June 2002

BFRL Monthly Highlights

June 2002

July 2002

August 2002

Sept 2002

October 2002

PAST Highlights

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BFRL Contributes to Report on Protecting Buildings from Terrorist Attacks

Andrew Persily of the BFRL Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group participated in the development of “Guidance for Protecting Building Environments from Airborne Chemical, Biological, or Radiological Attacks.” The report, published by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, was developed under the auspices of the Interagency Work Group on Building Air Protection of the Office of Homeland Security (OHS). This work group was formed in January 2002 under the Medical and Public Health Preparedness Policy Coordinating Committee of the OHS and includes representatives from many federal agencies.

The document provides preventive measures that building owners and managers can implement promptly to protect building air environments from a terrorist release of chemical, biological, or radiological contaminants. These recommendations, focusing on short-term actions, are only the beginning of a process to develop more comprehensive guidance by the Building Air Protection Work Group. BFRL’s role in this document was the development of material on building airtightness. BFRL is continuing to work with the work group and will have a key role in its next document, which will address the role of particulate and gaseous filtration in protecting indoor environments from airborne threats.

Copies of the report can be downloaded from www.cdc.gov/niosh, which is linked from the BFRL website www.bfrl.nist.gov.

Contact: 
Andrew Persily, 301-975-6418
Building Environment Division

Standard Fire Service Interface and Incident Management Information System Demonstrated

On April 3, BFRL demonstrated the use of a new technology for fire alarm panels in an actual fire incident with the help of the NIST Fire Department. A multi-room test structure was constructed inside the Large Fire Laboratory for a series of full-scale fire experiments. The prototype alarm panel displayed multi-layer web pages viewable by ordinary web browsers which displayed sensor measurements, on-site video, and processed information such as the heat release rate. Text portions of the web pages were accessible by handheld, wireless devices.

Following ignition, fire detectors provided real time data that was verified against physical criteria to assure that the alarm was from an actual fire. The same information was transmitted to a laptop computer fitted with a wireless modem card to enable responding personnel to view and query the system for real time information so they could begin to formulate tactics in route. As the suppression team entered the structure, their position in the structure was monitored and displayed continuously.

Contact: 
Walter Jones, 301-975-6887 
Richard Bukowski, 301-975-6853
Fire Research Division

BFRL Staff Given Technical Paper Award of Excellence at International Appliance Conference

Vance Payne and Piotr Domanski accepted an Award of Excellence for their technical paper entitled “Rating Water-Source Heat Pumps Using ARI Standard 320 and ISO Standard 13256-1” at the 53rd annual International Appliance Technical Conference in Lexington, Ky., March 25-27. During the three-day conference, more than 110 papers were presented by authors from the United States and abroad.

NIST work was performed in support of the DOE Appliance Program and is related to adopting an international (ISO) standard in place of the existing U.S. standard for rating water-source heat pumps. The adoption of an international standard renders substantial economic benefits due to globalization of economies and new marketing opportunities, but the transition from a national to international standard poses a question of whether the ratings obtained by using these standards are equivalent to the minimum energy efficiency requirements mandated in the United States.

The paper examined this issue based on tests of two different types of heat pumps and considerations of different design and rating criteria. The NIST results assisted DOE in its rule making process regarding adoption of the ISO standard and establishing the related energy efficiency requirements.

Contact: 
Piotr Domanski, 301-975-5877
Building Environment Division

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