May 2004

BFRL Monthly Highlights

May 2004

June 2004

July 2004

August 2004

October 2004

PAST Highlights

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BFRL Economic Evaluation Tool Helps Building Owners Mitigate Terror Threats

Economists in BFRL have published a report that aids building owners and managers in mitigating risks and devising responses to terrorist threats. They outline a three-step process to guide decision makers.

Step one is to assess the risk, including threat, vulnerability, and critically, of their facility to low-probability, high-consequence events. Step two is to identify strategies for mitigating the risk of injuries, damages, and losses. Strategies can be based on a combination of engineering alternatives, such as building designs, materials, and systems; management practices, including training, security, communications, and sheltering procedures; or financial mechanisms, such as insurance policies. Step three is to perform standardized economic evaluation to select the most cost-effective combination of risk mitigation strategies to protect the facility, its occupants, and its mission.
The report details the economic evaluation methodology; generalizes the decision problem to incorporate other hazards, including natural hazards and accidents; and proposes a classification of the benefits and costs of mitigation.

The report is found at www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/publications/nistirs/7073.pdf.

CONTACT:
Robert Chapman
301-975-2723
Chi Leng
301-975-4522

 

EEEL/OLES Leads NIST Laboratory Team to Participate in Body Armor Safety Initiative

More than 2,700 lives have been saved because officers were wearing body armor tested to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standard first written by EEEL’s Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) in 1975. However, in the summer of 2003, an officer’s vest was penetrated by a bullet that it was designed to stop. As a result of this incident, the criminal justice community wanted to know why the vest was penetrated, if the vests that they were wearing were still safe, and how they could determine when a vest was unsafe.

On Nov. 18, 2003, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the Bulletproof Vest Safety Initiative, since renamed the Body Armor Safety Initiative. Over the roughly 30-year history of OLES, the NIJ (the research arm of the Department of Justice) has been the primary sponsor of OLES projects. The NIJ asked OLES to lead an effort to resolve the body armor safety issues. Kirk Rice, program manager, Weapons and Protective Systems, is leading this effort and has begun assembling a team of NIST scientists to study the problem.

On March 10, 2004, members of the NIST team supporting the initiative—Eric Byrd, Joannie Chin, and Jonathan Martin, all from the Polymeric Materials Group in BFRL; Dennis Leber from the Statistical Engineering Division in ITL; and Gayle Holmes from the Polymers Division in MSEL—hosted lab tours for attendees of the attorney general’s Body Armor Safety Summit that was held on the following day. There were about 30 high-ranking officials from the Department of Justice, police departments from around the country, the Fraternal Order of Police, and various body armor manufacturers, to name several.

CONTACT:
Kirk Rice (EEEL)
301-975-8071

 

BFRL Participates in Satellite Broadcast on Homeland Security

Andrew Persily of the Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group in the Building Environment Division participated in a satellite broadcast on Homeland Security held by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The event, sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and held on April 14, 2004, was intended to address the key issues related to building protection from CBR (chemical, biological, and radiological) incidents in the context of building and system design, construction, and operation. The broadcast was developed to target a cross section of professionals, including engineers, architects, building owners and managers, fire, police, medical responders, public safety officers, and risk managers. Persily’s presentation was focused on building ventilation impacts on CBR vulnerability and discussed a number of ventilation-based strategies to protect buildings.

The satellite broadcast was downlinked at approximately 1,500 sites and viewed by approximately 20,000 individuals.

CONTACT:
Andrew Persily
301-975-6418

 

 

 

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