- Author
- Raufaste, N. J., Jr.
- Title
- Impacts.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
- NIST SP 838-4, August 1993, 40 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service Available from Government Printing Office
- Keywords
- building research | fire research
- Abstract
- The Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is dedicated to the life cycle quality of constructed facilities. NIST is the only federal technology agency with the specific mission of helping U.S. industry to strengthen its international competitiveness. BFRL is the national laboratory for the building and fire communities. BFRL's mission is to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. industry and public safety through performance prediction and measurement technologies and technical advances that improve the life cycle quality of constructed facilities. The Laboratory performs and supports field, laboratory, and analytical research on the performance of construction materials, components, systems and practices, and the fundamental processes underlying the initial, propagation, and suppression of fires. BFRL produces technologies to predict, measure, and test the performance of construction and fire prevention and control products and practices. This report describes major effects of BFRL's program on building and fire research. Scientific and economic impacts are cited in Section 1; preliminary impacts are cited in Section 2. Although in no instance did BFRL alone accomplish the improvements in building and fire practices, BFRL has played a key role in improvements in building and fire practice producing annual savings amounting to tens of billions of dollars.