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Resilience

NIST's resilience research focuses on the impact of multiple hazards on buildings and communities and on post-disaster studies that can provide the technical basis for improved standards, codes, and practices used in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of buildings and infrastructure systems.  NIST leads several national efforts within its Engineering Laboratory to develop guidance and tools to help communities improve the resilience of their buildings and infrastructure systems: Community Resilience, National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP), Fire Protection and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), Wind Engineering, Progressive Collapse, and Disaster and Failure Studies.

The Research

Projects & Programs

Robust Structural Systems for Multi-Hazard Mitigation

Ongoing
Objective - Develop performance-based design methods for structural systems to achieve robustness against multiple hazards, including extreme winds and disproportionate collapse. What is the new technical idea? The new technical idea is to develop and demonstrate effective strategies for

Implementation of Joplin Tornado Recommendations

Ongoing
Objective - To implement all 16 recommendations from the NIST Joplin tornado investigation, at the earliest possible date based on code and standard development cycles, by: (1) conducting research and development to provide the technical foundation for improved guidelines, standards, codes and (2)

Seismic Response of Reinforced Concrete Walls

Ongoing
Objective: The project includes two critical tasks identified in Performance Based Seismic Engineering (PBSE): (1) use of simplified reinforced concrete wall models in high-fidelity nonlinear dynamic analysis that have no robust experimental data validation - to be solved by thorough experimental
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Additional Resources Links

Publications
Awards

News

The sun rises over a green marsh with an open channel of water running through.

In a Changing Climate, Resilience Research Can Help Communities ‘Make Decisions for a Better Future’

Climate change keeps NIST economist Jennifer Helgeson up at night. Not with worry, but with work. For the last several weeks, Helgeson was working on the latest report from the IPCC.
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A collage of images related to the investigation of tornadoes and the development of new tornado building codes.

Tornadoes Are Deadly. These New Building Codes Will Save Lives.

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A building model of a hospital site sits on a platform in a long hallway that faces large fans.

Spotlight: NIST Researchers Are Helping Make Communities More Resilient Through Wind Tunnel Testing of Building Models

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Two men stand a table in a warehouse space, looking at a broken piece of concrete that one is holding.

NIST to Provide Public Update on Hurricane Maria and Champlain Towers South Investigations During Advisory Committee Meeting March 6-7, 2024

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