Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 25 of 32

Advanced Fire Modeling

Ongoing
This project develops and maintains robust, validated fire models—and the associated visualization and analysis tools—for performance-based fire safety, forensics (fire reconstruction), and fire research applications in the built and natural environments.

Advanced Gas-Phase Fire Retardants Project

Completed
This project provides insights into the role of particle formation in limiting the effectiveness of gas-phase, phosphorus-based fire retardants when added to polymers.

Automated Tools for Material Property Calibration

Ongoing
Objective: To develop open source, freely available tools for property calibration and maintain archived, version-controlled material property sets with demonstrated accuracy. These tools should be: Accurate: Parameters predict experimental data Realistic: Values agree with physics Efficient: Fast

Building Fire Safety Evaluation

Ongoing
This project aims to reduce residential fire deaths and injuries by advancing detection systems, researching smoke measurements, and evaluating new technologies' impact on safety. It develops datasets and models to assess building fire hazards, informing better codes, standards, and public awareness efforts.

Design Fires for Structures Project

Completed
By 2016, this project aims to develop (1) measurement science for characterizing and measuring repeatable structurally significant fires for large-scale experiments, and (2) a performance-based design framework linking fire intensity with expected structural performance objectives.

Dynamic Plasticity: Non-Equilibrium Mechanics

Ongoing
The optimization of high-speed machining processes through powerful finite element modeling techniques is an important pathway to American manufacturing competitiveness in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Quantitatively accurate simulations of machining rely on robust constitutive

Fire Risk Reduction in Buildings Program

Ongoing
This program advances fire measurement capabilities, predictive models, testing methods, detection technologies, and fire-resistant materials to create innovative, cost-effective solutions that enhance occupant safety and improve the fire resistance of buildings and their contents.

Fire Risk Reduction in Communities Program

Ongoing
This program advances measurement science to improve community and building resilience to fires, address risks of new technologies, and enhance firefighter awareness and equipment performance through science-based codes, standards, and practices.

Fire Risks of New Technologies

Ongoing
This project supports the U.S. in assessing and mitigating fire risks from new technologies, leveraging NIST's unique fire expertise.

Flammability Metrics for New Low-GWP Refrigerants

Ongoing
Objective: To develop the capability to measure and predict the burning velocity of mixtures of low-Global Warming Potential (GWP) refrigerants to allow the ranking of the mixtures in terms of their flammability, to assist in the selection and implementation of the best replacements for high-GWP

Functional Barriers for Low-Flammability Products

Ongoing
This project enables low-flammability products without flame retardants by providing methods to assess functional barriers, advancing their performance, and exploring their use in multi-layer products for critical applications.

Impact of Material Composition on Ignitability and Fire Growth

Ongoing
Volume 1 Experimental Observations of the Burning Behavior of Combustible Solids in Parallel Panel Configuration at Full-Scale ( NIST Technical Note 2282 ) Report Summary This report provides an overview of measurements (e.g., heat release rate, gaseous species production, and flame-to-surface heat

Material Flammability Characterization

Ongoing
This project develops a database that includes tools, measurement data, material properties, and validation data to enable quantitative prediction of material flammability behavior, such as ignition, steady burning, and fire growth.

NIST/NRC Fire Research Collaborations

Ongoing
Objective: To provide measurement data and analysis tools that enable accurate, efficient, probabilistic risk assessments for fire scenarios in nuclear power plants. Recent Research: Brief descriptions and links to technical reports developed from recent NIST/NRC collaborations focused on Cable

Performance-Based Design Methodologies for Structures in Fire Project

Ongoing
Objective: By 2016, to develop performance-based methods to predict and evaluate fire behavior of steel and concrete structures and to deliver validated and improved tools, guidance, and draft standards for the fire resistance design and assessment of structures. What is the new technical idea

Public Health Risks to First Responders

Ongoing
This project advances tools and methods to analyze per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in firefighter gear and workplaces, supporting the development of standards, policies, and best practices to reduce firefighter PFAS exposure.