An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Measurement and Standards Laboratories: Fiscal Year 2002 (2002)

Janet S. Baum, Health, Education & Research Associates, Inc., Chair

Robert A. Altenkirch, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Vice Chair

Craig L. Beyler, Hughes Associates, Inc.

Donald B. Bivens, DuPont Fluorochemicals

Randy R. Bruegman, Clackamas County Fire District #1, Oregon

Tsu-Wei Chou, University of Delaware

Joseph P. Colaco, CBM Engineers, Inc.

Martin Fischer, Stanford University

Eric R. Hansen, Eric Hansen Group

Kristin H. Heinemeier, Brooks Energy and Sustainability Laboratory

Robert J. Hitchcock, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Susan D. Landry, Albemarle Corporation

Elaine S. Oran, Naval Research Laboratory

Richard E. Schuler, Cornell University

Jim W. Sealy, Architect/Building Code Consultant, Dallas, Texas

Frieder Seible, University of California, San Diego

Michael Winter, United Technologies Research Center

Elaine M. Yorkgitis, Automotive Division/3M

Submitted for the panel by its Chair, Janet S. Baum, and its Vice Chair, Robert A. Altenkirch, this assessment of the fiscal year 2002 activities of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory is based on site visits by individual panel members, a formal meeting of the panel on February 28-March 1, 2002, in Gaithersburg, Md., and materials provided by the laboratory.

The mission of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) is to meet the measurement and standards needs of the building and fire safety communities.

As recommended by the panel in the 2001 assessment report, BFRL has started work on a strategic plan, which was in an early stage when the panel visited the laboratory in February 2002. The panel is supportive of this effort, which should lead to a coherent, long-term strategy for the laboratory.¹ Such a strategy will assist the laboratory in seizing the opportunities and meeting the challenges related to BFRL’s role in the area of homeland security, as discussed below.

The next steps for the laboratory in developing a strategic plan are as outlined in the panel’s previous report. BFRL management should seek assistance and input from a variety of sources, including professional outside facilitators with experience in the process. It should solicit technical input from current and potential customers to help determine their priorities and what types of results are most likely to be implemented by industry. Finally, BFRL should tap the expertise of its junior and senior technical staff; they are familiar with cutting-edge technologies and are attuned to the activities of the external communities and the reactions of these communities to NIST efforts. As of February 2002, the NIST-level strategic plan is scheduled to be completed in June 2002; the panel notes that BFRL’s plan to coordinate the NIST-level vision and goals with the laboratory-level plan is appropriate.

As BFRL moves forward, the panel offers several comments on strategic planning. First is the value of a sharp, clearly defined vision for the future of BFRL; this vision would not be a description of the current activities of the laboratory or a statement reflecting the laboratory’s reaction to past events. Second is the need for the plan to be developed from two perspectives: the top-down vision and goals that are the ultimate responsibility of management and the bottom-up goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics that make up the implementation element of the plan and must reflect the input and support of divisional management and staff. Third is the importance of quantitative metrics, both short- and long-term. Such metrics have two primary benefits: they support an environment of accountability and they, if relevant to the laboratory’s customers, can be used to demonstrate the value, impact, and progress of BFRL’s activities. Fourth is the need to define a unique niche for BFRL. The panel observes that many, although not all, of the laboratory’s programs already clearly recognize and take advantage of BFRL’s singular attributes, such as its role as an unbiased evaluator of technologies and developer of tests. Fifth, and perhaps most important, is the need to engage the laboratory staff in the strategic planning process and to obtain their agreement on and buy-in to the vision, goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics that BFRL intends to embrace going forward.

As the federal government responds to the national tragedy of September 11 and moves forward with nationwide efforts to protect the United States, BFRL has an important and unique role. The panel heard about a wide array of planned laboratory activities in support of homeland security. Some work is already under way, or even completed, such as a code comparison study for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a study of Pentagon repair and rebuilding plans, modeling and simulation of the ventilation system of the Hart Senate Office Building, and simulations of the fires in the World Trade Center. Most of the work, however, is still to be done. The laboratory’s plans through FY 2005 and beyond fall into three categories. The first is the national building and fire safety investigation of the events at the World Trade Center. The second category encompasses three programs: structural fire protection; human behavior, emergency response, and mobility; and building vulnerability reduction. All three programs are expected to include research, testing and verification, demonstrations, development of improved tools, guidelines for industry, and finally revisions to standards and codes. (In the upcoming “Program Relevance and Effectiveness” section, the panel discusses the importance of this last step.) The third category is an effort to develop a national forum through which industry can lead the dissemination of information about research and encourage the adoption of new practices in construction. In all of these categories, the laboratory plans to partner with a wide variety of external organizations, including federal, state, and local governments, professional societies, industry consortiums, and universities.

The panel is very supportive of BFRL’s efforts in homeland security, and encourages the laboratory to take full advantage of this opportunity to make an impact in a critical area and to demonstrate the relevance and importance of the areas and expertise already existing in the laboratory. The BFRL program described briefly in the preceding paragraph is appropriate and ambitious, and BFRL must be vigilant in balancing the short-term focus of the investigation work with the long-term development of research and applications that are broadly relevant. As the laboratory moves forward in the area of homeland security, it must not lose sight of BFRL’s core mission and customers. The activities outlined above can be consistent with long-term goals and directions of the laboratory, especially if the projects are structured to build on existing expertise and work and if the benefits and dissemination of the new efforts to existing customers are carefully considered as the homeland security efforts are being defined. For example, work on the structural behavior of buildings in fires, on the dispersion of biological agents through building ventilation systems, and on the integration of building information technology systems all can build on existing laboratory expertise, are relevant to a wide range of BFRL customers, and could use the expansion from homeland security work to seed continuing programs consistent with long-term laboratory goals. BFRL has worked hard to build relationships with a broad variety of industries, federal agencies, associations, and other communities. It should not be forced by a homeland security agenda to abandon these interactions, because this existing web of connections is at the heart of the laboratory’s ability to meet the measurement and standards needs of the building and fire safety communities, as stated in its mission.

An important element in the laboratory’s maintaining focus on its broad mission is its access to the expertise needed to tackle the challenges associated with the ambitious homeland security agenda. While key core technical expertise certainly exists in the laboratory, a wide range of other skills will be needed, particularly to complete the World Trade Center investigation phase of the project. The laboratory clearly stated to the panel that the plans require BFRL to tap into engineering and social science expertise outside NIST and that it expects to work with an array of government agencies, professional societies, and other organizations. The panel applauds the laboratory’s recognition of the

need to utilize external groups. However, it is important to recognize that an undertaking of this magnitude and diversity also requires specialized contract, personnel, and project management skills, as well as significant public relations work. NIST should not dilute the scientific efforts that BFRL is uniquely qualified to carry out by burdening technical staff with large-scale project or contract management tasks. Laboratory and division management also should be allowed to maintain their focus on BFRL’s core activities and on how the homeland security efforts link with long-term laboratory goals. Therefore, the laboratory needs to develop a workforce management plan outlining all of the people and skills that will be needed, indicating how NIST will access those people and skills, and identifying how the people and the projects will be managed.

The Building and Fire Research Laboratory is organized in four divisions: Structures, Building Materials, Building Environment, and Fire Research (see Figure 7.1). Each of these divisions is responsible for one of BFRL’s four main technical thrusts: Advanced Construction Technology, High-Performance Construction Materials, Enhanced Building Performance, and Fire Loss Reduction. Technical work is also under way in the laboratory office on a variety of activities, mainly in the Office of Applied Economics (OAE). These units and activities are discussed in detail in the divisional reports in the remainder of this chapter.

FIGURE 7.1 Organizational structure of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory. Listed under each division are the division’s groups.

The panel continues to be impressed by the high quality of scientific and technical work produced in BFRL. Many projects exemplify the ways in which laboratory staff utilize the expertise, instrumentation, and simulation and modeling tools that are often unique to BFRL to take advantage of NIST’s singular role as an unbiased voice focused on measurement and testing to improve the quality of building technologies and materials.

In the technology areas, often NIST’s role is that of developing metrics for performance or standards that will allow interoperability. In the Structures Division, the panel was impressed by the work on metrics for nondestructive evaluation using infrared thermography and on metrics for construction range imaging and registration using laser detection and ranging (LADAR) systems. These activities lay the groundwork needed to help industry develop efficient, standardized technologies for tracking and monitoring components during the construction process. In the Building Environment Division, a robust program in cybernetic building systems exists. Highlights of these efforts include long-term work on the Building Automation and Control network (BACnet) and on fault detection and diagnostics, as well as new efforts in building commissioning. In these areas, staff aim, through technical work and participation on standards committees, to support the development of building systems that will interoperate seamlessly and enable more efficient operation of buildings throughout their life cycles.

BFRL enables industry’s efficient investigation of new and better materials in several ways. In the Fire Research Division, staff have developed a system to allow polymers to be extruded so as to produce a sample with a continuous gradient in composition. This sample allows researchers to determine flame spread continuously as a function of composition and flux level. In the Building Materials Division, the staff’s world-class expertise in the computational materials science of concrete has resulted in the development of the Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory (VCCTL), which is available on the Internet. This program helps concrete manufacturers eliminate the formulations less likely to have the desired material characteristics and thus saves time and money for the producers by allowing them to focus physical testing activities on only the most promising formulations.

Organizationally, BFRL is going through a series of changes. In late 2000, the Fire Research Division was formed from the combination of two divisions. In last year’s assessment, the panel noted that the potential positive impact of this merger was high. At that time, the delicate process of blending the two groups was just beginning. The panel is pleased to report this year that the transition is going very well. Increased collaboration and good communications within the division were observed. The division is embracing stakeholder perspectives, broadening its outreach, clarifying its goals and objectives, and stabilizing its financial situation. While the process of merging is not complete and the goals of the new division continue to evolve, the panel applauds the work done so far, including the positive impact of divisional and laboratory management’s emphasis on communications during the merging process.

This year, the panel was informed of a plan to merge two more divisions: Structures and Building Materials. These divisions focus on somewhat different areas, but combining their expertise will give the laboratory an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a future in which materials are engineered to meet specific structural performance requirements. This is an ambitious and long-range goal, and making clear exactly what the connections and synergies between the diverse groups in these two divisions are and then utilizing them to greatest advantage will be challenging, but the potential payoff is significant. Plans for how the merger will go forward are being drafted. The laboratory wisely intends to move slowly on this complicated task, which is scheduled to be completed sometime in the

next year or so. The key challenge will be bringing together the different cultures in the divisions, each of which has a distinct set of customers, dissemination models, and technical approaches. Leadership and communications are vital. Both divisions are small and the chief of the Building Materials Division recently retired, so laboratory management must be clear on the strategic benefits of the merger lest it be viewed merely as a reactive personnel move.

As mentioned above, laboratory staff have made a significant effort to build relationships with their customers in a wide variety of industries and communities. The approaches to outreach include publication in technical peer-reviewed journals as well as the more popular press, industry consortia focused on common research agendas and measurement technology development, workshops attended and hosted by NIST staff, road-mapping activities by professional organizations and consortia, collaborations with and visits to and by individual companies, research projects with and for other government agencies, and active participation on standards committees. These activities serve a dual purpose—they provide BFRL staff with a chance to gather input from their stakeholders, and they afford an opportunity to disseminate information about laboratory results and ongoing projects. The panel commends the focus placed by the laboratory on outreach activities; the examples below illustrate the diversity of approaches.

In the Fire Research Division, the work on residential smoke alarms not only has provided key data and test methods to the manufacturers of the alarms, but the press release and media coverage of the work have also allowed the laboratory to reach ultimate users of the alarms: the public. In the Building Materials Division, the first year of the VCCTL Consortium went particularly well; several of the world’s largest cement and admixture manufacturers, a number of major trade organizations, and the International Center for Aggregate Research are involved. In the Structures Division, the staff’s many committee activities help maintain their relationship with other researchers. The September 2002 International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction organized by the division is an important event for the professional and academic communities, and the involvement of NIST in FIATECH’s Capital Projects Technology Roadmap² is an excellent part of this much-needed effort to synchronize the work of industrial, academic, and government laboratories. The staff of the Building Environment Division are using their existing tools and expertise in the area of modeling the distribution over time of contaminants (such as pollution or smoke) through building ventilation systems to contribute to homeland security efforts. Not only did they help with the analysis of the Hart Senate Office Building after its anthrax contamination in the fall of 2001, they are also working with the Architect of the Capitol and with the State Department to preemptively develop models of ventilation systems of critical buildings before any attack or contamination occurs.

The many efforts at outreach described above demonstrate that the laboratory works very hard to ensure that relevant communities are aware of BFRL results. This is certainly true in the codes and standards arena. Throughout the laboratory, staff appear to take NIST’s core measurements and standards mission to heart. Research on tests methods, on materials and technology characterization, and on standards is occurring in all divisions. Staff have good individual relationships with standards commit-

tees, such as those organized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

A vital step in ensuring that BFRL results have an impact on advancing technology and on improving the quality of life is ensuring that laboratory results are broadly used and adopted into standard practice. In the construction industry, this is accomplished by having BFRL’s technical knowledge and results reflected in codes. Influencing codes is a complicated process that requires political skills and careful timing. For the laboratory to be successful in this arena requires top-level support for and central coordination of codes and standards activities across BFRL. This coordination is necessary both for communicating to staff within the laboratory about opportunities to influence codes and for monitoring the activities of codes and standards agencies and providing outreach to these groups. Potential areas of intralaboratory synergy should be recognized and collaborations facilitated. The expertise in the Office of Applied Economics can also be tapped to help the laboratory demonstrate the economic value and impact of new standards or technologies.

Two years ago, the informal leader of the laboratory’s codes and standards work retired, and this past year, the BFRL liaison to the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Construction and Building also retired. Recently, the laboratory management embraced a plan to support half of one staff member’s time to be dedicated specifically to codes and standards activities. This is an important first step, and the panel applauds the recognition of the importance of work in this area. However, one-half of one person’s time is not sufficient to accomplish the coordination and outreach necessary for BFRL to impact the wide array of codes and standards that the laboratory has the expertise to affect and improve. In addition, the plan for that staff member’s goals and activities was written in the summer of 2001 and needs to be revised and expanded.

The events of September 11, 2001, have forced the codes and standards community to reconsider many existing regulations and to be open to new ideas. This is an opportunity for BFRL to demonstrate technical leadership and to have significant impact. However, regulatory changes will occur on a very tight, already-determined schedule, which means that the laboratory has a limited window of opportunity—that is, BFRL’s work must be completed before the end of 2005 to be included in the codes revision processes. While time is short and meeting this schedule is an ambitious goal, the panel believes that the laboratory can accomplish it, in large part because of previous work and existing expertise in the relevant areas. Examples of these areas include structural fire safety, communications and data for first responders, and evaluation of exiting technologies. In addition to enabling the regulatory community to utilize NIST’s technical expertise and results effectively, the laboratory also can help the community focus on the areas with the broadest potential impact. While the tragedies of September 11 resulted from specific (and hopefully very rare) terrorist attacks, the lessons learned about structures under stress can be applied to make all buildings safer.

Funding sources for the Building and Fire Research Laboratory are shown in Table 7.1. It has not yet been determined how much new, congressionally allocated funding BFRL will receive to be specifically targeted toward homeland security activities, but a significant amount of money (perhaps $15 million in FY 2002 and $6 million per year after that) will flow to laboratory programs. The panel was pleased to see that BFRL has the support of NIST management and Department of Commerce management as it goes through the budget process and prepares to begin this program. Laboratory management indicated the level of its commitment to work in this area by quickly reprogramming roughly $2 million of its own funds

to tackle key questions, such as the work done on modeling the ventilation systems of the Hart Senate Office Building, as they arose last fall. While this was a good and appropriate step, the laboratory must be cautious going forward to make careful decisions about such reprogramming—that is, about whether a temporary or a permanent shift in focus is occurring—and to clearly communicate the rationale and final outcome to staff. This is one element of the broader question of how BFRL will determine and maintain a balance between new homeland security work and existing projects.

Another question about how this perhaps temporary, specifically targeted funding will affect BFRL relates to the laboratory’s attitude toward and treatment of external funding sources (i.e., contracts with other government agencies). The assessment reports of the past several years have discussed the importance of having clear criteria for seeking and accepting external money. While the panel does not see evidence that such criteria are in place or are shaping staff’s decisions about outside funding yet, it does note that development of a strategic plan may help define and implement these criteria. Indeed, a strategic plan will need a core commitment of internal money or stable external funds to support a long-term vision, and such a commitment may be needed if management is to convince the staff to embrace laboratorywide goals.

One source of stable outside money could be a long-term formal relationship with FEMA in which NIST would officially be responsible (and funded) for providing research elements to support FEMA’s

activities. On April 1, 2002, NIST and FEMA announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that designates NIST as a research and technical resource for FEMA. Under this agreement, BFRL and FEMA’s Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) will work jointly to carry out these goals:³

• Further the reduction of loss of life and property and protect the nation’s buildings and infrastructure from all types of hazards;

• Aid the development of technology and methods to evaluate equipment for use by the nation’s fire, rescue, civil defense services, and other first responders; and

• Assist FEMA with scientific and technological services in disaster investigations, recovery planning, and support technologies.

The MOU also states that NIST and FEMA have agreed to develop and implement a coordinated annual process to plan, prioritize, select, and fund projects of mutual interest in fire, disaster prevention, and homeland security—as well as projects to evaluate equipment for fire, rescue, and civil defense services, and other first responders. BFRL has worked hard for the past several years on establishing the commitments needed to put a formal relationship in place, but the process had been delayed by changes in the administration and the events of last fall. The panel believes that having this formal agreement is appropriate and important and applauds the laboratory’s efforts and success. Next year, the panel hopes to hear about what benefits this MOU has brought to both parties.

As of January 2002, staffing for the Building and Fire Research Laboratory included 152 full-time permanent positions, of which 129 were for technical professionals. There were also 35 nonpermanent or supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and temporary or part-time workers.

The number of permanent staff in BFRL declined in the late 1990s but now appears to have stabilized. This stability has had a positive effect on morale and should facilitate long-term planning on program direction and acceptance of external funds. In particular, an understanding of the expectations for long-term staffing levels should allow the laboratory to focus on talent replacement and smooth programmatic transitions when staff retire or depart. The massive planned homeland security effort should result in a large number of new people coming, probably temporarily, to work at NIST, and this may be an opportunity for BFRL to consider what type of new personnel it wishes to recruit when permanent slots open up and to see many potential candidates in action.

Another potential opportunity in the homeland security effort is the development of a large-scale, state-of-the-art structural fire test facility. The laboratory’s plans for homeland security activities do include work on the fire testing of structures under load, but the panel believes that the plan for this activity can be significantly expanded. Owing to the laboratory’s strong expertise in both structural and fire research and to its existing Large Fire Research Facility, BFRL is in a unique position to build a robust, long-term program in this area and to utilize this kind of facility effectively. Homeland security funding could be used to initiate work on a state-of-the-art facility, but the laboratory must make a commitment to sustaining the facility and the program over the long term. In order to secure the funding for such a facility and to lay the groundwork for a vigorous and effective program in this area, the panel recommends that BFRL develop a vision of what a state-of-the-art facility for large-scale structural fire testing should be and of what the test objectives should be, and that it map

out a development and implementation strategy to secure funding and build the program. Proposals for such a facility do exist at BFRL, but they were developed some time ago (certainly before September 2001), and they should be revisited to ensure that the proposal made is sufficient to build and support a facility that will be at the center of a long-range program. This effort would also be a good opportunity for the Structures and Fire Research Divisions to build closer working relationships in this area.

The value of cross-divisional collaborations is clearly recognized in BFRL, and the panel saw progress in the quality of staff interactions across organizational lines over the past year. In certain areas, informal relationships are very effective in ensuring that laboratory projects take advantage of the cross-disciplinary synergies available in BFRL. In other, larger-scale programs, formal coordination at the laboratory level may be necessary. Work on information technology systems is occurring throughout the laboratory—the Structures Division has projects on construction automation, the Building Environment Division has projects on the integration and management of building systems, and the Fire Research Division has models, simulations, and detector projects—and coordination of these activities could help ensure that appropriate collaborations continue to occur and that full advantage is taken of the opportunities to leverage complementary skills.

The panel commends the laboratory on its continued progress in internal communications. The formation of a junior advisory board, the evolution of the merged Fire Research Division, and the general healing observed after the stressful events of FY 2000 (including some potential and actual reductions in force) all indicate that BFRL has recognized the importance of improving communications within the laboratory and has made a significant and successful effort in this area. Plans for formal mentoring were mentioned to panel members, who suggest that such relationships should not be formed solely among technical staff but should also include managerial mentoring.

The panel found the laboratory on the whole to be responsive to recommendations made in past

assessment reports. In several areas, the panel was particularly impressed. The Thermal Machinery Group is to be commended for acting on the panel’s recommendation for removal of methylene chloride from the truck environmental chamber cooling system and for cooperating with the NIST Physical Plant unit to obtain adequate funds to completely revamp the cooling system valves and controls. Both the Building Materials and the Building Environment Divisions appear to have responded with positive action (hiring) to the panel’s discussion of how using technicians to run and maintain equipment can increase the productivity of research staff and potentially improve the condition of the instruments. As discussed above, the laboratory as a whole continues to improve internal communications, and the formation of the junior advisory board, as suggested in last year’s report, is a good element of this effort. The panel is also particularly appreciative of the laboratory’s willingness to share with the panel the wide array of information needed for the assessment, such as project plans and milestones.

In certain areas, BFRL has indeed been responsive to panel recommendations, but more work is needed. As mentioned above, one example of such an area is laboratorywide strategic planning, where the first step has been taken. Other areas, such as internal communications and management of external funding decisions, are long-term issues that the panel expects to revisit regularly. In communications, the panel is certainly pleased with the progress made by the laboratory, but upcoming events such as the refocusing on homeland security activities, the planned merger of the Structures and the Building Materials Divisions, and development of a strategic plan will require constant and continuing effort.

The panel presents the following major observations:

• The panel continues to be impressed by the high quality of scientific and technical work produced in the Building and Fire Research Laboratory. Commendable efforts are made to reach out to a broad variety of laboratory customers, ranging from large construction companies to local firefighting units, from code makers to academic researchers, and from standards committees to the public. BFRL staff take advantage of the special tools and expertise that exist in the laboratory to provide their customers with unbiased, technically excellent work focused on the measurement and testing needed to improve the quality of materials and technologies.

• BFRL could increase the impact of its work by focusing on the most important strategic objectives and priorities. The laboratory has taken the first step toward the development of a strategic plan. The next steps include sharpening the vision for the future of the laboratory, developing a comprehensive set of strategies and tactics to achieve this vision, and defining clear goals and metrics for success and accountability. An outside facilitator should be utilized to assist in integrating input from laboratory staff and external customers.

• BFRL’s existing expertise and programs have placed it in an excellent position to make many positive contributions to the nation’s homeland security efforts. The laboratory has an initial outline for how it can contribute in this area. The panel is very supportive of BFRL’s ongoing and planned activities but cautions that it is vital for the laboratory to maintain a balance between short-term investigative work and long-term programs aimed at developing research and applications that are broadly relevant. The laboratory must take care to preserve its strong relationships with existing customers, in part by demonstrating how the homeland security work will help the laboratory continue to meet those customers’ needs. Also, the laboratory will face new and complex challenges in the personnel and project management associated with a large, multiorganization project, and new skills and people will be needed for this task.

• Structural fire testing is both an important element of homeland security work and an appropriate long-term programmatic growth area for BFRL and its customers. The laboratory should be prepared to propose construction of a state-of-the-art facility for fire testing of structures under load as part of the homeland security effort and to make a commitment to sustaining a structural fire research program over the long term. This is an area in which BFRL is uniquely positioned to do high-quality, high-impact work.

• For BFRL to have an impact on the construction industry (and ultimately the public), the laboratory’s technical knowledge and results must be utilized in codes and standards and adopted as the industry’s normal practices. High-quality and important test and standards work is already occurring in BFRL, but coordination at the laboratory level is needed, as are staff expertise and time that can be devoted to the process of getting this work adopted into regulations and actual use.

• The planned merger of the Structures and the Building Materials Divisions is an opportunity for the laboratory to build a unit that can lay the groundwork for a future in which materials are engineered to meet specific structural performance requirements. The panel is supportive of this ambitious goal but cautions that leadership and communications will be critical in combining groups with different cultures and different customers.

The mission of the Structures Division is to promote construction productivity and structural safety by providing measurements and standards to support the design, construction, and serviceability of constructed facilities.

The panel is impressed by the quality of the individuals in the Structures Division, the recognition they receive, and the high morale observed in the division this year. The Structures Division supports the BFRL goal of Advanced Construction Technology, with work occurring in two areas: Construction Integration and Automation Technology (CONSIAT) and Construction Systems and Safety (CONSAFE). The division is organized in three groups: the Construction Metrology and Automation Group (whose projects contribute to the CONSIAT area) and the Structural Evaluation and Standards Group and the Structural Systems and Design Group (both of which support the CONSAFE area). The panel is impressed by the broad array of projects in this rather small division and discusses the work under way in the two areas, below.

CONSIAT Program. The CONSIAT Program is carrying out much-needed, visionary, and excellent work that supports the broad trend among progressive facility owners and contractors to transform the construction of facilities and infrastructure from the current, unreliable, on-site production process of constructing a facility from many individual parts and components to a design-manufacture-assemble process that promises to be vastly more productive, safer, and more predictable. In light of the small size of the Construction Metrology and Automation Group (four technical staff, including one contractor), the contributions of the group are astounding.

The work on next-generation laser detection and ranging is one example of a project that particularly impressed the panel. This work is focused on the use of LADAR for range imaging metrology, and the division staff are taking advantage of hands-on experience with current, high-precision LADARs in the evaluation of LADAR technology for autonomous mobility applications. This work is appropriate and productive, although the panel does believe that it might be improved somewhat if the LADAR work could be related more clearly to other positioning technologies. Other noteworthy projects include the testing of innovative steel connections, the establishment of national calibration standards for laser equipment that will lead to traceable calibrations, and the development and testing of protocols for wireless, on-site communication.

The group’s methods include a healthy and appropriate mix of applications, trials of new technologies, and laboratory and field work. There were, however, a few areas in which the panel thinks that the portfolio of projects could be strengthened. For example, heavy emphasis is placed on automation of steel construction. Why is there no work on the automation of construction with concrete, precast, and other construction materials? In another area, more work should be focused on determining metrics for the quality of the many types of computer models used for construction. No useful metrics exist today. Therefore, construction clients cannot specify how computer models should be delivered to them, and they cannot test how accurate the models are, which leads to the repetitive, wasteful, and error-prone recreation of electronic information when it is needed. Finally, the activities would benefit from even more integration and synchronization of this division’s work with the projects under way in the Fire

Research and the Building Environment Divisions; these divisions have relevant expertise in communication and modeling standards.

Overall, the CONSIAT Program is the shining star of the Structures Division; it shows how NIST can go beyond the basic mission of providing metrics, performance measures, and calibration services and can take the lead in performing some longer-range and higher-risk research and technology development.

CONSAFE Program. The CONSAFE Program contains a wide variety of projects, including work on next-generation standards for wind loads, performance of structural control systems, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites in construction, and measurement research for concrete testing standards. One noteworthy project is the work on using infrared thermography to perform nondestructive evaluation of the integrity of FRP laminates bonded to concrete and masonry. This project exemplifies exactly the sort of work that NIST should be doing, as it provides the basis for research and applications of this technology. The proposed work on new concrete testing standards should also be encouraged, although the panel would like to learn more about what new approaches should or will be taken and what the deliverables will be.

Other projects include the work on disaster resistant housing. The scientific basis for this project is not clear to the panel, nor is it clear whether industry will support such work. If a serious effort in this area is truly desired, the vision for a much more comprehensive program will have to be defined; such a large program would have great potential for external funding from FEMA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Foreign Aid.

In the work on FRP composites, the division has important expertise but is currently focused on developing a retrofit concept, as are many other research groups. The panel believes that the NIST capabilities could be more productively directed toward providing leadership on metrics and performance evaluation. Similarly, the research program on semiactive control does not currently seem to have a unique focus. While there will always be new technical developments (e.g., shape memory alloys and magneto restrictive sensors and actuators), if the Structures Division wishes to pursue a program in this area, the work should be geared toward providing assessment tools and standards for new technologies.

In addition to the activities described above, the CONSAFE Program also includes the division’s ongoing activities and expertise in performance-based fire engineering for steel structures, fire performance of high-strength concrete, and mitigation of progressive collapse in buildings. These are all critical areas for BFRL’s planned homeland security work, and the Structures Division has a unique opportunity to take a leadership role among federal agencies in addressing these issues post-September 11. In light of this opportunity, it may be the right time for several of the more mature projects in the CONSAFE area to be brought to a meaningful conclusion and the efforts in the groups redirected toward the structural fire and safety issues.

The plans for Structures Division activities in response to the events of September 11 were still in a somewhat preliminary stage when the panel visited in early 2002. While the goals of the investigative phase of NIST’s work were relatively clearly defined, a comprehensive plan to take advantage of BFRL’s unique combination of expertise (in structures, fire, and materials) will be needed. Areas of opportunity include work to support the development of codes and standards that will prevent progressive collapse and improve fire safety and work on distributed sensor networks that could monitor structural and occupant behavior and safety. In particular, a long-term strategy for how to develop a performance-based fire code would be an excellent contribution to improving the safety of the nation’s constructed facilities.

The panel is anticipating significant progress in the next year on the overall vision and plan for the Structures Division and for BFRL as a whole. The long-range plan or vision for these organizations needs to be better formulated and more clearly presented. For example, from the presentations it heard, it was not clear to the panel where the Structures Division sees itself in 10 years and what it needs in terms of funding and human resources in order to get there. The division’s mode of operation is still much more geared toward asking “What can we do with our current staff and resources right now and over the next year or two?” than toward asking “What is our charge and what is it we would like to be recognized for in 10 years?” The Structures Division has the potential to impact and standardize the ways in which electronic models, construction processes, and constructed facilities are measured and thus to improve the economy and safety of all constructed facilities. An explicit vision and an implementation plan for the division and its groups should build on the potential impact of the division’s work on education and on industry and should lead to an ability by the laboratory to articulate the resources needed to carry out their ambitious goals.

One way in which a clearer vision might help the Structures Division improve its programs is in improving the focus on projects and activities in which NIST can make a unique contribution. In several areas, the panel believes that the work under way in the division is not sufficiently distinct from projects that might be occurring as productively or more so in a university setting or in industry. Examples include the current conception of the enhanced object recognition work, some elements of the progressive collapse work, the semiactive control work, and the FRP retrofit concept. The division has stated that its goals include “to move more towards scientific research” and at the same time “not to compete with university research.” The panel believes that these two statements are not compatible and that the division’s intent needs to be further clarified. Focusing on work that can only be done at NIST will be critical as the division develops programs in fire integrity of structures, progressive collapse, distributed sensor networks, and health monitoring of structural systems to address issues raised by the attacks of September 11. In all of these areas, it should be clear that NIST’s main mission is to define metrics and to provide guidance for relevant codes and standards; the primary mission is not performing basic research.

A significant factor in determining the future direction of Structures Division programs will be the proposed merger of the Structures and the Building Materials Divisions. The panel supports this merger because it will improve the size and visibility of both groups⁴ and the combination of the expertise in these areas will allow BFRL to pursue a vision for construction in which both materials and structures can be engineered for specific applications.

In last year’s assessment report, the panel suggested that the interactions of the Structures Division with industry could be strengthened, both to develop better access to input from industry about its needs and to increase the dissemination and use of division results. The panel is pleased to report that improvement was observed in this area. For example, the work with FIATECH on the Capital Projects Technology Roadmap is excellent. This project fills a critical need to synchronize the work of indus-

trial, academic, and government laboratories, and the goal of integrating business planning with facility planning is particularly worthwhile. The value to the industry is clear, although the panel was not certain how the road map will be used to guide NIST research.

Another good outreach effort is the division’s work on organizing and hosting the International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction in September 2002. This conference is an important international meeting, and NIST’s support of it is a worthwhile activity and a good service for the relevant professional and academic communities. The division staff also serve construction-related communities through a variety of committee activities, which help keep the staff in touch with the ongoing research and concerns of other professionals and academics in their fields and provide information about division projects in those fields. The Construction Metrology and Automation Group also has a very informative Web site.

Workshops and conferences are an important element of productive interactions with external communities, but other outreach activities will be needed to really connect with industry. Structures Division staff will also need to be able to describe the NIST programs to industry in such a way that the value and relevance of the work are clear. For example, what are the short-term and long-term goals and deliverables for the program? What can the division provide for the construction industry right now to show that it is developing meaningful technology? The road-mapping exercise mentioned above could be a first step in this direction if it not only identifies enabling technologies but also shows, in a credible and reproducible way, what the costs are of not having particular metrics and measurement standards. This information could then lead to a research agenda with improved coordination and prioritization and clearer economic benefits. As the Structures Division works with industry on this road map, the participants might benefit from looking at the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors as a model; this road-mapping exercise is industry-driven and well established and has a section on Factory Integration that may be relevant. The goal would be for the FIATECH/NIST road-mapping participants to build from this type of model to develop similar, more explicit road maps for other sectors of the construction industry and ultimately to learn how to develop and update these road maps to enable a systematic and sustainable process of technology innovations.

One area in which further strengthening of interactions with industry will be critical is CONSIAT. This program could have an enormous impact on the U.S. construction industry. The construction industry is on the verge of radically changing how facilities are designed, built, and managed. The combination of advanced materials (higher-strength traditional materials and new composites) with computer-based modeling techniques and capabilities for automated fabrication of customized components and systems makes it possible to move from mostly craft-based, on-site production processes with poor process reliability and safety to a design-manufacture-assemble process that minimizes on-site production and improves product and process quality, economy, and safety. The impact on the time and cost needed to develop and deliver a facility might be dramatic (some say that a 30 percent reduction in design-construct time and cost could be achieved easily); such cost reductions would not only strengthen the U.S. economy but would also contribute positively to worldwide development. A critical bottleneck in the migration from today’s craft-based processes to more systematic and automated processes is the lack of measurement standards in virtually all aspects of construction (i.e., industry lacks the ability to assess the quality of a three-dimensional electronic model or to measure work completed in a rapid or consistent way). The Structures Division’s work can play a critical enabling role in this area.

But for the division’s impact to be felt, buy-in from the construction industry is absolutely essential. Verbal support from industry is not enough; companies must indicate their willingness to embrace new technologies by demonstrating real fiscal investments in the necessary equipment and research. The division’s research is in an advanced state, but without a dissemination plan that clearly indicates a path

for adoption of these new technologies, the potential value of the NIST work will go unrealized. A key step would be establishing a highly visible and broadly publicized test project to provide an early demonstration of the advanced capabilities.

Funding sources for the Structures Division are shown in Table 7.2. As of January 2002, staffing for the division included 20 full-time permanent positions, of which 18 were for technical professionals. There were also 7 nonpermanent or supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and temporary or part-time workers.

The funding situation in the Structures Division has improved significantly in the past 2 years. In FY 2002, the division will be fiscally solvent for the third year in a row, and several factors are likely to strengthen the division’s financial position in the future. One is the signing on April 1, 2002, of an MOU that designates NIST to serve as a research and technical resource for FEMA. This establishment of a formal relationship between the agencies has been in the works for several years, and the panel applauds both parties for finalizing the arrangement. The relationship should be a steady source of financial support for the division and should also provide a good dissemination route for NIST results. In return, FEMA will have access to high-quality, technically based advice and tools.

Another factor likely to strengthen the division’s financial position is the proposed NIST initiative in homeland security. Funding for this program was being considered in Congress at the time of the panel meeting, and the proposed size of the overall program (roughly $40 million for a broad range of activities, including structural fire protection, human behavior and response, and building vulnerability) is significant. The funds would be distributed throughout NIST and would also support contracts with external institutions, but the expanded homeland security work certainly will be expected to have a noticeable impact on the Structures Division’s resources. The panel notes that the division will have an important role to play in the management of contracts with outside organizations, particularly in the World Trade Center investigation effort, and resources for specialized contract management personnel

and functions will have to be allocated so as to avoid extra burdens on division staff, who are best qualified and suited for technical activities.

While the Structures Division is certainly more stable financially now than in the past, some concerns remain, particularly with respect to decisions about external funding. Outside support is uneven in the division; the CONSAFE program receives 25 percent of its funding from external grants, while the CONSIAT program gets practically no money from outside. It appears to the panel that the acquisition of often small outside projects is done in a somewhat haphazard way and that funding is sometimes pursued without an analysis of whether the size of the grant is worth the effort of winning it or whether the tasks other agencies are willing to fund appropriately complement division goals. The division should consider a more strategic approach to acquiring outside contracts and integrating those projects into its programs.

The panel is impressed by the sheer number and variety of research programs with which this small division is involved. More and new opportunities are continually arising (particularly in the response to the September 2001 events), and the panel is concerned that further fragmentation of research efforts may occur, leaving many projects below critical mass. Already, the Construction Metrology and Automation Group is seriously understaffed, although efforts are ongoing to hire three more people for this group. However, given the potential impact on the safety and economy of construction throughout the United States, even doubling the staff of the group would still be inadequate. This issue is particularly serious, as the efforts being proposed by NIST and this panel for homeland security may even divert resources from the construction metrology and automation work.

As discussed in previous sections of this chapter, a key element of the homeland security work in BFRL will be work on the safety and performance of structures in fires. BFRL has the expertise in the Structures and the Fire Research Divisions to tackle this complicated problem, and in the Large Fire Research Facility the laboratory has the base on which the necessary state-of-the-art testing facility could be built. While significant improvements to this facility have been considered in the past, a new effort will be required to develop an up-to-date description of the capabilities that would be necessary in the context of post-September 11 needs. The goal for any upgrade of this facility should be for NIST to have the leading structural fire test research laboratory in the world. A vision for this facility—what it should look like, what the real test objectives are, and what the development and implementation strategies are—will be needed in order to determine the cost of developing the facility and to argue convincingly for its funding.⁵ This effort will require close cooperation between the Structures and the Fire Research Divisions and the laboratory office. If BFRL is not able to present an exciting and bold vision for a program and facility in this area and a plan to execute that program, NIST may not receive the resources it needs and deserves to support work on improving structural fire safety.

Other resources-related issues from last year’s assessment report included internal communications and maintenance costs of large equipment. In the first area, the panel noted distinct improvement due to concerted efforts on the part of management and staff; the establishment of a junior advisory board has also helped. Maintenance of large equipment was less of an issue this year, as the universal testing machine is seldom used, and the tridirectional testing facility is being upgraded.

The mission of the Building Materials Division is to develop test methods and predictive tools for next-generation construction materials. Progress toward this clear overall goal is accomplished through careful and thoughtful analytical, laboratory, and field work based on science from a variety of technical disciplines. By developing the scientific bases for the performance and longevity of construction materials, the division is actively improving the criteria and standards used to evaluate, use, and maintain construction materials and ultimately will improve the ability of end users to select appropriate construction materials such as high-performance concrete, coatings, and sealants. The strength of the division is its establishment of the fundamental underpinnings of the performance of building materials. Its work is based clearly on firm principles of materials science, which is an interdisciplinary field combining many elements of chemistry and physics and certain elements of engineering and economics. This interdisciplinary expertise makes the division well suited to contribute to joint projects with other BFRL and NIST groups, and division management highlighted for the panel numerous collaborative relationships with researchers both within NIST and at universities.

The Building Materials Division is responsible for BFRL’s major goal of High-Performance Construction Materials. Work on this goal is divided into two programs: high-performance concrete technology (HYPERCON), which is the responsibility of the division’s Inorganic Materials Group, and service life prediction of high-performance polymeric construction materials, which is led by the division’s Organic Materials Group. Also located within the Building Materials Division is the Construction Materials Reference Laboratory (CMRL), which is managed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and contains the ASTM Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory (CCRL) and the AASHTO Materials Reference Laboratory.

The research carried out by the Building Materials Division staff is generally of excellent quality. The panel continues to be impressed by the focus of the work and by the division’s ability to maintain that focus even while expanding the work into new projects in related areas. The equipment available to the staff is, for the most part, very good, and some of the instrumentation in the division is clearly state of the art, such as the integrating ultraviolet (UV) sphere in the Organic Materials Group and the x-ray moisture profile measurement system in the Inorganic Materials Group. The staff take full advantage of the existing equipment, and the experiments under way appear to the panel to have been well considered and carefully planned, which is important considering the complex and long-term nature of the projects.

Inorganic Materials Group. The Inorganic Materials Group coordinates the projects supporting the HYPERCON Program, which is aimed at measuring, understanding, and predicting the performance of high-performance concrete (HPC). The work under way has clear objectives and includes investigations on the fundamental characteristics of HPC in both the liquid and cured solid states. This group has what may be the world’s best program on the computational materials science of concrete, and the quality of the group is evidenced by its development of the VCCTL, a menu-driven virtual testing laboratory. Users can input basic information into fill-in forms, and the software then provides predictions of cement and concrete properties based on detailed microstructural simulations of well-characterized starting materials. Properties that may be predicted include setting times and degrees of hydration to achieve set, chemical shrinkage, and compressive strength development.

VCCTL’s success clearly reflects a good basis of computational and theoretical work in this group, but it also rests on a series of good experiments. For example, the project on modeling transport in HPC

seeks to develop a continuum service life computer model of ion transport in concrete beginning with basic experiments and progressing through work in molecular dynamics. Appreciation of the complexity of ion transport mechanisms in cement and concrete systems has grown over the past year; however, recent results suggest that regardless of how many or what kinds of ions may be present in a system, their movement can be defined by system porosity and a formation factor. Work on the mathematical characterization of particle shape using spherical harmonics is feeding directly into the VCCTL, as it will provide a way to account for particle assemblies and their interactions.

In other work to strengthen the underpinnings of VCCTL, modifications of its hydration module have been made through experimental, modeling, and simulation work. Particle shape is believed to strongly influence cement and concrete rheology, and models developed to predict elastic properties of cement pastes have been validated through comparisons with experimental measurements of the properties of pastes and their components.

The efforts to characterize concrete in its liquid state have produced some excellent rheological work on fresh concrete and cement. Milestones achieved this year include the development of a model for predicting relative viscosity from coarse aggregate gradations, measurements of mortar properties, simulation of specific practical flow situations, incorporation of results into VCCTL as tools for prediction, and performance and publication⁶ of an international comparison of concrete rheometers.

The project on characterization of the microstructure of cements and concretes continues to provide key results and to build strong capabilities in support of the entire HYPERCON Program, as well as of VCCTL. Progress continues to be made on developing improved materials characterization tools such as Rietveld analysis that will assist in valid performance prediction. This past year the laboratory participated in a round-robin evaluation of two CCRL cements using techniques of particle size distribution analysis and scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive x-ray analysis. A 3-year project on the sulfate resistance of cements in concrete, funded by the Portland Cement Association, is wrapping up after having established a new approach to cement selection that is based on performance and aging criteria. Among this project’s accomplishments are the development of an ASTM sorptivity test that is now in ballot, a relevant database cataloging details of test specimen deterioration, and a better understanding of reaction chemistry and kinetics in blended cements.

Organic Materials Group. In the Organic Materials Group, the focus on service life prediction continues to provide a strong theme around which all programs are organized. In a field where much empirical work has been and is still being done, BFRL’s service life prediction projects take a scientific approach to understanding durability by seeking to identify the real metrics of performance degradation and its fundamental causes and effects. The Organic Materials Group currently is conducting a number of interconnected projects that capitalize on the group’s core competencies. Much of the work is addressed through three ongoing consortia—Coatings Service Life Prediction, Interfaces and Interphases, and Service Life of Building Joint Sealants—and, in addition, a significant new research effort in nanometrology was launched in 2001.

A long-standing project on coatings durability has moved into the first year of its third 3-year phase with continued industrial support from the Coatings Service Life Prediction Consortium. This ambi

tious project seeks to relate outdoor exposures tests to tests done under accelerated laboratory conditions relative to degradation of epoxy coatings. Principal environmental factors studied have been relative humidity, temperature, and UV dose. In the laboratory, UV dose will be delivered using BFRL’s unique UV integrating sphere, a patented device that uniformly delivers up to 17 suns of UV light to several exposure ports simultaneously. BFRL has designed and built at least three different versions of humidity and temperature controls for the sphere and believes that the most recent will be the one that works for the long term. Both chemical and microscopic surface features are being examined in this work using analytical tools that directly obtain the chemical and microstructural information needed. Many coatings involve the chemical formation of a network, and work is being done to correlate changes in the rubbery plateau and glass transition temperatures of the examined coatings using dynamic mechanical analysis. For the analysis of the large volumes of data generated in this project, the researchers have wisely collaborated with a statistics expert from NIST’s Information Technology Laboratory as well as with an academic expert in statistics from Iowa State University. As this project moves into what is expected to be its final phase, attention is turning to the use of modeling to allow application of the project findings to non-epoxy coating systems. It is anticipated that the Organic Materials Group will draw from the Inorganic Materials Group’s expertise in modeling for this work, but it will also need to enlist other collaborators for the creation of viable models related to organic polymeric materials.

The two newer consortia are also moving ahead in their work. One of these, the Interfaces and Interphases Consortium, has completed its first year with its three initial sponsors and has recently added a fourth supporter. This consortium is a joint effort between BFRL and NIST’s Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory (MSEL) and Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory (CSTL). BFRL’s portion of this project lies in the characterization of the surface mechanics of polymeric materials, with an emphasis on scratch and mar resistance. A critical tool in the project is a recently acquired nanoindenter, the first at NIST, which will be used to characterize interfaces and interphases as well as surfaces. This work will also utilize the group’s light scattering facility for the characterization of surfaces damaged by mechanical deformation. Modeling of viscoelastic behavior will be done to relate materials properties to deformation behavior under complex stress states. The effect of the imposition of deformation scales from the molecular to macroscopic levels on the appearance of polymeric materials will be assessed by means of a variety of useful direct methods. A key tool will be a recently built laser scanning confocal Raman microscope that will allow for surface and subsurface textural and chemical study.

The newest consortium in the Organic Materials Group, the Service Life of Building Joint Sealants Consortium, got under way in October 2001 with the support of nine corporate members, the Forest Products Laboratory, and HUD’s Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing. The Building Materials Division project in this area is focused on developing relationships between UV dose and the loss of sealant effectiveness as indicated by modulus changes. Other important environmental exposure parameters include moisture, temperature, and load. While this project will use many of the same methods developed in the work on service life prediction for coatings, it will also look at how UV exposure under mechanical load accelerates aging.

The project on appearance, a 5-year multilaboratory effort, was brought to a close after achieving its primary goals and a few months before the retirement of its principal investigator in January 2002. This project appears to have been well thought of within NIST, particularly owing to the quantity and effectiveness of its interlaboratory collaborations. The project succeeded in developing a procedure for predicting optical scattering from materials formulation and structure data that supports product design, material processing, and rendering. Staff were able to create excellent three-dimensional renderings of objects coated with a clear coating and a metallic-flake pigmented coating, dealing with predominantly

surface scattering in the first case and subsurface scattering in the second. A scattering-based method of measuring gloss was developed, and thus a fundamental foundation was established for the gloss meter that has been widely used in industry for decades. The technical competencies developed in BFRL over the course of this project are being applied to other relevant efforts, and some group staff will continue to take note of and participate in activities in the appearance area.

As the appearance work has wound down, a new set of projects on nanometrology has begun. This work is motivated by a perceived need for better understanding of the dispersion and photocatalytic behavior of particulate microscopic and nano-sized metal oxide materials used as pigments in building materials. In one part of this activity, the scattering expertise and instrumentation developed through the appearance work will be utilized and expanded in a project aimed at characterizing structure and pigment dispersion in polymeric building materials. Coatings and some other building materials are highly pigmented, and industry predominantly uses a variety of indirect characterization methods that are useful but qualitative or subjective, and direct methods that are of limited use, require much time and complicated analyses, and are destructive in nature. The methods developed in this project will be applied to both cured and uncured polymeric systems, the ultimate goal being the development of a new, nondestructive in-line dispersion characterization method that will not be limited to dilute systems as current commercial methods are. The materials systems studied will contain titanium dioxide (TiO₂) or zinc oxide (ZnO) pigments. A second project related to pigment dispersion is a new effort in the characterization of the photocatalytic activity of nanoparticle pigments in building materials. These pigments have different activity and effectiveness depending on their size, which in many cases is dependent to some extent on their degree of dispersion. The project seeks to establish the basis of the general photocatalytic activity of such pigments by looking at the generation and conduction of electrons in pigmented materials.

Finally, one more project appears to be winding down. The division has basically put its work on fiber-reinforced polymer/plastic composites on the shelf for the time being. This project sought to develop a standard for polymer-based composites based on load and resistance factor design (LRFD); such standards already exist for steel, wood, and concrete. While strong interest in this work existed and BFRL was uniquely positioned to carry out the objective, the division found that industry was not fully converted to the need for LRFD standards for composites. The reasons for this are rooted in economics, in the lack of widespread use of composites in major stationary structures, and in the continued specialty status of composites. It is perhaps telling that there are no longer any structural composites projects of great significance anywhere within NIST; however, many of the materials studied in the Building Materials Division actually are composites in the generic sense of the term.

Proposed Building Materials and Structures Division Merger. A major issue for the Building Materials Division is the ongoing discussion of its proposed merger with BFRL’s Structures Division. The large new division will support the BFRL goals related to materials and construction, and the merger is expected to strengthen the divisions’ abilities to serve their industrial customers. Though a number of distinct differences exist between the two divisions, they share some important similarities, and their combination could support an ambitious vision of collaboration between engineers dealing with macro-structures and physical scientists focused on microstructures. It is reasonable to expect that in time the technical focus of the new division will evolve to something more than and different from a simple combination of the two divisions’ organizational charts. Areas identified as possible new opportunities, some with significant potential for technical synergy, include robotics, high-throughput analysis, automation, and smart materials and intelligent sensors.

The process of merging the divisions is proceeding slowly and carefully. The current chief of the

Structures Division was asked to organize a task force late in 2001 to address the merger, and the task force’s preliminary report was completed in February 2002. The new division, tentatively named the Materials and Construction Research Division, is expected to come into formal existence in October 2002 (the start of FY 2003). The long-time chief of the Building Materials Division retired at the beginning of 2002, and the very capable leader of the Organic Materials Group will be acting division chief until the merger takes effect.

The panel expects that the first year of the new division’s life will be marked by the growth of these two rather different divisions into a coherent unit in name, spirit, goals, programs, and organizational structure. The Building Materials Division has a comparatively young staff and takes a science-based approach in its work, about 40 percent of which is funded by outside sources. The Structures Division, on the other hand, has a more mature staff, which is engineering-oriented in its work, and is largely internally funded. This year’s panel is not in a position to predict the outcome of this merger, although next year’s assessment will certainly include an evaluation of the impact of the changes. However, it is clear that this merger will be a time of significant transition for the staff and the programs in the Building Materials Division. While personnel have been assured that there will be no headcount reductions as a result of the merger, many other uncertainties remain, and division and laboratory management should make a concerted effort to keep staff up to date on the progress of the merger and the status of various key decisions.

The projects under way in the Inorganic Materials Group include investigations that span the full range of cement and concrete use, from the raw materials of which they are made, to the methods of combining and mixing them, the means of using the compounds, and the question of their longevity. Customers for this group’s results are quite diverse, including industry, government, and academia, and the collaborations under way reflect this breadth. The VCCTL Consortium has eight industrial members, including two new companies added this year, and these members’ support of the division programs clearly demonstrates their approval of the topics that the group chooses to study and their faith in the group’s past and future ability to produce results. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is particularly interested in the group’s projects relevant to the use of concrete as an entombment material for decommissioned nuclear reactors. The group collaborates effectively with all of the other BFRL divisions and its Office of Applied Economics, as well as with other NIST laboratories (ITL, MSEL, and CSTL). Academic partners include the University of Illinois and Northwestern University, which are members of the Center for Advanced Cement-Based Materials. Guest researchers also play an important role in group activities; five were in the laboratories in early 2002, and five more were scheduled to come in the middle months of the year. These researchers represent four different countries. The Inorganic Materials Group personnel are active in a number of professional societies and standards committees. Staff serve on more than 24 committees of the ASTM, American Concrete Institute (ACI), RILEM,⁷ and International Center for Diffraction Data as chairs, vice chairs, secretaries, and members. In spite of all these commitments, staff also produced 36 publications and conference papers as part of the HYPERCON effort in 2001.

A major product of the Inorganic Materials Group is the VCCTL. By helping concrete formulators to eliminate formulations likely to miss their target, VCCTL can gain for concrete producers the time and cost savings needed to do only the physical testing that is really necessary. Version 1.0 of VCCTL is available on the Internet;⁸ in recent months, it drew 60,000 users from 60 countries. The VCCTL has also received a good share of attention recently from the building materials industry in articles published in Civil Engineering, Engineering News Record, The Concrete Producer, Concrete Construction, and Contractor. Articles in these trade and technical magazines publicize VCCTL among the building materials suppliers, who are the VCCTL’s primary customers. This long-term project recently completed the first year of a 3-year consortium effort that is aimed not only at improving the capabilities of the VCCTL but also at proliferating its use beyond the research community of the cement and concrete field.

The service life prediction projects of the Organic Materials Group are clearly important to BFRL’s customers, as the group’s three consortia involve a total of 21 members, most of them industrial producers of building materials. In addition, representatives from the roofing asphalt industry have been asking recently about the establishment of a consortium that would serve its needs in service life prediction. The work on composites has been stopped for the time being for want of full industrial participation, but the panel believes that this work has relevance for industry nonetheless.

The relationships between the Organic Materials Group and its three consortia are very strong. This connection not only allows the group to have access to sustained financial support but also provides group staff with information about industrial approaches to project management. For example, the panel notes that staff are increasingly using Gantt charts and other scheduling tools to track the progress of consortia-supported work according to specific time lines. The use of these tools is being driven by the consortia members, who use the tools themselves for their own internal projects.

In addition to the industrial partners in the consortia, the Organic Materials Group collaborates with a variety of researchers at a number of institutions. The group has productive collaborations with five other NIST laboratories (Physics Laboratory, MEL, ITL, MSEL, and CSTL), and 17 guest researchers have been associated with the group over the past year; these guest researchers bring outside information into the group and take its findings out to industry and academia. Other dissemination mechanisms include helping to organize the second international Service Life Prediction Symposium in 2001 and 30publications in journal and conference proceedings in 2001.

Organic Materials Group staff are very active on ASTM committees as chairs, secretaries, and members of 14 committees. Standards committee work is particularly important for the group’s four projects targeting the analysis and abatement of lead-based materials. These projects are funded by HUD and have resulted in the development of more than 25 standards, in part through participation in ASTM Subcommittee E06.23. Several states in the eastern United States already are citing the ASTM standards for remediation of lead-based paint, and over the past year HUD has begun to cite the ASTM standards in its regulations.

The effectiveness and impact of the Building Materials Division programs are a product of the excellence of the division staff and are reflected in the recognition that staff members receive from external communities. In the past year, division personnel have been honored in a variety of ways. Awards received by individual staff members include the 2001 John C. Weaver Excellence in Leadership Award from the ASTM Committee D01 on Paint and Related Coatings, Materials, and Applica-

tions; the 2001 Walter Voss Award from ASTM for notable contributions to “knowledge in the field of building technology, with emphasis upon materials” for work in lead-based paint abatement; election as a fellow of the American Ceramics Society in recognition of pioneering contributions to the computational materials science of cement and concrete; and the Distinguished Chapter Member Award from the National Capital Chapter of the American Concrete Institute for 2000 for exceptional contributions to the chapter and to ACI. Staff also serve in key roles in professional societies; one recently retired staff member (now a guest researcher) was elected to the ACI board of directors, and another recently retired staff member (also now a guest researcher) was elected to the board of governors of the Intersociety Color Council.

Funding sources for the Building Materials Division are shown in Table 7.3. As of January 2002, staffing for the division included 21 full-time permanent positions, of which 18 were for technical professionals. There were also 4 nonpermanent or supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and temporary or part-time workers.

The panel is impressed by the quality of the staff in the Building Materials Division and by their enthusiasm for the division’s activities, which remains high even as the researchers mature. The division is not deeply staffed, relying heavily on specific individuals for progress in each of its project areas. To supplement its core personnel (8 full-time persons in the Inorganic Materials Group and 11 in the Organic Materials Group), the division relies on extensive collaborations, as described above, and non-permanent staff. For example, the division effectively utilizes guest researchers, who are an important source of high-quality labor, technical expertise, and intellectual collaboration. The current group of guest researchers includes visitors from other institutions, as described in the previous section, and recent NIST retirees. The recent retirees often provide essential expertise (e.g., one retiree is

supplying relevant and needed background in structure-property relationships of structural adhesives and composites for the Organic Materials Group) or perform key outreach activities (e.g., a retiree is continuing her participation on standards and color committees). Finally, a special guest researcher is the former division chief, who retired at the beginning of 2002. He will be continuing his important liaison work for BFRL with ACI, but the panel notes that his time as division chief was characterized by his ability to attract excellent researchers and to manage top-notch research programs as well as by his effective ambassadorship for VCCTL and the HYPERCON Program. He will be missed.

Students play some part in Building Materials Division projects, and kudos are due to two staff members who worked with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship program; as a result of these efforts, 11 undergraduate students spent the summer of 2001 in BFRL, where they gained valuable laboratory research experience. A program officer from the NSF is currently a guest researcher in the division, and, among his other activities, he is working to establish NSF graduate fellowships that would take place at NIST. Greater participation in division projects by graduate and undergraduate students would provide a high level of support for the division’s full-time researchers, and these students, at their next jobs or institutions, would also help to disseminate information about the division’s programs and results more widely.

Another potential source of additional expertise and support for division researchers is the research associates who staff the Construction Materials Reference Laboratory, organizationally situated within the division. Division management has indicated that a concerted effort is being made to better integrate the work of the CMRL staff with that of the researchers in the Inorganic Materials Group, and the panel strongly urges the division to continue this effort, as it should benefit both the division and the CMRL. At present, at least two CMRL staff members are involved with work in the Inorganic Materials Group’s microstructure laboratory, and CCRL staffers routinely provide cement proficiency samples for group projects.

Given the tightness of human resources in the division, it is important to use the time of all personnel productively. In the past, the panel has emphasized the value of having sufficient technician support for the many instruments used in this division, as this allows the equipment to receive dedicated care from qualified individuals and allows the Ph.D.-level researchers to focus their time and attention on project design and investigations. Thus, the panel was very pleased to learn the Organic Materials Group had added a high-level technician in 2001 and was planning to add a master’s-level analytical chemist for the service life prediction characterization laboratory in 2002 and that the Inorganic Materials Group was seeking a high-level technician to assist with the ever-increasing workload in its microstructure characterization laboratory. The panel applauds this emphasis on bolstering support staff.

It is not known whether or how the staff of the Building Materials Division may be asked to participate in the federal government’s homeland security initiatives. Development of improved fire protection materials and bioactive filters are two areas to which it has been mentioned that division staff may contribute. It is the panel’s opinion that the reassignment of any of the division’s researchers to any homeland security projects would jeopardize the project objectives that make such excellent use of the division’s core competencies. Unless the number of personnel was increased, progress in any one of these areas undoubtedly would be slowed.

The array of equipment in the Building Materials Division is very impressive. Recent new instruments or improvements in existing capabilities include NIST’s only nano-indenter, the continued refinement of the light scattering facility, a variety of components for the 2-m integrating UV sphere, an x-ray absorption unit for a scanning electron microscope (SEM), a 32-processor computer, a pore press for HYPERCON, and an ion chromatograph. A particle size analyzer is scheduled to be installed in the near future. This division relies heavily on experiments, both for the fundamental insights that they reveal

and for the inputs they provide to computational and theoretical models being developed at NIST. Staff are effectively utilizing the existing equipment, but several other instruments or instrument upgrades would benefit the programs. In the Organic Materials Group, the staff’s “wish list” includes a clean room (needed to prevent the incorporation of particulates into coatings); a dynamic mechanical analyzer appropriate for rheological characterization of polymeric, as opposed to cementitious, materials; and a gel chromatograph/mass spectroscopy system for analysis of captured or directly generated volatile derivatives. In the Inorganic Materials Group, the staff would like to have a new SEM to replace an aging workhorse SEM, more computational power for modeling efforts, and a concrete laboratory to enable preparation and characterization work beyond mortars.

The mission of the Building Environment Division is to optimize total building performance through innovative design, integration, commissioning, operation, and maintenance for improved reliability, security, safety, and occupant health, while minimizing adverse environmental impacts. (The division’s motto is “Assuring that buildings work better throughout their useful lives.”) To achieve this mission, the division’s work includes developing comprehensive, integrated approaches to information management that are capable of supporting a diverse collection of decision-making activities that span the entire life cycle of a building.

The Building Environment Division is responsible for work toward the BFRL goal of Enhanced Building Performance. In support of this goal, research, development, and demonstration work is carried out in the two program areas: cybernetic building systems, which involves two of the division’s five groups (Mechanical Systems and Controls, and Computer Integrated Construction) and healthy and sustainable buildings, which involves the other three groups (Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation, Thermal Machinery, and Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems). Below, the panel discusses the activities of each group.

Mechanical Systems and Controls Group. The projects in the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group are excellent examples of how NIST provides state-of-the-art technology research and development that is focused on real-world problems and industry needs. The group’s internally funded activities occur in three primary areas: mechanical control systems, fault detection and diagnostics (FDD), and the Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed (VCBT).

NIST is well known as an industry leader in support of standards for mechanical control systems. Building Environment Division staff were key drivers in the development of the BACnet protocol, which was adopted by ASHRAE and ANSI and is now being adopted by ISO. NIST has played a leadership role in BACnet development since the network’s inception in 1987, and the leader of the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group is the current chair of the ASHRAE committee on the BACnet standard. Currently, the group’s work on BACnet has gone beyond standards development to focus on development of the capabilities and infrastructure needed to promulgate the standard and ensure its appropriate use. For example, NIST personnel are involved in drafting test procedures for verifying a product’s conformance with BACnet; this is a crucial activity, because the standard is so complex that it is difficult for customers to evaluate products on their own.

One new and appropriate project under way in the BACnet area is work on demonstrations of multibuilding networks of BACnet-conformant systems that can provide higher-level optimization and

facility information. The group is working with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) on a demonstration project called GEMnet (for GSA Energy Management network). Currently, the technology is being demonstrated in 11 federal buildings in GSA Region 9 (the Pacific Rim Region). One benefit of such systems is that they will help building owners manage energy costs. This capability will make the technology particularly attractive to organizations such as GSA, which own and operate many buildings, and if influential owners such as GSA embrace the systems, other owners are likely to follow.

The second focus of the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group is on FDD, including building commissioning. Over many years, the division has performed strong work on the development and demonstration of algorithms for detecting faults in the mechanical systems of buildings, and where possible, identifying the causes. Staff served as the Department of Energy representative and country leader on the U.S. delegation to the International Energy Agency (IEA) Annex 34. The resulting exchanges with other domestic and international collaborators and industrial partners were very productive and provided the framework for the development at NIST of an FDD test shell and of specific FDD methods. The group has continued the work started in Annex 34 by further developing rule-based fault detection and diagnostic methods for detecting faults in air-handling units and statistical quality-control methods for detecting faults in variable-air-volume boxes. The former method was demonstrated at Montgomery College; the method worked well, detecting a number of faults, and the facility personnel were happy with the results. Several control manufacturers have chosen to incorporate the NIST algorithms in their controllers, which is certainly evidence that this is an appropriate and useful technology.

A significant next step in the FDD area is the group’s entry into research on building commissioning. NIST staff—along with many other researchers—have realized that the first step in effective long-term FDD is to ensure that a building is operating correctly from the start and to establish an effective baseline of performance. The Mechanical Systems and Controls Group is again showing leadership by serving as the country lead for the U.S. delegation to IEA Annex 40 on building commissioning. If the group’s successful technology transfer in the area of FDD can be replicated here, NIST will help drive industry in the United States and abroad toward adoption of this important technology.

The final area of activity for the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group is work on the VCBT, a multigroup (with the Computer Integrated Construction Group) and multidivision (with the Fire Research Division) project. The VCBT laboratory apparatus has played a crucial role in cost-effectively testing the performance of BACnet-compliant controllers. It has also been used as the basis for the early development and demonstration of concepts for technologies such as FDD and GEMnet and has proven useful in the development and testing of other technologies and algorithms from several divisions within NIST. For example, fire researchers have used the facility to develop, test, and demonstrate algorithms to support the Smart Panel, which provides first responders with detailed information about the development of a fire within a building. The VCBT has also been used by the construction automation researchers to demonstrate the integration of computer-aided design (CAD) drawings and construction data, controls, and operations.

Computer Integrated Construction Group. The major objectives of the Computer Integrated Construction Group are to work with the building and construction industry to establish a sound technical basis for seamlessly sharing information throughout the life of a facility; transfer the technology to industry through the development of consensus, open standards; implement and test exemplar software applications incorporating the standards; demonstrate the integration/interoperability of these and other applications in pilot projects; and provide validated test-case data sets and test metrics. Through work toward these objectives, the Computer Integrated Construction Group is making fundamental contributions to the Building Environment Division mission.

The Computer Integrated Construction Group is working on projects in two program areas: cybernetic building systems and construction integration and automation technologies. Projects within the cybernetic building systems program area include the development of product data standards for heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC/R) systems, and an information infrastructure for the simulation of building performance under normal and adverse conditions. Projects within the construction integration and automation technologies program area focus on the development of product data standards for steel construction and for industrial facilities. These projects build on previous work done in the group.

In the past, the panel has expressed concern about coordination between the Computer Integrated Construction Group and the Construction Metrology and Automation Group of the Structures Division. Group management has emphasized that the overlap between group projects is limited to those projects relevant to the CONSIAT goal (i.e., the work on product data standards for steel construction and industrial facilities), and the necessary coordination appears to be occurring for those projects. The panel believes that the other work within the Computer Integrated Construction Group, particularly the projects focused on life-cycle information management, should be coordinated across BFRL divisions as well. Reorganization is not recommended, but for goals in the life-cycle information management theme to be fully and efficiently realized, the work will require a champion (perhaps the Computer Integrated Construction Group) that can broadly coordinate multidisciplinary work across divisions and other laboratories within NIST.

The goal of the group’s project on product data standards for HVAC/R systems is to extend the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data model so that it can support decision making regarding these building systems throughout the life cycle of a facility. The panel believes that this work addresses a critical information requirement for improving the performance of buildings related to their energy consumption, indoor environmental quality, and response to emergency conditions (fire, contaminant dispersion, and so on). A key expected benefit of this project is the ability to capture HVAC/R design information for continued use in downstream commissioning and operations and maintenance activities. The project includes plans to implement and test the HVAC/ R model extension in the context of the VCBT, which will allow staff to validate the model extension, increase their experience with implementation of IFC data import/export capabilities, and raise the visibility of IFC data interoperability through future VCBT demonstrations.

The work on developing an information infrastructure for the simulation of building performance under normal and adverse conditions results in part from reprogramming in response to the events of September 11. This project builds nicely on existing expertise and past results by integrating the product data standards work and the simulation tool CONTAMW⁹ developed by the Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group. The plan is to develop a data mapping between the IFC data model and the CONTAMW internal data model, implement a translator based on this mapping, and test the translator by exchanging data between a CAD representation of the NIST Administration Building and CONTAMW. This implementation of interoperability between CAD and CONTAMW will then be used to conduct a study of likely adverse events in the building. The experience gained through this project will be applied to bring interoperability capabilities to other NIST simulation and analysis programs. This project will provide valuable feedback for improving and further extending the under-

lying IFC data model, and it also contributes to the life-cycle information management theme being developed in this group.

The product data standards work in the construction integration and automation technologies program continues to go well. Recent accomplishments in the steel construction area include prototype implementation and validation of the CIMsteel Integration Standards (CIS2) and interactions with software vendors to test and correct their CIS2 translators. Next, the group will focus on harmonizing CIS2 with other evolving standards from ongoing ISO/STEP, IAI/IFC, and XML initiatives. These efforts are necessary to promote the successful adoption of the standards in the marketplace. Within the project on developing product data standards for industrial facilities, the STEP Application Protocol for process plant industries that was developed by NIST and other PlantSTEP Consortium members was formally approved as an international standard, thus validating the high technical merit of this work.

The panel believes that the current collection of projects under way in the Computer Integrated Construction Group is well conceived and well directed at the goal of enhancing and extending the product data standards that have resulted from previous work and at helping to promote the adoption of these standards in the marketplace through trial software implementation and pilot application to real-world building projects. Next it will be important for the group to move beyond the goal of formal approval of data model standards and focus on promoting the adoption of the standards within the marketplace. Trial implementation and highly visible, well-documented pilot demonstration projects are critical to getting the word out.

Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group. The Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group has displayed technical leadership in relevant fields for many years, but the events of the past year have underscored the importance of this area of study. The value of NIST’s role as a provider of unbiased scientific information and analysis has never been clearer.

Airflow and pollutant model development is one key activity of the group. Staff have provided innovative, high-quality performance prediction methods for research, development, and design. The most widely used model created is the CONTAMW program, which performs multizone mass balance analysis to determine contaminant concentrations in zones over time. Once a model of a particular building is built, CONTAMW can be used for ventilation design, contaminant analysis, and smoke management. The group is currently working on further enhancing the program’s modeling capabilities by integrating existing ventilation modeling with thermal and fire modeling programs. It is also working on improving usability by providing libraries of model inputs, different views of a building, integration with data from CAD systems, and postprocessing software for calculation and visualization. CONTAMW is freely available and can be downloaded from the NIST Web site. This program is a good example of how state-of-the-art basic research can produce practical tools useful to industry. It is also a good example of intralaboratory collaboration, as researchers from the Computer Integrated Construction Group and the Fire Research Division have made important contributions to the project.

In the work on ventilation and indoor air quality (IAQ) design tools, the object is to advance the state of the art of “traditional” prescriptive standards and design procedures and to enable true performance-based design of IAQ building systems. Older methods of ventilation design use simplistic formulas, requiring a set amount of ventilation per person or per square foot. These methods do not take into account factors such as outdoor pollutant levels and indoor source strengths, and they do not allow the use of innovative design approaches. The most effective and efficient ventilation strategies would be based on the prediction and measurement of contaminant loads, and group staff are working on design tools to facilitate such prediction and measurement. They have completed the calculation engine and are now working on interfaces and applications.

Another project in the Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group is the investigation of the impacts of IAQ controls on energy, costs, health, and productivity. By improving understanding in this area, NIST will help building designers make better decisions about which control technologies to use and will help them improve implementation of these technologies. As one part of this project, the group is providing instrumentation support, cost/benefit analysis, and IAQ and energy modeling for a large study of elementary schools. This pilot program is designed to quantify the effects of indoor environmental control on the health and performance of students and staff in elementary schools and to quantify the costs and benefits of these effects. Another part of the project is the recently completed study of IAQ issues at the Oberlin College Environmental Studies Center. Based on this work, NIST staff were able to develop methods for monitoring carbon dioxide in the field and to make recommendations about the role of such monitoring in the commissioning of sustainable buildings.

Finally, the group is conducting a study of testing methods for filtration and air cleaners. This work requires testing and model validation in realistic buildings, ranging from an extensively instrumented single room test house, to a more realistic manufactured house test facility, to an occupied townhouse. This year, the manufactured house test facility was installed at NIST, and the facility will also be used for residential mechanical ventilation testing for reliability, air distribution, energy impacts and controls for different systems, in support of standards by HUD and ASHRAE.

Thermal Machinery Group. The primary focus of the Thermal Machinery Group is on projects to support reduced energy consumption of refrigeration and air conditioning equipment by enabling selection of the best refrigerants and improvements in equipment efficiency. In the first area, the group is providing relevant and unbiased research and information on the performance of carbon dioxide and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) as refrigerants, as currently there is a great deal of controversy around the world about the relative energy efficiency of these two refrigerants. The work being done at NIST is certainly state of the art as well as important to the community, as demonstrated in the recent publication that compares carbon dioxide with HFC-134a for automotive air conditioning. The NIST results showed that carbon dioxide systems will have considerably lower energy efficiency compared with that of fluorocarbon systems of a similar design and cost basis. This result is contrary to reports by companies advocating carbon dioxide and has produced much discussion within the industry.

Several other projects in the Thermal Machinery Group also demonstrate the group’s effective employment of leading-edge technologies: the use of fluorescence-spectroscopy measurement for determining the concentration of lubricants on pool boiling and convective boiling surfaces, the application of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to refrigeration and air conditioning systems, and the development of new computer models for optimizing the design and performance of refrigeration and air conditioning systems. The panel supports these efforts, as they represent technology advances that can reduce energy consumption in building refrigeration and air conditioning systems.

Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group. The Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group focuses on the sort of metrology programs that are at the heart of BFRL’s mission. For example, the goal of the group’s thermal conductivity work is to develop the measurement tools, procedures, standards, and databases to assist the building industry and related industries in determining the thermal properties of building materials, industrial insulations, and innovative insulation systems. Thus, staff provide thermal conductivity measurements of insulating and building materials, with traceability to NIST Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) for insulation.

In the area of alternative energy systems, the group develops measurement techniques and validated performance models for building integrated photovoltaic products. Currently, the lack of experimental

data and computer simulation tools for determining the performance of building integrated photovoltaics is inhibiting the widespread adoption of this technology. While several predictive models are available in industry, none has been validated with actual data, so the NIST staff have developed and are now operating two systems for data collection. One is a mobile photovoltaic tracking test facility, and the other is a testbed of building integrated photovoltaic panels on the south side of NIST Building 226. Many solar industry companies and academic and governmental laboratories are interested in the data that will be produced and in the results of NIST’s use of the data for model validation. In addition to building and using the test systems, the division is also supporting the installation of the first permanent, renewable energy system at NIST, an integrated photovoltaic system in the Administration Building.

The Mechanical Systems and Controls Group has long been recognized as an industry leader because of its work on BACnet and on FDD. The group’s success is based on a hands-on approach, including real-world demonstrations. For example, a key to the effectiveness of the BACnet program was the hands-on approach to developing virtual testbeds and the use of field demonstrations (e.g., at the Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco) to establish the value of BACnet systems. Currently, the decision to develop and demonstrate an enterprise monitoring system with GSA is a good example of the group’s ability to understand how to influence an industry. Working with a large, forward-thinking customer such as GSA will ensure that the findings and successes will be replicated widely within that customer’s buildings, as well as by other organizations. The panel recommends that the group continue pursuing new demonstration opportunities.

Demonstrations are not the only way that the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group disseminates its results and encourages the use of new technologies. For example, the group has helped form the BACnet Manufacturers Association, which is an important step in the evolution of the standard from a paper description to its use in real-world products. The association has more than 25 members, only 2 of which (including NIST) are nonmanufacturers. BACnet has the potential to be used on an international scale, and staff have expanded their leadership activities to include work with the European BACnet Interest Group, and an effort to establish a BACnet-like standard through the ISO and individual countries within Asia.

Another way that the group facilitates technology transfer is through informal personal relationships with industry representatives. For example, staff’s interactions with controls manufacturers during BACnet development activities gave them the opportunity to inform those manufacturers about the group’s FDD work, and as a result, some of the manufacturers have chosen to implement FDD in their controllers. In these sorts of interactions, the panel recommends that the group be careful to work closely with both a manufacturer’s marketing and technical representatives; relationships with both departments is the only way to ensure that the interaction will result not just in interesting demonstrations but also in products that are actively marketed by these companies. The use of CRADAs with these companies is highly encouraged.

While the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group certainly provides key results in support of the development of individual technologies, the group’s real relevance and vision can be seen in the way that the activities of multiple programs are integrated. For example, the use of the VCBT to develop, test, and demonstrate FDD routines in BACnet-compliant controllers linked with the GEMnet project shows that NIST has a vision for the cybernetic buildings of the future. By developing the pieces— communication and information standards, algorithms, and testing devices—and demonstrating integration in the field, NIST will play an important role in enabling industry to achieve this vision. The key

challenge to the group will be communicating developments in these areas and working effectively with industry to see that the vision is realized in commercial products.

Life-cycle information management—the exchange of detailed and accurate building information across the complete life cycle of a facility (including design, construction, and operation)—is a highly relevant objective that the panel believes should be pursued not only in the Computer Integrated Construction Group and Building Environment Division but at the laboratory and institutional levels as well. While visionaries within the buildings industry have been promoting life-cycle information management for several years, the industry as a whole was not embracing the idea, as noted in last year’s assessment. However, the events of September 11 changed this situation by demonstrating why ready access to complete and accurate information about a building and its systems is important throughout the building life cycle. Participants at a February 2002 workshop sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency expressed great interest in using the IAI/IFC data model as an information repository to support tools such as CONTAMW which could help with delivering and operating buildings that have improved performance under adverse conditions (such as the release of chemical and biological agents). Now industry support clearly exists for the division’s efforts in this area, and end users now may be interested in making use of the group’s results.

Computer Integrated Construction Group staff are continuing their long-standing participation in both national and international standards efforts. These activities ensure that the work undertaken within group projects is well informed at the technical level, is both leveraged by and integrated into the work of others, and achieves a high level of visibility in external communities. In the product data standards areas, staff work with both established and nascent organizations and ad hoc groups relevant to the architecture, engineering, construction, and facility management industry. This is a diverse and fragmented industry that spawns numerous standards efforts, and it is critical that NIST remain cognizant of and involved in all of them. If software interoperability is to be advanced, continually evolving standards for building information such as STEP, IAI/IFC, and XML need to be harmonized, or at least gross conflicts inhibiting data exchange must be avoided. NIST is one of the few institutions with the appropriate objectivity, and the Computer Integrated Construction Group has the requisite historical knowledge and organizational connections to help monitor and promote this task in collaboration with its peers in industry organizations and related research communities.

In another example of key standards committee participation, the head of the Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group is the current chair of the ASHRAE committee (SSPC 62.1) responsible for the standard for ventilation for acceptable indoor air quality. His work on this committee provides the group with a clear understanding of the drawbacks of current prescriptive standards, the research and tools that are necessary before a best practice can be incorporated in a standard, and the mechanism for working with industry to move toward more innovative standards. The committee is currently at the center of a significant amount of controversy, and it is appropriate that NIST supply unbiased technical leadership in order to allow this activity to move forward.

The relevance of the Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group work to BFRL’s new focus on homeland security programs has already been demonstrated in the government’s response to the anthrax mailings. After the release of anthrax spores at the Hart Senate Office Building, there was interest in understanding how the spores were likely transported throughout the building. Thus NIST was asked to provide assistance in analyzing contaminant transport patterns in this building. Because a model of the building did not already exist and because access to the building was understandably limited, researchers had to make many assumptions in order to create a model of the ventilation systems that could be used with the group’s contaminant flow prediction tools. Despite these constraints, the project was successful and demonstrated the importance of being able to perform this type of analysis. As a result,

organizations such as the Architect of the Capitol and the State Department are sponsoring an activity to create models of certain critical facilities so that, if necessary, contaminant modeling can be completed more accurately and faster (perhaps even quickly enough to provide information to first responders). Other customers for the group’s building modeling activities include DARPA, which is considering including NIST tools in its Naval Surface Warfare Center Immune Building Toolkit, and ASHRAE, which invited division staff to participate in its presidential study group addressing building safety under extraordinary incidents. For security reasons, researchers who worked on the Hart Senate Office Building modeling effort are not at liberty to discuss their findings, and the panel notes that many of BFRL’s homeland security activities may be constrained in this way. The laboratory will have to find ways to publicize successful and relevant results while respecting sponsors’ need for secrecy.

In the Thermal Machinery Group, programs are established on the basis of industry needs, as determined by close interactions between NIST staff and representatives from industrial, governmental, and academic communities. External institutions collaborate on group projects and provide funding to support work of value to them. For example, the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute has provided funding for the project designed to determine the performance of hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants operating at high ambient temperatures and for the work on the potential use of MEMS to control refrigerant distribution in multiple evaporator circuits. The Department of Energy has supported the project to study heat transfer effect of lubricant layer thickness on heat exchanger surfaces, and the group has several industrial collaborators on this effort.

As a result of good external relations, the Thermal Machinery Group projects have access to key information, and they have significant impacts on relevant communities. The group’s programs for modeling refrigeration and air conditioning system performance can be purchased through the NIST Standard Reference Data program and have become the worldwide industry standard. A new program for optimizing the design and performance of evaporators and condensers was developed with industry input, and it has been estimated that the use of this program can result in system energy efficiency improvements of 6 to 7 percent.

The Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group also effectively utilizes collaborations and funding from external institutions. Many years of work on thermal conductivity measurements have benefited from input and funding from the Department of Energy, the North America Insulation Manufacturers Association, and private industry. Currently, the photovoltaic measurement work is being partially funded by the California Energy Commission, and it is receiving technology support from Siemens, BP Solar, and Astropower. Additional cooperation and input are being received from the University of Wisconsin Solar Energy Laboratory, the Florida Solar Energy Center, and Sandia National Laboratories. Photovoltaic systems have the potential to provide an alternative source of energy (other than oil), and the growing interest in NIST’s work in this area in part reflects concerns about the environmental impact of global warming from the burning of fossil fuels and about the continued conflicts near Middle East oil fields.

The Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group does not rely merely on its relationships with collaborators and funders to disseminate group results. In the photovoltaic area, six papers were published by staff in 2001. In the thermal conductivity area, a database containing thermal conductivity values of building materials has been made available on the Web.¹⁰ In addition, the group has begun an international interlaboratory comparison of thermal conductivity data with Canada, France, Japan, and

the United Kingdom, each of which has its own measurement apparatus for thermal conductivity data. This intercomparison could lead to internationally recognized thermal conductivity values for insulating materials and thus could reduce a barrier to international standardization and commerce.

The activities in the five groups of the Building Environment Division do a good job of supporting NIST’s customers and fulfilling the BFRL mission. The panel notes that a program on standards related to sustainable buildings would also be consistent with the division’s and laboratory’s missions and would take advantage of the skills that exist in the division. A great deal of interest currently exists in industry with respect to constructing “green” buildings, although there seems to be little agreement on what is meant by “green.” A few rating systems do exist, but they tend to focus on particular areas and are occasionally proprietary and not open to public input. Currently, no definitive and public standard exists to define what makes a building environmentally sound, and thus the potential for misrepresentation is great. For such a standard to be formulated and agreed upon, metrics that include significant amounts of information about the building’s design, construction, commissioning, and performance would be required. The Building Environment Division is well positioned to apply its technical know-how and its mandate for unbiased standard setting to this important problem within the industry; sustainable buildings and whole-building life-cycle analysis have the potential to be organizing principles to guide the division’s design of its future programs.

Funding. Funding sources for the Building Environment Division are shown in Table 7.4. Last year, the panel was concerned about the dependence of the division on external funding and the absence of clear criteria for determining what sort of outside support is desirable and worth pursuing. It was suggested that BFRL should systematically consider the issues related to external funding and should determine a policy to strengthen the laboratory and division programs and perhaps help mitigate future funding crises. The panel was disappointed to see that the groups did not appear to have been given any

new guidance on the appropriate use of external funding. The panel continues to recommend that laboratory and division management devote some attention to this issue.

In the past year, the most significant development affecting the resource situation throughout BFRL was the World Trade Center attacks and the anthrax mailings and the resulting new laboratory focus on homeland security. In the Building Environment Division, some resources have been reprogrammed to support new or expanded activities related to homeland security, such as the work on contaminant transport patterns in buildings. While NIST can play an important role in governmental efforts to improve homeland security, funding for such work in BFRL is not yet in place, and whether such funding will be stable is still unclear. Wisely, the laboratory has chosen to outsource some of the activities at this time, but if NIST management and Congress make a commitment to sustaining long-term programs in homeland security in BFRL, the division and laboratory would be well advised to develop more in-house resources to support these activities. (The Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group, in particular, would have to grow significantly.)

One consequence of the recent reprogramming to support homeland security programs was a cut in the internal funding supporting the Thermal Machinery Group’s work on the evaluation of low global warming refrigerants such as carbon dioxide. This project provides the high-quality, unbiased technology evaluations necessary for the refrigeration and air conditioning industry to make good decisions about technologies to increase energy efficiency. The panel is concerned that, with the recent cut in internal funding, the Thermal Machinery Group as a whole now is highly dependent on external funding.

Human Resources. As of January 2002, staffing for the Building Environment Division included 37 full-time permanent positions, of which 33 were for technical professionals. There were also 8 nonpermanent or supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and temporary or part-time workers.

The division is making effective use of guest researchers, students, and contract labor. The Thermal Machinery Group, in particular, seems to utilize visitors and graduate students well. This leveraging of permanent staff with temporary employees is important, as it allows the division to respond flexibly to fluctuations in total laboratory funding. The panel is also pleased to see that the division is making an effort to hire technicians to run the instruments, allowing researchers to use their time more efficiently.

Morale in the division appears to be relatively high, although the panel did note concerns about frequent reorganizations within the laboratory and a lack of clarity in the prioritization process.

Most of the groups appear to have an adequate number of permanent staff, but in two groups the number of personnel is a little low. The Mechanical Systems and Controls group has recently lost several staff members, but a search for at least one new individual is under way. The panel encourages the group leader to utilize personal networks as well as advertisements to find qualified candidates. The Computer Integrated Construction Group is definitely spread too thin at this time. Current staff do not have enough time to devote their undivided attention to the technical work necessary to meet the identified milestones of each project. While the group is currently interviewing people in a search for a new permanent employee, finding qualified candidates is very difficult in this area.

Instruments. The Thermal Machinery Group is to be commended for acting on the panel recommendation for removal of methylene chloride from the truck environmental chamber cooling system. The group worked cooperatively with the NIST Plant Maintenance Division to obtain adequate funds and has completely revamped the cooling system valves and controls and replaced the methylene chloride with a more benign heat transfer fluid.

In the past year, a number of new facilities have been completed in the Building Environmental

Division. In the Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group, a manufactured house test facility was installed to provide unique and important capabilities to support the study of testing methods for filtration and air cleaners. In the Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group, a new leading-edge apparatus for high-temperature measurements of thermal conductivity reference materials will soon be completed (funding is in place), and the panel applauds the group for recognizing the need for this test system and for obtaining the support necessary to finish construction of the apparatus. Unfortunately, funds (~$200,000) are not yet available for an associated vacuum system. The Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group has also decided that in the future, laboratory facilities for evaluating residential fuel cell system performance will be needed. A proposal for this type of facility has been prepared, and the group is seeking funding from industry and governmental agencies. The panel supports this effort to establish a fuel cell test laboratory.

The mission of the Fire Research Division is to develop, verify, and utilize 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.

The work in the Fire Research Division is mainly in support of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory’s goal of fire loss reduction. This BFRL goal is focused on four key objectives: reducing residential fire deaths, injuries, and property losses; reducing firefighter line-of-service deaths and burn injuries; enabling engineered fire safety for people, products, facilities, and first responders; and reducing firefighter and occupant vulnerability in extreme fire events that threaten homeland security. Currently, these objectives are supported by four technical programs in the Fire Research Division: Advanced Fire Service Technologies, Reduced Risk of Flashover, Advanced Measurement and Predictive Methods, and Homeland Security. The first three programs are continuing efforts. The panel was presented with information about the goals and objectives of the first three programs and was pleased to note that these goals and objectives were much more clearly defined and specified than last year. The metrics for what the division wishes to accomplish (such as helping to achieve a 25 percent reduction in line-of-duty fatalities and burn injuries in the United States by 2007) have become more quantifiable. However, the panel notes that many of the goals are still listed on the time scale of many years, so it is difficult to use them to measure the progress of the division’s ongoing activities from year to year.

The division was formed in 2000 through the merger of two divisions. The panel was very pleased to see how effectively the merger has progressed. The division is currently organized in five groups— Fire Fighting Technology, Fire Metrology, Analysis and Prediction, Integrated Performance Assessment, and Materials and Products—and the reorganization has allowed these groups to work together rather than competitively and to share a common focus. An environment of synergy exists between the five groups; scientific relationships between groups are very good, and personnel interact almost seamlessly across group lines. The panel noted that collaboration and communication with other divisions has also increased. More could still be happening, and the Homeland Security Program will offer a good opportunity for the Fire Research Division and the Structural Division to develop a productive working relationship on joint projects.

While it believes that the merger has been successful, the panel does have one concern about the current organizational structure. The approach of having five groups (corresponding to the division’s core areas) and four technical programs (that support the laboratory’s fire loss reduction goal) is causing

confusion. Group leaders appear to have all the authority, while program leaders have the technical mandates. For instance, a deliverable in a given program is not reviewed by the investigator’s program manager, but rather by his or her group leader. Performance reviews are similarly the domain of the group leaders. Thus, program managers have little ability to control and direct the work for which they are responsible.

In general, the division devotes serious attention to project and program planning. While this is an important activity, it can also be time-consuming and has the potential to distract staff from their technical responsibilities. The focus on planning is understandable, as the division is completing the merger and the new focus on homeland security is being defined; however, care needs to be taken going forward to include staff in planning without extensive disruption of their technical work.

In the review of the Fire Research Division’s activities, the panel saw a number of impressive projects. One example is the work on high-throughput flame retardancy measures. The division staff have developed a system in which polymers are extruded to produce a long sample that has a continuous gradient in composition. Samples can then be exposed to a horizontal ignition and flammability test. This approach allows researchers to determine the flame speed continuously as a function of composition and flux level. This new high-throughput experimentation technique will support more efficient work on the discovery and characterization of new fire-resistant materials.

Another example is the work on experimental characterization of flame spread and fire growth rate. Data will be collected in tests containing materials and geometries representative of real-world situations. The ultimate goal is information to support the development of an engineering model and to increase the understanding of the fire growth and spread leading up to the point of transition to flashover. Such a model would be useful for understanding how the flammability characteristics of furnishings and contents could be improved and for providing a basis for the design and development of detection and suppression technologies.

A third example of a noteworthy project is the work on early, fault-free detection of smoke and fires. A key component of this program is the development of a fire-emulator/detector-evaluator. This system has been designed to measure the performance of fire detection systems in a variety of situations (including not only the system’s ability to detect smoke from a real fire, but also the system’s reaction to nuisance sources such as cigarette smoke, steam, and the cooking of foods). A quantifiable, repeatable test of how well a particular design can discriminate a flaming or smoldering fire from a nonfire event should enable the development of effective new systems, which, it is hoped, will lead to an overall reduction in false alarm rates.

The final example of particularly impressive division products is the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), the result of a continuing, long-term effort by BFRL. The FDS uses zone and field approaches to model fires, and division staff are continually developing new algorithms and modeling approaches and improving the capabilities of this important NIST product. The FDS is an excellent scientific and engineering tool, and the panel believes that the division and laboratory should consider building a major programmatic thrust around the FDS. Work would focus on Large Fire Research Facility experiments aligned with FDS’s predictive capabilities and on continuing to improve the components of the model.

Homeland Security. An important new development in the division this year is the emerging program in Homeland Security. In this program, the division will apply measurement and predictive methods to identify the role of fire in the World Trade Center collapse, to improve methods of structural fire protection and emergency response, and to reduce firefighter and occupant vulnerability. The division has already begun the work on the first part of this program. Here, the staff are using the FDS to model

the fires in the World Trade Center on September 11. This work is an ongoing effort, but already comparisons between the modeling results and data from the event have allowed staff to deduce information about critical factors in the fire, such as the amount of airplane fuel expended in the fire ball at the time of collision and the importance of the internal geometry of the building and wind effects in the progression of the fire. This analysis is a significant investigative approach, and the panel does not believe that it is being done anywhere else. The division’s ability to estimate important parameters and to make these deductions about the fire is based on years of work at BFRL on constructing and validating NIST’s critical fire modeling capabilities. For example, the submodels used as inputs to the FDS are a major strength of the simulations, as these submodels can predict the smoke produced and therefore computationally predict the plume formed.

The division’s work on modeling the fires in the World Trade Center is one piece of the BFRL-wide study of the collapse. The Fire Research Division will have a significant role in this FEMA-requested investigation, as well as in the laboratory’s more general work in the area of homeland security. For example, the division’s expertise will be essential in projects on determining the impact of temperature and heat on structural failure and assessing and predicting fire and explosion damage, and NIST’s work will support the design community’s efforts to design more blast-resistant structures. The homeland security program is a great opportunity for BFRL to make a difference in an important area, and the panel encourages the division and laboratory to actively pursue this work. However, to be successful, the mission of the NIST program needs to be clearly articulated, and strong interactions between the Fire Research and Structures Divisions are essential.

The division’s and laboratory’s homeland security plans appear to be very ambitious, and a great deal of work will need to be done. The panel recognizes that the division may not be in a position to do all of the work in-house but does believe that it is important to maintain at NIST the expertise necessary to fulfill a leadership role, that is, to oversee and act as advisers to related projects outside NIST, and perhaps even to guide the work done elsewhere. For example, the panel believes that the federal government should have access to a simulation tool that couples a fluid dynamics model (to simulate blasts and subsequent fires) and a structural dynamics model (to describe the effects of blasts on buildings and possible subsequent collapses). While such coupled models do exist already and are probably being adapted to study problems related to homeland security, the panel believes that the expertise and tools should also be available at NIST. This is one example of an area in which close collaboration between the Fire Research and Structures Divisions would be necessary. Contacting groups at other institutions, particularly the Department of Defense, may also be a way to access models that division staff can combine and adapt to build this capability.

The Fire Research Division has a good vision of how its objectives match up with the needs of its stakeholders and of how its results will be used by these stakeholders. Division products can be directly implemented in many cases to reduce direct and indirect fire-related costs, improve life safety in fire situations, improve U.S. economic competitiveness internationally, and facilitate regulatory improvements and reform. Programs under way that will have such an impact include those in protective clothing research, research on smart zone fire alarm systems that incorporate informational displays for firefighters responding to fires in large buildings, simulations to improve understanding of various fire situations (including college dormitory fires and fire spread in urban wildlands), techniques for predicting structural collapse due to fire, study of the effects of positive pressure ventilation and various types of hose streams, and experimental and modeling projects relevant to defining fire codes and standards.

In addition, a number of projects are focused on pragmatic approaches to enhancing residential fire safety, such as assessing hazard reduction for bed fires, and mattress screening tests. While these efforts are modest individually, collectively they represent significant opportunities to reduce the number of lives lost in fires.

The Fire Research Division’s objective of improving firefighter safety is appropriate and commendable. Currently, a primary focus of the division’s efforts is on reducing the risk of flashover. This is an important area, and the division can make a difference here. However, the panel suggests that the division consider expanding its approach to areas beyond flashover and determine what factors other than flashover contribute to fire-related fatalities, injuries, and property loss. A more comprehensive understanding of the various factors will help the division determine the most effective ways to impact the economics of the public and personal costs of fire.

The division continues to expand efforts to disseminate NIST products and findings to an array of diverse customers. Examples of recent outreach efforts include the organization and hosting of the 12th International Conference on Automatic Fire Detection in March 2001, the distribution of more than 6,000 copies of the flashover video and 8,000 compact disks of the Cherry Road simulation for use in firefighter training and public safety awareness programs, the public release of Version 2 of the FDS in December 2001 (FDS is available on the Web¹¹ and has been downloaded more than 1,000 times), and impressive and productive interactions with the U.S. Fire Administration.

The Fire Research Division is well respected by members of its stakeholder communities nationally and internationally. However, the panel notes that a systematic approach to communicating with stakeholders and the public is not in place in the division or in BFRL as a whole. Perhaps a strategy should be developed at the division or laboratory level to facilitate the transfer of information produced at BFRL to the laboratory’s customer base. Possible approaches might include the development of a central laboratory communications office or other methods to allow utilization of appropriate links to the media. Currently, the general public is not aware of the value of the division’s work. The panel applauds the recent smoke alarm demonstration staged for the media in the Large Fire Research Facility as a step in the right direction. The organization of additional workshops with representatives from industry, government, and academia, firefighters, and other relevant groups would also help publicize the benefits produced by the work of the Fire Research Division. The ultimate goal is timely communication to the stakeholders of BFRL.

Funding sources for the Fire Research Division are shown in Table 7.5. The balance between internal and external funding has improved. In FY 2000, the last year in which two separate fire divisions existed, outside funds accounted for 41 percent of the divisions’ budgets. In FY 2002, external money is estimated to be 35 percent of the funding for the unified division. This decreased percentage reflects an increased congressional allocation (STRS). The panel supports this trend, as it allows the division to maintain a reasonable balance between time spent conducting research and time spent seeking outside funding.

A key issue for the Fire Research Division going forward is its role in BFRL’s (and NIST’s) new strategic focus on homeland security. The division is already making important contributions in this

area, as discussed above, and the time and effort that the division devotes to this area are expected to expand. The division staff are entirely supportive of this programmatic emphasis and are eager to help in the defense and protection of the nation. However, the impact of the homeland security work on the rest of the division’s projects is unclear, and the uncertainties associated with this change in direction are affecting morale. The morale of the entire laboratory was also hurt by the delays in determining the role of NIST in the governmentwide investigation of the events of September 11. While BFRL staff began to apply their expertise immediately where they could, such as in modeling of the fires in the World Trade Center, the lack of clarity within the federal government about what NIST would do and about whether funds would be provided for their efforts has been unsettling for all BFRL staff.

The Large Fire Research Facility will be a key component of the homeland security effort. After several years of renovation, this extremely impressive facility is now essentially complete, and it will be used to support ongoing research in the division as well as to meet the fire testing needs of BFRL’s customers in industry, government, and academia. The panel is somewhat concerned that development and utilization of the refurbished facility are proceeding slowly. It seems that each individual item of instrumentation has to be implemented at the highest level before staff move on to installing the next instrument. While excellence is an appropriate goal, the panel believes that this very measured pace of installation has interfered with the active and productive use of the facility. Given the cost of the improvements, ensuring that the facility is used and that full advantage is taken of the relatively rare large-scale testing options that it provides should be a priority. Improvements in measurement capabilities should be viewed as an ongoing and evolutionary process.

The panel is pleased to see the Large Fire Research Facility operational, and it believes that the

laboratory should immediately begin planning for future improvements. How, and how often, the facility is used for measurements that utilize its unique capabilities should be tracked so that the need and case for future expansion can be documented. The division should focus on determining what improvements are required to make this a world-class facility and on facilitating its use in support of NIST’s homeland security work.

As of January 2002, staffing for the Fire Research Division included 52 full-time permanent positions, of which 46 were for technical professionals. There were also 13 nonpermanent or supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and temporary or part-time workers.

One senior scientist retired from the Fire Research Division this past year. Over the next few years, several more retirements are expected. The panel is concerned that the division’s planning for this transition is insufficient. Major gaps in expertise will result from these retirements, and recruitment of new staff to fill these holes will be needed.

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, the world is looking to the United States to develop and explain ways of bringing an acceptable safety and comfort level to the design and construction of the built environment. This is the time for BFRL to make an impact on the building codes and construction standards used in the United States and around the world. In the past, BFRL has been slow in formulating an approach to codes and standards efforts, but now the laboratory must continue its work on developing the metrics and techniques that will support the use of modern and effective codes and standards and must move quickly and surely to ensure the adoption of such codes and standards by national and international regulators.

A wide range of questions has been raised in response to the fires and collapses at the World Trade Center. BFRL is well positioned to draw on past results and existing expertise to contribute to work in relevant areas. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the destruction in New York City, legitimate proposals for new approaches are mixed in with flawed plans proposed and widely advocated by opportunists and misguided individuals. Laboratory staff will have to both provide support for sound ideas and work to negate proposed standards that would be ineffective, inappropriate, or even dangerous.

In the Structures and the Fire Research Divisions, staff are qualified to contribute to the debates on many questions related to the structural and fire safety of tall buildings. Areas that BFRL will be expected to study include these:

• The protection of structural frameworks from the effects of fire. A particular focus will be the level of protection provided by sprayed-on fireproofing systems.

• The protection of the structural framework from the effects of impact loading. This topic is an example of one in which NIST’s focus should be on the dissemination of past results, which affirm that the issues are well understood and that additional study is not needed.

• The adequacy of the in-place fire protection systems (to protect human occupants and structural frameworks). Again, dissemination of past results in this area is all that is needed.

• The protection of structural systems from impacts such as from large airplanes. In this area, proactive work by NIST is necessary to explain how the structural engineering formulas that are currently in place are adequate to resist the effects of fire and other hazards such as wind, earthquake, and flood. The focus on airplane impacts, while understandable, has the potential to distract the community from considering more important questions.

Other critical questions facing the building design community at this time relate to building access and egress. For example, some comments have been made about whether the exiting system of the World Trade Center was adequate to handle a full evacuation of the building. It is likely that past work done at NIST and elsewhere will confirm that the system was sufficient, but the design of systems to allow efficient and safe egress from buildings and facilities is an important component of building design, and the best methods must be affirmed and explained. One element of any discussions about exiting systems will be the role of elevators and other mechanical conveyance systems as means of egress in emergency situations. In the past, legal issues have prevented elevator manufacturers from supporting the use of their products in those situations, but the time appears to be right to revisit this issue. NIST has completed many studies in this area and now can provide key information for educating the public about the safe use of elevators and other mechanical systems in emergency evacuations.

BFRL can also play a critical role in support of homeland security by facilitating first responders’ access to better information and tools. The best ways to gain access to buildings and facilities during emergency situations are still poorly understood. Also, improvements could be made in communication and warning systems to ensure that the first responders have the information they need and are not unnecessarily placed in risky environments.

The audience for BFRL’s work in all of these areas includes the manufacturers of relevant products and regulators in the United States and in other countries. However, for BFRL’s work to influence codes and standards, staff must take into account regulators’ need for timely information. Regulators will be open to efforts that scrutinize existing codes and work to bring them up to date, but they will not be receptive to lengthy, time-consuming projects. The building codes that are currently adopted and enforced in the United States are updated yearly but are formally reprinted on a 3-year cycle. The changes that will be incorporated in the 2003 publication of the codes are currently undergoing approval now. Thus, BFRL must focus on producing results that can be used to make changes in the codes that appear in the 2006 edition. For regulators to accept and adopt the laboratory’s results, work at NIST must be completed before the end of 2005. This schedule is ambitious, but it can be met, as BFRL has already produced important work in relevant areas that it can build on in its new projects.

The biggest potential barrier to BFRL’s completing the work needed to impact codes and standards in the United States and abroad is a shortage of resources, particularly human resources, that NIST can devote to this task. In early 2001, the leader (and sole staff member) of BFRL’s small existing program in codes and standards retired. While laboratory management has agreed that half of the time of a senior researcher in the Fire Research Division may be allocated to work in this area, the panel believes that this is insufficient. In addition to this person, who brings appropriate technical capabilities and experience with national and international codes and on standards committees, people are also needed who are familiar with the workings of the codes and standards agencies and who can monitor regulatory processes in a number of fields to ensure that BFRL is up to date on relevant deadlines and opportunities. New funding is expected from FEMA that could be used to support the assignment or hiring of additional staff. Much work will still need to be outsourced to other laboratories and agencies, but BFRL must be in a position to track and coordinate all of these activities.

Coordination of the technical work occurring within BFRL is also essential. While participation on codes and standards committees is important, and while the current leader of the laboratory’s efforts should continue with his work on these committees, committee work is not the only activity required to support a comprehensive strategy to influence the codes and standards adopted by regulators and used by the design and construction industries. Staff throughout BFRL should take codes and standards needs into account in planning their projects, and BFRL management should support efforts to integrate technical results into national and international codes and standards processes.

The mission of the Office of Applied Economics (OAE) is to provide 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. This mission is accomplished exceedingly well by OAE. Staff employ state-of-the-art methodologies to perform first-class analyses of the economic impact of various technologies, and the office’s success is due not only to the quality of the evaluations it produces but also to the staff’s recognition of the importance of getting results into the hands of the ultimate users by transforming OAE methodologies into useful tools for practitioners. The panel’s judgment that OAE’s work is of high technical merit reflects the personnel’s credentials and the quality of their published reports, and it also hinges on their communications skills, primarily their ability to design effective, interactive, user-friendly computer tools.

OAE is not focused on theoretical economics or operations research. Conceptual advances made by OAE staff are made in the context of solving problems, analyzing data, performing simulations, and gaining insights into the human response to and interaction with evolving technologies. OAE staff are superb at sorting through and applying the very latest theoretical insights in a practical way to behavioral problems associated with technological advances pioneered at NIST. Because OAE always focuses on the ultimate users and on how they will distill and incorporate new information into their decision-making processes, the products delivered by OAE are widely and effectively used by their customers.

Life-cycle costing—one example of an area in which OAE has produced important tools—has been elevated to a usable art because of formats and methodologies developed at OAE, and both the Department of Energy and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have contracted with OAE to provide tools for their constituents. The user-friendly interactive design tools include the Bridge-LCC computer program,¹² which allows the designer to explore the cost-effectiveness of employing new materials. Another area in which OAE excels is in the development of analytic tools to facilitate wise choice among criteria, including criteria that are not easily quantifiable. In one example, the Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) program allows designers to evaluate trade-offs between economic and environmental consequences of building material choices. In another example, an analytic hierarchy method is applied to the evaluation of strategic choices, including project choices within NIST. This technique has also been incorporated into recent work on developing industry-specific indicators to evaluate the likelihood that particular new technologies will be adopted. If this approach is successful, BFRL and NIST might be able to better predict the potential impact of their work and thus make better decisions about whether to fund research and development efforts in a given area or on a particular technology.

As NIST’s only substantial group of social scientists with expertise in economics and decision making, OAE staff are regularly relied upon to explore potential effects of human interaction with technical innovations in terms of the overall likely consequences on the desired outcome. For example, one of the staff’s more-complicated tasks might be evaluating the trade-offs in emergency situations such as fires, where an improvement in the physical security of exit pathways could reduce the rapidity of human exit, thereby increasing the chances of catastrophic injury.

In support of the new focus of NIST and BFRL on homeland security activities, OAE’s technical competence in modeling behavioral response can be an essential component of activities assessing risk management strategies for response to possible terrorist threats. Many possible methods exist for improving the security of citizens, and these methods go well beyond developing, designing, constructing, and maintaining more secure, resilient facilities. Cost-effective human security results from the complex interactions between human behavior, both in perpetrating threatening activity and in responding to it, and the physical, transportation, life-support, and IT/communications infrastructure. There are four ways of reducing the undesirable consequences of an assault, whether the cause of the assault is natural or human: avoid it, withstand it, escape from it, and recover from it. Enhanced ability to predict the onset of an assault can improve people’s ability to perform effectively in all of these areas, and understanding the likelihood of being able to make such predictions should be taken into account in all BFRL activities on homeland security. OAE staff can help estimate predictive possibilities and can also provide assessments of how human behavior will impact the effectiveness of technologies for reducing the impact of terrorist events. Systematic inclusion of OAE perspectives, methods, and analyses in BFRL work on counterterrorism will enhance the likelihood that the laboratory will make cost-effective, competent contributions to the homeland security effort.

In the past, the codes and standards activities have been organizationally affiliated with OAE in the laboratory office. Due to the retirement of the leader of those activities, the responsibility for the BFRL codes and standards work has been shifted to staff in the Fire Research Division. One of the goals of this work is that of moving codes toward using performance-based measures for building and construction standards rather than merely listing specifications about particular materials; thus, OAE expertise on likely human responses to new standards will continue to contribute to the laboratory’s work in this area.

Since an appreciable part of OAE’s work is customer assessment for other NIST activities, office personnel are certainly well aware of who their own customers are. OAE monitors the hits on its Web site and found that for the 8-month period between March and the end of October 2001, there were 182,496 visits to the OAE directory and another 8,366 to the information on life-cycle-costs for bridges (developed in conjunction with the Building Materials Division). More than 50,000 of those Web inquiries were for full reports, with the UNIFORMAT II system of cost assembly, the ERATES Manual, and BEES receiving the largest number of hits. Furthermore, the widely used RS Means series of publications on cost estimation now includes in its publicity the boast that these publications use the OAE-developed UNIFORMAT II and that it is “easy to use” and the “industry standard.” This is a good indication of how OAE is successful at influencing industry behavior.

The Office of Applied Economics provides a wide variety of services and products for BFRL, other NIST laboratories, and many NIST customers. OAE regularly estimates the value to society of alternative technologies; this work benefits NIST by demonstrating the worth of its products, and it benefits customers by helping them choose and implement innovative new approaches. BFRL and NIST also are well served by OAE’s assistance in internal project selection and budgetary procedures.

Estimated FY 2002 funding for the OAE totals $1.9 million, of which 62 percent is from external sources. As of January 2002, staffing included 11 full-time permanent positions, of which 9 were for technical professionals.

OAE staff have a diverse blend of complementary knowledge and skills, from economics, to operations-research-based analytic decision-making tools, to statistical and computer-science methodologies. Morale is high, and staff seem to get along well together. Collaborations within the office occur easily. However, the current number of staff is not sufficient to support the wide range of activities at NIST that might benefit from OAE’s help. This shortage is particularly emphasized by NIST’s expanding responsibilities in homeland security, where understanding human behavior will be an essential part of forging effective outcomes. OAE would certainly be better positioned to undertake the required comprehensive analyses if it could add two or more senior economists or applied operations-research specialists in each of the next several years.

However, finding and hiring staff with the right skills to complement existing OAE personnel would not be easy. Most new economics Ph.D.’s from first-rate universities are immersed in arcane equilibrium theory, driven by available mathematical tools, and do not have the background for understanding the dynamics of short-term human responses to technological innovation. Thus, OAE would have to search a variety of interdisciplinary graduate programs (those that provide training in engineering, management, applied economics, and business) and would have to look for candidates with practical work experience at other national laboratories, at research institutes, or in business (former centers for emerging high-tech companies might be good places to look). Individuals with consulting experience and those knowledgeable about working with agent-based models might also be positive additions to the OAE staff.

OAE is very successful at attracting external funding. While this outside support provides verification that the products of the office are of value to its customers, it also seems to indicate to laboratory management that internal funds for this office are not necessary. The panel notes that to support the expansion in personnel suggested above, reliable internal support will be needed.