An Assessment of Four Divisions of the Physical Measurement Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2018 assesses the scientific and technical work performed by four divisions of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Physical Measurement Laboratory. This publication reviews technical reports and technical program descriptions prepared by NIST staff and summarizes the findings of the authoring panel. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 The Charge to the Panel and the Assessment Process 2 Organization and Mission of the Physical Measurement Laboratory 3 Applied Physics Division 4 Quantum Electromagnetics Division 5 Time and Frequency Division 6 Quantum Physics Division 7 Key Recommendations Acronyms

The Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is dedicated to three fundamental and complementary tasks: (1) increase the accuracy of our knowledge of the physical parameters that are the foundation of our technology-driven society; (2) disseminate technologies by which these physical parameters can be accessed in a standardized way by the stakeholders; and (3) conduct research at both fundamental and applied levels to provide knowledge that may eventually lead to advances in measurement approaches and standards. This report assesses the scientific and technical work performed by the PML and identifies salient examples of accomplishments, challenges, and opportunities for improvement for each of its nine divisions. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 The Charge to the Panel and the Assessment Process 2 Applied Physics and Quantum Electromagnetics Divisions 3 Engineering Physics Division 4 Office of Weights and Measures 5 Quantum Measurement Division 6 Quantum Physics Division 7 Radiation Physics Division 8 Sensor Science Division 9 Time and Frequency Division 10 Key Suggestions for Improvement Acronyms

The National Defense Center of Excellence for Industrial Metrology and 3D Imaging (COE-IM3DI) is conducting research to enable the next generation of manufacturing-centric human/instrument/machine interaction. The generalized goal of the COE-IM3DI research is to facilitate the transition of 3D imaging technology from one requiring highly skilled/specialized technicians to a ubiquitous measurement capability available in real-time on the shop floor. This long-term effort requires a detailed examination of the current state of the art in 3D imaging and projected technology development trends over the next ten years. In 2004, NIST produced a seminal report on the then state of the art of the 3D Imaging field with a particular focus on hardware requirements for applications in manufacturing, autonomous vehicle mobility, and construction. This report will extend that initial work (principally with respect to software) and provide an update that will support the needs of the COE-IM3DT research program.

A review is presented of the state of the art of smoke production measurement, prediction of smoke impact as part of computer-based fire modeling, and measurement and prediction of the impact of smoke through deposition of soot on and corrosion of electrical equipment. The literature review on smoke corrosivity testing and damage due to smoke deposition emphasizes (despite extensive research on smoke corrositity) the lack of validated and widely applicable prescriptive or performance based methods to assure electrical equipment survivability given exposure to fire smoke. Circuit bridging via current leakage through deposited smoke was identified as an important mechanism of electronic and electrical equipment failure during NPP fires. In the near term, assessment of potential damage can reasonably be based on the airborne smoke exposure concentration and, perhaps, the exposure duration. Hence, models that can predict the airborne smoke concentration would be sufficient to suit short-term analysis needs. In the longer term, it would be desirable to develop models that could estimate the deposition behavior of smoke, as well and specifically correlate the combination of deposited and airborne smoke to component damage.

Bulk oxide determinations from a pair of port-land cements provides the basis for calculation precision and accuracy values for X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis for both the fused glass bead and the pressed powder sample preparation. This report is the second in a series on an Inter-laboratory study on chemical analyses of hydraulic cements by X-ray fluorescence for the purpose of estimating precision and qualification criteria. Approximately 45 laboratories provided six replicates analyzed in duplicate for two separate port-land cements containing ca. 5 % limestone, covering fifteen analytes, CaO, SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, SO3, MgO, Na2O, K2O, TiO2, P2O5, Mn2O3, SrO, ZnO, Cr2O3, and Cl, with the laboratories roughly split between the two different sample preparations. Chemical data using traditional chemical analyses (the Reference Methods) from the Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory (CCRL) proficiency test program were included for comparison to the XRF results.

Bulk oxide determinations from a pair of portland cements provides the basis for calculation precision and accuracy values for X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis for both the fused glass bead and the pressed powder sample preparation. Approximately 45 laboratories provided six replicates analyzed in duplicate for two separate portland cements covering eleven analytes, CaO, SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, SO3, MgO, Na2O, K2O, TiO2, P2O5, and Cl, with the laboratories roughly split between the two different sample preparations. Chemical data using traditional chemical analyses (the Reference Methods) from the Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory (CCRL) proficiency test program were included for comparison to the XRF results.

To date, there is no International standard on the methods and tests to assess the verification and validation (V&V) of building fire evacuation models, i.e., model testers adopt inconsistent procedures or tests designed for other model uses. For instance, the tests presented within the MSC/Circ.1238 Guidelines for evacuation analysis for new and existing passenger ships provided by the International Maritime Organization are often employed for the V&V of models outside their original context of use (building fires instead of maritime applications). This document discusses the main issues associated with the definition of a standard procedure for the V&V of building fire evacuation models. A review of the current procedures, tests (e.g. the MSC/Circ.1238 Guidelines), and methods available in the literature to assess the V&V of building evacuation models is provided. The capabilities of building evacuation models are evaluated studying their five main core components, namely 1) Pre-evacuation time, 2) Movement and Navigation, 3) Exit usage, 4) Route availability and 5) Flow constraints. A set of tests and recommendations about the verification of building evacuation models is proposed. Suggestions on simple qualitative validation tests are provided together with examples of experimental data-sets suitable for the analysis of different core components. The uncertainties associated with evacuation modelling are discussed. In particular, a method for the analysis of behavioural uncertainty (uncertainty due to the use of distributions or stochastic variables to simulate human behaviour in evacuation modelling) is presented. The method consists of a set of convergence criteria based on functional analysis. The last part of this document presents a discussion on the definition of the acceptance criteria for a standard V&V protocol.

Building stakeholders need practical metrics, data, and tools to support decisions related to sustainable building designs, technologies, standards, and codes. The Engineering Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has addressed this high priority national need by extending its metrics and tool for sustainable building products, known as Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES), to whole buildings. Whole building sustainability metrics have been developed based on innovative extensions to life-cycle assessment (LCA) and life- cycle costing (LCC) approaches involving building energy simulations. The measurement system evaluates the sustainability of both the materials and the energy used by a building over time. It assesses the, carbon footprint of buildings as well as 11 other environmental performance metrics, and integrates economic performance metrics to yield science-based measures of the business case for investment choices in high-performance green buildings. Building Industry Reporting and Design for Sustainability (BIRDS) applies the new sustainability measurement system to an extensive whole building performance database NIST has compiled for this purpose. The BIRDS database includes energy, environmental, and cost measurements for 12 540 new commercial and non low-rise residential buildings, covering 11 building prototypes in 228 cities across all U.S. states for 9 study period lengths. The sustainability performance of buildings designed to meet current state energy codes can be compared to their performance when meeting four alternative building energy standard editions to determine the impact of energy efficiency on sustainability performance. The impact of the building location and the investor s time horizon on sustainability performance can also be measured.

Research funded under the Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-352) has led to the development of two test methods for measuring the ignition propensity of cigarettes. The Mock-Up Ignition Test Method uses substrated physically similar to upholstered furniture and mattresses: a layer of fabric over padding. The measure of cigarette performance is ignition or non-ignition of the substrate. The Cigarette Extinction Test Method replaces the fabric/padding assembly with multiple layers of common filter paper. The measure of performance is full-length burning or self-extinguishment of the cigarette. Routine measurement of the relative ignition propensity of cigarettes is feasible using either of the two methods. Improved cigarette performance under both methods has been linked with reduced real-world ignition behavior; and it is reasonable to assume that this, in turn, implies a significant real-world benefit. Both methods have been subjected to interlaboratory study. The resulting reproducibilities were comparable to each other and comparable to those in other fire test methods currently being used to regulate materials which may be involved in unwanted fires. Using the two methods, some current commercial cigarettes are shown to have reduced ignition propensities relative to the current best-selling cigarettes. *] This is one of six volumes in the Final Report, Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 1990. VOLUME 1. Overview: Practicability of Developing a Performance Standard to Reduce Cigarette Ignition Propensity by Jones-Smith, J., et al. VOLUME 3. Modeling the Ignition of Soft Furnishings by a Cigarette by Mitler, H. E., et al. VOLUME 4. Cigarette Fire Incident Study by Harwood, B., et al. VOLUME 5. Toxicity Testing Plan by Lee, B. C., et al. VOLUME 6. Societal Costs of Cigarette Fires by Ray, D. R., et al.

FAST is a collection of fire modeling tools which uses the underlying fire model CFAST and adds the routines of FIREFORM to provide engineering calculations of fire phenomena in compartmented structures. This manual provides documentation and examples for using FAST. It describes how to install the software on a computer and provides a guide for the use of FAST using examples.

This report describes the technical accomplishments and activities of NIST's Information Technology Laboratory for FY 1997. The work of ITL's eight technical divisions is detailed, and interactions, publications, papers, conferences, recognition, and other resources are documented.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology hosted a twoday workshop focusing on needed research on occupant behavior and movement during building emergencies. This workshop was motivated by a renewed interest in how buildings should be evacuated during fire emergencies and by the desire to provide a forum for the exchange of experiences among the fire and non-fire communities working on emergency egress. The workshop was organized into several sessions with specific topics areas, including codes and standards requirements for building evacuation, building egress strategies, and data needs for predictive models. Several presentations were included in each session, with an extended period for discussion at the end of each session. For each presentation, visuals used for the presentation are included, along with any additional information provided by the author on the topic. For each workshop session, the session moderator prepared a summary of key points of research interest from the presentations and discussion.

The investigation of the collapse of a five-story reinforced concrete flat-plate structure under construction at Cocoa Beach, Florida is presented in this report. The investigation included onsite inspection, laboratory tests and anlytical studies. Based on the results of this investigation, it is concluded that the most probable cause of the failure was insufficient punching shear capacity in the fifth-floor slab to resit the applied construction loads.

New technologies and research are redefining the state-of-the-art in building evacuation. The time is right to rethink the entire infrastructure of egress from buildings in light new opportunities to address the economic and life-safety issues. Approximately 40 experts from a variety of disciplinary background assembled in Warrenton, VA from April 1-3, 2008 in order to consider building evacuation, starting with a blank sheet of paper. Structured around the principles of Value-Focused Thinking (a text authored by workshop moderator Ralph Keeney), the participants were encouraged to consider values, objectives, alternatives, and metrics. This process combined the benefits of free-thinking brainstorming with a formalism which encouraged evaluation of the potential for new ideas. By the conclusion of the third day, over 400 ideas had been developed, along with metrics for future evaluation of the ideas.

Fire protection measures are needed to maintain the safety and integrity of the Nation s building stock and to limit loss of life and property when building fires do occur. Statistics published by the National Fire Protection Association demonstrate that fire protection is a major investment cost in building construction. Therefore, ways to reduce these costs while ensuring safety are of interest to building owners, fire protection engineers, and other construction industry stakeholders. Although all fire protection measures have important economic implications, the focus of this report is on egress-related requirements in new building construction. Recent changes in the International Building Code have set the stage for analyzing the costs of several key egress-related requirements. The U.S. General Services Administration commissioned this study to conduct an economic analysis of the use of elevators and exit stairs for occupant evacuation and fire service access. The goal of this study is to produce analyses of cost data suitable for evaluating improved egress system designs that promote efficient and timely egress of occupants, including those with disabilities, and that facilitate more efficient fire department operations. This report tabulates cost data for selected egress-related requirements in five prototypical buildings. The five prototypical buildings range in height from a 5-floor, mid-rise building to a 75- floor, high-rise building. Cost data are tabulated in a format that facilitates lifecycle cost analyses of selected egress-related requirements. Incremental costs are also tabulated to help assess the implications of changing one or more design parameters. The results of the economic analysis for four prototypical buildings over 120 ft (37 m), with two over 420 ft (128 m) high, demonstrate that: (1) an additional exit stair is a cost-effective alternative to the installation of occupant evacuation elevators on a first-cost basis; and (

There is a general concern that the US manufacturing industry has lost competitiveness with other nations. Additive manufacturing may provide an important opportunity for advancing US manufacturing while maintaining and advancing US innovation. Additive manufacturing is a relatively new process where material is joined together layer by layer to make objects from 3D models as opposed to conventional methods where material is removed. The US is currently the primary user of additive manufacturing technology and the primary producer of additive manufacturing systems. Globally, an estimated $642.6 million in revenue was collected for additive manufactured goods with the US accounting for an estimated $468.9 million or 72.9% of global production in 2011. Change agents for the additive manufacturing industry can focus their efforts on three primary areas to advance this technology: cost reduction, accelerating the realization of benefits, and increasing the benefits of additive manufacturing. Significant impact on these areas may be achieved through the reduction in the cost of additive manufacturing system utilization, material costs, and facilitating the production of large products. There is also a need for a standardized model for cost categorization and product quality and reliability testing.

Whole-building airflow and contaminant transport modeling has a potentially important role in the development of contaminant sampling strategies in response to the airborne release of chemical or biological agents . The effectiveness of these strategies relies on the ability of the selected sampling locations to adequately characterize the levels of contamination throughout an exposed facility to a desired level of confidence in the sampled results. The Department of Homeland Security has sponsored a series of multi-agency exercises, during which contamination experiments were performed to gauge the confidence that could be obtained by various sampling strategies as well as the effectiveness of various sampling methods in a real-world setting. These experiments are very resource intensive and time-consuming, limiting the number of experiments that can be reasonably performed. Building simulation can be used to perform virtual experiments that would allow more tests to be performed under a much larger set of building operational and environmental configurations. However, in order for the simulations to be useful, the building models need to provide realistic results with a high level of confidence. The purpose of this report is to describe a simulation validation effort based on measurements of contaminant levels performed during the aforementioned exercises.

CFAST is a two-zone fire model capable of predicting the environment in a multi-compartment structure subjected to a fire. It calculates the time evolving distribution of smoke and fire gases and the temperature throughout a building during a user-prescribed fire. This report describes the equations which constitute the model, the physical basis for these equations, and an evaluation of the sensitivity and predictive capability of the model. This report is an assessment of the model following the outline set forth in ASTM E1355, Standard Guide for Evaluating the Predictive Capability of Deterministic Fire Models.

This study demonstrates the performance improvement of an air-to-air roof top unit (RTU) achieved by optimizing an evaporator s refrigerant circuitry using evolutionary algorithms. The subject of this study is a unit with a cooling capacity of 7.5 Tons (26.4 kW). The RTU employs two separate refrigerant cycles having separate compressors, condensers, and thermostatic expansion valves (TXV) but using a single evaporator slab in which two separate refrigerant circuits are implemented. We modified the RTU by replacing the refrigerant-to-air condensers with water cooled brazed plate heat exchangers in order to facilitate testing. Performance tests were conducted in a conditioned environmental chamber in line with AHRI standard 340/360; in order to accomplish this, we maintained the liquid line saturation pressure and subcooling from the manufacturer s test data by adjusting the condenser water flow rate and temperature. We also measured the in-situ air velocity profile using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), a non-intrusive, laser-based technique. The measurements showed that the range of air velocities passing through the heat exchanger varied from 0.5 ms-1 to 3.0 ms-1, with the integrated average of the measurements being 1.75 ms-1. The PIV data was used to generate a map of the air flow distribution through the heat exchanger, which served as the basis for refrigerant circuitry optimization.

This report presents a computational assessment of the performance of steel gravity framing systems with single-plate shear (, shear tab ) connections and composite floor slabs under column loss scenarios. The computational assessment uses a reduced modeling approach, while comparisons with detailed model results and available experimental data are presented to establish confidence in the reduced models. The reduced modeling approach enables large multi-bay systems to be analyzed much more efficiently than the detailed modeling approaches used in previous studies. Both quasi-static and sudden column loss scenarios are considered, and an energy-based approximate procedure for analysis of sudden column loss is adopted, after verification through comparisons with direct dynamic analyses, further enhancing the efficiency of the reduced modeling approach. Reduced models are used to investigate the influence of factors such as bay spacing, slab continuity, and the mode of connection failure on the collapse resistance of gravity frame systems. Simple equations for the rotational capacities of the connections are derived as a function of a few parameters including the span length and the connection depth. These equations yield good agreement with computed rotational capacities of connections both in bare steel assemblies (i.e., no slab) and in composite floor systems, where composite action leads to reduced rotational capacities. The reduced models are used to assess the adequacy of current structural integrity requirements, and based on the computational results, a new relationship is proposed between the uniform load intensity and the tie forces required for collapse prevention

A standard procedure is needed for obtaining smoke toxic potency data for use in fire hazard and risk analyses. Room fire testing of finished products is impractical, directing attention to the use of apparatus that can obtain the needed data quickly and at affordable cost. This report presents examination of the fourth of a series bench-scale fire tests to produce data on the yields of toxic products in both pre-flashover and post-flashover flaming fires. The apparatus is the ISO 5660-1 / ASTM E 1354 cone calorimeter, modified to have an enclosure and a gas delivery system allowing variable oxygen concentration. The test specimens was cut from finished products that were also burned in room-scale tests: a sofa made of upholstered cushions on a steel frame, particleboard bookcases with a laminated finish, and household electric cable. Initially, the standard test procedure was followed. Subsequent variation in the procedure included reducing the supplied oxygen volume fraction to 0.18, 0.16, and 0.14, reducing the incident heat flux to 25 kW/m2, and reducing the gas flow rate by half. The yields of CO2 CO, HCl, and HCN were determined. The yields of other toxicants (NO, NO2, formaldehyde, and acrolein) were below the detection limits, but volume fractions at the detection limits were shown to be of limited toxicological importance relative to the detected toxicants. In general, performing the tests at the reduced oxygen volume fraction led to small increases on the toxic gas yields. The exceptions were an increase in the CO yield for the bookcase at 0.14 oxygen volume fraction. Reducing the incident heat flux had little effect on the toxic gas yields, other than increasing variability. Reducing the gas flow rate reduced the limits of detection by half, but also resulted in reduced gas yields at lower oxygen volume fractions. In none of the procedure variations did the CO yield approach the value of 0.2 found in real-scale post flashover fire tests.

This study examines the energy consumption of automatic ice makers installed in domestic refrigerators. This study builds upon the findings of a previous study and examines two refrigerator-freezers of different configurations, one French-door units with bottom freezers and one bottom mount unit that uses a twist tray mechanism to free frozen ice from the icemaker. Ice maker energy consumption is difficult to measure because they operate on a periodic cycle which is independent of the compressor cycle used to maintain the cold temperatures in the domestic refrigerator where it is installed; therefore methods proposed prior to this study have been subject to significant truncation error due to partial ice maker or compressor cycling. The purpose of this study is to define a method of measuring the energy consumption of automatic ice makers that will generate a repeatable and reproducible result. Several sets of test data from these units were analyzed and used to decipher the energy consumption of automatic ice makers. Through this effort, we developed a method of test to characterize ice maker energy consumption which circumvents the inherent problem with its measurement, truncation error due to incomplete cycling. The truncation error is avoided by measuring specific parameters with different sections of data from the same data set. This method was found to rapidly approach steady state values for the ice maker energy consumption. We then analyzed data sets from a prior study and found similar results for the stability of the ice making energy consumption; that continuous data over only 6 or 7 ice making cycles are typically sufficient to accurately characterize the energy consumption.