As part of its support for the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has NEHRP Seismic Design Technical Brief No.1, "Seismic Design of Reinforced Concrete Special Moment Frames: A Guide for Practicing Engineers", NIST GCR 8-917-1.

Technical Brief No. 1 is co-authored by Jack P. Moehle, John D. Hooper, and Chris D. Lubke, who developed the document for the NEHRP Consultants Joint Venture. John A. Martin, Jr., Sharon L. Wood, and Loring A. Wyllie, Jr. also contributed to its development. The Applied Technology Council (ATC) and the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE) are partners in the Joint Venture, with which NIST has a five-year indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity research contract.

In the future, NIST intends to produce 1-3 “techbriefs” per year that address topics of interest to earthquake professionals, primarily those in the design and construction industries. The techbrief concept was originally proposed by a group of nationally recognized earthquake professionals in 2003 in ATC-57, The Missing Piece: Improving Seismic Design and Construction Practices. NIST anticipates producing a techbrief on seismic design of steel special moment frames in 2009.

This technical brief is also available for download in electronic format at the NEHRP web site, http://www.nehrp.gov/pdf/nistgcr8-917-1.pdf

For more information, please contact Jack Hayes, 301-975-5640, jack.hayes@nist.gov .