· normal (such as aging and deterioration)
· abnormal (such as natural disasters)
· malevolent (such as crime and terrorism)
Architectural Surety® is concerned with the areas where safety, security, and reliability overlap. By addressing these concerns systematically and simultaneously, multiple hazards can be addressed and mitigated.
Education and Outreach efforts include the development of a graduate-level course for universities, initially taught at the University of New Mexico; publication of professional papers, such as an article for the Materials Research Society; presenting at conferences, such as the SAME (Society of American Military Engineers) conference and workshops, such as the Dam Safety Workshops; and sponsoring conferences, such as the two international conferences on Architectural Surety®. Interaction with professional organizations, such as the AIA, ASCE, the National Research Council, CERF, and the Building Futures Council moves the Architectural Surety® tools of into the hands of the profession.
Engineered Materials is a significant product area for Architectural Surety®. Engineered stress profile (ESP) glass, for example, is an R&D project to understand, predict, and eventually control the fracturing of glass to reduce injuries. Airborne glass fragments cause most fatalities and injuries in building explosions. Enhancing the safety of building occupants and facility users has assumed a new urgency since September 11th.
In the rush to replace and modify architectural glass, decisions are being made without scientific merit. The scarcity of blast behavior data for glass, its brittle characteristics, and its large strength degradation over time are problems addressed by the Architectural Surety® ESP glass program.
Science-Based Tools Powerful computers are used to model and simulate the behavior of structures in threat environments. Modeling the structural response to blast loading, for example, enables the prediction of catastrophic collapse, thus providing the opportunity to reduce the consequences of a terrorist attack by retrofitting the target building.
The Architectural Surety® program has also developed a desktop risk screening tool for a large federal agency with responsibility for many buildings and facilities. This risk analysis tool, called RAMPART, screens surety risk in support of building management decisions. The program queries the user for structural, geographical, and other characteristics of the subject building and then combines this information with static data such as hurricane, flood, crime, or other historical information. The results can be used to inform annual security evaluations, proposed new construction, trade-off studies of potential upgrades, and tenant evaluations, for example.
Risk Assessment Methodologies (RAMs) for buildings, facilities, and infrastructure systems have been developed that provide a process to estimate consequences and identify system vulnerabilities that are exploitable by defined threats. If this risk assessment indicates the risk level is unacceptable (too high), this methodology provides a framework to address preventive or corrective countermeasures to reduce the risk. This methodology enables the quantification of the improvement and the return on the investment that would result from specific upgrades.
To date, RAMs have been developed for dams and high-voltage transmission facilities. Water utilities, chemical plants, mints, prisons, and schools have used some of the RAM principles. Efforts are underway to apply RAM to bridges, buildings, ports, transportation systems, food processing, and numerous other infrastructure systems and facilities. The first step to a safer world is identifying our security risks. |
