Activities,

Accomplishments

& Recognitions

BUILDING 

& FIRE

RESEARCH

LABORATORY

National Institute of 

Standards and Technology

Technology Administration, 

U.S. Department of Commerce
CONTENTS

GOAL 1

GOAL 2

GOAL 3

GOAL 4

BFRL at a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Director’s Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

BFRL Accomplishments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

SLP: Service Life Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

HYPERCON: Prediction and Optimization of Concrete Performance. . . . . . . . . 11

CONSIAT: Construction Integration and Automation Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Healthy and Sustainable Buildings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Cybernetic Building Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Advanced Measurement and Predictive Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Reduced Risk of Flashover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Advanced Fire Service Technologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Research and Development for the Safety of Threatened Buildings . . . . . . . . . . 51

Standards Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Staff Highlights and Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Finances and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

More Information About BFRL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Enhanced Building Performance

Fire Loss Reduction

Homeland Security

High Performance Construction Materials and Systems
1

BFRL AT A GLANCE

BFRL MISSION

Meet the measurement and standards needs

of the building and fire safety communities.

BFRL VISION

The source of critical tools – metrics, models,

and knowledge – used to modernize the

building and fire safety communities. Our

programs are identified, developed, carried

out, the results implemented, and consequences measured in partnership with key

customer organizations.

BFRL GOALS

The building and fire communities (builders,

suppliers, owners and fire safety professionals)

strive to increase productivity, construct better buildings, faster, at lower cost, own buildings that are fire safe, less costly to operate,

and have less impact on the environment. To

meet the needs of these communities BFRL is

focusing on four goals.

■ High Performance Construction

Materials and Systems: to enable scientific

and technology-based innovation to modernize and enhance the performance of construction materials and systems.

■ Enhanced Building Performance: to

provide the means to assure buildings work

(better) throughout their useful lives. The

strategy for meeting this goal is to provide

knowledge, measurements and tools to optimize building life cycle performance.

■ Fire Loss Reduction: to enable engineered

fire safety for people, products, and facilities;

and enhance fire fighter effectiveness.

■ Homeland Security: to develop and

implement the standards, technology, and

practices needed for cost-effective improvements to the safety and security of buildings

and building occupants, including evacuation, emergency response procedures, and

threat mitigation.

BFRL RESOURCES

■ 155 full time staff (126 professional) 

with expertise in measurement, material and 

system performance, mathematical modeling,

non-destructive testing, and diagnostics

■ $44 million annual budget

■ Unique facilities including:

Integrating Sphere UV exposure chamber

Electron microscope

Tri-directional test facility

One million pound testing machine 

Solar tracker

Large scale fire test facility 

Environmental chambers

BFRL WEB SITE

www.bfrl.nist.gov

This is the biennial report for 

2002-2003 for the Building and

Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) at 

the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology (NIST), an agency 

of the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

It describes the goals, programs, recent

accomplishments, and recognitions 

for our staff over these two years.

BFRL and its predecessor organizations at NIST (National Bureau of

Standards (NBS) before 1988) have a

rich history in the building and fire

communities dating back 100 years.

On February 7, 1904, a fire broke out

in the basement of the John E. Hurst

and Company in Baltimore, Maryland.

Fire services responded from

Washington, Philadelphia, and New

York; however, each city had its own

unique threads for their fire hoses and

they could not connect to Baltimore’s

hydrant system. Those fire services were

forced to watch as the fire progressed.

Before it was over, the fire had burned

for more than 30 hours and destroyed

approximately 2,500 buildings in an

80-block area. As a result, NBS began 

a study of fire hose couplings and over

600 couplings were collected and 

analyzed from across the country. 

Based on this research, the National

Fire Protection Association (NFPA)

adopted a standard hose coupling and

an interchangeable coupling device for

non-standard hoses as a national model.

That document continues today as

NFPA 1963, Standard for Fire Hose

Connections.

The past 100 years are filled with

numerous other such cases where NIST

rallied to address problems critical to

the nation and the building and fire

communities. Today the overwhelming

issue facing us all is the security of our

physical infrastructure, our buildings

and structures, to terrorists’ attacks.

Following the attacks on the United

States on September 11, 2001, the U.S.

Congress authorized NIST to conduct

a two-year investigation to determine

the technical reasons for the collapse of

the World Trade Center buildings and

look at other technical issues related 

to fire protection, occupant behavior,

evacuation, and emergency response. 

As a result, BFRL has established a new

goal for our Laboratory on Homeland

Security. It is described, beginning on

page 46, along with the progress of the

World Trade Center investigation and

an associated research program that have

been under way for slightly over a year.

On October 1, 2002, the President

signed into law the National

Construction Safety Team Act that

authorizes NIST to form a team that

can investigate building failures where

there has been a substantial loss of life

or where there is the potential for a

substantial loss of life. The Congress

envisions investigations and follow-on

recommendations similar to what is

done by the National Transportation

Safety Board following major transportation accidents. This is an awesome

responsibility. BFRL staff members are

working hard now to develop the procedures, train and equip our staff, and

prepare the organization to fulfill this

responsibility.

BFRL is involved in an amazing

breadth of scientific, engineering, and

now investigative work for the building

and fire communities. The size of our

staff and budget is modest. The time

has long passed when any single organization like ours can act alone and

expect to make a major impact on the

numerous issues facing the building

and fire communities and the industries

involved. We must build an extensive

network and work together to tackle

these issues. This will greatly enhance

all our chances for success. I encourage

you to contact us to discuss collaborations in the many endeavors described

in this report.

3

DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
4

The strategy to meet this goal includes the development of world-class science-based 

tools – measurements, data, models, protocols, and reference standards – to 

■ fully integrate and automate the construction process to achieve significant cycle 

time reductions;

■ predict and optimize the performance and minimize the environmental impact of 

concrete in the built environment;

■ predict the service life of high performance polymeric infrastructure materials; and

■ enhance the safety and performance of structures under extreme loads.

The desired outcomes are to enhance global competitiveness of U.S. industry and the

safety and sustainability of the Nation’s buildings and physical infrastructure.

Service Life Prediction (SLP) 

of Polymeric Materials

The objective of the SLP program is to develop, 

validate, and implement an advanced reliabilitybased methodology and associated metrologies for

predicting the service life of polymeric materials

exposed in their intended operating environment.

This research is being conducted in partnership with

industry, other BFRL divisions, NIST laboratories, and

Federal agencies along with universities and foreign

research institutes.

Intended Outcome and Background

The intended outcome of this research is to develop,

implement, and gain worldwide acceptance of a 

reliability-based methodology for predicting the

service life of polymeric materials exposed in their

intended service environment. The reliability-based

methodology differs from the current methodology

mainly in its designation of the standard of 

performance against which laboratory or field 

exposure data are compared. The reliability SLP

methodology uses laboratory-based exposure results

as the standard of performance while the current

methodology’s uses field exposure results. Since 

field exposure results are neither repeatable nor

reproducible, this seemingly subtle change has 

transformed the SLP problem from a mathematically

and scientifically intractable problem to one that is 

scientifically tractable. 

Introduction and implementation of the reliabilitybased methodology into industrial practice is being

achieved through the activities of a number of ongoing and proposed industry/government/university

consortia. The three on-going consortia are the

Coatings Service Life Prediction Consortium, the

Sealants Service Life Prediction Consortium, and the

Polymeric Interphase Consortium. Industry is requesting

that BFRL consider establishing industry/government

consortia to investigate the photocatalytic reactivity 

of pigments and the optical properties of polymeric

materials. Current industrial sponsors include Atlas

GOAL 1 HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION 

MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS

To enable 

scientific and 

technology-based

innovation to

modernize and

enhance the 

performance 

of construction

materials and 

systems.
Material Testing Technology, LLC,

Atofina Chemicals, DAP, DeGussa, Dow

Chemical, Dow Corning, Kaneka, MTS,

PPG, Sika, Solvay, Sherwin Williams,

Tremco, Visteon, and Wacker. Federal

Agency sponsors include the HUD-PATH

Program, Air Force Research

Laboratory Material and Engineering

Directorate, Smithsonian Environmental

Research Center, USDA Forest Service

Forest Products Laboratory, USDA UV-B

Program, and the Federal Highway

Administration.

Objectives of these consortia include

1) greatly minimizing or eliminating the

contributions from experimental errors

to the total variation in the degradation

response of polymeric materials, 

2) linking field and laboratory exposure results, and 3) gaining a fundamental scientific understanding of the

degradation failure mechanism and the

contribution that each constituent or

combination of constituents plays in the

service life of the bulk polymer. 

Efforts in FY03 have been aimed at

completing the first objective and continuing efforts on objectives 2 and 3.

The inability to generate reproducible

and repeatable exposure laboratory

results, objective 1, has been long recognized by industry as a weakness in

current field and laboratory exposure

data. A NIST patented weathering

device, the SPHERE, has demonstrated

capability to minimize or eliminate the

variation contribution from all known

experimental error sources and, as

such, is capable of generating both

repeatable and reproducible laboratory

exposure results. Extensive efforts have

also been made to characterize field

weather variables in the same manner

that they are characterized in the laboratory. Eight field exposure sites have

been instrumented with a solar spectral

radiometer and a weather station and

the collected data can be mathematically transformed to weathering variables

used in characterizing the exposure

environment in the laboratory. 

Efforts to link field and laboratory

exposure data have greatly intensified

over the last year. NIST’s efforts in

making this linkage have gained the

interest of industry and have spawned

requests from industry to initiate two

new consortia—optical properties of

polymeric materials and photocatalytic

effects of pigments. Linkage between

field and laboratory experiments must

be and has been achieved at several

physical and chemical scales of degradation (e.g., nanoscale damage,

macroscale physical damage, chemical

changes) in both the field and the laboratory. Parallel to these measurement

linkages, an extensive effort has been

initiated to derive and verify scientific

models for mathematically linking these

field and laboratory results. In addition,

we are in the process of verifying that

total spectral dosage can be used as a

common exposure metric for quantifying and comparing the severity of field

and laboratory exposure environments.

Once a linkage between field and 

laboratory exposure results has been

achieved, then it should be possible to

design experiments in which the contribution of individual constituents of a

polymeric material can be ascertained

relative to the service life performance

of the polymeric system. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Reliability Approach to

Prediction of the Service Life

of Polymeric Construction

Materials

Starting in the 1980’s, the mass and

volume consumption of polymeric

materials exceeded that of all other

materials and this dominance is forecast

to continue into the 21st century. The

major deterrent to the continued

growth, application, and acceptance of

these materials is the inability to quantitatively and accurately predict the

service lives when they are exposed in

their intended service environment.

The objective of this multi-agency,

NIST-lead industrial consortia research

program is to implement a reliabilitybased methodology to link laboratory

and field exposure results and to quantitatively predict the expected weathering service life of an organic coating

when it is exposed in its intended operating and service environment. In this

methodology, laboratory experiments

are experimentally designed to cover the

range of exposure conditions that a

material will be subjected to in-service.

5

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS
6

HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS

Field exposure experiments, on the

other hand, are viewed as just another

laboratory exposure experiment albeit

ones in which individual weathering

factors can’t be controlled, but they can

be monitored and characterized in the

same manner as they are in the field

(that is, field and laboratory experiments can be compared). A key difference in a reliability-based methodology,

relative to the current methodology

used for estimating the service life of

polymeric materials, is that all measurements are quantitative and of known

precision and accuracy and that, as

much as possible, the same measurements are applied in both the field and

the laboratory. These degradation measurements span the range from nanoto macroscale chemical and nano- to

macroscale physical degradation measurements and all measurements are

related to an exposure metric delineating

the severity of an exposure environment.

To date, linkages have been established

among chemical and physical, nanoscale

to macroscale measurements and total

effective dosage, the selected exposure

metric. Presently, extensive efforts are

being made to mathematically link laboratory and field exposure results. One

key requirement for linking field and

laboratory results, that the same degradation chemistry be observed in both

the field and laboratory, has been met

for the study material. Other requirements include our ability to account for

changes in spectral ultraviolet intensity

and spectral distribution. Model materials have been exposed to either polychromatic or spectral radiation over the

range from one to 22 suns of ultraviolet

radiation. For all three polymers, the

reciprocity law was obeyed. In addition

to this fundamental research, extensive

efforts have been made to speed up

analytical measurements through the

implementation of high-throughput

analysis techniques and the establishment

of an informatics system to analyze,

store, share, interpret and reanalyze the

collected data. 

CONTACTS:

DR. JONATHAN W. MARTIN

jonathan.martin@nist.gov

DR. TINH NGUYEN 

tinh.nguyen@nist.gov

DR. JOANNIE CHIN 

joannie.chin@nist.gov

DR. XIAOHONG GU 

xiaohong.gu@nist.gov

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION 

(301)-975-6707

Sealants Service Life

Prediction Exposure

Consortium

Modern building design increasingly relies on building joint

sealants to provide waterproofing and

moisture barrier protection. Although

building joint sealants represent a small

percentage of initial construction costs,

the failure of sealants represents a very

large fraction of the maintenance and

repair costs of constructed facilities.

Furthermore, the failure of building Dr. Joannie Chin and Dr. Jonathan Martin

obtain patent for integrating sphere

weathering device—patent number

6,626,052 B1 issued September 30, 2003

Nanoscale localized pitting observed in a polymeric coating exposed to ultraviolet radiation at elevated temperature

and humidity. Pits grow both in depth and diameter with exposure time (left hand side). On right hand side, a 3-D

atomic force nanoscale image of pits is displayed. 
joint sealant is often only detected after

substantial water damage to a structure

has already occurred making repair

costs much higher than they need to

be. Water intrusion is cited as the number one complaint for homeowners. 

Despite the importance of joint

sealants in the building envelope, information from the current methods for

assessing durability and thus the ability

to predict when the failures of sealants

might occur do not yield accurate or

precise estimates. Without the means 

to determine the in-service performance,

most building joint sealant is selected

on the basis of lowest first cost. 

The first steps in developing new

methods to predict the in-service 

performance of sealant requires 

knowledge of the relative importance 

of each of the primary weathering 

factors on the durability of the sealant.

Currently progressing research studies

will determine the relative importance

of temperature, humidity, ultraviolet

radiation and mechanical loading on a

wide range of sealant formulations. In

conjunction with two monitored outdoor exposure sites, this data will form

the foundation of new methods to

assess the service life of building joint

sealants. This NIST-lead industrial 

consortium includes ten major sealant

companies plus three other federal

agencies and has been operational since

October of 2001. 

CONTACT:

DR. CHRISTOPHER WHITE

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301)-975-6016

christopher.white@nist.gov

Field Analysis of Lead 

in Paint and Dust

Analytical methods for extraction

and analysis of lead in paint and

dust sampled in houses and related

buildings are not readily field-portable.

A need exists for a field test method for

use when important decisions regarding

risks associated with the presence of

lead in the structure must be made on

site. Field-portable ultrasonic extraction-anodic stripping voltammetry

(UE/ASV) has been considered an

attractive on-site analytical methodology for measuring the amount of lead in

a variety of environmental media

including paint and dust. At present,

UE/ASV is not used in federal programs dealing with lead hazard management in housing. One restriction to

adopting UE/ASV is that the effect of

the operator (i.e., analyst) on the reliability of the analysis has not been determined. Specifically, laboratory technicians or chemists have conducted the

measurements made in previous studies

evaluating UE/ASV. Potential users of

UE/ASV in practice may be certified

lead-based paint inspectors, risk assessors, or others, whose skill in conducting chemical analyses may arguably be

less than that of laboratory technicians

or chemists. To fill this significant gap

in UE/ASV technology, studies have

7

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

State of the art field exposure apparatus for naturally

stressing sealant samples is positioned on BFRL’s roof.

Numerous physical and environmental variables are

being monitored on a continuous basis. Physical properties include stress and strain within the sealant while

environmental variables include sealant temperature

and moisture content. 

Dr. Christopher White is shown working on custom

designed, state-of-the-art, laboratory, sealant testing

chambers attached to NIST’s SPHERE. Temperature,

humidity, ultraviolet and mechanical load can be 

independently controlled for eight ASTM C719 

sealant specimens. 
been conducted to evaluate the reliability

of UE/ASV for quantitatively determining the amount of lead in laboratoryprepared and field-sampled paint and

dust specimens using certified lead

inspectors or risk assessors trained to

conduct UE/ASV testing. In addition

to the operator, other factors examined

have included, in the case of paint samples, the paint lead level, lead pigment

type, paint-film substrate, particle size

of the paint specimen, and sonication

temperature and time. In the case of

dust samples, the factors investigated

have included: the wipe used to sample

the dust, the source of the dust, and the

lead level in the dust. The results of the

paint studies support that UE/ASV is

suitable for lead analysis of paint films

provided that the particle size of the

paint specimens is sufficiently small, or

that sonication temperature and time

are sufficiently high and long. All three

of these factors are controllable in the

field. For the dust studies, which are

continuing, initial findings are that the

wipe, the dust source, and the lead level

affect lead recovery. 

CONTACT:

DR. WALTER ROSSITER

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-6719

walter.rossiter@nist.gov 

Chemical Nanoprobe

Microscopy

Chemical measurement at the

nanoscale spatial resolution has

immense potential as a materials 

characterization tool for current and

developing nanotechnologies. However,

techniques used to achieve nanoscale

chemical measurement are still in the

early stages of development, with vanguard efforts being made in only a few

laboratories worldwide. This Advanced

Technology Program-Intramural funded

project, led by Dr. Tinh Nguyen, is 

a collaborative effort among BFRL, 

the Materials Science and Engineering

Laboratory, and the Physics Laboratory.

The goal of this project is to develop and

implement a method for characterizing

the chemical properties of materials with

nanoscale (or, possibly, sub-nanoscale)

spatial resolution. Project objectives

include three challenging research areas:

1) fabrication and characterization 

of chemically functionalized AFM 

conventional tips and carbon nanotubes

for nanoscale chemical measurement, 

2) fabrication and characterization 

of chemically heterogeneous reference 

samples that can be used for demonstration/calibration of the technique(s), and

3) chemical characterization of materials

at a nanoscale spatial resolution. By

controlling the relative humidity at the

tip-sample interface (Figure 1), results

obtained in the past two years have

demonstrated that, for a variety of 

samples, nanoscale spatial resolution of

8

HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS

Dr. Walter J. Rossiter sampling a residential house for

lead in paint.

Figure 1: AFM humidity-controlled chamber.

Figure 2: Enhanced chemical contrast of chemically 

heterogeneous ultrathin film with elevated relative

humidity (bright stripes: hydrophilic region; dark areas:

hydrophobic matrix).

Figure 3: Enhanced chemical contrast of chemically

heterogeneous polymer with elevated relative humidity

(dark areas: hydrophilic poly(ethylene oxide), bright

areas: hydrophobic polystyrene).

3 μm x 3 μm
hydrophilic/hydrophobic heterogeneity

of model self-assembled monolayers

(Figure 2) can be imaged and the 

heterogeneity within a polymer can be

mapped (Figure 3). 

CONTACTS:

DR. TINH NGUYEN 

tinh.nguyen@nist.gov

DR. XIAOHONG GU 

xiaohong.gu@nist.gov

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6707

Characterization of 

Polymeric Materials Surfaces

This research falls under the auspices of a government-industry

consortium Polymeric Interphase

Consortium, which is a joint effort

between BFRL and the Chemical

Science and Technology Laboratory and

led by Dr. Tinh Nguyen. The goal of

this project, led by Dr. Peter VotrubaDrzal, is to develop measurement techniques for evaluating dynamic and static

surface micro- and nano-mechanical

properties of polymeric materials.

Nano-indenter parameters studied

include loading rate, loading time, and

nano-indenter geometry. In collaboration with Dr. Li-Piin Sung and the

capabilities of her newly completed

optical characterization facility, efforts

are being made to assess the impact of

surface deformation on surface reflection and optical scattering from polymeric coatings and plastics. Results

have shown the feasibility of nano/micro

mechanical property measurements on

polymeric materials using depth-sensing

indentation of a nano-indentor; they

have also shown, for the first time, that

a clear relationship exists between material microstructure and light scattering

from a scratched surface. It is expected

that this project will lead to the development of a universal mar/scratch test

and the establishment of relationships

among mar resistance, appearance, and

service life for polymeric materials.

CONTACT:

DR. PETER L. VOTRUBA-DRZAL

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-8701

peter.votruba-drzal@nist.gov

Structure and Dispersion

Measurements of Polymeric

Building Materials

The objective of this project, led by

Dr. Li-Piin Sung, is to develop a

non-destructive, efficient method for

characterizing pigment dispersion and

coating structure distribution on microand nano-scales in cured and uncured

pigmented polymeric building materials

using scattering techniques. We have

developed methodologies for quantitative assessment of pigment dispersion

using small angle neutron scattering

(SANS) beams in the National Center

for Neutron Research’s cold neutron

facility. To develop a more practical and

non-destructive method for characterizing the dispersion of pigments in uncured

and cured polymeric materials, a stateof-the-art light scattering materials

characterization laboratory was established. The laboratory is equipped with

two types of light scattering instruments,

that are custom designed to accommodate both liquid or solid, pigmented or

unpigmented materials, and to allow

for a flexible array of experiments

aimed at studying the relationship

among chemical, physical and optical

performance properties (e.g. color,

gloss, surface roughness, mechanical

and physical properties). These parameters are key in gaining a fundamental

understanding of the interaction

between light and materials, and for

9

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Mr. TsunYen Wu, a student,

uses the nanoindenter to

characterize the surface

mechanical properties of

polymeric materials. 
advancing metrologies for characterizing nanoscale structural and optical

properties of polymeric materials and

how these properties change over time.

Other related research topics and projects using this light scattering materials

characterization laboratory include: 

(1) relating physical and mechanical

properties (viscoelastic behavior, scratch

damage) to the appearance of a polymeric material, (2) developing a

methodology and metrologies for 

linking nanoscale and microscale physical and chemical changes resulting from

photodegradation to materials appearance, and (3) creating metrologies for

quantifying the dispersion of particles

in a polymeric system.

CONTACT:

DR. LI-PIIN SUNG

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6737

li-piin.sung.nist.gov

Photoreactivity of

Semiconductor Nanoparticles

I

n the service life prediction of polymers, a need exists to understand the

role of pigments and fillers in polymer

degradation. Pigments are metal oxides

exhibiting semiconductor behavior

when they are photoactivated. Of the

pigments, titanium dioxide nanoparticles

in the size range from 30 nm – 300 nm

are the most common whitening agent

used in coatings and plastics. This pigment readily absorbs and is photoactivated by ultraviolet radiation. Industrial

methods currently utilized to measure

photoreactivity are semi-quantitative

and are often performance-based, providing little fundamental or mechanistic

insight. A need exists for a fast, quantitative, reliable, and scientifically based

metrology for in-line measurement of

the photoreactivity of pigments. 

Research efforts in the Polymeric

Materials Group are focused on developing methodologies and metrologies

for understanding the fundamental

mechanisms that govern photoreactivity

and the subsequent service life performance of titanium dioxide and other

semiconductor materials used as pigments and fillers in polymeric construction materials. In these applications,

zero or low photoreactivity is desired

when the appearance of a product is

important while high photoreactivity 

is important in homeland security or

healthcare applications in which

microbes and other harmful compounds

10

HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS

Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) results of

two different dispersion states of nano-TiO2 particles in a polymer coating and the corresponding

laser scanning confocal microscopy micrographs

demonstrating agglomerates of nanoparticles in

each state.

Ms. Jenny Faucheu using a 

multiple-angle light scattering

instrument to characterize 

particle size and dispersion 

of nanoparticles in a polymer

suspension. 

Mr. Joan Jasmin adjusting the 

two-dimensional detector of the 

new custom-designed light scattering

instrument for measuring the optical

properties and microstructure of a

polymeric coating.
need to be destroyed. BFRL has developed several metrologies for assessing

photoreactivity including photoconductivity measurements and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy.

Collaborative efforts have also been

established with the Physics Laboratory

(PL) and the Chemical Science and

Technology Laboratory (CSTL) at NIST.

These laboratories have complimentary

metrological capabilities for characterizing the properties and behavior of semiconductor nanoparticles like titanium

dioxide. Measurements being made

include the chemical nature, number

density and mobility of the activated

species produced in a photoreactive

process. Models will be derived that

relate these parameters to material

physico-chemical properties, thereby

improving our understanding of the

semiconductor photoreactivity.

CONTACTS:

DR. JOANNIE CHIN

(301) 975-6815

joannie.chin@nist.gov

MS. STEPHANIE SCIERKA

(301) 975- 6448

stephanie.scierka@nist.gov

HYPERCON: Prediction 

and Optimization of 

Concrete Performance

Intended Outcome and Background

The rise of finite element modeling techniques revolutionized structural design,

so that today no one would dream of

designing a major building without the

use of these programs, which are

soundly based in continuum mechanics.

The objective of the HYPERCON program is to develop and implement similar tools for concrete, computational

and experimental materials sciencebased techniques that will enable the

prediction and optimization of the initial cost and service life performance

and minimize the environmental impact

of concrete in the built infrastructure. 

As of 2003, the concrete industry is

in a period of rapid change – rapid

positive change that needs these kinds

of performance prediction tools in order

to reach a successful end point. Two

examples illustrate the current industrial

climate, which in turn demonstrate the

need for HYPERCON research on more

accurate and reliable ways to predict

concrete properties. 

The National Ready Mixed Concrete

Association (NRMCA), which represents

most of the ready mixed concrete 

producers in the U.S., has announced 

a sweeping new initiative – P2P. P2P

stands for “Prescription to Performance”

and indicates the desire of the NRMCA

11

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

TEM micrograph of nanoparticle titanium dioxide (TiO2)

[image courtesy of Shirley Turner, CSTL]

Schematic of device for photoconductivity measurements; inset shows photoconductance data for a variety

of titanium dioxide specimens.
to change all concrete specifications

from a prescriptive form, which does

not allow innovation and proprietary

formulation, to a performance form,

which will drive innovation and

research for proprietary advantage 

in the marketplace. This initiative will

make an enormous change in the

industry. The Strategic Development

Council of the American Concrete

Institute (ACI), an organization of 

top executives from all parts of the

$100B/year concrete industry, has

published Roadmap 2030, a 30-year

research roadmap that is designed 

to achieve momentous goals and 

drastically change the cement and 

concrete industry. One of these goals 

is: The concrete industry will reduce 

the time required for the acceptance 

of new technology from fifteen to two

years. The SDC Accelerated Technology

Acceptance program has recently

begun to make progress toward 

this goal.

HYPERCON research is designed,

working closely with industry, to help

the cement and concrete industry transform itself into a performance-based

entity using the tools of computational

and experimental materials science.

This task requires not only cutting-edge

research but also high quality knowledge transfer, so that research becomes

embedded in practice at an accelerated

rate. HYPERCON personnel carry out

this dual task by working directly 

with industry in joint projects like the

Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing

Laboratory consortium, and by taking

leadership roles in various standards

committees of importance to the cement

and concrete industry. These leadership

roles include chair of the American

Society of Testing Materials (ASTM) C-9

Concrete committee, task group leader

for cement characterization and strategic planning in the ASTM C-1 Cement

committee, membership in the ACI

Board of Directors, and chair of the 

ACI 226 Materials Science of Concrete

committee. 

Performing world-leading concrete

materials science in collaboration with

industry, and transferring that research

into practice, is how HYPERCON is

delivering value to the cement and concrete industry. The intended outcome 

of the HYPERCON program is that, by

2010, industry adoption of HYPERCON

research will be such that nobody will

dream of designing a concrete mixture

for a major construction project without

using HYPERCON materials sciencebased tools. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

The Virtual Cement and

Concrete Testing Laboratory

(VCCTL)

This project is intended to develop,

in close collaboration with industry, a computational materials science

software package designed to reduce 

the reliance of the concrete industry 

on empirical tests, replacing them with

well-validated, scientifically based models that operate on extensive scientific

databases. Current industrial partners,

who contribute both financial and

research resources to the joint project,

include: W.R. Grace, Holcim, Cemex,

SIKA, Portland Cement Association,

International Center for Aggregate

Research, Dyckerhoff Cement, VDZ,

and ATILH. Research goals for each

year are jointly formulated. Successful

research is then incorporated into a new

version of the VCCTL package at the

close of each year. The consortium

started in January 2001 with VCCTL

1.0, and ended Phase I in December

2003 with VCCTL 4.0. VCCTL 4.0 

is already being used by some of the

industrial members to help them in

their research and development and

quality control work. 

Many accomplishments have been

made as the third year of Phase I of this

project ends. Much greater functionality has been incorporated into the models, including more accurate modeling

12

HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS
of portland cement and alternative

materials, mechanical properties of

cement paste, mortar, and concrete,

mortar and concrete rheology, real

shape of cement particles and aggregates for concrete, and sulfate attack.

The database of cements and aggregates

has been greatly expanded and the user

interface has been made far easier to use

and much more powerful and flexible.

The industrial supporters of this 

work have grown from the original 

six companies to nine companies and 

associations. The next three-year phase, 

Phase II, was implemented at the end

of January, 2004, and started with 

version 4.0. In calendar year 2004, 

the National Ready Mixed Concrete

Association, which represents most 

of the ready mixed concrete producers

in the U.S., will join the VCCTL 

consortium. Thus the second phase 

of VCCTL will include cement, 

aggregates, chemical admixtures, and 

concrete producers, uniting all the

major materials aspects of the concrete

industry in a joint project that will be

of major benefit to the entire industry.

Judging from Phase I results, we expect

even greater research progress and 

utilization of future versions of the

VCCTL software.

CONTACT:

DR. JEFFREY BULLARD

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION 

301-975-5725

jeffrey.bullard@nist.gov

Modeling Concrete Rheology

with Real Aggregates

To be properly placed in forms,

concrete must flow, either under

gravity and added vibration or via

pump. In either case, measuring and

controlling the rheology of the concrete

is crucial for correct placement to

occur. In HYPERCON, rheology/processing of concrete is studied experimentally, using quantitative concrete

rheometry, and computationally, using

dissipative particle dynamics (DPD)

methods and parallel processing on a

128-processor computer. There is tight

synergy between the two parts, using

experimental measurements of cement

paste and mortar rheology as the input

to dissipative particle dynamics (DPD)

computer programs that compute the

rheology of concrete by adding virtual

coarse aggregate particles to a cement

paste matrix. Building on a past accomplishment on mathematically obtaining

the shape of real gravel and sand,

recently the DPD code has been modified to be able to simulate the flow of

concrete containing real shaped aggregates. As expected, even in preliminary

results, significant changes in concrete

flow properties have been seen with

respect to previous models that were

only able to utilize simple shape particles like spheres. By using a multi-scale

approach, HYPERCON researchers are

rapidly becoming able to predict the

rheology and hence the flowability of a

concrete from its constituent ingredients.

CONTACTS:

DR. NICOS MARTYS

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-5915

nicos.martys@nist.gov

DR. CHIARA FERRARIS

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION 

301-975-6711

chiara.ferraris@nist.gov

13

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Left – the current VCCTL 4.0 interface, offering databases, cement hydration, and concrete property computations. 

Right – a sample of a cement microstructure, before hydration, from the current version of CEMHYD3D, the cement

hydration module in VCCTL 4.0, which uses real cement particle shapes, sizes, and chemical makeup. 

A model concrete mixture, using real-shaped aggregates, being sheared computationally. The aggregate

shapes were taken from x-ray computed tomography,

reconstructed using spherical harmonic mathematical

techniques, and incorporated into the DPD codes.
Material Characterization

The ASTM standard C-150,

“Standard Specifications for

Portland Cement,” specifies composition limits for portland cement that are

based upon a bulk chemical analysis

and theoretical calculation of potential

phase composition. These calculations

were developed by Bogue at NIST

more than 75 years ago. Mr. Paul

Stutzman has been leading an effort

within the American Standards for the

Testing of Materials ASTM C-1 committee to develop the new standard

ASTM C-1365, which uses X-ray 

powder diffraction (XRD) analysis to

directly measure the phase abundance

of portland cement and clinker. An

XRD round robin is currently underway, which will be used to establish the

multi-laboratory precision and bias of

the test method, facilitating the acceptance of X-ray powder diffraction for

phase analysis of cements in ASTM 

and elsewhere. The Bogue calculations

are known to be inaccurate, and the

more accurate XRD techniques are 

also capable of being expanded, unlike

the Bogue calculations, to be able to

analyze the more complex hydraulic

cements of today, which incorporate

other materials like fly ash and blast

furnace slag. The data analysis procedures necessary to be able to utilize the

XRD method are called the Rietveld

analysis techniques. These techniques

were further developed for cement

XRD data and presented to cement

plant staff in the 1st Portland Cement

Association-sponsored workshop at

NIST in June 2003. Using the new

standard ASTM C1365 instead of the

older bulk chemistry-based approach

will open the door for innovation in the

American cement manufacturing industry.

CONTACT:

MR. PAUL STUTZMAN

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-6715

paul.stutzman@nist.gov

Economics and Environment

Economics and environmental

impact are important parameters

for selecting materials. HYPERCON

deals with both. A new version of

BridgeLCC, v2.0, a user-friendly lifecycle costing software package to help

bridge engineers assess the cost effectiveness of construction materials in

preliminary bridge design and other

civil infrastructure applications like

pavements and piers, has been developed and is available for downloading

at www.bfrl.nist.gov/bridgelcc/.

Improvements in version 2.0 include

improved Monte Carlo capabilities,

context-sensitive help, inclusion of an

expanded concrete service life prediction tool, and a probabilistic events

wizard that helps add user-tailored

events like earthquakes to the analysis.

A new version of BEES (Building for

Environmental and Economic Sustainability), v3.0, a software package based

on consensus standards and designed

for selecting cost-effective, environmentally-preferable building products, has

been developed and released and has

already attracted over 9500 users worldwide (http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/

software/bees.html). New features in

BEES 3.0 include: many more building

products analyzed, significant improvements in the state of the art of U.S. life

cycle assessment (LCA), more environmental impacts included in the environmental performance score, and, for

14

HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS

Cement clinker, which is manufactured cement that has

not yet been ground into cement powder. The material

has been lightly etched with hydrofluoric acid to show

the different cement chemical phases. The Rietveld procedure allows quantitative XRD analysis of the composition of cement clinker and also cement powder. The

field width is 250 micrometers.
the first time, the significance of a

product's performance with respect to

each impact is included in the scoring.

While BEES 2.0 included only generic

products, BEES 3.0 now includes

around 80 brand-specific products

thanks to the active participation of a

number of manufacturers.

CONTACTS:

MS. AMY RUSHING

OFFICE OF APPLIED ECONOMICS RESEARCH

301-975-6136

amy.rushing@nist.gov

MS. BARBARA LIPPIATT

OFFICE OF APPLIED ECONOMICS RESEARCH

301-975-2661

bobbie.lippiatt@nist.gov

Modeling Transport 

in Concrete for 

Performance Prediction

I

n partnership with the U.S. Nuclear

Regulatory Commission (NRC),

BFRL has developed 4SIGHT, a longterm concrete performance prediction

tool based on a physicochemical model

for transport and reaction. Originally

developed for underground low-level

waste facilities, the model is currently

being extended for application to

entombment of concrete nuclear structures. This has raised new technical

challenges because in an entombment,

the concrete may be required to act as

both a physical and a chemical barrier

to radionuclides. 4SIGHT is a transport and reaction model that is based

on a chemical model for the pore solution and a physical model for the

microstructure. The physical model is

based on information gained from the

NIST CEMHYD3D microstructural

development model. The chemical

model was quite difficult to formulate,

as it had to approximate ionic transport

and reaction in concrete pore solution,

which is a water-based concentrated

electrolyte solution having a pH in

excess of 12. An accurate formulation

has been achieved by adding thermodynamic properties of the pore solution to

4SIGHT. The model can now accurately predict binary and ternary salt diffusion coefficients, diffusion potentials,

solution electrical conductivity, and

transference numbers in electrolytes,

like concrete pore solution, that have

ionic strengths in excess of 1 mol/kg

and high pH values. The current 

transport and reaction model is being

developed as both an object code

library (CEDAR++) for rapid application development and as a stand alone 

application for concrete performance

assessment (4SIGHT). Under the 

continuing sponsorship of the NRC,

4SIGHT is being adapted for inclusion

into the Framework for Risk Analysis in

Multimedia Environments (FRAMES),

a software platform developed by

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) for selecting and implementing environmental software models for

risk assessment and management problems in order to facilitate risk assessment of entombed nuclear structures.

CONTACT:

MR. KEN SNYDER

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-4260

ksnyder@nist.gov

15

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Logos for the new versions of the BEES and BridgeLCC

software, released in 2002-2003. These new versions

have greatly increased functionality compared to earlier versions, and are freely available on the Internet.

Logos for the 4Sight concrete performance prediction

tool and the transport and reaction object code library

Cedar++.
Construction Integration 

and Automation Technology

(CONSIAT)

Intended Outcome and Background

The focus of CONSIAT research at 

NIST is to achieve breakthrough cycle

time and lifecycle cost reductions in 

the delivery of construction projects by 

providing, within five years, the critical

science-based performance measurement tools that will enable early industry integration and automation of the

construction process.

The Construction Industry Institute

(CII) – an organization with about 100

members representing the Nation’s

leading owners, contractors, and 

suppliers of constructed facilities – 

has made the development of Fully

Integrated and Automated Project

Processes, FIAPP, a top priority.

However, the construction industry

faces special challenges including low

R&D investment, the fragmentation of

the industry, and the strong projectoriented nature of its processes.

The CONSIAT program is providing

the critical science-based performance

measurement tools to enable: integration of construction site metrology data

and other field information into project

information management systems;

delivery of just-in-time information to

guide field operations; and automation

of the construction process.

CII, with the support of NIST, has 

created FIATECH, a collaborative, notfor-profit consortium that will conduct

leveraged research and development 

in partnership with suppliers, with 

firms in the software/information 

technology industries, and with the

public sector. NIST is working in 

close partnership with the FIATECH

Consortium to maximize the relevancy

of the projects and the leveraging of

resources on both sides, and to minimize the time to implementation of the

program results. NIST is also participating in the FIATECH-led Capital Projects

Technology Roadmapping effort. The

resulting industry roadmap will help

guide the CONSIAT program.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Automating 

Steel Construction

Productivity, reliability, and safety

are the three predominant issues

facing the steel construction industry

today. In both industrial facilities and

commercial buildings, hot-rolled steel

members are typically joined together

either by welding or using high strength

bolts. These processes require a significant amount of skilled labor, and in the

case of high-rise construction, constitute one of the most dangerous specialties in the already hazardous construction industry. Inspection is difficult and

time consuming, and often, the connections are the weakest link in the

resulting structure. According to the

American Institute of Steel Construction

(AISC), a 25% reduction in time

required to erect a steel frame structure

is needed. In response to this stated

need, BFRL and AISC co-sponsored 

a workshop on Automated Steel

Construction at the NIST campus in

Gaithersburg, MD on June 6 and 7,

2002. The workshop brought together

steel producers, fabricators, designers,

erectors, and construction automation

experts to discuss factors affecting the

steel construction industry and to identify possible courses of action to assist

the industry. 

As a result of the positive response

from the workshop participants regarding the potential introduction of new

technologies to the steel construction

process, the consensus that automation

was needed in the industry, and the

expressed support for site visits and

pilot studies, the NIST Construction

Metrology and Automation Group

(CMAG) expanded research in steel

erection technologies through the

Performance of Innovative Technologies

for Automated Steel Construction

program. This program focuses on

developing performance metrics for

advanced concepts in crane automation,

laser-based site metrology, laser radar

(LADAR) imaging, construction 

component tracking, sensor-based data

16

HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS
exchange, and web-enabled 3D-visualization. Current efforts are primarily

directed towards the development of an

Automated Steel Construction Testbed

(ASCT) which will be used as a test

facility with which to gain working

experience, conduct experiments, and

establish performance criteria for new

steel construction technologies. The

ASCT will also provide a mechanism to

investigate paths towards an Intelligent

Job Site as described in the FIATECH

Capital Projects Technology Roadmap.

In FY03 NIST researchers Alan Lytle

and Dr. Kamel Saidi of the Construction

Metrology and Automation Group 

successfully equipped a unique cablesuspended six degrees of freedom 

crane – the NIST RoboCraneTM – with

real-time laser tracking to achieve

autonomous lift and docking of steel

members. The build sequence for the

test structure is created and verified

graphically in a commercial 4D CAD

package. The approved build sequence

is then parsed for the robot controller,

and used to create a sequence of goals

or tasks for the robotic crane.

Component identification from the 4D

CAD package is used to access object

and target locations. Future work will

primarily focus on integrating high

frame rate LADAR systems for final

docking guidance and combining other

technologies, such as radio frequency

identification (RFID) and high resolution LADAR scanning, for construction

object recognition and tracking.

CONTACTS:

MR. ALAN LYTLE

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6048

alan.lytle@nist.gov

MR. KAMEL SAIDI

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6069

kamel.saidi@nist.gov

Bringing Laser Radar 

to the Construction Site

NIST researchers, Ms. Geraldine

Cheok, Dr. Christoph Witzgall,

and Dr. David Gilsinn, have been

working towards facilitating the use of

LADARs in a construction site. The

main objective of this effort is the use

LADARs (Laser Detection and Ranging)

for rapid capture of 3D information 

at a construction site and to aid in

automating some construction processes.

NIST efforts in the past two years

have been focused on i) object identification using bar codes “read” by a

LADAR using the intensity data; 

ii) developing fast post-processing 

software for LADAR data and the

uncertainties associated with this software and the LADAR measurements;

iii ) terrain characterization, in particular, vegetation identification, and 

iv) establishment of a LADAR performance evaluation facility.

The LADAR data processing software

use NIST-developed TIN (Triangulated

Irregular Network) algorithms for

ground truth determination, LADAR

scan registration, data cleaning/screening/filtering, and data segmentation. 

An important aspect of the software

development is to reduce or eliminate

the need for user interaction and 

intervention. This software has been

successfully used to support efforts for

autonomous off-road vehicle navigation.

17

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Autonomous steel beam

docking using the NIST

RoboCraneTM.
In June 2003, a workshop on the

establishment of a LADAR calibration

facility was convened at NIST. This

workshop was attended by participants

from the private and public sectors and

included LADAR manufacturers,

researchers, and end users from both

the U.S. and Canada. The consensus 

of the participants was that the use of

LADARs would expand rapidly in the

next few years and the availability of a

neutral performance evaluation facility

was essential.

CONTACTS:

MS. GERALDINE CHEOK

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION RESEARCH

DIVISION

(301) 975-6074

cheok@nist.gov

DR. WILLIAM STONE

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION RESEARCH

DIVISION

(301) 975-6075

william.stone@nist.gov

Electronic Data Interchange

for Steel Construction

Mr. Robert Lipman and Dr. Kent

Reed have been working to support the American Institute of Steel

Construction (AISC) Electronic Data

Interchange Initiative. The purpose of

the initiative is to create a means for

collaboration and data sharing among

the various parties involved in steel

construction. Dr. Reed participated in

the AISC review team whose final recommendation to endorse Version 2.0 

of the CIMsteel Integration Standards

(CIS/2) was adopted by the AISC

Board of Directors. These product data

standards were developed in Europe

and the U.K. primarily to support steel

design, analysis, detailing, and fabrication activities.

Previously a web-based service that

translates a CIS/2 file of a steel structure into a 3D interactive model in 

the form of a VRML (Virtual Reality

Modeling Language) file was made

available to CIS/2 users. In the past

year the Windows version of the CIS/2

to VRML Translator and associated

CIS/2 VRML Report Interface was

released. The translator has been used

by commercial software vendors, who

have implemented CIS/2 in their products, as a means to visually verify the

contents of their CIS/2 files. Although

a CIS/2 file may conform to the standard there is no way to verify that the

file represents the intended steel structure. The translator fills this gap. The

report interface provides access to nongeometric information contained in a

CIS/2 file.

Users of CIS/2 files have also been

studying how VRML models generated

from CIS/2 files can be used to

improve their workflow. A large international EPC has used CIS/2 VRML

models that can be viewed on the

Internet, to have structural engineers,

fabricators, and erectors review the

detailed design rather than using traditional paper-based shop drawings that

are normally mailed between project

participants.

Both Mr. Lipman and Dr. Reed are

members of the CIS/2 International

Technical Committee. In the summer

of 2003, the committee released CIS/2

Release 2 that incorporates new features

that correct deficiencies of the previous

release and adds new ones that have

been requested by software vendors and

users of CIS/2. Current work by the

committee is focused on how data

management concepts are implemented

in CIS/2 and how the representation of

steel in Industry Foundation Classes

(IFC) interfaces with CIS/2.

CONTACT:

MR. ROBERT LIPMAN

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-3829

robert.lipman@nist.gov

18

HIGH PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS

The CIS/2 to VRML Translator translates a CIS/2 file of

a steel structure into a 3D interactive model in the form

of a VRML file. The steel structure shown is part of the

NIST Fire Research Facility Emissions Control System.

Point cloud of a 20 m x 20 m area showing the identification of trees and bushes.
Interoperability Standards 

for Capital Facilities –

Improving Equipment Design,

Specification, Purchase,

Fabrication, and Installation

BFRL staff helped establish and 

lead the Automating Equipment

Information Exchange (AEX) Project 

in collaboration with the FIATECH

Consortium, with participation from

owners, engineering and construction

companies, equipment suppliers and

software suppliers. The first step was 

to document industry information

requirements and transaction priorities

for the design, procurement and delivery of centrifugal pumps and shell and

tube heat exchangers. We then established collaboration agreements with

relevant industry organizations, e.g.,

API (American Petroleum Institute),

PIP (Process Industry Practices) and

ASHRAE on the delivery of XML

schemas for information on engineered

equipment. Finally, we developed and

tested XML schemas and supporting

documentation for automating the

engineering and procurement of centrifugal pumps and shell and tube heat

exchangers. The draft specifications

were distributed for industry review

and updated to incorporate improvements from these reviews and trial

implementations. 

Under this project, we also completed

the Draft International Standard (DIS)

version of ISO 10303 Application

Protocol 227 (Plant and Systems Spatial

Design) Edition 2. AP 227, Edition 2,

extends Edition 1 to include support for

piping fabrication and inspection information, the design and installation of

HVAC systems, mechanical systems and

cableway systems. Trial implementations

of Edition 2 were demonstrated in 

April 2003. This part of the project was

a collaboration with the PlantSTEP

Consortium, U.S. Navy, UK Ministry 

of Defense and Japan ECOM project.

The ISO ballot on the AP 227 ed2 DIS

resulted in a unanimous “Yes” vote by

the member countries (June 27, 2003).

ISO TC184/SC4 approved the production of the International Standard (IS).

All technical issues from the DIS ballot

have been resolved and the ISO version

of AP 227 Edition 2 will be published

shortly.

CONTACT:

MR. MARK PALMER

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-5858

mark.palmer@nist.gov

Economic Analysis of 

CII Benchmarking Data

BFRL is working with the

Construction Industry Institute

(CII), a leader in the development of

best practices for planning and executing

capital construction projects, to measure

the economic value of CII best practices

with respect to reductions in delivery

time, construction cost, and construction worker illnesses and injuries. CII’s

Benchmarking and Metrics Committee

(BMC) has established an aggressive data

collection effort. Data on more than

1,100 completed construction projects

now reside in the database. These data

are used to establish industry norms and

evaluate how the use of CII best practices

helps improve the competitiveness of the

construction industry. BFRL provides

guidance to the CII BMC on how to

provide member companies with performance measures and industry trends which

(1) allow member companies to assess

their performance against data collected

from other member companies, (2) help

member companies identify “best practices” and other opportunities to improve

their performance, and (3) provide feedback to CII to guide its research program

and other related activities.

BFRL has used CII data to help 

evaluate the economic impacts of its

CONSIAT-related research. The CII 

data were critical elements in estimating

the expected CONSIAT-related impacts

in the capital facilities industry. The 

capital facilities industry comprises the

industrial sector and the commercial 

sector of the construction industry. Two

CONSIAT-related economic impact

studies have been published and widely

disseminated. NISTIR 6501 documents

the analysis of CONSIAT-related impacts

in the industrial sector; NISTIR 6763

analyzes the commercial sector. Current

efforts focus on publishing research 

findings in archival journals. A recently

completed article focusing on estimating

the expected economic impacts of

CONSIAT-related products and services

in industrial facilities has been accepted

for publication in the Journal of

Construction Engineering and Management.

CONTACT:

DR. ROBERT E. CHAPMAN

OFFICE OF APPLIED ECONOMICS

(301) 975-2723

robert.chapman@nist.gov

19

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS
20

The first strategic focus to achieve the goal of Enhanced Building Performance is to

develop measurement methods, fundamental data, simulation models, and life cycle

environmental and economic analysis tools to support Healthy and Sustainable

Buildings.

The second strategic focus for achieving Enhanced Building Performance is to 

develop, test, integrate, and demonstrate open cybernetic Building Systems. The word 

“cybernetics” comes from the Greek work “steersman” and is defined as the science of 

control and communication of complex systems. A Cybernetic Building System involves

energy management, fire detection, security, transport systems, energy providers, one or

more utilities, an aggregator, and numerous service providers, and information handling

and complex control at many different levels. 

Healthy and Sustainable Buildings

Intended Outcome and Background 

The intended outcome of the Healthy and

Sustainable buildings program is to make available

measurement methods, test methods, fundamental

data, simulation models, and life cycle environmental and economic analysis tools to support healthy

buildings and the wide-spread use of sustainability

in design, construction, and operation of buildings

and their systems/subsystems.

Global climate change is considered by many 

as one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st 

century. Scientific opinion on this matter varies 

significantly, from the view that contributions to

global warming are negligible, to the view that

man-made carbon emissions are a disaster in

progress, requiring immediate substantial reductions

in the emission of the so-called greenhouse gases,

principally carbon dioxide.

The purpose of the International Climate Change

Conference, held in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, was to

accelerate the pace of international action on Climate

Change. If adopted by the U.S., the legally binding

international protocol would translate for the U.S.,

into a 7% reduction in 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 2010. The U.S. building sector shares almost

equally with the industrial sector and transportation

sector in such emissions. 

Beyond regulated carbon emissions, the “green

movement” is sweeping the building industry. All

major building product companies, building designers,

and building operators need measurement methods,

test methods, fundamental data, and life cycle environmental and economic analysis tools to objectively

GOAL 2

To provide 

the means to

assure buildings

work (better)

throughout their

useful lives. 

The strategy for

meeting this goal

is to provide

knowledge,

measurements

and tools to

optimize building life cycle

performance.

ENHANCED BUILDING PERFORMANCE
21

promote their approaches and 

products to achieve sustainability. 

BFRL will apply its expertise in 

refrigeration systems, thermal insulation, building integrated photovoltaic

systems, indoor air quality, and life

cycle economic and environmental

analysis methods to promote healthy

and sustainable residential and 

commercial buildings.

BFRL’s research on Healthy and

Sustainable Buildings will produce 

a wide range of data, measurement

methods, test methods, simulation 

models, and analysis tools that will

assist the U.S. in this “transition

towards sustainability.” These BFRL

“products” include: 

■ Building for Environmental and

Economic Sustainability (BEES); 

■ performance data on

refrigerant/lubricant heat transfer;

■ artificial intelligence-aided design

procedures for refrigeration heat

exchangers;

■ new apparatuses/test methods/

standard materials for advanced 

thermal insulation/low temperature

insulation/high temperature insulation;

■ validated design models for building

integrated photovoltaic systems;

■ a new seasonal performance testing

and rating methodology for residential

fuel cells;

■ contaminant-based design procedures

for predicting indoor air quality; 

■ methods to evaluate and predict the

performance of residential ventilation

and indoor air quality control

approaches, including the use of different types of air cleaning devices; and 

■ new/revised test methods and rating

procedures for evaluating the energy

performance of residential and commercial appliances and products.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Residential Fuel 

Cell Test Facility

Recent large-scale power outages

have highlighted the overworked

state of the electric utility supply and

transmission system. Using residential

fuel cells, which are highly efficient,

clean, and quiet sources of electricity, to

distribute the electrical generation

capacity will reduce the loads on central

generating facilities and transmission

lines. 

Although not yet commercially available, widespread use of this technology

will require a metric by which consumers can evaluate the financial costs

and benefits that fuel cells offer. Using

BFRL’s experience in creating similar

metrics for heat pumps, water heaters,

and other household appliances, a

Residential Fuel Cell Test Facility was

created to determine the factors affecting performance of residential fuel cells. 

The facility is capable of measuring

the fuel energy consumed by a fuel cell,

and the electrical and thermal energy

that it produces. Housed within an

environmental chamber that can control the temperature and relative

humidity level surrounding the fuel cell

unit, the facility can adjust the electrical

load applied to the fuel cell and the

flow rate and inlet temperature of fluid

used to extract its thermal energy. The

environmental conditions, electrical

load level, and thermal load conditions

will be varied to determine their individual effects on the performance of

residential fuel cells. This information

will be incorporated into a test procedure and rating methodology, which

will be submitted to a consensus standards organization for further development and eventual publication.

CONTACT:

DR. A. HUNTER FANNEY

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-5864

hunter.fanney@nist.gov

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Residential fuel cell undergoing testing in a NIST 

laboratory.
Ventilation and Indoor Air

Quality Research House

Anew research house was constructed

on the NIST campus for use in 

a variety of research efforts related to 

ventilation and indoor air quality in

low-rise residential buildings. This 

double-wide manufactured home was

originally envisioned to support the

investigation of a number of technical

issues related to the mechanical ventilation requirements issued by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban

Development (HUD). To this end, the

house has a number of different systems

for meeting these ventilation requirements and is well-instrumented for

continuous monitoring of temperature,

pressure, relative humidity, system 

operation and ventilation rate. During

2003, extensive measurements of the

house were made to obtain a baseline

determination of the building’s airtightness and ventilation characteristics. 

A detailed model of the house was also

created in BFRL’s airflow and indoor air

quality simulation program, CONTAM,

for use in subsequent studies under

other climatic and operational conditions.

Future research plans involving the

house include conclusion of a year-long

study of emissions of volatile organic 

compounds from building materials

and furnishings, a retrofit study to

determine the ventilation impacts of

improved envelope and duct tightness

and studies of the indoor air quality

impacts of combustion appliances and

moisture sources.

CONTACT:

DR. ANDREW PERSILY

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-6418

andrew.persily@nist.gov

Moisture Detection 

in Building Envelopes

One of the most significant issues

leading to indoor environmental

quality and durability problems in

buildings is the presence of excessive

water in the building envelope. Among

the problems that result from excess

moisture are mold, mildew, and structural rot. NIST is investigating different

methods for measuring the moisture

levels of the materials within building

envelopes to improve forensic techniques

for diagnosing moisture problems. 

A promising technology that has

been examined is the use of UltraWideband (UWB) Radio signals for

detecting moisture. Since water tends to

reflect radio waves more significantly

than dry building materials, BFRL has

been able to determine the moisture

contents of different layers within a

wall by transmitting radio pulses

toward a wall and analyzing the signal

that the wall reflects. Because UWB signals contain a large band of frequencies,

more information regarding the wall

can be gained than with conventional

radio waves. For example, some of the

frequencies pass through the first layer

and reflect from layers hidden beneath

the wall, thereby yielding moisture

information for layers that are not visible to the naked eye. Algorithms have

been developed to combine scans taken

22

ENHANCED BUILDING PERFORMANCE

NIST Indoor Air Quality Research House

Three-dimensional maps indicate the location of excess

moisture within a wall.
at different positions so that threedimensional maps can indicate where

potential moisture problems have 

developed. 

This technique holds the promise of

providing a non-intrusive technique for

detecting the moisture state in walls.

Such a remote detection method will be

a significant improvement over current

methods that frequently require

destruction of the wall to locate water

damage. 

CONTACT:

DR. WILLIAM HEALY

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-4922

william.healy@nist.gov

EVAP-COND 

Simulation Model

EVAP-COND, a software package

for simulating air-to-refrigerant

finned-tube heat exchangers, was

released in January 2003 and placed on

BFRL’s website (http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/

info/software.html). The goal of the

program is to facilitate the development

of optimized heat exchanger designs

that will result in improved efficiency

air-conditioning and refrigeration

equipment. 

EVAP-COND employs detailed, 

first principles-based EVAP and COND

simulations models for evaporators 

and condensers. The models use a

“tube-by-tube” modeling scheme,

which allows for specification of complex refrigerant circuits, modeling

refrigerant distribution between these

circuits, and accounts for non-uniform

air distribution. A graphical user interface, designed for Windows operating

systems, facilitates input of complex

heat exchanger design data and provides

a convenient platform for reviewing

detailed simulation results. The simulation output contains local parameters

for each tube which include inlet and

outlet quality, temperature, enthalpy,

entropy, pressure drop, mass flow rate

for the refrigerant, and inlet and outlet

temperature for the air. It uses NIST’s

Standard Reference Database 23 

(REFPROP) for representation of 

thermophysical properties of refrigerant.

The current release includes the ten

most relevant fluids, including atmospheric ozone-safe HFC refrigerants and

“natural refrigerants”. 

CONTACT:

DR. PIOTR DOMANSKI

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

301-975-5877

piotr.domanski@nist.gov

23

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

The EVAP-COND Simulation Program
Cybernetic Building Systems

Intended Outcome and Background 

The intended outcome of the Cybernetic

Buildings Program is to make available

tested and demonstrated open

Cybernetic Building Systems for

improved productivity, life cycle cost

savings, energy conservation, improved

occupant satisfaction and market leadership. This work will be carried out in

close cooperation with the U.S. building

industry, industrial partners, building

owners/operators and newly developing service companies. 

During the next ten years, the building controls industry in the United

States will be undergoing a radical

change from one with a vertical structure to one with a horizontal structure.

Building control companies, equipment

and system manufacturers, energy

providers, utilities, and design engineers will be under increasing pressure

to improve performance and reduce

costs. Cost reduction can be achieved

by developing cybernetic building systems that integrate more and more

building services, including energy

management, fire and security, transportation, fault detection and diagnostics, optimal control, the real time purchase of electricity and the aggregation

of building stock. 

A Cybernetic Building System

involves energy management, fire

detection, security and transport 

systems, energy providers, one or 

more utilities, an aggregator, numerous

service providers, and information 

handling and complex control at many

different levels. 

The BFRL program, which will include

a full-scale demonstration of one or

more Cybernetic Building Systems, will

involve the following tasks:

■ develop standard communication 

protocols;

■ develop enabling technologies, such

as fault detection and diagnostic (FDD)

methods; 

■ develop performance evaluation tools; 

■ develop a standard-based information

infrastructure supporting the design,

commissioning, operation and maintenance of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration systems;

■ construct a Virtual Cybernetic Building

System in the laboratory to facilitate

the development and evaluation of new

products and systems by manufacturers;

■ conduct basic research on the dynamic

interactions of a fire, HVAC/distribution

and the zones of a commercial building

through utilization of existing and new

simulation models, and validate this

new simulation program through both

laboratory and field studies;

■ develop a consortium of manufacturers and service providers interested in

producing, testing, demonstrating and

selling Cybernetic Building Systems;

■ test and evaluate different security

concepts and supervisory security systems for the critical infrastructure protection of integrated building systems;

and

■ conduct a full-scale demonstration of

a Cybernetic Building System in a government owned office building complex.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

The Virtual 

Cybernetic Testbed

The Virtual Cybernetic Building

Testbed (VCBT) is a real-time

emulator consisting of state-of-the-art

BACnet speaking control systems interfaced with simulation models running

over a network. BFRL researchers, control systems manufacturers, service

companies, and software developers can

use this unique hybrid software/hardware testbed to develop and evaluate

control strategies and products. The

VCBT is able to emulate three modes

of building operation: normal operations, fault conditions, and emergency

conditions such as a fire or hazardous

materials release.

The VCBT models a three-story

building including a variable air volume

(VAV) HVAC mechanical system, the

indoor building environment, a building shell model and heat sensors for

detecting fires. Each floor is served by

24

ENHANCED BUILDING PERFORMANCE
an independent air handling unit

(AHU). Controllers for the AHUs and

VAV boxes are supplied by several different manufacturers. The VCBT is

capable of simulating a fire in the

building. The simulation components

may each run on different computers,

passing data to each other through the

use of a central communications and

management component. The communications infrastructure is provided by

the Common Object Request Broker

Architecture (CORBA). A sophisticated

user interface was created using Virtual

Reality Modeling Language (VRML).

The VCBT has the capability to 

reliably produce simulated mechanical

system faults and outdoor weather 

conditions and is being used to test

prototype tools for detecting common

faults in HVAC mechanical systems. 

It is also being used to develop a 

sensor-driven fire model for the next

generation of smart fire panels that can

predict how a fire will grow and spread

in the building and to investigate

mechanisms for providing information

from the building automation system to

emergency first responders.

Planned future enhancements include

adding central plant and lighting controls,

and developing a more flexible and

sophisticated VCBT building modeling

scheme using product data information

represented by Industry Foundation

Classes (IFCs).

CONTACT:

MR. MIKE GALLER

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-6521

mikeg@nist.gov

HVAC Fault Detection 

and Diagnostics

Building HVAC equipment routinely fails to satisfy performance

expectations envisioned at design.

Equipment and control failures often

go unnoticed for extended periods of

time. Additionally, higher expectations

are being placed on a combination of

different and often conflicting performance measures, such as energy efficiency, indoor air quality, comfort, reliability, limiting peak demand on utilities,

etc. To meet these expectations, the

processes, systems, and equipment used

in both commercial and residential

buildings are becoming increasingly

sophisticated. These conditions necessitate the use of automated fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) to ensure

fault-free operation.

BFRL researchers focused on developing FDD methods for air handling

units (AHU) and variable air volume

(VAV) control boxes. The FDD tools

for AHUs and VAV boxes were developed with distinct approaches because

of the nature of the systems. VAV boxes

are simple devices with a limited number of operation modes and possible

faults. The VAV boxes typically have little instrumentation and controllers with

limited capability. However, VAV boxes

are very numerous in a typical HVAC

system, resulting in a large amount of

25

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Virtual Cybernetic

Building Testbed

Control System

Hardware
data to be monitored for faults. AHUs

are more complex and thus susceptible

to more kinds of faults. They also tend

to have more instrumentation and

more capable controllers. The FDD

tools for both systems are designed to

be robust so that they can adapt to the

variety of applications typical of their use.

AHU Performance Assessment Rules

(APAR) is a diagnostic tool that uses a

set of expert rules derived from mass

and energy balances. Control signals are

used to determine the mode of operation for the AHU. A subset of the

expert rules corresponding to that

mode of operation is then evaluated to

determine if there is a mechanical fault

or a control problem. 

VAV Box Performance Assessment

Control Charts (VPACC) implements

an algorithm known as a CUSUM

chart. The basic concept behind

CUSUM charts is to accumulate the

error between a process output and the

expected value of the output. Large 

values of the accumulated error indicate

an out of control process.

Batch implementations of these tools

were developed and refined using data

collected from simulation, emulation,

laboratory testing, and real buildings.

These tools were found to be successful

at finding a wide variety of faults

including stuck or leaking dampers and

control valves, sensor drift, and improper control sequencing. Preliminary

investigations have been conducted to

study embedding the tools in AHU and

VAV box controllers.

Planned future work includes assisting the building controls industry to

provide air handling unit (AHU) and

variable air volume (VAV) box fault

detection and diagnostic (FDD) tools

developed by NIST within their own

controls products. Future plans also

include development of a tool to act as

an interface between other FDD tools

and the building operator in order to

resolve conflicting fault reports from

the various FDD tools and to present

an integrated view of the HVAC system’s fault status to the operator.

CONTACT : 

MR. JEFFREY SCHEIN

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

301-975-5874

jeffrey.schein@nist.gov

26

ENHANCED BUILDING PERFORMANCE

Table 1. Summary of results from laboratory testing of Air Handling Unit Fault Detection Tool.

Correct False 

System Fault Season Positive False Negative

AHU-A Supply Air Temperature Sensor Drift Heating X

Recirculation Air Damper Leakage Swing X

Outdoor Air Temperature Sensor Failure Swing X

Mixed Air Temperature Sensor Drift Swing X

Supply Air Temperature Sensor Failure Cooling X

Recirculation Air Damper Stuck Closed Cooling X

AHU-B Fault Free Heating X

Fault Free Swing X

Return Air Temperature Sensor Drift Swing X

Fault Free Swing X

Economizer Control Logic Fault Cooling X

Economizer Control Logic Fault Cooling X

AHU-C Mixed Air Temperature Sensor Failure Heating X

Return Air Temperature Sensor Drift Swing X

Outdoor Air Damper Stuck at Minimum Swing X

Recirculation Air Damper Leakage Swing X

Return Air Temperature Sensor Drift Cooling X

Mixed Air Temperature Sensor Drift Cooling X
BACnet on Capitol Hill 

or GEMnet

BFRL is working with the office 

of the Architect of the Capitol to

provide technical assistance in renovating building automation and control

systems on Capitol Hill. This is an

extensive project that will eventually

include the U.S. Capitol building, the

new Capitol Visitors Center now under 

construction, all of the House and

Senate office buildings, the Library of

Congress buildings, the Supreme

Court, and a few other facilities.

The object of the project is to replace

the aging system now being used in

stages while at the same time adding

the capability to improve performance

and security by integrating HAVC 

control, lighting control, access control,

fire detection, and emergency response

systems in ways that were not previously

possible. The key to success is using

BACnet building automation and control system products.

BACnet is a standard communication

protocol (ANSI/ASHRAE Standard

135-2001) developed by BFRL and

industry experts that provides a way 

to integrate building control products

made by different manufacturers. Using

BACnet, the Architect of the Capitol

can integrate products in innovative

ways not previously possible while at

the same time procuring products using

a competitive process in each phase of

the project. The BACnet standard has

been adopted worldwide and there are

now hundreds of thousands of products

installed and operating in facilities

around the world.

In addition to working with industry

to develop and maintain the BACnet

standard, BFRL researchers developed

an integration plan for Capitol Hill and

are providing technical assistance for

design, installation, and operation of

the BACnet system.

CONTACT:

MR. STEVEN T. BUSHBY

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

301-975-5873

steven.bushby@nist.gov

Sensor-Driven Fire Model

The Sensor-Driven Fire Model

(SDFM), currently under development at NIST, is designed to use signals

from building sensors to predict the size

and growth of fires in buildings.

Algorithms have been developed that

use the signals from heat, smoke, or gas

sensors to determine the Heat Release

Rate (HRR) or fire size in each room.

Based on the HRR of each fire, the

SDFM then predicts the temperature,

smoke and gas concentrations, and

smoke layer heights in all rooms of the

building. With these predictions, an

overview of the current fire situation in

a building can be transmitted to the fire

service. The SDFM is being tested

using the Virtual Cybernetic Building

Testbed (VCBT). The VCBT provides

a simulation of a multi-room building

where fires are simulated using the fire

model CFAST. Additional testing will

be done using fire experiments such as

the one shown above. 

CONTACT:

DR. WILLIAM DAVIS

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6884

william.davis@nist.gov

27

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

BFRL researchers are assisting the architect of the Capitol in the design, installation, and operation of a BACnet System.

Typical fire experiment used to test the SDFM
U.S. annual losses attributable to fire – 3,600 lives, 22,000 serious injuries, $10 billion

in direct property loss, and $128 billion total cost. 

Core research to significantly reduce fire loss is organized around three technical programs: 

■ Advanced Measurement and Predictive Methods Program – Leading the world

in fire measurement and prediction methods, and accelerating their transfer to practice,

to enable engineered fire safety for people, products, facilities, and first responders.

■ Reduced Risk of Flashover Program – Reducing residential fire deaths by adapting

measurement and predictive methods to better understand conditions leading to flashover;

enabling early and certain fire and environment sensing; advancing cost-effective fire

suppression technologies; and enabling new/improved materials whose fire resistance does

not negatively impact performance, cost, or the environment.

■ Advanced Fire Service Technologies Program – Enabling a shift to an information

rich environment for safer and more effective fire service operations through new technology, measurement standards, and training tools. 

Advanced Measurement 

and Predictive Methods

Intended Outcome and Background

The objective of this program is to lead the world in

fire measurement and predictive methods, enabling

engineered fire safety for people, products, facilities,

and first responders. This work underpins the

Advanced Fire Service Technologies and Reduced

Risk of Flashover Programs as well as the 

WTC Investigation. The AM&PM work will be carried

out in close coordination with those programs and

their partners, towards the BFRL Goal of Fire Loss

Reduction.

Engineering correlations developed through fire testing over the past 25 years have improved fire codes

and technologies in the U.S. and produced a slow

decline in the number of deaths and injuries due to

unwanted fires (excluding the singular event of the

WTC collapse); however, the total economic burden of

fire in the U.S. continues to rise. To counteract these

GOAL 3

To enable 

engineered 

fire safety 

for people,

products, 

and facilities;

and enhance

fire fighter

effectiveness.

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

28
29

Fundamental experiments and analyses will be coordinated with full-scale

measurements and data to increase our

ability to numerically simulate and visualize real fire phenomena with increasing certainty. Direct numerical simulation and computational fluid dynamic

models of the transport processes will

be further expanded to encompass better models of radiation and the behavior of droplets and sprays, and semiempirical sub-models will be developed

for heat and mass transfer at the

fuel/flame interface and in the condensed phase itself. New instrumentation and test methods will be developed

to support these models, and reference

data will be produced against which

predictions can be compared at multiple levels: sub-grid scale, single item

response to fire, second item burning,

and full scale demonstrations. The overall goal of reducing fire loss will guide

the research conducted in this program,

and a conscious effort will be made to

influence other national and international fire laboratories, industrial partners, and standards making bodies

consistent with the budget and our

vision to lead the world in methods of

measurement and prediction of the

behavior of fire and its effects.

During the next decade, BFRL will

continue to work with industry, fire testing laboratories, national and international organizations that determine fire

standards and codes, university

losses in an economic manner and to

preempt the anticipated increase in firerelated deaths and injuries associated

with a larger and more aged population, new fire safety technologies and

performance-based codes are needed

that only can be achieved by a higher

level of understanding of the dynamics

of fire, and more certain measurement

methods. 

During the next ten years, the building industry in the United States and

the rest of the world will be undergoing

a radical change as prescriptive fire

codes for built facilities are replaced by

performance based codes. NIST is at

the right place and the right time to

take a leadership role in this coming

“revolution” and assure that the benefit

to the general public and the American

economy are maximized in this transformation. Designers of fire protection

systems in new buildings and retrofit

situations will be under increasing pressure to improve performance and

reduce costs by implementing new and

clever passive and active fire protection. To enable this work to succeed,

BFRL must provide leadership in creating the knowledge base that will allow

the development of accurate and

appropriate predictive tools that are

key to the implementation of performance based design of fire protection

systems.

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

researchers, other government agencies, and international fire researchers

to reduce fire losses. This program will

underpin that work, providing the

knowledge and tools to reduce fire loss

and become the recognized source of

accurate measurement and predictive

methods for fire in buildings. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Fire Dynamics Simulator 

and Smokeview 

The Fire Dynamics Simulator

(FDS) is a computational fluid

dynamics model of fire driven flows. It

is used widely in the fire protection

engineering community for a variety of

applications including design, forensic

reconstruction and teaching. This year

model development has been driven by

the World Trade Center investigation.

To make it possible to compute the

thermal environment in the two towers

Mock up of WTC Tower 1 in FDS/Smokeview.
30

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

and Building 7, it was necessary to

modify FDS to run on a network of

computers linked together with a fast

network. This improvement will enable

engineers to consider larger calculations

with more detail than before. In addition, the visualization of smoke has

been improved in Smokeview. Now, it

is possible to create a scene showing the

effect of smoke obscuration on objects

within a room. 

CONTACTS:

DR. KEVIN MCGRATTAN

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

PHONE: (301) 975-2712 

kevin.mcgrattan@nist.gov

DR. GLENN FORNEY 

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-2313 

glenn.forney@nist.gov

Large Fire Laboratory

As the U.S. federal government’s 

principal fire research laboratory,

BFRL maintains some of the country’s

best and most extensive fire testing

facilities. More than 300 fire experiments are performed each year in the

specially equipped, 27m (90 ft) x 37m

(120 ft), Large Fire Laboratory.

The facility has several instrumented

hoods or calorimeters for measuring

heat release rate. Two mobile calorimeters have capacities ranging from 50 kW

to 750 kW. The latter calorimeter is

sized for burning individual pieces of

furniture or other objects of similar size

with a hood measuring 3 m (10 ft) on

each side. Two large hoods are permanently installed are available for burning multiple items at one time. One

hood is approximately 6 m (20 ft) x 

6 m (20ft) and has a capacity of 3 MW

(3,000 kW). The largest hood is approximately 9 m (30 ft) x 12 m (40ft) and

has a capacity of approximately 10 MW

(10,000 kW). Burn rooms built to simulate portions of a building or a house

can be installed adjacent to or under

the large hoods. The smoke from the

room fires flows into the large hood for

measurement and exhaust from the

building.

The Large Fire Research Facility 

has a variety of instrumentation for

measuring temperature, mass, pressure,

thermal radiation, real time gas concentrations for oxygen, carbon dioxide,

carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and

Smokeview image

within Tower 1 of

the World Trade

Center demonstrating its improved

smokeview visualization.

LFL Test Area

with 72 ft long

experimental

enclosure
flashing out the doorway (typically

occurring at 1 MW to 3 MW), it is

essential that a facility be able to measure heat release rates as large as 3 MW.

Accuracy is important for heat release

rate measurements because fire regulations are frequently based on maximum

allowed peak rates of heat release.

Testing laboratories must be confident

that the tested objects pass the required

regulation and manufacturers need

accurate information for defining the

fire safety characteristics of their products. A second need for accurate heat

release rate data is for the development

of quantitative models for predicting

heat release rate. In comparing a fire

experiment and a model prediction, 

it is essential that the heat release rate

measurement have an estimated 

uncertainty. 

The 3 MW heat release-rate facility

(3MWHRRF) developed at NIST meets

the needs described above for objects

that can be placed under the 6 m x 6 m

hood, which is approximately 4 m

above the floor, or for enclosures whose

effluent can all be directed into the

hood. It is capable of measuring heat

31

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

hydrocarbons, and smoke concentration.

The primary Data Acquisition System

has 400 channels. The system is used for

data recording and experiment control. 

The facility has been used for measuring the heat release rate of a wide

variety of items including crude oils,

office and home furnishings, and transportation vehicle components. Data

from many of the large fire experiments

are used to develop or evaluate mathematical models and to study the fire

performance of furnishings and interior

finish materials. The open space in the

facility has housed structures built to

simulate living rooms, kitchens, offices,

corridors, townhouses, buses, portions

of a train car, and an electrical room of

a nuclear power plant. Measurements

on fire suppression systems, such as

sprinklers, water mist and gaseous

agents have also been conducted in the

Large Fire Research Facility. 

CONTACT:

MR. ALEXANDER MARANGHIDES

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-2712 

alexander.maranghides@nist.gov

Quantitative Large-Scale Heat

Release Rate Measurements

The heat release rate is the single

most important quantity in terms

of fire safety. It is a key predictor of the

hazard of a fire, directly controlling the

rate at which heat and toxic gases build

up in a compartment or the rate at

which they are buoyantly driven into

more remote spaces. To study the fire

spread within a single object such as a

bed or sofa, as well as the spread to

adjoining objects leading to the fire

Photo of 3 MW fire from the natural gas burner.

The heat release rate and the radiometer output as plotted versus time for 15 s pulses for

HRR of 2.5 MW.
release rates in the range of 0.10 to 

3.0 MW including brief peaks as high

as 5 MW. The expanded uncertainty

(95% confidence interval) is 11% of

the heat release rate for fire sizes larger

than 400 kW. This system employs the

first quantitative uncertainty analysis

for the oxygen difference relative to the

background value. The response time of

the system is such that it can accurately

resolve dynamic heat release rate events

of 15 seconds or more. 

As an integral step in quantifying the

accuracy of the 3MWHRRF, a natural

gas calibration burner has recently been

developed for validating the operation

of the facility, and for characterizing its

time response by generating square-wave

pulse widths varying from 5 seconds to

60 seconds. The burner is shown below

along with a graphical comparison of the

15 seconds burner square-wave pulse

with the heat release rate measured by

the calorimeter facility.

CONTACT: 

DR. GEORGE MULHOLLAND

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION,

(301) 975-6695

george.mulholland@nist.gov

New Measurement of Soot

Volume Fraction in Fires

This work is developing the capability to measure local soot volume

fraction in and near fires to within 20%

of actual values by the end of 2004.

Prediction of radiation heat transfer is

important in the NIST Fire Dynamics

Simulator (FDS) and will continue to

be important in future computer codes

for predicting fire behavior. A critical

component in radiation prediction is

knowledge of soot volume fraction in

and around the fire. Current extractive

techniques are useful away from the fire

where conditions are uniform, but they

have high uncertainties in hot, near-fire

zones. A quantitative in-situ technique

is needed for measuring soot volume

fraction in and around flames. A multipoint soot volume fraction measurement

technique based on laser extinction is

currently being developed in order to

enhance the measurement capability 

of BFRL’s Large Fire Laboratory (LFL).

Since accurate determination of the

optical properties of soot is essential to

the proper interpretation of soot volume

fraction measurements based on laser

extinction, we have made the first measurements of soot optical properties in

the mid-infrared region, (2 μm to 5 μm)

and determined the effect of fuel-air

ratio on the optical properties. This

spectral region is pertinent to radiative

heat transfer in fires. The accompanying figure shows previous ethene results

and our new measurements of soot 

specific extinction coefficient as a 

32

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

Mass specific 

extinction coefficient

as a function of 

wavelength for 

ethene from previous

and current works.
function of wavelength. Our work has

also resulted in an improved value of

the empirical constant in the expression

for the Planck mean absorption coefficient for soot particles.

Future effort will focus on the evaluation of the performance of the soot 

volume fraction measurement device 

in an ISO 9705 test room in the LFL.

Gravimetric measurements at one or

two locations will be performed to validate the performance of the device. A

high-temperature experimental facility

is also currently being developed to

study the effect of temperature on soot

optical properties.

CONTACT:

DR. JIANN C. YANG

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6662

jiann.yang@nist.gov

Fundamental Properties of

Automatic Sprinkler Sprays

Automatic fire sprinkler systems

greatly reduce fire deaths and losses. A major impediment to the use of

sprinkler systems, especially residential

systems, is cost. Optimizing the design

of sprinkler systems can reduce the cost,

and one approach is to design sprinkler

heads which produce droplets of the

most effective pattern and spray size.

The present project is aimed at measuring the size, velocity, and spray pattern

of droplets produced by sprinklers.

Droplet size and velocity data have

been gathered by many previous investigators, but existing measurement techniques are incapable of simultaneously

measuring droplet size and velocity over

a large area, and cannot operate in a fire

environment.

The Particle Tracking Velocimetry

and Imaging (PTVI) technique was

developed by NIST and the University

of Michigan under grant. PTVI utilizes

two-color fluorescence for large-scale,

non-intrusive measurement of particle

size and velocity in two phase flows.

The method illuminates a 0.5m by 0.5 m

area of the spray field with two pulsed

laser sheets, and records images of the

fluorescing droplets with a camera situated perpendicular to the laser sheets.

Velocity is determined by analysis of

the distance between two-color droplet

image pairs, and droplet size is determined from the size of the droplet

images. Droplet sizes over the range 

of approximately 200 μm to 3000 μm 

can be measured, with low levels of

uncertainty.

Using the PTVI technique, axis-symmetric sprinklers operating over a wide

range of conditions have been recently

characterized. The measured droplet

sizes and velocities have been used to

accurately predict the flux of water at

the floor, and entrainment of the

droplets has been shown to be unimportant for predicting their trajectory

(for droplets of the size typical of sprinklers). The measured properties of the

sprays have been used to develop methods to incorporate water droplets into

the NIST Fire Dynamics Simulator. 

CONTACT : 

MR. ANTHONY PUTORTI

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6172

anthony.putorti@nist.gov

BFRL Participates in

Collaborative Heat Flux 

Gauge Round Robin

Heat flux measurement plays a pivotal role in fire research and testing. Heat transfer is responsible for fire

growth and spread as well as playing a

dominant role in the harmful effects of

unwanted fires. Numerous standard fire

tests require the imposition of a known

heat flux, e.g., the cone calorimeter, or

the measurement of a resulting heat flux.

Two types of total heat flux gauges,

Schmidt-Boelter or Gardon, are used

most commonly in the fire community.

While relatively robust, these gauges

require calibration, and it is known that

variations in convective heat transfer

rates can modify their response.

33

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS
Recognizing the need for consistent

heat flux measurements at different 

laboratories, seven fire laboratories,

BFRL (USA), FM Global (USA),

Sandia National Laboratories (USA),

Fire Research Station/Building Research

Establishment (United Kingdom), 

SINTEF (Norway), SP (Sweden), 

and Research Institute, State Key

Laboratory of Fire Science (China)

formed the Heat Flux Measurement

Working Group under the auspices 

of the FORUM for International

Cooperation in Fire Research. BFRL

serves as the overall coordinator for the

group. The working group’s mission is

to promote mutual confidence in flame

heat flux measurements and calibrations

of heat flux gauges among Forum 

laboratories.

The initial task carried out by the

working group was a calibration round

robin in which five of the laboratories

utilized in-house calibration facilities to

perform blind calibrations of two

Gardon and two Schmidt-Boelter

gauges. This was the first time that 

such a systematic interlaboratory comparison has been performed. The photo

above shows the NIST heat flux gauge

calibration facility. Results of the round

robin demonstrated that calibration

variations between laboratories were

generally small and comparable to the

absolute uncertainties in heat flux

measurement reported by national

measurement laboratories. This result 

is viewed as encouraging since a number of different calibration approaches

are utilized by the labs. The findings 

are being made available to an ISO

committee (TC-92, WG-1) working 

on standards for calibration heat flux

gauges.

CONTACT:

DR. WILLIAM M. PITTS

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION,

(301) 975-6486

wpitts@nist.gov

Reduced Risk of Flashover 

Intended Outcome and Background

The intended outcome of this program

is to reduce the risk of flashover costeffectively by enabling: new/improved

materials whose fire resistance does not

negatively impact performance, cost, or

the environment; and early and certain

fire and environment sensing and automatic fire suppression technologies

compatible with occupants and the

environment.

Flashover is the dramatic and sudden

transition from a relatively small, slowly

developing fire, spreading systematically

across adjacent fuel surfaces within a

room, to a much larger and dangerous

fire in which all flammable surfaces

within the enclosure are involved.

Estimates based on United States fire

statistics indicate that the roughly 20%

of reported fires that transition to

flashover are responsible for 80% of

the fire deaths and property damage 

in buildings. Annual losses in buildings

are typically 3,000 deaths and around

$8.5 billion. Clearly, reducing the risk

of flashover offers an opportunity to

reduce significantly the high human

and property costs of fire to the Nation.

Reducing the risk of flashover can be

equated with reducing fire spread, fire

growth, and the maximum value of the

heat release rate. There are two general approaches for accomplishing these

34

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

BFRL facility for

heat flux gauge

calibration based

on a high pressure quartz lamp.
goals. The first is to limit the availability

of fuel (e.g., through the use of fireretarded fuels) and air (e.g., by controlling ventilation) such that a fire cannot

become sufficiently intense to induce

flashover. The second is to provide

physical intervention (e.g., through

automatic sprinklers, or by a fire company following early detection) to

reduce the fire size before it can grow

to a dangerous level. Both approaches

are important and are included in this

program.

Experimental and theoretical understanding of fire growth and spread

within enclosures will be improved,

with the goal of developing a modeling

capability for real-world room contents

that can be reliably used for fire safety

engineering, product design, and materials assessment. As part of this effort a

workshop designed to assess the current understanding of Fire Growth and

Spread on Real Objects was held at

NIST in March, 2002 (Peacock and Pitts,

NIST Special Publication 998, 2003,

http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/flam

espread/). 

BFRL is working to develop cost-effective approaches that reduce the flammability of polymers while maintaining

or even improving their physical characteristics. Success in this approach will

provide a strong incentive for polymer

producers and product manufacturers

to utilize safer materials in commodity

applications.

Active measures to limit fire growth

require reliable early fire detection 

and effective suppression approaches.

Directed research designed to enhance

fire detector response while reducing

the number of false alarms and to

improve suppression effectiveness is

underway.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Nanotubes Improve 

Fire Behavior of 

Organic Polymers 

Flashover (a sudden rapid growth of

enclosure fires) is responsible for

the majority of fire losses associated in

the United States. Preventing or delaying flashover will reduce fire losses significantly. One approach for achieving

this goal is to use organic polymers that

have been modified to improve their

fire behavior. NIST researchers have

demonstrated that introducing

nanoscale fillers (additives that have at

least one dimension on the nanometer

scale) into commodity polymers has the

potential to be a cost-effective method

for enhancing the properties of these

materials. In our previous research, we

have demonstrated dramatic improvements in the flammability performance

of polymers containing small quantities

of nano-clays and silicas. BFRL scientists are now investigating the effects 

of introducing multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWNT) on the flammability

of the commodity polymer poly(propylene) (PP). Nanotubes are a recently

discovered form of carbon having

unique physical properties.

One measure of the flammability of 

a polymer is its maximum heat release

rate when burned. Experiments have

shown that the maximum heat release

rate is reduced by up to 58%, as compared to the untreated material, when

nanotubes are added to PP (see Figure 1).

This improvement in flammability performance is superior to that previously

observed for PP/clay nanocomposites.

An important characteristic for determining the effectiveness of nanocomposites in improving polymer fire performance is the uniform dispersion of

the material in the polymer. There are

35

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Figure 1. Heat release rate curves of the three samples

exposed to an external heat flux of 50 kW/m2.
36

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

practical advantages of using carbon

nanotube fillers in PP compared with

clays or silica. Neither clay nor silica

mix well with organic polymers, and it

is often necessary to modify their surfaces or the polymer in order to mix the

two materials. On the other hand, carbon nanotubes have similar chemical

structures to those of many polymers

and can be dispersed directly into the

polymer without costly pre-processing.

The quality of the dispersion of the

nanotubes in the polymer matrix can be

inferred from the image of the residue

obtained from scanning electron

microscopy (SEM) after extraction of

the polymer with hot solvent. The

expanded, as opposed to clumped, morphology of the undisolved nanotubes

indicates that they were well-dispersed

throughout the polymer matrix prior to

its removal.

CONTACT:

DR. MARC NYDEN

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

PHONE: 301-975-6692

marc.nyden@nist.gov

NIST Study Provides Basis 

for New California Mattress

Flammability Standard

The State of California has adopted

a mattress flammability test protocol that is based on a multi-year study

done at NIST. The protocol examines

the heat release rate from a mattress

(plus foundation) that results from

exposure to a pair of gas burners

designed to mimic the local heat flux

exposure imposed by burning bed

clothes. NIST ascertained the nature of

this heat flux exposure and designed the

appropriate burner system. The

California protocol sets a limit on the

acceptable peak heat release rate in this

test as a means of preventing a bed fire

from spreading to other objects in a

bedroom. NIST provided the technical

basis for relating fire size, second object

ignitability and potential life savings.

The NIST study also informs the closely related issue of bed clothes flammability which California is currently

planning to regulate.

CONTACT:

DR. TOM OHLEMILLER

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975- 6481

tohlemiller@nist.gov

Same bed at 5 minutes after

bed clothes ignition.

Bed at 1 minute after bed

clothes ignition.

Figure 2. SEM photomicrograph showing the dispersion

of MWNT in the poly(propylene) composite after solvent

extraction of the polymer.
Flame Size Measurements 

for Determining Heat Release

Rate from Burning Polymers

The cone calorimeter is a useful

device for both ranking the flammability of flame-retarded materials and

extracting fundamental data (such as

heat release rate) useful for predicting

the full-scale burning behavior of the

material. Nonetheless, a cone-calorimeter

test requires a relatively large (10 cm x

10 cm) sample, considerable time (0.5

to 2 hours per sample), and the equipment is relatively expensive. If faster

and cheaper methods could be developed, heat release rate tests might find

wider use in industry, providing better

data to approximate full-scale flammability of flame retarded materials. Such

simple heat release rate measurement

methods might also be used in conjunction with high-throughput polymer

development techniques which are of

strong interest to industry. 

The present project is examining the

possibility of using flame size (height,

area, or volume) as a surrogate for heat

release rate. A laminar flow burner has

been developed for controlling the oxygen transport rate to the flame over

solid, liquid, and gaseous samples. An

image processing system has been developed for determining the flame size

from visible images captured from these

burning samples, and measured flame

size has been shown to be correlated

with the heat release rates. Based on

these promising results, additional tests

of the approach are planned.

CONTACT:

DR. GREGORY T. LINTERIS

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-2283

gregory.linteris@nist.gov

Smoke Component Yields

from Room-scale Fire Tests

Estimation of the time people will

have to escape or find a place of

refuge in the event of a fire is a prime

need from a fire hazard or risk assessment of an occupancy. Increasingly, the

computation in such an assessment

involves the impact of the fire effluent

(toxic gases, aerosols, and heat) on people in the fire vicinity. The input data

for these computations typically come

from any of a number of bench-scale

37

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Visual flame 

images from 

burning polymers, 

to be used for heat

release estimations.

Normalized flame height correlated with Q* (the

non-dimensional square root of the Froude number

expressed in terms of the heat release). 
toxicity apparatus and are almost all of

unknown accuracy. The consequences

of a poor safety assessment are severe:

not providing the intended degree of

safety or alternatively increasing the cost.

Joint with industrial funding 

from the Fire Protection Research

Foundation, BFRL has taken the first

step to establishing a technically sound

basis for assessing the accuracy of these

devices. A series of room-scale fire tests

have produced data on the yields of

toxic products in both pre-flashover

and post-flashover fires. The combustibles examined were upholstered

cushions, bookcases, PVC sheet, and

household electric cable. For a number

of toxicants plus carbonaceous soot,

either yields or upper limits were determined, all with associated uncertainties.

BFRL also determined the losses of

CO, HCN, and HCl as they flowed

away from the burn room. It now

remains to determine values for the

same combustibles measured in representative bench-scale apparatus and to

compare the values with the full-scale

results. The outcome will determine the

confidence with which data from each

of the devices can be used in fire safety

assessment.

CONTACT:

DR. RICHARD GANN

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6866

rggann@nist.gov

Nuisance Sources for

Residential Smoke Detectors

Characterized

Nuisance alarms, or false alarms,

from home smoke alarms are a

vexing irritant that can have deadly

consequences. Frequent nuisance alarms

can lead occupants to disable or remove

the offending smoke alarm, thereby

compromising safety. Surveys have indicated the most common causes of residential nuisance alarms are cooking

activities, high humidity conditions

from bathing activities, and smoking.

The promise of new advanced detection

technologies designed to reduce nuisance alarms, while improving detection, was the impetus for NIST to perform a detailed study of several sources

that frequently cause smoke detector

nuisance alarms. A goal of advanced

detection is to improve reliability to a

point where it is feasible to connect

home smoke alarm systems directly to

the local fire station. Earlier detection

and suppression would reduce the number of fires that progress to flashover, and

hence save lives and property.

Testing was conducted in an instrumented manufactured home. Aerosol

number and mass concentrations were

recorded along with temperature,

humidity, air velocities, ionization and

photoelectric smoke alarm sensor

response, and carbon monoxide concentration from electrochemical cells.

Various cooking activities, candles and

cigarette smoking were investigated.

Not surprisingly, the frequency of nuisance alarms depended on the alarm

type, its sensitivity, placement relative

to the nuisance source, and the stimuli

produced. The results of these tests are

documented in a NIST Technical Note

Performance of Home Smoke Alarms, and

the complete set of test data is available

in NIST Report of Test FR 4020, 

Home Smoke Alarm Project, Alarm

Response to Nuisance Sources, both of

which are available in electronic form 

at http://smokealarm.nist.gov. 

The data gathered during this series

of tests is being used to develop a set of

nuisance scenarios that are being programmed into the fire emulator/detector evaluator (FE/DE) so that advanced

detector designs can be tested in a controlled, repeatable manner. The FE/DE

is a single-pass wind tunnel designed 

to reproduce the environment smoke

alarms may experience when in use in

residences. High humidity and dust

exposure tests in the FE/DE have also

been developed. When coupled with

emulated fire signatures, the FE/DE

will be capable of evaluating the

response of advanced smoke alarms to

both fires and nuisance sources in a

consistent manner, thus tying their

response to their expected real-world

performance. 

CONTACT:

MR. THOMAS CLEARY

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6858

thomas.cleary@nist.gov

38

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

Thomas Cleary deep frying corn tortillas on a gas 

hotplate produced alarms in ionization alarms only.
Flammability Measures 

for Electronic Equipment

Consumer electronics are ubiquitous in today’s society. The fact

that fires originating from consumer

electronic equipment represent less 

than one percent of all residential fires

in the United States is largely credited

to the use of flame retardant plastics.

Although fires originating within these

items are rare, the hazard presented

when exposed to a small external ignition source (such as a candle) is not

well known. Even when the equipment

is not the first item involved in a fire its

contribution to the total fire load and

impact on flashover of a room can be

significant. Both of these issues are

important due to an increasing number

of candles and electronics in the home.

It should also be noted that in recent

years the number of electronic fires has

increased in many European countries

following a reduction in the use of some

flame retardant compounds due to

environmental concerns. It is anticipated

that this trend could follow is the US. 

The objective of this work is to relate

the full-scale flammability and fire hazard of consumer electronics assemblies

having enclosures made from different

resin formulations to bench-scale fire

performance of these resins. A research

consortium was established between

NIST, UL, Dow, Polyone, Albemarle

and Samsung Cheil to conduct this

research. Eighteen commercial resins

were evaluated using three different

standard bench-scale flammability tests.

Based on the bench-scale test results

(NISTIR 7031), five of these resins

were molded into 19" computer monitor housings and will be examined in

full-scale fire tests that measure the

overall heat release rate and the heat

flux threat to the surroundings. The

selection of these materials was based

on heat release rate, UL94 performance

and physical burning behavior such as

melting and charring. The results will be

compared and contrasted to the benchscale results to infer useful guidelines. 

There is a current international effort

(IEC TC108) to develop a hazard-based

standard for electronic equipment. 

This research will provide part of the

technical foundation for developing this

standard.

CONTACT:

DR. MATTHEW BUNDY

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6880

matthew.bundy@nist.gov

Bench Scale High Throughput

Flame Retardancy Measures

Our recent efforts in the development of high throughput (HT)

methods for the study of flame retardant nanocomposites have produced

several new more efficient methods: 

1) direct extrusion of flammability test

samples, 2) on-line fiber optic and

dielectric characterization of both concentration and nano-dispersion of flame

retardant additives, 3) a colorimetric

and fluorescent method for measuring

nano-dispersion 4) a rapid flame spread

test using a flux gradient which correlates well with the standard conventional

39

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Computer monitor subjected to an external heat flux of

15 kW/m2.

Bench-scale UL94 flammability test.
flammability tests such as UL94, E84

tunnel and cone calorimeter. The rapid

flame spread methods were developed in

partnership with the High Throughput

Flammability Consortium. The impact

of this work can already be seen in the

following industrial interactions: 1) an

industrial partner has recently contracted NIST to use these HT tools to evaluate a new non-halogen based additive

that may have unique flame retardant

properties, and 2) a member of the

consortium has asked NIST to assist 

in the installation of HT flame spread

facilities in their lab to facilitate their

development of flame retardant products.

CONTACT:

DR. JEFFREY GILMAN

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975- 6573

jeffrey.gilman@nist.gov

Advanced Fire 

Service Technologies

Intended Outcome and Background

The intended outcome of this research

program is an information rich environment for emergency response and fire

prevention. Enhanced emergency information improves first responder situational awareness and contributes to

safer and more effective responses.

Providing a means to quantify fire risk

aids local authorities in fire prevention

and protection efforts. 

Today, fire fighting operations, inside

and outside of structures, proceed with

very limited information about the extent

of fire involvement, structure safety,

hazards, and even the location of firefighters. For safer and more effective

fire fighting, incident commanders 

and firefighters need access to reliable

and timely information regarding fire

conditions, developing hazards, and

the location and condition of resources.

Enhanced training tools based on stateof-the-art computer simulations and

measurements of fire can enable better

training of firefighters.

The full capabilities and limitations 

of equipment and systems being introduced into the fire service needs to be

understood with respect to the needs 

of fire fighters. Draft measurement

standards for the performance of fire

service and other first responder equipment are being developed to aid in the

evaluation of new technologies.

As building regulations, materials of

construction, and fire service response

change, means to quantify the level 

of fire safety in communities needs to

be available as an aid to local fire

authorities.

The Advanced Fire Service Technologies

research program includes:

■ Research to assess the performance

among the different available thermal

imaging technologies. BFRL has constructed an apparatus to measure performance in controlled exposures that

duplicate environments encountered in

fire fighting. Laboratory measurements

are being compared to field measurements. A second smaller laboratory

apparatus will be developed to address

some of the needed exposure conditions.

■ Research to provide the foundation

for the exchange of information from

buildings and other sources to first

responder decision support systems

during emergencies. BFRL has taken a

first step with the industry by developing display standards for graphic alarm

systems. Similar effort will produce

standards for the information set needed by first responders to deal with a

range of emergency scenarios. 

■ Research to advance the heat transfer

model for fire fighter protective clothing

under wet and dry conditions with

associated material property database

will be validated by comparisons with

data from industrial standard tests. This

model will be used as a cornerstone of

40

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

Methane-fired panel which creates a flux gradient for

flame spread test of extruded flame retardant polymer

sample rods.
a training tool that allows firefighters to

visualize the limits of performance of their

protective gear in computer-simulated

fire environments. 

■ Research to benefit the fire service is

best prioritized, planned and conducted

with input from interested and knowledgeable fire fighters. BFRL, in cooperation with FEMA, produces a web-based

newsletter, FIRE.GOV directed at the fire

service reader to provide contacts for

on-going research. The fire service benefits directly from research information

that can impact their work published in

this easily accessible electronic form. 

■ Research in fire modeling, understanding of the dynamics of fire fighting, and measurement of equipment

performance each an on-going project

in BFRL, provides the basis for effective

firefighting simulations. BFRL is working

with Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute

and others to examine effective ways in

which fire simulations based on physical modeling can be used to enhance

the training for new firefighters.

■ Research in community fire modeling

conducted at BFRL is producing the first

physics-based model of the fire spread

process. This community fire spread

model can be used to assess the rate of

house-to-house fire spread. It is a tool

for fire departments and communities to

assess the response needs and to quantify the impact of mitigation strategies. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

Measurement Standards 

for Evaluation of Infrared

Cameras (Thermal Imagers)

Performance

Agrowing number of fire departments are purchasing infrared

cameras (thermal imagers). These

instruments are expensive, yet there is

no way to evaluate the performance

from manufacturer literature. Standard

test methods and metrics do not exist

to compare the performance of thermal

imagers for fire fighting applications.

The IR Camera Performance Project

has developed a measurement facility to

evaluate the performance of thermal

imagers for fire fighters, advanced fire

detection systems, and fire research

applications, evaluated the performance

of different detector technologies under

laboratory and field conditions, and

correlated the laboratory-based tests

and metrics with imager performance

under field conditions. Off-the-shelf

infrared cameras that utilize bariumstrontium-titanate, vanadium oxide,

and amorphous silicon detectors have

been examined in lab- and full-scale

experiments. Hand-held as well as 

helmet-mounted thermal imagers have

been included in experimental burns.

Preliminary results demonstrate: 

a) large variation in thermal imager 

cost and performance, b) thermal

imagers typically perform satisfactorily

when viewing objects through dispersions of cool smoke, but perform poorly

through dispersions of hot smoke, and

c) thermal imagers typically perform

satisfactorily through water sprays in

the absence of hot combustion products. Work currently underway will

include the development of standard

tests that can be used to compare

41

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Figure 2. Three different infrared detector technologies,

barium-strontium-titanate, vanadium oxide, and amorphous silicon, compared to normal (visible) video camera in lower right. All cameras positioned near floor

and looking down hallway with burn room at the end

of the hallway on the right.

Figure 1. Thermal camera image from full-scale 

residential test burn with manikins positioned on the

tile roof.
imagers under various environmental

conditions, development of the ability

to vary the concentration and temperature of smoke particles independently,

determination of the effect of imager

temperature on the performance of the

imager, development of quantitative

metrics for imager performance, and

correlation of laboratory-scale tests to

full-scale tests.

CONTACT:

MR. NELSON BRYNER

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-6868

nelson.bryner@nist.gov

Firefighter Protective 

Clothing Heat Transfer 

Model Developed

Significant advances have been made

in firefighter protective clothing,

however fire fighters are still being 

fatally burned and significantly injured

while wearing protective clothing systems that satisfy all existing performance standards. To understand how

these burn injuries can arise and therefore be prevented, BFRL has developed

a physics-based computational model,

capable of describing heat and moisture

transport across multiple layers of protective fabrics. The inclusion of moisture transport is a significant advance in

the predictive capabilities of the model

as the energy absorption due to evaporation and the energy release associated

with condensation play important roles

in determining the overall protection

offered by a protective garment. 

The model and a user interface have

been integrated into the Protective

Clothing Performance Simulator

(PCPS). This simulator has been used

to study the role of moisture in burn

injuries and the response of protective

fabrics to high levels of incident 

radiant flux. The Thermal Protective

Performance ratings, obtained experimentally from standard tests for protective fabrics used by industry, have been

successfully predicted for a variety of

both single and multi-layered fabrics.

Results of this work are published in

NISTIR 6967, Thermal Performance 

of Fire Fighters’ Protective Clothing, 

Part 3: Simulating a TPP Test for Single

Layered Fabrics, January, 2003, by 

Scott Kukuck and Kuldeep Prasad.

CONTACT:

DR. KULDEEP PRASAD

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-3968

kuldeep.prasad@nist.gov

42

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

Firefighter protective 

clothing extreme

exposure experiment.
Positive Pressure 

Ventilation Model

Positive pressure ventilation (PPV) is

a technique used by the firefighters

to remove smoke, heat and other combustion products from the inside of a

structure. This allows firefighters to

perform their tasks in a safer environment. Typically when using PPV, a 

ventilation fan is placed in front of the

doorway to the building with the smoke

being pushed out the opposite side. 

If used incorrectly, PPV may actually

increase the burning rate of the fire or

push smoke into an area of refuge.

BFRL is using physical measurements

coupled with FDS/Smokeview CFD

modeling to provide a better understanding of the effective use of ventilation. The flow characteristics of typical

PPV fans have been characterized.

Experiments have been conducted and

the results compared with model predictions. With accurate data for geometry, vent placement, and boundary location, air flow velocities predicted with

the FDS fire model are within 10 percent for open atmosphere experiments

and 20 percent for simple room geometries. The results from this FEMA funded

study are reported in NISTIR 7065,

Characterizing Positive Pressure

Ventilation using Computational Fluid

Dynamics, February, 2003 by Stephen

Kerber and William Walton. They will

be the basis of a training tool for the

fire service on when PPV should or

should not be used. 

CONTACT: 

MR. STEPHEN KERBER

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION 

301-975-6879

stephen.kerber@nist.gov 

Computer Modeling Provides

Understanding of Multiple

Fire Fatalities

Under the sponsorship of the

National Institute of

Occupational Safety and Health

(NIOSH), NIST has examined the fire

dynamics of the 1999 Iowa duplex fire

that claimed the lives of three children

and three firefighters. In the study,

NIST performed computer simulations

43

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Experiments characterizing PPV fan flow (a) and 

corresponding model

simulations using

FDS/Smokeview (b).
of the fire using the NIST Fire

Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and

Smokeview, a visualization tool, to provide insight on the fire development

and thermal conditions that may have

existed in the residence during the fire.

The NIST FDS computer simulation

predicted fire conditions and events

that correlate well with information

from NIOSH and ATF (Bureau of

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) 

investigations. The critical event in this

fire was the onset of conditions consistent with flashover in the kitchen. At

this point, the fire started a transition

from a single room and contents fire

with smoke throughout the structure,

to a fire that involved the majority of

the structure within approximately 60

seconds. This quick change in thermal

conditions and flame spread through

the duplex led to the three firefighters

being trapped inside and succumbing

to the effects of the fire environment. 

The report of the NIST study, 

NISTIR 6854, Simulation of the Dynamics

of a Fire in a Two-Story Duplex —Iowa,

December 22, 1999 is available in 

CD-ROM format. In addition to the

report, the CD-ROM contains a video

presentation, which provides a summary

of the report and includes photos of the

fire scene and videos of the computer

model results. A copy of the NIOSH

Report, F2000-04, dealing with the

incident, also is included on the disk.

Fire department training officers are

using the CD-ROM to demonstrate

how rapidly conditions can change in a

house fire. More than 12,000 copies of

the CD-ROM have been distributed. 

CONTACT:

MR. DANIEL MADRZYKOWSKI

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-6677

daniel.madrzykowski@nist.gov

Virtual Reality 

Firefighter Training

Fighting fires in a burning building

has no equal, but is it the only way

to train? Is it the only way to demonstrate how different tactics will affect

the fire? BFRL is creating a virtual 

reality training simulation of various

fire situations to demonstrate how lifethreatening conditions can develop in

structures and to test firefighting tactics

using computers. In turn, using this

technology, firefighter training instructors can provide realistic visualization 

of fire growth and suppression. 

To produce examples of effective 

firefighter training tools, BFRL have

reworked their fire modeling software,

Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS), and

the fire imaging program, Smokeview

by adding enhanced fire-related simulation technologies, such as “real” visibility

through smoke. Other features have

44

FIRE LOSS REDUCTION

A simulated kitchen fire in a two-story townhouse 

illustrating the ability of the latest version of Smokeview

to demonstrate visibility through smoke layer.

Still image from FDS/Smokeview simulation of fire 

conditions in the duplex home.

Front view of the Iowa duplex home.
been added to make the visualizations

look 3D and to make it easier for the

trainee to “move about” the simulation

scenario. Continued refinements of

FDS will increase the system’s ability

for simulating smoke and gas flow

caused by fire, wind, ventilation and

structural conditions. 

BFRL is working with firefighter

instructors at the Maryland Fire and

Rescue Institute and other organizations to develop simulations of all possible outcomes for selected fire scenarios used in training. These simulations

will be incorporated into a software

package, enabling firefighters in training instantly to learn the consequences

of their actions such as opening a window, closing a door or focusing a hose

spray in a certain direction. 

Recent results are contained in

Understanding Fire and Smoke Flow

Through Modeling and Visualization by

G.P. Forney, D. Madrzykowski, K.B.

McGrattan and L. Sheppard published

in IEEE Computer Graphics and

Applications, Vol. 23, No. 4, 6-13,

July/August 2003.

CONTACT : 

DR. GLENN FORNEY

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-2313

gforney@nist.gov

Vibrations May Warn 

of Structural Collapses

BFRL and Harvey Mudd College in

Claremont, California are conducting research to learn if measurable

changes in building vibrations during

fires can be a means to provide reliable

early warning for first responders of

building collapse. Sensitive accelerometers are attached to the sides of buildings and the vibrations that are excited

in the building by the fire are measured

continuously. In May 2002, a largescale fire experiment was conducted in

a vacant store of a shopping center in

Woodbridge, Virginia scheduled for

demolition. NIST, with funding from

FEMA and with the cooperation of the

Dale City and Prince William County

(Virginia) Fire Departments set the fires

and allowed the fires to burn until part

of the structure collapsed. Analysis of

the measurements of the structures

vibration showed that significant

changes occurred several minutes before

the actual collapse. This data is being

used to test various methods to analyze

the data in real time to determine the

basis for a practical warning device.

Additional experiments are planned to

examine the capabilities and limitations

of this technology for advanced sensing

of building collapse.

CONTACT:

DR. DAVID D. EVANS

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

301-975-6897

dave.evans@nist.gov

45

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Measurements of building vibrations during fire up to

roof collapse.

Roof collapses in shopping center store fire.
The strategy to meet this goal is a three-part NIST-led public-private response program

that includes:

■ a federal building and fire safety investigation to study the most probable factors that

contributed to post-aircraft impact collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) Towers and

the 47-story WTC 7, and the associated evacuation and emergency response experience; 

■ a research and development (R&D) program to provide a technical foundation that

supports improvements to building and fire codes, standards, and practices that reduce

the impact of extreme threats to the safety of buildings, their occupants and emergency

responders; and 

■ a dissemination and technical assistance program (DTAP) to engage leaders of the 

construction and building community in implementing proposed changes to practices,

standards and codes. Also it will provide practical guidance and tools to better prepare

facility owners, contractors, architects, engineers, emergency responders, and regulatory

authorities to respond to future disasters.

The desired outcomes are to make all buildings safer for occupants and first responders and

to ensure better evacuation systems and emergency response capabilities for future disasters.

Investigation of the 

World Trade Center Disaster

Intended Outcome and Background

The focus of this NIST program is to investigate the

building construction, the materials used, and the

technical conditions that contributed to the outcome

of the World Trade Center disaster. The findings of

the investigation will serve as a basis for: improvements in the way buildings are designed, constructed,

maintained, and used; improved tools and guidance

for industry and safety officials; revisions to codes,

standards, practices; and improved public safety.

The primary objectives of the NIST-led technical 

investigation of the WTC disaster are to:

1. Determine why and how WTC 1 and 2 collapsed

following the initial impacts of the aircraft and why

and how WTC 7 collapsed;

2. Determine why the injuries and fatalities were 

so high or low depending on location, including all

technical aspects of fire protection, occupant behavior,

evacuation, and emergency response;

3. Determine what procedures and practices were

used in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of WTC 1,2, and 7; and

4. Identify, as specifically as possible, areas in building and fire codes, standards, and practices that are

still in use and warrant revision.

GOAL 4

To develop 

the technical

basis for the

standards, 

technology, and

practices needed

for cost-effective

improvements 

to the safety 

and security of 

buildings and

building occupants, including

evacuation,

emergency 

response procedures, and 

threat mitigation.

HOMELAND SECURITY

46
The investigation includes eight projects

that provide focus for the technical work.

They are:

■ Analysis of Building and Fire Codes

and Practices

■ Baseline Structural Performance and

Aircraft Impact Damage Analysis

■ Mechanical and Metallurgical

Analysis of Structural Steel

■ Investigation of Active Fire 

Protection Systems

■ Reconstruction of Thermal 

and Tenability Environment

■ Structural Fire Response and 

Collapse Analysis

■ Occupant Behavior, Egress, and

Emergency Communications

■ Fire Service Technologies and

Guidelines

Detailed information on progress is

available on the NIST WTC website:

http://wtc.nist.gov.

The desired outcomes of the 

investigation are to make all buildings

safer for occupants and first responders

and to ensure better evacuation systems

and emergency response capabilities

for future disasters.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Analysis of the Most

Probable Structural 

Collapse Sequence

Structures subjected to extreme

loads, such as blasts, high-speed

impacts, and uncontrolled fires, experience a sequence of events that require

complex analyses to determine the

probable cause(s) of failure. Analysis 

of these types of problems requires a

formal approach to integrate multiple

disciplines effectively, to discern which

parameters significantly influence the

analysis methods, and to determine the

most probable sequence of events leading

to the initiation of structural collapse. 

The objectives of the failure analysis

are to answer the following questions:

■ What is the most probable collapse

sequence?

■ What confidence levels are associated

with the most probable collapse

sequence?

■ What is the probability of other 

possible collapse sequences?

■ What parameters have the strongest

influence on the most probable collapse

sequence?

NIST has developed and adopted 

an integrated approach to identify the

most probable of technically possible

collapse sequences while accounting 

for variability in modeling, input parameters, analysis, and observed events. 

The approach combines mathematical

modeling, and statistical and probabilistic

methods. While the individual techniques

are well understood, their integration

and detailed implementation will be

refined on the basis of initial and subsequent findings and results. 

Simplified, accurate models for 

impact damage, fire dynamics, thermalstructural response, and collapse initiation

analysis are required to enable robust,

efficient estimation of uncertainties and

collapse sequences. The development 

of such models is summarized below.

Reference structural, mechanical, and

architectural (SMA) models are developed

to establish their baseline performance

under normal design loading conditions.

47

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Drs. S. Shyam Sunder (left),

Jack E. Snell (center), and

Arden Bement (right) at the

press conference officially

launching the World Trade

Center Investigation on 

Aug. 21, 2002.

Media attending the 

Press Conference officially

launching the World Trade

Center Investigation on

Aug. 21, 2002.
These reference models provide a 

consistent basis for the aircraft impact,

fire dynamics, thermal-structural

response and collapse initiation models

and analyses.

The impact analysis determines the

probable damage state(s) of the structure

in the impact region, with identification

of damaged structural components and

collateral damage caused by fragments

to the mechanical, architectural, and

fire protection systems. Probable damage state(s) provide initial building conditions for subsequent fire dynamics

and thermal-structural response analyses.

The fire dynamics analysis determines

the probable paths of fire spread from

the impact region up until the time of

collapse initiation and the time-history

of the heat imparted to the structure.

The compartment-to-compartment

spread of the fires is constrained by the

observed timeline of fire and smoke

movement through the structure. 

The thermal-structural analysis 

determines the probable time-histories

of the impact-damaged structural 

system response to the identified fire

paths, accounting for cumulative 

heat-induced effects, such as thermal

expansion, reduced structural stiffness

and strength, and redistribution of

loads. This analysis identifies the probable sequences of component damage or

failure and provides the initial conditions for analyzing the stability of the

structural system. 

The collapse initiation analysis 

determines the most probable collapse

sequence from each of the identified

thermal-structural response time-histories

through a stability analysis of the structural system. This analysis ranks the

probable collapse sequences and times

to failure, from which the most probable collapse sequence is identified. 

Each of these models and analyses are

developed through several phases: initial

simplified studies for bounding the

analyses, detailed component and subsystem analyses to understand the event

physics and nonlinear behaviors, and

simplified global analyses to capture the

essential physics for estimating probable

collapse sequences. 

Mathematical modeling with meancentered estimates of parameters provides an indication of a probable collapse sequence. Statistical analysis significantly extends the mathematical

modeling by identifying influential

parameters and evaluating the sensitivity

of the results (collapse sequence and

time-to-failure) to ranges of parameter

values. Probabilistic analysis uses event

tree and Monte Carlo techniques for

determining the probability of different

collapse sequences, and the parameters

that contribute to uncertainty propagation. Parametric variation is estimated

using experimental data, event observables, available as-built information and

records, and engineering expertise.

Systematic model variations are identified

and minimized to the extent possible.

CONTACTS:

DR. TERRI MCALLISTER

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6078

terri.mcallister@nist.gov

DR. FAHIM SADEK 

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301)-975-4420

fahim.sadek@nist.gov

Fireproofing of 

WTC Floor System 

I

n May 2003, NIST issued an 

interim report on the Procedures 

and Practices Used for Passive Fire

Protection of the Floor System of the

World Trade Center Tower Structures 

as part of the ongoing federal building

and fire safety investigation into the

World Trade Center building collapses.

The report summarizes factual data

contained in documents provided to

NIST by the Port Authority of New

York and New Jersey and its contractors

and consultants; by Laclede Steel

Company, the firm that supplied the

floor trusses for the WTC towers; and

48

HOMELAND SECURITY

Steel column recovered from

site of direct aircraft impact

on World Trade Center north

tower (WTC 1).
by United States Mineral Products Co.

(USM), the manufacturer of the fireproofing material. To the maximum

extent possible, the facts are presented

without interpretation.

The report discusses applicable building codes and building classification

system, which dictates the fire rating

required for structural members and

assemblies. The structural system for

the World Trade Center towers was

constructed predominantly of steel,

which, in general, requires protection

from fire to maintain its strength and

stiffness. Attention is paid to the sprayon fireproofing and the procedures and

practices used in its selection and application. Additionally, the report discusses the procedures and practices used to

determine whether tests were needed to

evaluate the fire endurance of the structural elements, and it presents the

results from one such test.

This interim report documents the

procedures and practices used for passive fire protection of the floor system

of the WTC towers. In May 1963, the

Port Authority instructed its consulting

engineers and architects to comply with

the New York City Building Code for

the design and construction of the

WTC towers. Because the New York

City Building Code was being revised,

the plans for fire protection of the

structural steel underwent continuous

modification. While available records

that were reviewed suggest that the fireproofing of the columns, beams, and

spandrels was not a subject of concern,

fireproofing of the floor bar joists was

the focus of continuous reassessment

and revision.

Key findings are as follows:

■ The WTC towers were identified as

Occupancy Group E – Business, and

classified as Construction Class IB in

accordance with the 1968 New York

City Building Code. This classification

required that the columns and floor 

systems of the towers have a 3-hour 

and 2-hour fire endurance, respectively. 

■ The bar joists that supported the

floors of WTC 1 and 2, were fireproofed with 1/2 in. of spray-on fireprotection material. This thickness of

fireproofing was expected to meet the

Class 1A Fire Rating of the New York

City Building Code. The technical

bases remain unknown for the selection

of fireproofing material and the determination of the thickness of fireproofing for the bar joists.

■ The fire protection of bar joist-supported floor system by directly applying

spray-on fireproofing to the joists was

relatively innovative at the time the

WTC towers were designed and constructed. While the benefits of conducting a full-scale fire endurance test were

realized, apparently no tests were conducted on the specific floor system used

in the WTC towers.

■ NIST is carrying out testing to assess

the fire rating and behavior of typical

fireproofed floor assemblies under the fire

conditions prescribed in ASTM E 119.

CONTACT:

DR. JOHN L. GROSS

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6078

john.gross@nist.gov

Reconstructing the WTC Fires

The extent, intensity and duration

of the fires in each of the three

WTC buildings played a pivotal role in

its eventual collapse. Because of the

dearth of information from inside the

WTC buildings on the progression of

the fires, the fires must be reconstructed

using available information on the

buildings’ interiors and the photographs

of the exteriors. Much of the combustible contents were manifested in

numerous workstation cubicles. NIST

has completed (1) a series of fire tests of

49

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

A computer simulation of the WTC South Tower (2 WTC)

fireball seconds after impact of the second aircraft.
these workstations, including the effects

of rubble and aviation fuel on their

burning rate and (2) measurements in

the Cone Calorimeter to obtain the

combustibility properties of the workstation components. The latter have

been used as input to the NIST Fire

Dynamics Simulator computational

model, which has been used to predict

the burning behavior in the former

tests. Additional burning phenomena

have been identified and will be added

to the model.

CONTACT:

DR. RICHARD GANN

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6866

richard.gann@nist.gov

Occupant Behavior, Evacuation,

and Emergency Response 

Thousands of pages of documentary

data have been gathered from 

the Fire Department of the City of

New York, the New York City Police

Department, the Port Authority of 

New York and New Jersey, and the 

Port Authority Police Department.

Also, more that one thousand hours 

of electronic data, in the form of audio

recordings of communications during

the incident, have been acquired from

the above agencies. Project personnel

have sorted, categorized the data, and

are in the process of analyzing the contents. Types of data gathered includes

the design and improvements of the

egress system, emergency communications systems, occupant communication

records, identification of units dispatched to the World Trade Center,

data on their response, information on

unit operations at the incident, equipment on hand at the incident, and

emergency response technologies used

at the incident, etc. A detailed chronology of events related to the emergency

response and evacuation is being developed. This chronology contains information on the dispatch of emergency

responders, their response and activities

at the incident, radio and telephone

communications related to responder

operations at the incident, public

address communications to the occupants, and information concerning the

conditions of buildings 1, 2, and 7 as

the incident unfolded. 

In conjunction with outside experts,

NIST has developed a comprehensive

protocol for collecting first person

accounts from survivors, family members of victims, and first responders.

Face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and focus groups will assist with

documenting the building evacuation,

understanding occupant decision making, building safety operations, and the

events of the day associated with the

emergency response, as well as collecting observations of fire, smoke, and

building damage. NIST personnel will

conduct some of the interviews, and a

company under contract with NIST will

conduct the remainder of the interviews.

The history of evacuation of the

World Trade Center and the first person accounts will support computer

egress modeling. Three computer models will be used to better understand the

events of September 11, 2001. 

To expedite the process of digesting

this large quantity of data additional

personnel are being acquired to assist

with the review process. NIST has also

acquired the assistance of three experts

with knowledge of emergency response

operations for high-rise buildings in

New York City. These consultants are

assisting with identification of important emergency response issues and are

instrumental in providing clarifications

associated with information gathered.

CONTACTS:

MR. J. RANDALL LAWSON

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION 

(301) 975-6877

james.lawson@nist.gov

DR. JASON D. AVERILL

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-2585

jason.averill@nist.gov

50

HOMELAND SECURITY

Photographs of the burning of a typical office 

workstation.
Analysis of Building and 

Fire Codes and Practices

The primary objectives of this part

of the WTC investigation are to

document the requirements that governed the design, construction, and

maintenance of the structural and fire

safety systems of the World Trade

Center Towers and Building No. 7. In

addition, the requirements applied to

the WTC buildings are compared with

the requirements applied to other

buildings in New York City and

Chicago in the same time period. This

part of the WTC investigation will also

document new technologies and materials, if any, that were incorporated in

the design and construction of the

buildings, and the criteria and procedure used to accept these innovations.

This phase of the WTC investigation

will also document major modifications

to the structural and fire safety and

egress systems following a major fire in

1975 and after the 1993 bombing. 

To assist in determining the events

that led to collapse of the WTC buildings, it is necessary to know the state of

the buildings prior to the 9/11 attacks.

Since the WTC Towers and WTC 7

were totally destroyed, the state of the

buildings is recreated based on available

design, construction, and maintenance

documents. Documents provided by

the Port Authority of New York and

New Jersey, design professionals, contractors, and suppliers related to the

design, construction, and maintenance

of the buildings are examined for relevant information. The review of documents and synthesis of their content is

carried out jointly with industry partners who have many years of experience

in evaluating building code provisions,

evaluating fire safety systems, and

designing high-rise buildings in New

York City.

CONTACTS:

DR. H.S. LEW 

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6060

hai.lew@nist.gov

MR. RICHARD BUKOWSKI

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6853

rbukowski@nist.gov

R&D for the Safety of

Threatened Buildings

Intended Outcome and Background

This program will develop and disseminate guidance and tools, assess and

reduce building vulnerabilities, and

produce the technical basis for costeffective changes in national practices

and standards. Implementation of the

results will better protect building occupants and property in the future, will

enhance the safety of fire and emergency responders, and will increase

confidence in the safety of commercial

and public buildings. 

Four general areas of research are

targeted to support near and long term

improvements to reduce the vulnerability of the structure, building occupants

and first responders to extreme threats: 

Increasing Structural Integrity –

Structural integrity will be increased

through the development and implementation of performance criteria for

codes and standards, tools and practical guidance for prevention of progressive structural collapse. System design

concepts, retarded collapse mechanisms, built in redundancy, and hardening structures though retrofit are being

considered. Performance criteria for fire

safety design and retrofit of structures

is being developed through examination of five key factors: the suitability 

of standard fire resistance test methods;

the role of structural connections,

diaphragms, and redundancy in

51

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Map of north face of WTC north tower (WTC 1)

showing location of column at site of plane impact.
enabling load transfer and maintaining

overall structural integrity; the effectiveness of alternative retrofit, design and

fire protection strategies to enhance

structural fire endurance; the fire

behavior of structures built with innovative materials; and models to predict

the fire hazard to structures from internal and external fires. Guidance on

methods to enhance fire resistance of

steel and concrete structures based

upon our current state of knowledge

are being developed as well. 

Enhancing Fire Resistance – Fire

resistant steels exist and are in use

elsewhere in the world. More efficient

and accurate tests for performance of

steels under building fire conditions are

needed and are being developed to

help industry incorporate fire resistant

steels into U.S. construction practice.

Fundamental mechanical and thermal

properties of fire protective materials

are being measured. This requires the

development of new test methods and

instrumentation, and a data base that

spans the full range of expected temperatures and mechanical loads. These

data will supplement, or may even supplant the need for, the ASTM E119 test

in certain situations, and in any case

are key to the implementation of meaningful performance codes and design

criteria.

Improving Emergency Egress and

Access – By working with the primary

stakeholders (elevator and construction

industries, fire services, professional

societies and code making bodies), 

the role of elevators in providing access

by the fire service to a fire in a high

rise building is being greatly enhanced

over current practice. The development

of hardened fire service elevators and

new emergency operation procedures/

controls will also lead to improved

egress capabilities from tall buildings,

especially for mobility-impaired or

injured occupants. However, the behavior of people in an emergency situation

has been altered in unpredictable ways

by the events of 9/11. Current egress

models may be inappropriate and/or

insufficient for the design and placement of doors and stairways and the

control of elevator movement.

Behavioral and engineering studies are

being conducted, drawing on experts in

academia and elsewhere, to enable the

development of simulation tools that

better capture the movement of people

within a building under fire and other

emergency situations.

Developing Building and Emergency

Equipment Standards and Guidelines –

Partnering with ASHRAE and other federal agencies, NIST-developed indoor

air quality (IAQ) simulation tools are

being extended to analyze and guide

the assessment and subsequent reductions in the vulnerability of buildings to

chemical, biological, radiological

aerosols. Standard building information

models that facilitate the simulation 

of building system behavior during

adverse events are being developed to

allow communication among IAQ controls and other building controls associated with, for example, security, transportation, energy and fire alarm systems.

A user-friendly tool is being developed

for building owners and managers to

aid in the selection of cost-effective

strategies for the management of terrorist and environmental risks. Also,

facilities are being established for science-based exposures for measurement

of firefighter equipment performance

attributes essential to support informed

fire service procurement decisions. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Methodology for Fire

Resistance Determination 

Compartmentation is the cornerstone of limiting room-to-room

and building-to-building fire spread.

Standard fire resistance testing of

wall/floor/ceiling assemblies provides 

an indicator of fire resistance and has

proven valuable over time. However,

these procedures have significant limitations that restrict their value for performance-based design and especially

for high-risk occupancies. These limitations include: (a) standard time-temperature curves that may not be sufficient

for all threats; (b) uniform heating,

while many fires produce hot spots that

may make the tests non-conservative;

(c) single point thermal measurements;

(d) pass/fail criteria, which make 

52

HOMELAND SECURITY
adaptation to other fire scenarios difficult; (e) documentation of the initial

failure mode, but not the relative time

to any successive modes, and (f) relative

ratings, not absolute values.

Compartmentation is especially

important in tall buildings, where the

egress of numerous occupants can be a

complex process, and barriers to the

spread of flame keep the egress paths

open, extend the time available for

escape, and increase the safe time in

places of refuge. For all these functions,

it is necessary to know, in terms of real

time, how long the interior partitions

in a building will contain flames and

smoke.

BFRL has embarked on a course to

provide such a methodology for inclusion in performance-based design of

buildings. The research involves obtaining real-scale experimental data, modeling the behavior of partitions as they

are driven to failure by the fire, and

developing recommendations for

obtaining the input parameters from

modifications of standard fire resistance

tests such as ASTM E119 and ISO

834. The initial work will focus on

non-loadbearing walls of gypsum panels

and steel studs, the most common 

interior construction in tall buildings. 

A continuing effort will extend the

research to glass-panel walls.

The modeling effort will be done in

three steps. First is a simple model for

failure, beginning with crack initiation

and propagation, continuing to the

supporting structure, and finally to the

fasteners and their failure points. This 

is now underway. Following this will

come a detailed model of the partition

materials to ascertain what additional

data need to be obtained from the test

method. The third component is a

detailed model of a partition assembly

for use by building design and engineering firms.

A series of real-scale compartment

tests is providing information on the

phenomenology of partition response

and failure and also quantitative information to guide the model development.

Various wall assemblies 2.44 m x 2.44 m

were exposed to intense fires from the

time of ignition to beyond flashover.

Flux meters provided time histories 

of the energy incident on the walls.

Thermocouples and infrared cinema

provided data on the transport of heat

through the walls and on the progress

toward perforation.

CONTACT:

DR. RICHARD GANN

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6866

richard.gann@nist.gov

Prevention of 

Progressive Collapse

Buildings that are designed according to modern building codes are

not expected to collapse during their

service life period. They are designed

typically to resist traditional governing

vertical loads and lateral loads such as

wind and earthquake. This situation is

changing, however, due to an increase

in deliberate terrorist attacks. In general,

a terrorist attack may lead to failure to a

small part of a building. When an initial local failure causes the loss of gravity

load capacity in the structural frame,

the failure spreads from story to story

which may lead to the total collapse of

an entire building or a disproportionately large part of the building. This

type of collapse is defined as “progressive collapse” (see figure). At present,

U.S. building codes do not provide

explicitly provisions to enhance the

resistance to progressive collapse. In

terms of magnitude and probability of

occurrence, the traditional vertical and

lateral design loads are quantifiable. 

In contrast, terrorist loads are difficult

to quantify as to size, location and the

nature of the loads. Terrorist attacks

may include thermal, impact and 

blast loads. Thus, in order to improve

resistance to progressive collapse, U.S.

building codes have attempted to 

incorporate structural redundancies by

introducing prescriptive requirements

for “structural integrity.” Changes are 

53

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

BFRL measured the thermal behavior of gypsum/steel

wall assemblies subjected to severe fire conditions. 
needed in the way buildings are

designed and constructed so that resistance to progressive collapse is provided

explicitly. Following the 2002 National

Workshop, NIST is working jointly

with the Multihazard Mitigation

Council of the National Institute of

Building Sciences and industry experts

to produce a “Best Practices Guide” 

for mitigating progressive collapse of

buildings for design professionals. This

document will be published in FY2004.

Subsequent research effort will focus 

on the development of tools to assist

design professionals in the design of

new buildings against progressive 

collapse and methods to enhance the

resistance of existing buildings to 

progressive collapse.

CONTACT:

DR. H.S. LEW

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6066

hai.lew@nist.gov

Cost-Effectiveness Tool for

Managing Terrorists Risks 

in Constructed Facilities

The September 11th attacks on the

World Trade Center buildings and

the Pentagon galvanized the nation to

strengthen its defenses against future

terrorist attacks. The owners and managers of constructed facilities are now

faced with the task of responding to the

potential for future terrorist attacks in a

financially responsible manner. An economic tool is needed to direct limited

resources to investments in mitigation

strategies that will provide the most

cost-effective reduction in personal

injuries, financial losses, and damages

to buildings, industrial facilities, and

infrastructure.

The economic tool, under development by the Office of Applied

Economics (OAE), is a decision

methodology, embedded in user-friendly,

decision-support software, that helps

building/facility owners and managers

choose the most cost-effective mix of

mitigation strategies. Three mitigation

strategies are considered: (1) engineering alternatives; (2) management practices; and (3) financial mechanisms.

The economic tool will provide decision makers with the basis for generating a risk mitigation plan that responds

to the potential for future terrorist attacks

in a financially responsible manner.

Early in 2002, OAE economists Dr.

Robert E. Chapman and Dr. Harold E.

Marshall prepared a white paper 

outlining the tool development effort.

OAE used the white paper to solicit

stakeholder inputs, create opportunities

for collaborative efforts, and form a

Steering Committee of external subject

matter experts. This has resulted in 

collaborative efforts with the Wharton

Risk Management and Decision

Processes Center, the Construction

Industry Institute, ASTM International,

and the EPA Safe Buildings Program.

Dr. Marshall prepared an expanded 

version of the white paper entitled

“Economic Approaches to Homeland

Security for Constructed Facilities” and

delivered it at the September 2002 CIB

Meeting in Cincinnati as the invited

Keynote Address.

Significant OAE products during this

reporting period include a prototype

version of the software and a NISTIR

illustrating the methodology via a case

study building. OAE information technology specialist Ms. Amy S. Rushing

completed the prototype version of the

software and presented it to the

Steering Committee in September

2003. The prototype includes the software’s graphical user interface and linkage to database files and key reports.

The beta version of the software is

planned for completion in 2004; it 

will facilitate a variety of user-specified

analyses. All analyses employed in the

software will be consistent with ASTM

standard practices. A case study report

illustrating how to apply the life-cycle

54

HOMELAND SECURITY

Collapse of

Ronan Point

Apartment in

England (1968)
cost method (ASTM E 917) to a prototypical commercial building renovation

project was produced by Dr. Chapman

and published in NISTIR 7025. A subsequent technical report by Dr.

Chapman and OAE economist Ms. Chi

J. Leng documenting the decision

methodology is planned for publication

in 2004.

CONTACT:

DR. ROBERT E. CHAPMAN

OFFICE OF APPLIED ECONOMICS

(301) 975-2723

robert.chapman@nist.gov

Fire Safety Design and

Retrofit of Structures

Current building design practice

does not consider fire as a design

condition to predict and evaluate 

structural performance in the presence

of an uncontrolled fire. Instead, fire

endurance ratings of building members,

derived from standard fire endurance

test, are specified in building codes.

There is no accepted science-based set

of verified tools to evaluate the fire performance of entire structures under

realistic fire conditions at present. Thus,

there is an urgent and critical need to

develop and implement verified and

improved standards, technology, and

practices that explicitly consider structural fire loads in the design of new

structures and the retrofit of existing

structures. A workshop was held recently in cooperation with the Society of

Fire Protection Engineers to assess current fire safety practice and existing

codes and standards, and to identify

research gaps for an improved fire safety

design and retrofit approach. The workshop was attended by national and

international fire safety experts and provided the technical basis for the development of a national R&D roadmap

for Fire Safety Design and Retrofit of

Structures.

In addition, an evaluation has been

performed of state-of-the-art numerical

tools, including ANSYS and SAFIR, to

assess their suitability for use in analyzing performance of structures under the

combined fire and mechanical loadings.

The evaluation process of these analytical platforms, which are rarely used in

practice for fire safety design, is ongoing and necessary due to the complexity

of structural systems, loading conditions, boundary conditions, and the

highly nonlinear nature of the material

and structural behaviors. Effect of high

thermal loading on structural performance of tested concrete column, WTC

steel connections, members, and subassemblies was examined. To better

inform the modeling effort, a series of

large-scale testing was conducted of

steel components in a fire environment.

The tested components included steel

rods, columns, and open-web steel

joists that were either left bare or had

sprayed-on fire protective insulation

material of varying thickness. Test fires

were generated using liquid hydrocarbon fuels to produce medium-soot fires

and high-soot fires and the tests were

continued until the temperature at any

steel surface approached approximately

600° C.

CONTACT:

DR. JOHN GROSS

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION 

RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6075

john.gross@nist.gov

55

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Insulated steel trusses, steel rod, and steel column

inside the NIST Large-scale Fire Laboratory 

View of fire compartment from air exhaust outlet several minutes after the start of a fire test. Note the flame

impingement on the steel trusses and bar
Emergency Use of Elevators 

This project is aimed at the development and implementation of

protected elevators that can be used for

fire department access and occupant

egress during emergencies in tall 

buildings. The general strategy is to

first incorporate into U.S. Codes and

Standards a protected elevator system

for fire department access. These are

known in other countries as firefighter

lifts and there are existing requirements

for these in at least 12 countries (as

identified in a report by ISO TC178 

on Elevators and Escalators). Once 

the U.S. fire services are satisfied that

elevators are safe and reliable during

fires codes, and standards would be

changed to recognize protected elevators for occupant egress, secondary to

or integrated with stairs.

The key technological advancement

offered in the NIST strategy is the

(new) concept of remote manual control. Here the elevator system safety is

monitored in real time by the fire alarm

system and displayed on a standardized

fire service interface developed jointly

by NIST and the fire alarm industry,

through the National Electrical

Manufacturers Association (NEMA)

and implemented in the 2002 edition

of the National Fire Alarm Code

(NFPA72). This system addresses 

residual concerns held by the fire service and elevator industry even where

such systems are utilized under existing

codes and standards. The system further might be specified for accessible

elevators required in U.S. and other

building codes for access by people 

with disabilities but where the safety 

for use in egress during fires is still 

considered questionable.

Several technical papers have been

written by NIST and presented at a

recent international conference on 

Tall Buildings organized by CIB and

CTBUH. NIST organized and chaired

the speakers’ session on emergency use

of elevators, which included papers by

two of the largest U.S. elevator companies (Otis and Kone). NIST is also cosponsoring and presenting papers at a

workshop scheduled for the first week

in March 2004 organized by ASME

and their A17 committee which is

responsible for the standard convening

the safe use of elevators referenced in 

all U.S. building codes. NIST is working with the key representatives of the

elevator industry and regulators represented on the A17 committee and with

the product development engineers at

Otis and Kone to implement the

required technology and interfaces into

their elevator controls, and on a novel

approach to work out changes to the

elevator control software for emergency

operations protocols during fires. This

approach would utilize BFRL’s Virtual

Cybernetic Building Testbed to allow

numerous simulations of building fires

to test the ability of the control software to adapt to conditions and to

maintain safe operations. 

CONTACT:

MR. RICHARD BUKOWSKI

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-6853

richard.bukowski@nist.gov 

56

HOMELAND SECURITY

Firefighters 

elevators provide

access to fires on

upper floors of 

tall buildings.
Guidelines and Technologies

for Mitigation of Chemical,

Biological and Radiological

Aerosol Attacks

The increased attention to the

potential vulnerability of buildings

to airborne chemical, biological and

radiological (CBR) agents has lead to

the need for better simulation tools to

evaluate the transport and fate of such

agents in buildings. BFRL’s longstanding expertise in airflow and contaminant transport modeling in buildings

systems has been employed in many

such analyses and recently these capabilities have been extended via the

release of version 2.1 of the CONTAM

software. Among other enhancements,

CONTAM is now able to use the output of exterior plume models as an

input, such that outdoor contaminant

concentrations from an exterior agent

release can vary as a function of opening location on the building façade and

time. This new capability allows users

to link their exterior transport models

to CONTAM and allow details analyses

of the impact of an exterior release on

indoor concentrations. In addition,

CONTAM version 2.1 has improved

models of particulate contaminants and

has added fan and damper transients to

the ability to simulate controls. The

updated CONTAM model is now

being used by an increasing number of

researchers and practitioners in their

evaluation of specific buildings and of

technologies with the potential to

increase building protection.

CONTACT:

DR. ANDREW PERSILY

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-6418

andrew.persily@nist.gov

Fire Resistant Steel

Structural steel loses strength at

building fire temperature, leading

to the need for costly and potentially

unreliable fire-proofing. In contrast, a

new class of fire-resistant steels, or “FR

steels,” is specifically designed to retain

more of the design strength at high

temperature. These steels are being produced in Japan and Europe, and are

now in use, either with or without

additional fire protection. The use of

FR steels leads to cost savings and

schedule benefits during construction

when application of fire protection can

be avoided, and enhanced performance

when protection is applied in the case

of damage to the insulation.

Unfortunately, the benefits of FR steel

are not adequately tested under the

standard U.S. structural fire standards

(ASTM E119) and thus are not currently used in the U.S. 

A project has been initiated to ascertain which properties of steel are critical

for efficient use of FR steels, such as

high temperature strength and creep.

Conventional steels and FR steels are

being characterized to determine these

critical properties. Our goals include

both provision of accurate data on FR

steels and development of quick and

accurate tests for measuring relevant

high temperature properties.

CONTACT:

DR. FRANK GAYLE

MATERIALS SCIENCE AND 

ENGINEERING LABORATORY

(301) 975-6161

frank.gayle@nist.gov

57

BFRL ACTIVITIES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS & RECOGNITIONS

Exterior Flow

Field as input to

CONTAM model

of building

High temperature tensile tests to measure performance

of structural steel at temperatures found in building fires.

Stress-strain curves of a conventional structural steel,

showing degradation of properties at high temperatures.
58

AASHTO

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE 

HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS

AASHTO Materials 

Reference Laboratory (AMRL)

Established at NIST (then NBS) in 

1965, the AASHTO Materials Reference

Laboratory (AMRL) is a research associateship with a staff of 48 that provides a

highly-valued quality assurance mechanism for laboratories that use AASHTO

standards for highway materials; it also

provides technical assistance to the

AASHTO Accreditation Program (AAP)

that currently accredits about 850 laboratories. With Mr. James Pielert as Manager

and Mr. Peter Spellerberg as Assistant

Manager, the AMRL provides, upon

request, as reimbursable services, laboratory

inspection and proficiency sample programs.

In 2002, over 1500 laboratories participated in AMRL programs. For those laboratories that wish to participate in the AAP,

results of the relevant laboratory inspections carried out by the AMRL and the

ASTM-sponsored Cement and Concrete

Reference Laboratory (CCRL) are the

basis for accreditation. AMRL’s quality

assurance services are complemented by

standards-related research carried out in

collaboration with BFRL researchers.

ACI

AMERICAN CONCRETE INSTITUTE

Dr. Geoffrey Frohnsdorff, guest worker in

the Materials and Construction Research

Division, is a member of ACI’s Board of

Direction and chairs the new Task Group

on Implications of Virtual Concrete

Technology.

ACI Advisory Group to 

ISO TC71, Concrete, Reinforced

Concrete, and Pre-Stressed Concrete

Dr. Geoffrey Frohnsdorff, guest worker 

in the Materials and Construction

Research Division, is a member of the

ACI Advisory Group to ISO TC71,

Concrete, Reinforced Concrete, and 

Pre-Stressed Concrete.

ACI Committee 216, Fire Resistance 

and Fire Protection of Structures

Dr. Long Phan, Materials and

Construction Research Division, chairs 

the joint ACI/TMS (The Masonry Society)

Committee 216 on Fire Resistance and

Fire Protection of Structures. During

2002 he lead the effort to revise the 

committee guide for Determining the 

Fire Endurance of Concrete Elements.

ACI Committee 235, 

Knowledge-Based Systems and

Mathematical Models of Materials

Dr. Chiara Ferraris, Materials and

Construction Research Division, chairs

Subcommittee ACI 235B, Database

Formats for Concrete Material Properties. 

Dr. Geoffrey Frohnsdorff, guest worker

for the Materials and Construction

Research Division, chairs Subcommittee

ACI 235C, Virtual Concrete Technology.

ACI Committee 236, 

Materials Science of Concrete

Dr. Chiara Ferraris, Materials and

Construction Research Division, chairs

ACI Committee 236 on Materials Science

of Concrete and subcommittee ACI 236A

on Workability of Fresh Concrete. As the

chair of ACI 236A, she leads efforts to

coordinate an international study to compare and correlate concrete rheometers.

The second trial was held in Cleveland,

OH in May 2003. As chair of ACI 236

she is fostering a better understanding on

how prediction of concrete properties

could be improved by better knowledge

of material science.

ACI Committee 318, 

Structural Concrete Building Code

Dr. H.S. Lew, Materials and Construction

Research Division, serves on ACI

Committee 318, which is responsible for

developing ACI Standard 318—Building

Code Requirements for Structural Concrete.

Dr. Lew introduced new provisions for

adoption by ACI 318. Dr. Lew serves on

Subcommittee C on safety, serviceability

and analysis and the subcommittee for

new materials, products and ideas.

Dr. Nicholas J. Carino, Materials and

Construction Research Division, serves on

to ACI 318 Subcommittee A, which is

responsible for the portions of ACI

Standard 318 dealing with construction.

Dr. Carino has led efforts to update the

code as a result of changes to applicable

ASTM standards. 

ACI Committee 437 on 

Strength Evaluation of Existing 

Concrete Structures

Dr. Nicholas J. Carino, Materials and

Construction Research Division, was a

member of the task group on the revision

of the committee report on Strength

Evaluation of Existing Concrete Buildings.

He updated the portions of the document

dealing with in-place and nondestructive

test methods. The revised report was published by ACI in 2003.

STANDARDS ACTIVITIES
59

ACI Committee 440, 

Fiber Reinforced Polymers

Dr. Dat Duthinh, Materials and

Construction Research Division, is playing an active role in drafting Guidelines

for Prestressing Concrete Structures with

FRP Tendons, which will be published by

ACI as part of its series on emerging technologies, and Guidelines for Repair and

Strengthening of Masonry Structures, which

will be published jointly by ACI and

TMS (The Masonry Society).

ACI Electronic Guide on Cements

Dr. Geoffrey Frohnsdorff, a guest worker 

in the Materials and Construction Research

Division, chairs an ad hoc task group of

three ACI committees—Hydraulic

Cements, Knowledge-Based Systems and

Mathematical Modeling of Materials, and

Materials Science—to oversee a cooperative pilot activity in the development of

an interoperable guide to selection and

use of cements.

TAC Specifications Committee

Dr. Nicholas J. Carino, Materials and

Construction Research Division, serves 

as chair of the TAC Specifications

Committee, which is responsible to 

coordinating the standard specifications

issued by ACI and maintaining the

Specification Manual covering the 

standard format of ACI specifications.

During 2002 he lead the effort to revise

the Manual, which was approved by the

Technical Activities Committee (TAC). 

In 2003, he lead the effort to re-organize

ACI specifications to eliminate conflicts

and facilitate their use in project 

specifications.

Technical Activities Committee (TAC)

Dr. Nicholas J. Carino, Materials and

Construction Research Division, serves on

the ACI Technical Activities Committee

which is responsible for oversight of all

ACI technical activities, including review

of all technical committee documents. 

He initiated numerous revisions of the

Techncial Committee Manual that governs

the operation of ACI technical committees.

ACI Concrete Research and 

Education Foundation (ConREF)

Dr. H.S. Lew, Materials and Construction

Research Division, serves as chair of the

ACI/Concrete Research and Education

Foundation’s Board of Trustees, which is

responsible for establishing overall strategic goals for development of concrete

technology and administering funds for

education, research, and scientific purposes in order to increase the knowledge and

understanding of concrete materials and

improve concrete design and construction. Dr. Geoffrey Frohnsdorff, guest

worker in the Materials and Construction

Research Division, is a Trustee of the

Concrete Research and Education

Foundation.

AHAM HRF-1 

Household Refrigerators/

Household Freezers

Mr. David Yashar, Building Environment

Division, served on the committee

responsible for revising AHAM HRF-1

Household Refrigerators/Household Freezers.

This standard governs the evaluation of

volume measurement, performance 

measurement and energy consumption 

of household refrigerators and household

freezers. The efforts of the committee

have led to the publication of the first

revision of the standard in 14 years to 

be approved by the American National

Standards Institute (ANSI),

ANSI/AHAM HRF-1-2002. 

In 2002-2003, the task force continued

to review and revise the text and diagrams.

The revised edition will supersede the

2002 edition. This updated version of the

standard will contain information specifically relating to compact refrigerators that

is based on BFRL research. Mr. Yashar is

also serving as a member of the ANSI

canvass board reviewing the 2003 version

of this standard. 

AISC

AMERICAN INSTITUTE 

OF STEEL CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Robert Lipman, Building

Environment Division, and Dr. Kent

Reed, in the same division, have been

working for the past several years to 

support the AISC Electronic Data

Interchange Initiative. The purpose of 

the initiative is to create a means for 

collaboration and data sharing among 

the various parties involved in steel 

construction. As members of the CIS/2

(CIMsteel Integration Standards)

International Technical Committee, 

Mr. Robert Lipman and Dr. Kent Reed

have provided input to the second edition

of the standard which was released in

Spring 2003. They are working with 

vendors of steel analysis, design, detailing,

and fabrication software to implement 

the standard.
60

STANDARDS ACTIVITIES

AISC Committee on Specifications

Dr. John L. Gross, Materials and

Construction Research Division, serves 

on the American Institute of Steel

Construction Committee on Specifications.

The Committee is responsible for developing requirements for the design, fabrication and erection of steel buildings and

publishes the Specification for Structural

Steel Buildings. Dr. Gross serves on

Technical Subcommittee 3 (TC3) –

Loads, Analysis and Systems, and TC 8 –

Temperature Effects.

ASCE

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

SEI/ASCE Executive Committee 

on Codes and Standards

Dr. H.S. Lew, Materials and Construction

Research Division, serves on the

SEI/ASCE Executive Committee on

Codes and Standards. He worked closely

with committees that develop standards

for seismic evaluation and rehabilitation

of buildings, and for the testing and 

evaluation of seismic isolation systems

and components.

ASCE Committee ASCE-7

Dr. Emil Simiu, Materials and

Construction Research Division, is a

member of the ASCE Committee on

Minimum Design Loads for Buildings

and Other Structures (ASCE-7).

ASCE Committee on 

Structural Condition Assessment 

of Existing Buildings

Mr. James Pielert, AASHTO Materials

Reference Laboratory, is on the control

group of the ASCE Standards Committee

on Condition Assessment of Existing

Buildings.

ASHRAE

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HEATING, REFRIGERATING

AND AIR CONDITIONING ENGINEERS, INC.

ASHRAE Standards Committee

Mr. Brian Dougherty, Building

Environment Division, began serving his

third year on the Standard Committee in

July 2003. The committee is responsible

for overseeing the development and maintenance of all ASHRAE standards, guidelines, and code language documents. Mr.

Dougherty is a member of the Technical

Committee Liaison Subcommittee and

chairs the Inter-Society Liaison

Subcommittee. Mr. Dougherty has specific responsibility as the standards committee liaison for twelve technical committees.

ASHRAE 37R Methods of Test for

Rating Electrically Driven Unitary 

Air-Conditioning and Heat Pump

Equipment

Mr. Brian Dougherty is the lead editor 

on this revision of the standard, which

was last updated in 1988. The standard is

being updated to reflect current laboratory practices and instrumentation and to

better address newer equipment features.

The laboratory test methods described 

in the standard are used to obtain the 

performance data that is ultimately used

in calculating federally mandated seasonal

rating descriptors. Following its June 2003

Meeting, the committee voted and recommend the revised standard be released

for a second public review.

ASHRAE Standard 62.2 Ventilation 

and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in

Low-Rise Residential Buildings

Mr. Steven Emmerich, Building

Environment Division, serves as secretary

of the committee responsible for developing

a new ventilation and indoor air quality

standard for low-rise residential buildings.

The draft document was recently issued

for a fourth public review. The committee

also started development of a companion

guideline under the direction of Mr.

Emmerich.

ASHRAE Standard 103 Method of

Testing for Annual Fuel Utilization

Efficiency of Residential Central

Furnaces and Boilers 

Dr. Stanley Liu, Building Environment

Division, is a voting member of ASHRAE

SPC 103 Method of Testing for Annual

Fuel Utilization Efficiency of Residential

Central Furnaces and Boilers. This standard was last updated in 1993. The standard provides the test and calculation procedures for the determination of an

Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency

(AFUE) of central fossil fuel-fired residential heating equipment. The standard is

referenced by the Department of Energy

in its federal mandated rating of consumer fossil fuel fired central heating

equipment. The committee is currently
61

considering changes in this test standard

to make the test procedure more precise

for certain type of design. A first draft of

a revised document is currently being 

prepared for public comments.

ASHRAE Standard 118.2 Method 

of Testing and Rating Residential 

Water Heaters

Dr. William Healy, Building

Environment Division, is a voting member of ASHRAE SPC 118.2 Method of

Testing and Rating Residential Water

Heaters. This standard governs the evaluation of the energy factor which rates the

thermal efficiency of residential water

heaters and the first-hour rating which

provides a metric for the amount of hot

water provided by a tank. The committee

is currently considering changes in this

test procedure to correct errors in calculations and to make the procedure more

consistent. Work has been undertaken to

determine the differences between the

ASHRAE procedure and the Department

of Energy’s procedure in an effort to align

the two methods of test. 

ASHRAE Standard 124 Methods of

Testing for Rating Combination SpaceHeating and Water-Heating Appliances

Dr. Stanley Liu, Building Environment

Division, is a voting member of ASHRAE

SPC 124 Methods of Testing for Rating

Combination Space-Heating and WaterHeating Appliances. This standard was

first published in 1991. The standard provides the test and calculation procedures

for the determination of a Combined

Annual Efficiency for equipment that

provide both space heating and water

heating. Combination appliances are

either space-heating boilers that also 

provide domestic hot water, or domestic

water heaters that also provide heated

water for space heating purposes The

committee is currently considering updating of this test standard to correct errors

in the standard and to consider proposed

revisions from industry. A first draft of 

a revised document was published by

ASHRAE for public review and comment

in 2002. Comments were received by

ASHRAE and are under review by the

committee.

ASHRAE Standing Standards Project

Committee 135

Mr. Steven T. Bushby, Building

Environment Division, chairs ASHRAE

Standing Standards Project Committee

135 (SSPC 135). This committee is

responsible for maintaining the BACnet

communication protocol standard

(ASNI/ASHRAE Standard 135) and 

a newly published Standard 135.1

Method of Test for Conformance to

BACnet. The BACnet Manufacturer’s

Association and the BACnet Interest

Group – Europe have adopted the new

testing standard as the basis for testing

and listing programs in the United States

and Europe.

Addendum b to Standard 135, which

modifies trending features to fix some

problems that were encountered in

deployed BACnet systems, was published

in 2003. Three other addenda have completed the public review process and are

awaiting final approval for publication.

Addendum a adds a number of new features including more advanced scheduling

capabilities, more detailed error reporting,

and the ability to dynamically discover

the presence of MS/TP slaves. Addendum

c contains new features that include

enhancements to the life safety objects

and services and the ability to represent

utility meters and other measuring devices

that provide pulsed outputs. Addendum

d contains information on interconnecting BACnet devices with devices that use

the European Installation Bus

(EIB)/Konnex protocol.

ASHRAE 135.1P Method of 

Test for Conformance to BACnet

Mr. Steven T. Bushby, Building

Environment Division, was the principal

author of a draft standard, ASHRAE

135.1P, Method of Test for Conformance to

BACnet. This proposed standard defines

detailed testing procedures for verifying

that control products correctly implement

the BACnet communication protocol.

Although still in the public review

process, 135.1P has already been adopted

by the newly-created BACnet

Manufacturers Association and the

BACnet Interest Group – Europe

(BIGEU) as the basis for testing and listing programs in the United States and

Europe. Mr. Bushby is Chairman of

ASHRAE Standing Standard Project

Committee 135 (SSPC 135) that maintains the BACnet communication protocol standard for building automation and

control systems. In 2001 a revised version

of the standard was published that included
62

STANDARDS ACTIVITIES

all addenda approved since 1995. Two

new addenda have since been prepared

and published for public review and comment. Addendum a to 135-2001 adds a

number of new features including more

advanced scheduling capabilities, more

detailed error reporting, and the ability to

dynamically discover the presence of

MS/TP slaves. Addendum b to 135-2001

modifies trending features to fix some

problems that have been encountered in

deployed BACnet systems. BACnet has

been translated into Chinese, Japanese,

and Korean. It has been adopted as a

Korean national standard, a European

Community prestandard, and has recently

been adopted as an ISO standard.

ASHRAE Standard 155P Method of

Testing for Rating Commercial Space

Heating Boiler Systems

Dr. Stanley Liu, Building Environment

Division, is a voting member of ASHRAE

SPC 155P Methods of Testing for Rating

Commercial Space Heating Boiler

Systems. The purpose of the standard is

to provide procedures for determining the

steady state thermal efficiency, part load

efficiency, standby loss rate and application part load value of commercial space

heating boiler systems. The standard,

when approved and published by

ASHRAE, will be referenced by ASHRAE

standard 90.1 as the rating procedure for

space heating boiler systems used in commercial buildings. A final draft of the

document is in preparation, and will be

voted upon by committee members for

presentation to ASHRAE Standards

Committee when completed.

ASME

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS

ASME Solar Energy Division

Dr. A. Hunter Fanney, Building

Environment Division, is a member and

past chairman of ASME’s Solar Energy

Division. This Division is responsible for

coordinating all solar energy activities

within ASME including the Journal of

Solar Energy Engineering, annual conferences, student activities, and awards. 

He has organized and will serve as the

moderator at a session entitled “Building

Integrated Photovoltaics” at the 2003

International Mechanical Engineering

Congress in Washington D.C. Dr. Fanney

is also serving as an acting Associate

Editor for ASME’s Journal of Solar

Energy Engineering.

ASTM

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TESTING AND MATERIALS

ASTM Committee C01 Cement

Mr. James Pielert, AASHTO Materials

Reference Laboratory, is committee 

secretary and a member of the Executive

Subcommittee of ASTM Committee C01

on Cement; he also chairs the Joint

Subcommittee on International Activities

of ASTM C01/C09. 

Mr. Jan Prowell, Research Associate

with CCRL, chairs ASTM Subcommittee

C01.97, Manual of Cement Testing. 

Dr. Geoffrey Frohnsdorff, guest worker

in the Materials and Construction

Research Division, is vice chair of

Committee C01, serves on the C01

Executive Subcommittee, and is chair of

Subcommittee C01.92, Administrative

Coordination and Long-Range Planning.

ASTM C01.23 Subcommittee 

on Computational Analysis 

Mr. Paul Stutzman, Materials and

Construction Research Division, chairs

the task groups on X-Ray Diffraction

Analysis and Petrographic Analysis in

ASTM Subcommittee C01.23,

Compositional Analysis. Under his 

leadership, standards for improved 

characterization of portland cements in

terms of the phases present using these

two techniques have been established. 

He also serves as the official voting 

member for NIST on Committee 01.

ASTM C01.25.01 Subcommittee

on Particle Size Analysis

Dr. Chiara Ferraris, Materials and

Construction Research Division, led the

effort to organize and analyze two roundrobin tests on particle size analysis of

cement. Two reports were published and

the SRM 114p certificate was amended

to include the particle size distribution

measured by laser diffraction using two

methods for dispersion. A draft method

for measuring PSD of cement by laser

diffraction was proposed to the ASTM

subcommittee.

ASTM Committee C09 

Concrete and Concrete Aggregates

Dr. Nicholas J. Carino, Materials and

Construction Research Division, was

elected Chair of Committee C09 for a

two-year term beginning in 2002. He

chaired the task group that prepared a

revision of ASTM C 42 (Test Method for

Obtaining and Testing Drilled Cores and

Sawed Beams of Concrete). The revision
63

was approved in 2003 and takes into

account new research findings on the

effects of moisture conditioning before

testing cores for strength. This revision

brings the test method in agreement with

ACI 318-02 (Building Code Requirements

for Structural Concrete). He also prepared

revisions to Test Methods C 215, C 597,

and C 803 that were approved in 2002.

He was instrumental in the preparation 

of a new specification on corrosion

inhibiting admixtures that was approved

by Subcommittee C09.23 on Chemical

Admixtures. He also contributed to new

standards on the pull-off method, cold

weather admixtures, and new tests for 

setting time. He assisted in analyzing

round robin test data for a new standard

on measuring slump-flow of self-consolidating concrete.

Mr. James Pielert, AASHTO Materials

Reference Laboratory, is a member of the

Executive Subcommittee of ASTM C09,

is secretary of Subcommittee C09.61 on

Testing for Strength, and chairs ASTM

Subcommittee C09.92 on International

Activities. 

Mr. Raymond Kolos, Research

Associate with CCRL, chairs ASTM

Subcommittee C09.97, Manual of Testing

for Concrete and Concrete Aggregates.

Dr. Chiara Ferraris, Materials and

Construction Research Division, is a

member of the Subcommittee C09.66 on

Resistance to Fluid Penetration and leads

the effort to ballot a “Test Method for

Measurement of Rate of Absorption of

Water by Hydraulic-Cement Concretes.”

The document was revised several times

and it is now ready for balloting by C09.

Mr. James Pielert, AASHTO Materials

Reference Laboratory, is a member of the

Executive Subcommittee of ASTM C09,

is secretary of Subcommittee C09.61 

on Testing for Strength, and chairs

Subcommittee C09.92 on International

Activities.

Mr. Raymond Kolos, Research associate

with CCRL, chairs ASTM Subcommittee

C09.97, Manual of Testing (for concrete

and concrete aggregates).

ASTM C16 Committee 

on Thermal Insulation

Mr. Robert R. Zarr, Building Environment

Division, chairs a new task group activity

covering the development of database 

formats for thermal transmission data

obtained by ASTM C16 Standard Test

Methods. Mr. Zarr also chairs the committee’s task groups on precision and bias,

and the design and operation of guardedhot-plate apparatus.

ASTM Committee C24 

on Building Seals and Sealants

Dr. Chris White, Materials and

Construction Research Division, is an

active member of ASTM C24 and is also

a member of the RILEM Committee on

Sealant Durability.

ASTM Committee D04 

Road and Paving Materials

Mr. Peter Spellerberg, Research Associate

with AMRL, is the Secretary of ASTM

Committee D04 on Road and Paving

Materials, and chairs subcommittee D04.95.

ASTM Committee D18 

Soil and Rock

Mr. Ronald Holsinger, Research Associate

with AMRL, is on the Executive

Committee of ASTM Committee D18

on Soil and Rock; is the secretary of

D18.05; and chairs D18.03.

ASTM Subcommittee D20.96

Biodegradable Plastics Subcommittee

Ms. Barbara Lippiatt, Office of Applied

Economics, is writing a standard under

the D20.96 Biodegradable Plastics

Subcommittee for reporting the life-cycle

environmental profiles of products.

ASTM Subcommittee D22.05 

Indoor Air Quality 

Dr. Andrew Persily, Building

Environment Division, is vice-chair of

ASTM Subcommittee D22.05. This subcommittee has approved and is currently

developing a suite of standards related to

indoor contaminant measurement, analysis and interpretation. Several of these

standards are based directly on research

and methods developed by BFRL.

ASTM E5 Committee 

on Fire Standards

Mr. James R. Lawson, Fire Research

Division, is currently the chairman of

ASTM Subcommittee E5.15 on Fire

Standards for Furnishings and Contents.

and a voting member of the NFPA Fire

Test Technical Committee. These committees develop fire standards for building

construction, transportation, and furnishings. These fire standards are used by the

building codes and other regulating

authorities throughout North America. 

In addition, Mr. Lawson is a voting 

member of the ASTM F23 Committee

on Protective Clothing, and NFPA

Committee for the Standard on Protective

Ensemble for Structural Fire Fighting

while Mr. Robert Vettori serves as alternate. These technical committees develop

standards for protective clothing and

equipment used by the fire service in

North America. Fire Standards and 
64

STANDARDS ACTIVITIES

protective clothing and equipment 

standards are under constant development

and revision as new knowledge and technology becomes available.

ASTM Subcommittee E06.23 Lead

Hazards Associated with Buildings

Dr. Walter Rossiter, Materials and

Construction Research Division, is a

member of many ASTM E06.23 task

groups. In concert with Dr. Mary

McKnight, Dr. Rossiter plays a key role 

in the development and revision of standards. In 2003, E06.23 issued two new

standards and eight revised standards.

Two draft standards were also proposed. 

ASTM Subcommittee E06.41

Infiltration and Ventilation Performance

Dr. Andrew Persily, Building

Environment Division, chairs ASTM

Subcommittee E06.41. Under his leadership, more than 15 standards for evaluating building airtightness, ventilation performance and other aspects of air leakage

and airflow in buildings are approved or

under development.

ASTM Subcommittee E06.66

Performance Standards for Dwellings

Dr. Robert Chapman, Office of

AppliedEconomics, completed and

obtained approval of the economics

attribute standard that ties together the

E06.66 family of standards that define

total building performance. The standard

guide was published by ASTM with 

the designation E 2156. In addition to

describing how to measure economic 

performance, the guide includes a detailed

example of how to apply the methodology

to a durability-related investment decision

that builds on the companion durability

attribute (ASTM Standard Guide E 2136.

Dr. Andrew Persily, Building

Environment Division, is writing the

indoor air quality attribute standard,

which is expected to be published in

2003. He has recently initiated development of the health and hygiene attribute

standard in collaboration with HUD.

ASTM Subcommittee E06.81 

Building Economics

Dr. Harold E. Marshall, Office of 

Applied Economics (OAE), has been 

the sole chairman of ASTM’s Building

Economics Subcommittee, E06.81, since

its inception in 1979. He has played

major authorship, educational, and leadership roles in writing and shepherding

successfully 21 standards and two software

products through the ASTM standardization process. His recent efforts are focused

on widespread implementation of a standard elemental building classification

called UNIFORMAT II. Based on two

NIST reports co-authored by Dr. Marshall,

the ASTM standard classification provides

the building community a common elemental classification for the description,

economic analysis, and management of

buildings over their life cycle. R.S. Means

has adopted UNIFORMAT II and advertises its cost manuals by saying they are

“consistent with ASTM’s UNIFORMAT II,

the industry standard.” UNIFORMAT II

is helping owners, project managers,

designers, builders, and facility managers

construct and manage their buildings

more cost effectively. Since March 2001,

75 thousand requests have been made 

for the pdf file of the UNIFORMAT II

NISTIR on the OAE web site. Other

building economics standards based on

research of Dr. Marshall and his OAE staff

include methods for measuring and evaluating life-cycle costs, net benefits or savings, and adjusted internal rates of return.

ASTM Committee E11 

on Quality and Statistics

Mr. Ronald Holsinger, Research 

Associate with AMRL, is on the Executive

Committee of ASTM Committee E11 

on Quality and Statistics.

ASTM E44.09

Dr. A. Hunter Fanney is a member of

subcommittee E44.09 that deals with

numerous issues concerning the testing

and evaluation of photovoltaics. Current

areas of interest include developing rating

methodologies for photovoltaics that 

use short-term data to predict long-term

performance, and im-proved indoor and

outdoor test procedures. 

ASTM Standing Committee 

on Publications

Dr. Mary McKnight, guest worker in 

the Materials and Construction Research

Division, serves on the ASTM Standing

Committee on Publications. The

Committee advises the Society’s Board 

of Directors on the formulation of 

publications policy and administers the

Society’s publications program, except 

for the Annual Book of ASTM Standards.
65

CCRL

CEMENT AND CONCRETE REFERENCE LABORATORY

Established at NIST (then NBS) in 1929

as the Cement Reference Laboratory in

response to a request from Congress, the

ASTM-sponsored Cement and Concrete

Reference Laboratory (CCRL) is a

research associateship that provides a

highly valued quality assurance mechanism for laboratories that use ASTM

cement and concrete standards. With 

Mr. James Pielert of AASHTO as

Manager and Mr. Raymond Kolos of

ASTM as Assistant Manager, and a staff

of 25 ASTM research associates, the

CCRL provides, upon request, as reimbursable services, laboratory inspection

and proficiency sample programs. In

2002, over 1000 laboratories participated

in the CCRL programs. For cement and

concrete laboratories that wish to participate in the AASHTO Accreditation

Program (AAP), results of laboratory

inspections carried out by the CCRL are

the basis for accreditation. CCRL’s quality

assurance services are complemented by

standards-related research carried out in

collaboration with BFRL researchers.

CIB

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH 

AND INNOVATION IN BUILDING AND 

CONSTRUCTION

CIB W14 Fire

Mr. Richard Bukowski, Fire Research

Division, is chair of CIB Working Commission 14 on Fire. The oldest working

commission in existence, W14 has a long

history of making major contributions to

the fire science and engineering fields.

CIB TG37 Performance-Based Buildings

Mr. Richard Bukowski, participates in

CIB TG37, a task group that is developing infrastructure and policy in support of

performance regulatory systems, internationally. TG37 is closely linked to the Interjurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration

Committee (IRCC) that is made up of

the chief building code official for each

member country and who share common

experiences and problems in the operation

of performance regulatory systems.

FIATECH AEX Project

FULLY INTEGRATED AND AUTOMATED TECHNOLOGY

Although many of the leading engineering organizations have adopted information integration technologies for the

design phase of capital facilities projects,

the capabilities and benefits of these technologies are not being exploited broadly

for the procurement, fabrication, inspection, materials management and installation of equipment for capital facilities. In 

collaboration with the FIATECH consortium, Mark Palmer led the formation of

the Automating Equipment Information

Exchanges (AEX) Phase 1 Project to

investigate this problem. The AEX Phase

1 project delivered the promised results at

the Spring 2003 FIATECH Member

Meeting. This included: 1) the analysis 

of industry information requirements 

and transaction priorities for the design,

procurement and delivery of centrifugal

pumps and shell and tube heat exchangers,

2) XML schemas and supporting documentation for centrifugal pumps and 

shell and tube heat exchangers, and 

3) the demonstration of trial software

implementations of these XML schemas.

To ensure broad industry input and 

adoption of the results, Mr. Palmer 

established collaboration agreements with

relevant industry organizations, e.g., API

(American Petroleum Institute), PIP (Process

Industry Practices) and ASHRAE on the

delivery of XML schemas for exchanging

information on engineered equipment.

IAAI

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION 

OF ARSON INVESTIGATORS 

IAAI Engineering Committee

Daniel Madrzykowski, Fire Fighting

Technology, was reappointed as the 

Chair of the IAAI Engineering Committee.

Under Mr. Madrzykowski’s leadership, 

the committee has been developing and

reviewing articles for the IAAI Fire and

Arson Investigator, assisting with the 

development of standards and a review

process for IAAI technical training programs, and collaborating with IAAI 

chapters in mutually beneficial large-scale

fire experiments to address USFA and

DoJ funded research programs at NIST. 

IAI

INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE 

FOR INTEROPERABILITY

NIST has joined the International

Alliance for Interoperability/North America

as a government member. Dr. Kent Reed,

Building Environment Division, represents NIST in the IAI/NA, is a member

of the IAI technical Advisory Group that

functions at the international level, and

participates in technical projects in the

Building Services Domain. The IAI is a
66

STANDARDS ACTIVITIES

global standards-setting organization 

dedicated to promoting effective means 

of exchanging information among all 

software platforms and applications 

serving the Architecture, Engineering,

Construction, and Facility Management

(AEC+FM) community.

ICC

INTERNATIONAL CODE COUNCIL

ICC Performance Committee

Mr. Richard Bukowski completed a threeyear assignment to the ICC Performance

Building Code and ICC Performance Fire

Code drafting committees. These two

committees eventually merged and produced the ICC Performance Code for

Buildings and Facilities, the first combined U.S. building and fire code and the

first U.S. performance based code. This

document has entered into the ICC code

development process where it is open to

code change proposals prior to formal

adoption. Mr. Bukowski has been named

to the ICC Performance Code development committee, which is responsible for

accepting or rejecting these proposed

changes.

IEC

INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING CONSORTIUM

IEC/TC 59 A Electric Dishwashers

Ms. Natascha Castro, Building

Environment Division, is a member of

the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to

IEC/TC 59A. This committee determines

the U.S. position on issues related to IEC

standards related to the performance and

energy consumption of dishwashers. 

ISO

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION 

FOR STANDARDIZATION

ISO TAG8

Mr. Richard Bukowski is the U.S. 

representative to ISO TAG8. TAG8 is a

technical advisory group to the Technical

Management Board (TMB) of the international Organization for Standardization

(ISO) which develops ISO standards. A

current activity is the development of an

ISO policy on performance standards.

ISO TC 59 Building Construction

Dr. Geoffrey Frohnsdorff, guest worker in

the Materials and Construction Research

Division, is chair of Subcommittee 14,

Design Life.

ISO TC 86 Refrigeration 

and Air-Conditioning

ISO’s Technical Committee 86

Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning is

composed of eight subcommittees 

that address topics such as terms and 

definitions, safety, and testing and 

rating methods for refrigeration and

space-conditioning equipment. Mr. Brian

Dougherty participates as a member 

of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group

(TAG) for ISO TC 86. The TAG monitors and formulates the U.S. position on

all TC 86-sponsored standards activities.

BFRL is also represented on ISO Working

Groups 1 and 5 within Subcommittee 6,

Factory-Made Air-Conditioning and Heat

Pump Units. WG1 is working to revise

two testing and rating standards that

apply to unitary air-conditioners and heat

pumps. WG5 is developing a testing and

rating standard for multi-split air conditioners and heat pumps.

ISO TC 71 on Concrete 

and TC 74 on Cement

Mr. James Pielert, AASHTO Materials

Reference Laboratory, chairs the joint

ASTM C01/C09 subcommittee that provides the U.S. Technical Advisory Group

(TAG) to ISO TC71 Subcommittee 1 on

Test Methods and Subcommittee 3 on

Production of Concrete and Execution 

of Concrete Structures. The joint ASTM

C01/C09 subcommittee also provides the

U.S. TAG to TC 74 on Cement.

ISO TC92 Fire Safety

Dr. Richard Gann of the Fire Research

Division chairs SC3, Fire Threat to People

and the Environment, and participates 

in the Technical Program Management

Group. He has formulated an agenda for

standardization documents for the use of

toxic potency information in fire risk and

hazard assessment. The Subcommittee has

now issued its first document in a decade

and has four more entering the later stages

of balloting. Dr. Gann also chaired the

subcommittee’s first Workshop on Fire

Threat to the Environment, beginning

the development of an agenda in that area.

Dr. Richard Gann led the adoption of

ASTM E2187-02, “Standard Test Method

for Measuring the Ignition Strength of

Cigarettes,” and its revision E2187-02b

with consensus from regulators, public

safety advocates, and the cigarette industry. This method has attracted attention

both domestically and internationally. It is

to be cited in 2003 regulation in the State

of New York, the basis for pending legislation in the U.S. Congress, and the

method underlying potential regulation 

in Canada and New Zealand. 
67

Dr. Walter Jones is the U.S. Expert 

on SC4, Fire Safety Engineering and a

member of the Working Group on model

validation and verification.

Dr. William Grosshandler is a member

of SC1, the subcommittee on Fire

Initiation and Growth, and a member 

of SC2, Fire Containment.

ISO TC184 Industrial 

Automation Systems and Integration

Mr. Mark Palmer, Building Environment

Division, participates in Subcommittee 4

Independent Data, of ISO TC184

Industry Automation Systems and

Integration. In support of the information

exchange needs of the process plant

industry and the shipbuilding industry,

Mr. Palmer led the ISO project which

developed ISO 10303 Application

Protocol 227 (Plant and Systems Spatial

Design) Edition 2. AP 227, Edition 2,

extends Edition 1 to include support for

piping fabrication and inspection, and the

design and installation of HVAC systems,

mechanical systems and cableway systems.

Trial implementations of Edition 2 were

demonstrated in April 2003 at the National

Shipbuilding Research Project/ Integrated

Shipbuilding Enterprise industry conference. The AP 227 ed.2 project was a 

collaborative project with the PlantSTEP

Consortium, U.S. Navy, UK Ministry of

Defense and the Japan ECOM project.

ISO approved the AP 227 ed2 Draft

International Standard with a unanimous

“Yes” vote and approved publication as an

International Standard. The International

Standard document for AP 227 ed2 will

be submitted to ISO in November 2003.

ISO TC 205 WG 3 

Building Control System Design

Mr. Steven Bushby, Building

Environment Division, is convener of

ISO/TC 205 WG 3 Building Control

System Design. The working group is

developing a multi-part international

standard that addresses several issues 

related to building control systems 

including control system functionality,

communication protocols, system 

specifications, and project management.

ANSI/ASHRAE standard 135-2001 was

adopted as the international standard for

the communication protocol portion of

this standard. ANSI/ ASHRAE 135.1 is

expected to be adopted as the international

standard for testing conformance to the

communication protocol.

NFPA

NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION

NFPA Standards Council

Mr. Richard Bukowski, of the Fire

Research Division Division, is a member

of the NFPA Standards Council. The

Standards Council is the body that administers the NFPA Codes and Standards 

system including making all committee

appointments, initiating and terminating

standards projects and issuing all documents. This is an especially important

time for the Standards Council in administering the development of the NFPA

Building Code and related Codes through

strategic partnerships. Appointments to

the thirteen-member Council run for

two, three-year terms.

NFPA Alternative Approaches 

to Life Safety Committee

Mr. David Stroup, Fire Research

Division, chairs NFPA 101A Committee

on Alternative Approaches to Life Safety.

The Alternative Approaches to Life Safety

standard provides methodologies for

measuring equivalency to the prescriptive

requirements of NFPA 101, Life Safety

Code. The document includes several Fire

Safety Evaluation Systems (FSES) developed at NIST for various building occupancy types. As chair of the committee

responsible for this fire safety standard,

Mr. Stroup presented the committee’s

report for adoption at the NFPA Fall

Meeting held in Orlando, FL on

November 15, 2000. At this meeting, 

the NFPA membership approved the 

latest revision of the standard and, more

significantly, accepted the first software

package, useful for evaluating equivalency,

for inclusion in the standard. The software, which was developed by Hughes

Associates through a contract with BFRL,

implements an enhanced Fire Safety

Evaluation System for business type 

occupancies. 

NFPA Toxicity Advisory Committee

Dr. Richard Gann, Fire Research

Division, chairs the NFPA Toxicity

Advisory Committee. This committee

brings special expertise on combustion

toxicity to advise any other NFPA 

technical committee on toxicity issues

that might be part of any proposal under

consideration. 
68

STANDARDS ACTIVITIES

NFPA Automatic Sprinkler Committees

Mr. Daniel Madrzykowski, Fire Research

Division, is chair of the Technical

Committee on Residential Sprinkler

Systems. This committee is responsible

for developing the standard on the design

and installation of sprinklers in one-and

two-family dwellings, and in residential

occupancies up to 4 stories in height. In

addition, Mr. Madrzykowski serves on 

the Technical Correlating Committee on

Automatic Sprinklers, leading the New

Technology Task Group and is the 

NIST alternate on the NFPA Technical

Committee on Sprinkler System Discharge.

Mr. Madrzykowski revised the residential

sprinkler section in the NFPA Automatic

Sprinkler Systems Handbook, 9th ed. and

was principal author on the Residential

Sprinkler Chapter in NFPA Fire

Protection Handbook.

NFPA 921 Guide for Fire 

and Explosion Investigations

Mr. Anthony Putorti Jr., Fire Research

Division, is a member of the NFPA 921

Committee, Guide for Fire and Explosion

Investigations. This committee provides

guidance to investigation professionals

based on scientifically defensible materials

and referenced technical data. NIST utilizes its research expertise to provide the

latest technical and scientific research

information to the committee. At the 

current time, NIST is studying the 

formation of fire burn patterns, which is

one of the tools used by investigators to

determine the origins and causes of fires

and explosions. The burn pattern research

is supported by the National Institute 

of Justice via the NIST Office of Law

Enforcement Standards and the United

States Fire Administration.

NFPA Halon Alternatives Committee

Dr. Jiann Yang, Fire Research Division, is

a member of the NFPA 2001 committee

developing standards for replacements for

halon extinguishing agents. This activity

is coordinated with the BFRL research on

halon replacements.

NFPA Life Safety Code for 

Detention and Correctional Facilities

Researchers in the Office of Applied

Economics have developed new software

to help prison facility managers and fire

safety engineers minimize the cost of

complying with the NFPA Life Safety

Code for Detention and Correctional

Facilities. The project was funded by 

the National Institute of Justice through

the NIST Office of Law Enforcement

Standards. Called ALARM 2.0

(Alternative Life-Safety Analysis for

Retrofit Cost Minimization), the software

quickly finds the least-cost compliance

plan by using construction cost estimating

algorithms and a linear programming

optimization model. The user first provides minimal information about the

facility and then enters data about the 

initial (or current) safety levels for 13 fire

safety parameters. The user also enters

data on the dimensions and quantities of

the building features that must be modified to improve safety. The cost estimating

algorithms quickly estimate the construction

costs of every possible safety improvement

(which can be overridden by the user).

The software then automatically finds the

least cost compliance plan for the facility.

ALARM includes a User Manual, an

extensive help system and tutorial, a sample project file, and a detailed printed

report describing the least-cost 

construction plan to achieve compliance

with the Life Safety Code. ALARM 2.0 is

being distributed by the NFPA and the

American Correctional Association.

NFPA National Fire Alarm Code

Technical Correlating Committee

Mr. Richard Bukowski, Fire Research

Division, serves on the TCC for the

National Fire Alarm Code. Like other

TCC’s this committee addresses technical

consistency and correlation among the

technical committees responsible for 

specific parts of the Code. 

NFPA and ASTM Rail 

Transportation Committees

Mr. Richard Peacock, Fire Research

Division, represents NIST and DOT 

on the NFPA 130 committee and the

ASTME5.17 committee developing 

standards for fire safety in passenger rail

vehicles.These activities are tied directly

to the DOT funded work to develop

advanced fire hazard analysis methods 

to be used in federal regulation.

NFPA Safety to Life 

Correlating Committee

Mr. Richard Bukowski, Fire Research

Division, is a member of the Technical

Correlating Committee (TCC) for the

Safety to Life Project. The TCC provides

oversight to the technical committees

developing requirements for individual

topics and assures that the requirements

are consistent and correlated throughout

the document.
69

NFPA Urban/Wildland 

Interface Committee

Mr. Daniel Madrzykowski is a member 

of the NFPA Technical Committees on

Forest and Rural Fire Protection and 

has contributed to the standards and

guides on Application of Class A foam in

Structural Fire Fighting and Fire-Fighting

Chemicals for Class A Fuels. Mr.

Madrzykowski also serves as NIST’s 

principal member on the Water Mist Fire

Protection Systems Technical Committee.

NFPA Research Section

Mr. Daniel Madrzykowski, Fire Research

Division, was elected as the Vice Chair 

in 2002. The Research Section’s principle

activity is the facilitation of communication between researchers and research end

users. One means the Research Section

uses to provide a forum for technology

transfer is the development of technical

programs for the Annual NFPA World

Conference and the NFPA Fall Education

Conference. Mr. Madrzykowski has been

most active in this area, with 12 NIST

researchers being featured in the 2002

NFPA Research Section Technical Programs.

OASIS

ORGANIZATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF

STRUCTURED INFORMATION STANDARDS

In technical work funded by the NIST

Systems Integration for Manufacturing

Applications program, Mr. Edwin Begley

of the Building Environment Division

completed the specification of the

Materials Markup Language (MatML)

during 2002 and delivered it to the 

industry-based MatML Steering

Committee. MatML Version 3.0 Schema,

available at http://www.matml.org, 

contains the formal specification for the

materials markup language and represents

the efforts to date of a cross section of 

the international materials community

with contributions from private industry, 

government laboratories, universities,

standards organizations, and professional

societies. The specification has been 

submitted as the base technical document

to the newly formed OASIS Materials

Markup Technical Committee.

RILEM

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF RESEARCH AND 

TESTING LABORATORIES FOR MATERIALS 

AND STRUCTURES

Dr. Long Phan, Materials and

Construction Research Division, is a

Senior Member of RILEM Technical

Committee HTC, Mechanical Concrete

Properties at High Temperatures:

Modeling and Applications. The committee is working to develop recommendations to standard methods for determine

properties of concrete at high temperatures.

RILEM Technical Committee 166-RMS

on Roofing Materials and Systems

Dr. Walter Rossiter, Materials and

Construction Research Division, is the 

past chair of the Joint Committee of CIB

W.83/RILEM 166-RMS. In 2002, the

Committee published report number 271

entitled Toward Sustainable Roofing. This

report provides 20 tenets for roofing 

practitioners to follow in selecting and

installing sustainable roofing. These tenets

have been published in ten languages. In

2003, the RILEM Journal of Materials

and Structures (No. 259) published the

Committee’s report entitled Condition

Assessment of Roofs. This report provides

roofing practitioners with an overview,

including flow chart, of the factors that

need to be addressed in performing condition assessments of low-sloped roofing

systems.

SFPE

SOCIETY FOR FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING

SFPE Task Group on 

Fire Model Evaluation

Mr. Daniel Madrzykowski is the

Chairman of the Society of Fire

Protection Engineers’ Task Group on 

Fire Model Evaluation. This group 

develops evaluation reports that provide

information on the technical features,

theoretical basis, assumptions, limitations

and sensitivities of selected computer models. The principle means of evaluation is

comparing model predictions to full-scale 

experimental data. The group recently

completed the evaluation of one of the

most heavily used models in the fire 

protection industry, DETACT-QS and

the group is currently working on the

evaluation of another fire model developed

at NIST, ASET-B. Mr. Madrzykowski

also serves as a member of SFPE’s

Technical Steering Committee and their

Publications Committee.
70

Gold Medal

The Gold Medal Award is the highest

honor award conferred upon an employee by the Department of Commerce. It is

bestowed for “distinguished performance

characterized by extraordinary, notable,

or prestigious contributions that impact

the mission of the Department of

Commerce and/or one operating unit

and which reflect favorably on the

Department.”

2003

Dr. Jack E. Snell, Director of BFRL

(retired), was cited for leadership at 

NIST in responding to the terrorist

attacks of September 11, 2001. He led

the NIST/Department of Commerce

response to the World Trade Center 

disaster, the only known case of a total

structural collapse in a high-rise building

where fires played a significant role. He

successfully launched a comprehensive

investigation, a research and development

program, and dissemination and technical

assistance program to permanently change

building design practices and building

codes and standards. Based on his concept

and vision, he recommended the creation

of the National Construction Safety

Teams to investigate future building 

failures similar to how the National

Transportation Safety Board investigates

transportation accidents.

Dr. Richard Gann, of the Fire Research

Division, was recognized for distinguished

scientific and engineering achievements in

the field of fire safety science. The primary

source of ignition contributing to residential fire deaths in the United States is a

misplaced lit cigarette. He developed

methods for quantifying the propensity 

of cigarettes to ignite soft furnishings that

led to a consensus industry rating standard and the development of cigarettes

that are significantly less prone to starting

and unintentional fire on upholstered 

furniture. He also established a scientific

foundation for selecting environmentally

safe fire suppressants for aircraft applications that has been adopted by the U.S.

Air Force.

Silver Medal

The Silver Medal is the second highest

honor awarded by the Department for

“exceptional performance characterized by

noteworthy or superlative contributions

that have a direct and lasting impact.”

2002

Mr. William H. Twilley, was honored for

providing outstanding technical design,

fabrication, and operational support in

the full-scale oil/diesel fuel pool fire

experiments. His contributions have

caused the national response teams to

incorporate in-situ burning at a tool to

reduce the negative impact of oil spills on

sensitive marine environments. His work

assisted industry to develop improved fire

resistant oil containment booms and better technology to monitor airborne smoke

and particles. 

2003

Ms. Barbara Lippiatt, of the Office of

Applied Economics, was cited for development of sound environmental and 

economic performance metrics in the

highly charged field of “green” products.

The green building decision-making

process was based on little structure and

even less credible scientific data. She

addressed this need by conceiving and

developing a systematic methodology for

selecting building products that achieve

the most appropriate balance between

environmental and economic performance based on the decision maker’s 

values. The result was a new program

known as Building for Environmental

and Economic sustainability (BEES).

BEES measures the environmental performance of building products using the

internationally standardized and sciencebased life-cycle assessment approach.

Dr. Thomas J. Ohlemiller, of the Fire

Research Division, was cited for achievements which serve as the basis for limiting

the consequences of residential bed fires.

For the past fire years, he has worked

closely with the industry to understand

how bed fires proceed from the ignition

of bedclothes to the full involvement of

the bed. He worked to develop a technically sound method of test and hazard

analysis for threat to life safety. Each year,

bed fires in homes cost the Nation nearly

500 lives, more than 2,000 serious

injuries, and $250 million in property

loss. Regulations adopted by the

California bureau of Home Furnishings

based on Dr. Ohlemiller’s research are

expected to cut losses from bed fires in half.

STAFF HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
71

Bronze Medal

The Bronze Medal Award is the highest

honorary recognition available for

Institute presentation. The award,

approved by the Director, recognizes

work that has resulted in more effective

and efficient management systems as

well as the demonstration of unusual

initiative or creative ability in the

development and improvement of methods and procedures. It also is given for

significant contributions affecting major

programs, scientific accomplishment

within the Institute, and superior performance of assigned tasks for at least

five consecutive years.

2002

Dr. Joannie Chin, Mr. Edward Embree and

Mr. W. Eric Byrd were recognized for 

scientific and engineering achievement in

designing, constructing and testing a

highly sophisticated, integrating spherebased ultraviolet exposure device for the

ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure of

polymeric materials. This device is novel

in both its temporal and spatial control in

both the precision and accuracy that can

be maintained over all of the weathering

variables commonly associated with the

photo deterioration of polymeric materials.

2003

Mr. George Walton and Mr. Stuart Dols,

Building Environment Division, received 

the DOC Bronze Medal in recognition of

their scientific and engineering achievement in the development of the network

airflow analysis and contaminant dispersal

simulation programs CONTAM and

CONTAMW. The CONTAM programs

have had significant impacts on several

aspects of the built environment including the design and analysis of smoke control systems, the understanding of building airflow dynamics in relation to energy

use and indoor air quality, and most

recently in the analysis and reduction of

building vulnerability to chembio attacks.

In the latter case, CONTAM was recently

selected to serve as the calculation engine

in the Immune Building Toolkit being

developed under the DARPA Immune

Buildings program.

2003 Department of Commerce

Engineer of the Year

Mr. Richard Bukowski, of the Fire Research

Division, received the 24th Department

of Commerce Engineer of the Year Award.

This award, sponsored by the National

Society of Professional Engineers, rewards

sustained engineering achievements, civic

and humanitarian activities, and contributions to the professional and technical

societies. 

Mr. Bukowski’s career in fire protection

engineering spans 30 years and has resulted in significant improvements and profound changes to test standards, building

codes, and engineering practice. His early

study of residential smoke alarms changed

NFPA and UL standards and was a major

factor in the unprecedented growth of

smoke alarm use and the attendant drop

in fire deaths in the home. Mr. Bukowski

began working in fire modeling, fire hazard, and fire risk assessment during the

early years and led the team that developed HAZARD I, the world’s first comprehensive fire hazard assessment method

implemented in personal computer software. In addition, he is a key player in the

development of performance-based codes,

chairing CIB W14’s TG1, Engineering

Evaluation of Building Fire Safety

Performance.

2002 Equal Employment

Opportunity/Diversity Award

The Equal Employment Opportunity/

Diversity Award recognized significant

EEO/diversity contributions that have

been performed in an exceedingly 

outstanding manner by an Institute

employee.

Dr. Chiara Ferraris was recognized for 

co-organizing a day of hands-on science

experiences, Science: Get Psyched, for 

200-300 local Girl Scouts. In small

groups, the girls visit different rooms and

interact with lively science demonstrations

provided by NIST scientists. Topics include

such things as Polymer networks: the

importance of squishy gooey, gummy

stuff; and Shake, rattle, and roll: making

structures earthquake proof. The Scouts

also attend panel discussions where they

can ask female scientists why they chose

science and what it is like to be a scientist. The volunteer program, now in its

ninth year, is designed to increase the

pipeline of young scientists on which

NIST will depend in the years to come.
72

STAFF HIGHLIGHTS AN D AWA R D S

IIR Science and Technology Medal 

The International Institute of

Refrigeration (IIR) honored Piotr

Domanski with the IIR Science and

Technology Medal, one of the top three

IIR recognitions. The medal was awarded

on August 21, 2003 during the Award

Banquet of the 21st International

Congress of Refrigeration, at the Mariott

Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC.

Based in Paris, the IIR is an intergovernmental organization linking 61 countries

that account for 80% of the global population. Its objective is to promote progress

and expansion of knowledge on refrigeration technology. The IIR Science and

Technology Medal is awarded once in

four years, on the occasion of the congress,

for outstanding achievements in science

and technology over an extended period 

of time. 

The International William J. Conroy

Standards Professional Award 

for 2003

Mr. Mark Palmer was awarded the

International William J. Conroy Standards

Professional Award for his technical 

contributions and dedication to the concepts, development, and implementation

of the product data standards of ISO TC

184/SC4 (Industrial Automation Systems

and Integration/ Industrial Data). The

International William J. Conroy

Standards Professional Award recognizes

an individual who has shown exceptional

leadership in the development or implementation of Product Data Exchange

standards. This award was established by

the US Production Data Association (US

PRO) Board of Directors in honor of Bill

Conroy, who provided notable leadership

to the standards community during his

professional career.

2002 BFRL Communication Award

Dr. Fahim Sadek and Dr. Emil Simiu were

awarded the 2002 BFRL Communication

Group Award for the paper “Peak NonGaussian Wind Effects for DatabaseAssisted Low-Rise Building Design,”

(Journal of Engineering Mechanics 128,

May 2002, 530-539) and the attendant

software. The audience for this paper

includes the structural and wind engineering research and design community, as

well as probabilistic analysis and structural reliability experts. Following the publication of the paper, the software has been

widely distributed to researchers and engineers interested in peak wind effects estimation, structural reliability, and database-assisted design of low-rise building

frames.

ASHRAE Fellow

Dr. Andrew Persily, Building Environment

Division, was elevated to the grade of

Fellow by the American Society of

Heating, Refrigerating and AirConditioning Engineers. This award was

based on his contributions to the arts and

sciences of HVAC engineering in the

areas of building airtightness and ventilation measurement and the field of indoor

air quality analysis.

Society of Fire Protection Engineers

Honorary Member

The Grade of SFPE Honorary Member

is bestowed upon individuals of

acknowledged eminence in fire protection

engineering or a related activity. 

Dr. Kevin McGrattan, of the Fire Science

Division, was responsible for bringing the

power of three dimensional computational

fluid dynamics modeling of fire environments into the hands of mainstream fire

protection practitioners through the

development of two CFD-based models

and their adaptation to personal computers. While he came from a background

that is outside of fire protection engineering (mathematics), Dr. McGrattan has

dedicated himself to understanding the

concepts behind CFD modeling of fire

environments and has also spent countless

hours understanding the needs of the fire

protection engineering profession and

communicating with us to better understand those needs for modeling purposes.

Dr. McGrattan received his Ph.D. in

Mathematics from New York University

in 1991. He is a mathematician at the

National Institute of Standards and

Technology’s Building and Fire Research

Laboratory.

Society of Fire Protection 

Engineers Fellow

Dr. Kathy Notarianni, of the Fire Research

Division, was awarded the grade of Fellow

for her outstanding contributions to the

advancement of fire protection engineering and valuable service to SFPE. 
73

ACI Wason Medal 

for Materials Research

Dr. Long Phan and Dr. Nicholas J. Carino,

Materials and Construction Research

Division, were awarded the 2003 Wason

Medal for Materials Research by the

American Concrete Institute for their

paper, “Effects of Test Conditions and

Mixture Proportions on Behavior of

High-Strength Concrete Exposed to High

Temperatures.” The paper describes the

results of NIST research aimed at understanding the degradation of properties of

high-strength concrete when exposed to

fires. The Wason Medal was established in

1917 for “original research work on concrete materials and their use, or a discovery that advances the state of knowledge

of materials used in the construction

industry.”

ASCE Robert H. Scanlan Medal

Dr. Emil Simiu, Materials and Construction

Research Division, was awarded the 

inaugural 2003 Robert H. Scanlan Medal

for his broad range of research accomplishments in wind engineering and engineering mechanics, including estimation of

wind and wave loads on buildings, bridges,

and deep-water compliant offshore 

platforms.

ASTM Award of Merit

Dr. Nicholas J. Carino, Materials and

Construction Research Division, was the

recipient of the 2002 ASTM Award of

Merit. The award was established in 1949

and is the highest award granted by ASTM

to an individual member for distinguished

service and outstanding participation in

ASTM committee activities. He has held

a variety of leadership positions on 

C09 including serving on the Executive

Subcommittee, membership secretary,

chair of the Subcommittees on Setting

Time, Accelerated Strength Testing,

Nondestructive and In-Place Testing, and

the Task Group on Testing High Strength

Concrete.

ASTM Committee C09 

Award of Appreciation

Dr. Nicholas J. Carino, Materials and

Construction Research Division, was presented with the C09 Award of Appreciation

at the June 2002 meeting in Salt Lake City

for his service as chair of Subcommittee

C09.64 on Nondestructive and In-Place

Testing. During his tenure, he provided

leadership in the development of a new

standard on the use of the impact-echo

method for measuring thickness of concrete members. He led the research program on the impact-echo method, which 

began at NIST (then NBS) in 1983.

IAARC Tucker-Hasegawa Award

Dr. William Stone, Materials and

Construction Research Division, received

the 2002 Tucker-Hasegawa Award from

the International Association for

Automation and Robotics in Construction.

The award, which is competitive among

some 30 participating nations, is issued

annually to the person most influencing

world advancement of automated processes and intelligent systems in the construction industry. Dr. Stone leads the

Construction Metrology and Automation

Group (CMAG) within BFRL. CMAG

has conducted ground-breaking work in

the use of laser radar, RFID, and other

wireless-enabled sensing systems for job

site status determination to enable the

development of the first generation of

fully autonomous construction machinery

– including the world’s first automated

structural steel placement system.

Patent issued on NIST Integrating

Sphere-Based Weathering Device

Patent Number 6,626,052, “Method and

Apparatus for Artificial Weathering”, was

assigned to Jonathan Martin and Joannie

Chin on September 30, 2003, for the

device known as the NIST SPHERE

(Simulated Photodegradation via High

Energy Radiant Exposure). In predicting

the service lives of polymeric materials, a

need exists for accelerated weathering

devices that can uniformly irradiate test

specimens with a high ultraviolet radiant

flux while accurately and precisely conThe NIST SPHERE

(Simulated

Photodegradation

via High Energy

Radiant Exposure).
variable-elevation scanning which serves

to fill in the gaps in scenes produced with

traditional LADAR scanning techniques.

The device is also particularly suited for

use in characterizing high radiation environments, such as those related to decontamination and decommissioning of

nuclear plant infrastructure. The sensor

head elements are designed to be “rad

hard” with the sensitive range measuring

laser source and detectors located at the

far end of the extensible mast. The device

can be used to completely survey the

inside of a hot cell allowing only service

duct access and produce a 3D model of

the cell with gamma radiation intensity

mapped to the geometry. This allows for

not only safer but vastly more efficient

decommissioning since robotic service

robots can upload the 3D radiation maps

to prioritize work efforts.

74

STAFF HIGHLIGHTS AN D AWA R D S

The 3DG (3D Gamma) sensor head used

for hot cell characterization. The rotating

polygon beam deflector performs the

"pitch" scan for the laser radar range

measurements while the tungsten sphere

at the end contains a highly collimated

scintillator for directional gamma radiation

intensity mapping.

Computer simulation of nuclear decontamination and decommissioning of a "hot"

work cell in which the NIST 3D scanner

produces both a high resolution 3D

model of the interior of the chamber but

also maps the gamma radiation intensity

to the model geometry.

trolling this flux in addition to other

weathering elements such as temperature

and relative humidity. The NIST

SPHERE provides a source of high intensity, collimated UV radiation with a spatial uniformity greater than 95%.

Ultraviolet radiant fluxes equivalent to

approximately 22 “suns” of solar ultraviolet radiation can be achieved at the sphere

exit ports. Temperature and relative

humidity in the specimen chambers

attached to the sphere can also be independently and precisely controlled over

wide temperature and relative humidity

ranges and over long exposure periods.

The ability to temporally and spatially

control spectral irradiance, temperature

and humidity independently at each of 32

specimen chambers and over wide ranges

provides a high degree of flexibility in

designing accelerated weathering experiments. The repeatability and reproducibility of accelerated weathering experiments

can also be greatly improved through the

use of the SPHERE. Additional information on the SPHERE and the NIST

Service Life Prediction Program in can be

found at http://slp.nist.gov.

Patent issued on NIST LADAR System

Patent Number 6,600,553, “Three

Degree-of-Freedom Telescoping Geometry

Scanner” was assigned to Construction

Metrology and Automation Group leader

Bill Stone on July 29, 2003. The invention relates to a novel three-dimensional

measuring device comprised of a rotating

sensor head, a laser scanner, a beam

deflection system, and an extendable mast

system. The sensor head contains a 360-

degree rotating multifaceted beam deflection system along with an optional 

gimbaled directional radiation sensing 

element that is responsive to gamma rays.

This assembly is mounted at the end of a

rotating, extensible nested tube set at the

end of which is a laser-based high speed,

high accuracy range sensor. Angular orientations of both the extension tube and

the beam deflector subsystem are tracked

by precision encoders. The measured total

path distance, mast system extension,

scanner head rotation, beam deflector

angles, and mast deflection are all used 

to calculate the location of a target point 

in 3D space relative to the scanner. When

mounted on an autonomous (robotic) 

mobility platform the device can produce

high accuracy registered three-dimensional maps that have superior terrain and

infrastructure definition. Current tripodmounted LADAR surveying systems are

severely limited by line-of-sight restrictions; the new design permits automated
75

Organizations Funding 

BFRL’s Research

Federal agencies and industry groups,

which currently support about onethird of BFRL’s overall research, are 

recognized below:

FINANCES AND ORGANIZATION

FEDERAL AGENCIES

Consumer Product Safety Commission

Department of Agriculture

Department of Defense Agencies

Department of Energy

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of Interior

Department of Justice

Department of Labor

Department of State

Department of Transportation

Department of the Treasury

Environmental Protection Agency

Federal Emergency Management Agency

General Services Administration

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

National Institutes of Health

National Science Foundation

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Smithsonian Institution

PRIVATE SECTOR

Advanced Fire Alarm System Consortium

Air-conditioning and Refrigerating Technology Institute

American Association of State Highway & 

Transportation Officials

Association Technique l’Industrie des Liant 

Hydrauliques (ATILH)

ASTM

Atlas Material Testing Technology, LLC

Atofina Chemicals

Building Joint Sealants Consortium

California Energy Commission (CEC)

Cemex

DAP

DeGussa

Dow Chemical Company

Dow Corning Corporation

Dupont Company

Dyckerhoff

Holcim

International Center for Aggregate Research (ICAR)

Interphase/Interface Consortium

Kaneka

Master Builders Technology

MTS

National Ready-Mixed Concrete Association

Northwestern University

NYACOL Nano Technologies

Portland Cement Association

PPG

Sherwin Williams

Sika Technology AG

Sleep Product Safety Council

Solvay

Tremco

Verein Deutscher Zementwerke (VDZ)

Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory

Consortium

Visteon

Wacker

W.R. Grace

STRS – In-house

research, NIST 

congressionally

appropriated funds

O/A – In-house

research, other

agency funds

Other – Other

funds including 

private sector

Grants – Grants to

other organizations

including academia

STRS

O/A

Other

Grants

45

40

35

30 

25

20

15

10

5

0

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

29.7

31.8

32.9

39.9

44.7

FY 2003

STRS $24.3M

O/A $14.0M

Other $2.3M

Grants $4.1M

BFRL RESOURCES 1999-2003

($ MILLIONS)
76

FINANCES AND ORGANIZATION

BFRL Organization

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION

RESEARCH DIVISION

The Materials and Construction

Research Division serves as the 

world-class resource for developing 

and promoting the use of science-based

tools – measurements, data, models,

protocols, and reference standards – to

enhance (a) the global competitiveness

of U.S. industry through innovations 

in building materials and construction

technology, and (b) the safety, security,

and sustainability of the nation’s buildings and physical infrastructure. The

division: (1) develops and implements

computational, theoretical, and experimental methods to predict and optimize

the service life performance and cost of

advanced materials used in construction,

including pigments, cement, concrete,

polymers, metals, and composites; 

(2) provides science-based measurement

and predictive tools and protocols for

advanced construction technologies –

innovative connections, high-performance constructed systems, and process

technologies for automated construction – to enhance productivity, safety,

security, and life-cycle performance; 

(3) conducts technical investigations 

of structural failures, including failures

during construction or following 

natural, terrorist, and technological 

disasters; (4) provides technical support

to national and international standards

and codes development and professional

practice organizations; (5) conducts

cooperative programs with other federal

and state agencies, industry, professional

societies, testing laboratories, educational institutions, and other research

organizations; and (6) supports the 

scientific and technical information

needs of federal agencies in formulating

national policies related to building 

and infrastructure applications. 

CONTACT:

MR. JAMES A. ST. PIERRE

ACTING CHIEF, MATERIALS AND 

CONSTRUCTION RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-4124

jimstp@nist.gov

BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

The Building Environment Division

reduces the cost of designing and 

operating buildings and increases the

international competitiveness of the

U.S. building industry by providing

modeling, measurement, and test 

methods needed to use advanced 

computation and automation effectively

in construction, to improve the quality

of the indoor environment, and to

improve the performance of building

equipment and systems. The Building

Environment Division conducts 

laboratory, field, and analytical research

on building mechanical and control 

systems and develops data, measurement

methods and modeling techniques for

the performance of the building envelope, its insulation systems, building air

leakage, and the release, movement and

absorption of indoor air pollutants.

The Division also develops standard

communication protocols for building

management systems and performance

criteria, interface standards, and test

methods for the Nation’s building

industry to make effective use of modern computer-aided design hardware

and software and database management

systems. The Building Environment

Division began a Green Building

Research and Demonstration Program

in 1994. As part of that program,

grants were given to Montana State

University to evaluate a variety of

“green technologies” that could be

incorporated into the design and construction of a new classroom/laboratory

building for the campus. 

CONTACT:

DR. GEORGE KELLY

CHIEF, BUILDING ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

(301) 975-5851

george.kelly@nist.gov
77

FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

The Fire Research Division develops,

verifies, and utilizes measurements and

predictive methods to quantify the

behavior of fire and the means to

reduce the impact of fire on people,

property, and the environment. This

work involves integration of laboratory

measurements, verified methods of prediction, and large-scale fire experiments

to demonstrate the use and value of the

research products. Focused research

activities develop scientific and engineering understanding of fire phenomena and metrology; identify principles

and produce metrology, data, and predictive methods for the formation/evolution of smoke components in flames

and for the burning of polymeric materials; and develop predictive methods to

enable high-performance fire detection

and suppression systems. Through the

Division’s programs in measurement,

prediction, systems integration, and the

dynamics of fire and its interactions

with the built and natural environment,

the division provides leadership for

advancing the theory and practice of

fire safety engineering, fire fighting, 

fire investigation, fire testing, fire data

management, and intentional burning.

Extensive publication and technology

transfer efforts facilitate the use of fire

research results in practice in the fire

communities in the United States.

Participation in the codes and standards

processes helps to reduce barriers to

trade and global markets for U.S. goods

and services.

CONTACT: 

DR. WILLIAM GROSSHANDLER

CHIEF, FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION

(301) 975-2310

william.grosshandler@nist.gov

OFFICE OF APPLIED ECONOMICS

The Office of Applied Economics

(OAE) provides economic products 

and services through research and 

consulting to industry and government

agencies in support of productivity

enhancement, economic growth, and

international competitiveness, with a

focus on improving the life-cycle 

quality and economy of constructed

facilities. An area of specialty in support

of this mission is the OAE’s work in

interdisciplinary teams with engineers

and scientists from BFRL and NIST at

large to measure the economic impact

of new technologies. The focus of

OAE’s research and technical assistance

is microeconomic analysis. The OAE

provides information to decision makers

in the public and private sectors who

are faced with choices among new 

technologies and policies relating to

manufacturing, industrial processes, 

the environment, energy conservation,

construction, facility maintenance, law

enforcement, and safety. It also develops

and conducts prototype training 

programs in applied economics for 

scientists and engineers. 

CONTACT:

DR. HAROLD MARSHALL

CHIEF, OFFICE OF APPLIED ECONOMICS

(301) 975-6131

harold.marshall@nist.gov
Publications

Yearly lists of BFRL’s publications 

with indexes for abstracts, authors, and

keywords are available as hard copy 

and on CD-ROMs. Also, full texts of

publications from 1994 to the present

are available from BFRL Publications 

On-line at http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/.

Ordering Instructions:

To order copies of these free publications or to discuss BFRL’s research

reports, contact Mr. Paul Reneke,

BFRL Information Service, 301-975-

6696, paul.reneke@nist.gov 

Visit the Laboratory

Potential collaborators are encouraged

to visit BFRL when in the Washington

area. To schedule a visit, contact 

Dr. James Hill, Acting Director,

Building and Fire Research Laboratory,

james.hill@nist.gov, or Dr. S. Shyam

Sunder, Acting Deputy Director, BFRL,

sunder@nist.gov.

BFRL Inquiries

Questions about specific programs

should be directed to BFRL’s

Management listed in the Chapter,

BFRL Finances & Organization. 

If you have general questions about 

BFRL programs or are interested in

working with BFRL, contact Dr. 

James Hill, Acting Director, BFRL,

james.hill@nist.gov, or Dr. S. Shyam

Sunder, Acting Deputy Director, BFRL,

sunder@nist.gov.

The mailing address for all BFRL 

personnel is:

Building and 

Fire Research Laboratory, 

National Institute of 

Standards and Technology 

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8600

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology

The National Institute of Standards 

and Technology was established by

Congress in 1901 “to assist industry 

in the development of technology...

needed to improve product quality, 

to modernize manufacturing processes,

to ensure product reliability...and to

facilitate rapid commercialization...

of products based on new scientific 

discoveries.” An agency of the U.S.

Department of Commerce’s Technology

Administration, NIST’s primary mission is to develop and promote measurement, standards and technology to

enhance productivity, facilitate trade

and improve quality of life. It carries

out this mission through a portfolio 

of four major programs:

Measurement and Standards

Laboratories that provide technical

leadership for vital components of 

the nation’s technology infrastructure 

needed by U.S. industry to continually

improve its products and services; 

a rigorously competitive Advanced

Technology Program providing 

cost-shared awards to industry for

development of high-risk, enabling

technologies with broad economic

potential; a grassroots Manufacturing

Extension Partnership with a network

of local centers offering technical and

business assistance to smaller manufacturers; and a highly visible quality 

outreach program associated with the

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality

Award that recognizes business performance excellence and quality

achievement by U.S. manufacturers,

service companies, educational organizations, and health care providers.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BFRL

78
Editors:

Kellie A. Beall

Information Specialist

Building and Fire Research Laboratory

National Institute of Standards 

and Technology

James E. Hill

Acting Director

Building and Fire Research Laboratory

National Institute of Standards 

and Technology

U.S. Department of Commerce

Donald L. Evans, Secretary

Technology Administration

Phillip J. Bond, Under Secretary 

for Technology

National Institute of 

Standards and Technology 

Arden Bement, Jr., Director

NIST SP 838-18

February 2004

Disclaimer: any mention of commercial

products is for information only; it does not

imply NIST recommendation or endorsement, nor does it imply that the products

mentioned are necessarily the best available for the purpose.