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Engineering Laboratory

Materials and Structural Systems Division

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 25 of 51

Accelerated Weathering Laboratory: Metrology and Technology Transfer

Ongoing
Objective - To maintain, improve and expand capabilities at the NIST Accelerated Weathering Laboratory (AWL) to conduct safe, accurate and traceable aging experiments, develop materials degradation databases, and to transfer the SPHERE technology to industrial stakeholders. What is the new technical
3D Concrete Printer

Additive Manufacturing with Cement-based Materials

Ongoing
Objective - Develop the measurement science tools and scientific knowledge base for performance-based standards for reinforced 3-D printed concrete structures. Background - Current 3DCP construction practices resemble reinforced masonry construction, as shown in Figure 1. Similar to reinforced

Assessing Pyrrhotite in Concrete

Ongoing
Objective - Develop a standard test method and a set of calibration reference materials to quantify pyrrhotite in concrete. What is the technical idea? Pyrrhotite (Fe 1-xS, where x = 0 – 0.2) is a common sulfide mineral exhibiting a brownish-bronze color with a metallic luster. Physical properties

Building-Level Seismic Performance Assessment

Ongoing
Objective: To better understand the seismic performance of buildings designed in areas of medium-to-high seismicity and to identify ways to create enhanced performance through low-damage approaches, improved code provisions, and improved analysis procedures. What is the Problem? Despite progress

Coastal Inundation: Hazard Characterization and Structural Design

Ongoing
Objective - To develop next-generation methods and tools to better characterize coastal inundation hazards, associated loads, and response of structures, thus enabling performance-based standards for designing structures that resist coastal inundation. What is the new technical idea? Current design

Collapse Assessment of Buildings under Seismic Loading

Completed
Objective - To evaluate the collapse probabilities of a suite of steel buildings for a series of increasingly severe earthquake ground motions, and to compare these probabilities to the collapse objective presumed in ASCE/SEI 7. The probabilities of collapse will be determined using the methodology
NIST

Community Resilience Program

Ongoing
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES: To develop science-based tools for communities, professionals, and researchers to assess resilience and to support informed planning and decision making at the community scale for improving resilience in communities of all sizes. To conduct a multi-faceted outreach effort to

Design Methods for Resilient Community Systems

Ongoing
Objective - To advance design and assessment methods for buildings and infrastructure to improve their ability to support the social and economic functions they support and community resilience. What is the technical idea? Quantitative approaches to identify and evaluate the performance of the built

Development of a First-Generation Community-Resilience Systems Model

Ongoing
Objective - To develop computer-based tools that facilitate exploration of decision alternatives for community resilience and that specifically address key challenges related to the scale and interdependencies of the system and the complexities of the planning process. What is the new technical idea

Development and Implementation of the Community Resilience Planning Guides

Ongoing
Objective - To develop guidance documents ( Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems and supporting Guide Briefs) to improve community resilience and to collect data from communities implementing the guidance documents to inform future versions. What is the new

Disaster and Failure Studies & Disaster Metrology Studies

Ongoing
Objective - To provide leadership, coordination, and management for (1) the conduct of disaster and failure studies, including the development and maintenance of an archival data repository, (2) promoting the implementation of recommendations from disaster and failure studies, (3) carrying out the
USGS Map

Earthquake Risk Reduction in Buildings and Infrastructure Program

Ongoing
Objective: The Program’s objective is to develop and advance knowledge which can improve codes, standards, and design guidelines for earthquake risk mitigation of buildings and infrastructure systems with the focus on recovery-based design. These efforts supplement NIST’s role as lead agency for the

Engineered Materials for Resilient Infrastructure Program

Ongoing
Objective - To develop and deploy measurement science to reliably assess the current and future performance of engineered materials in support of resilient infrastructure given exposure to chronic (e.g., materials degradation) and episodic (e.g., earthquakes) hazards. What is the technical idea? To

Functional Recovery of Buildings and Lifelines

Ongoing
Objective: The Functional Recovery project is designed to improve the time for recovery of key social functions via strengthening of the built environment to withstand earthquake impacts. Our efforts will advance measurement science for the assessment and design of buildings and lifelines

Hydration Reactions in Microstructures Project

Completed
Objective - Generate and publish reaction rate data and enhanced computer modeling tools to better understand and predict the rates of microstructure development and phase interactions in portland cement concrete binders. What is the new technical idea? Reflection digital holographic microscopy (DHM

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)

Improved Assessment Criteria for Performance-Based Seismic Design

Completed
Objective - Task (1): To establish a new generation of performance-based design assessment criteria that captures a component action’s dependence on loading history by conducting a set of focused experimental tests and computer simulations on eccentrically braced frame link beams. Task (2): To vet