. Gross, Therese P. McAllister
This paper presents a brief overview of research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on disaster resilience of buildings, infrastructure, and communities, including component programs and projects. NIST's efforts aim at developing
Leticia S. Pibida, Ronaldo Minniti, Larry L. Lucas, C M. O'Brien
In this work we studied the response of two different Victoreen® instruments as a function of the exposure rate, the instrument orientation and photon energy. The rate dependence for both instruments is of the order of 8 % over the range of exposure rates
In response to the increasing losses due to WUI fires and to ensure that measurement science keeps pace with needed improvements in materials, fire-resistant design, mitigation response, and building and fire codes, NIST sponsored the Workshop on Wildland
Evidence suggests that wind driven firebrand showers are a major cause of structural ignition in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires. While firebrands have been researched for over four decades, prior studies have focused mainly on how far firebrands fly
The new paradigm of performance-based fire engineering (PBFE), with its systematic approach to identifying building performance objectives, quantitative structural analysis to verify that these objectives have been achieved, and management of uncertainties
Two national workshops were convened in 2011 to assist NIST with identifying critical gaps and needs in tools and metrics for assessing the resilience of the built environment. The Resilience Roundtable convened invited leaders from engineering practice
Leticia S. Pibida, Craig Heimbach, Bruce R. Norman, Alan Keith Thompson, Maynard S. Dewey
Initial neutron measurements and calculations were performed to investigate the response of handheld radionuclide identifiers (RIDs) to neutron sources with different moderators/scattering conditions
Charles W. Hutchings, Sanjay Jain, Yung-Tsun Lee, Charles McLean
Modeling and simulation (M&S) capabilities support reasoning in many domains and can provide powerful tools for homeland security analytical needs. For example, these capabilities are particularly valuable in exploring systems which are inaccessible for
This report documents the development of finite-element models (FEM) of the National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL) and its modular support structure. The models enable a future user of the NFRL to add a potential test structure and perform thermal and
There is a lack of understanding of how structural systems perform under realistic, uncontrolled fires. Current specifications for the design of steel structures in the US do not include fire effects as part of structural design. Instead, fire protection
The present investigation was undertaken to construct a new and improved Dragons LAIR facility. This entailed removing the NIST Baby Dragon from the wind tunnel facility and inserting the new and improved NIST continuous feed Baby Dragon. The unique
Charles R. McLean, Yung-Tsun Lee, Sanjay Jain, Charles W. Hutchings
The purpose of this document is to provide a foundation for establishing a modeling and simulation technical interest group whose focus is information exchange on healthcare issues. The document defines an initial set of user/customer needs and system
Although there is a great deal of high-quality information available on resilience-related topics hazard assessment, vulnerability assessment, risk assessment, risk management, and loss estimation as well as disaster resilience itself, there is no central
This paper posits the need for comprehensive theories about human behavior in fire evacuations. These would be of value in and of themselves to improve training, education, and future data collection efforts, but would also allow for a complete behavioral
Andrew K. Persily, Heather Davis, Steven J. Emmerich, William S. Dols
Due to concerns about potential airborne chemical and biological releases in or near buildings, building owners and managers and other decision makers are faced with a number of options for increasing their building s level of protection against such