ARCHITECTURAL SURETY®
Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) has been developing the science and engineering of system surety for nuclear weapons for several decades. Surety is a risk-based approach that provides the confidence a system will perform in acceptable ways in both expected and unexpected circumstances. In 1995 when Sandia began to apply the safety, security, and reliability principles of weapons surety to the nation’s infrastructure, we service-marked the term Architectural Surety®. This program, created to address multi-hazard mitigation, covers the full Research-Development-Application cycle, including an educational program. The mission of the Architectural Surety® program at Sandia National Laboratories is to assure the performance of buildings, facilities, and other infrastructure systems under normal (reliability), abnormal (safety), and malevolent (security) threat conditions.
A normal threat is an event or condition that affects the reliability of the day-to-day operations, e.g., mean time between failures of the air-handling system. Buildings, dormitories, airports, utilities, and other kinds of infrastructure deteriorate over time, as evidenced most dramatically by our crumbling cities and aging buildings, bridges, and other facility systems. An abnormal threat is a natural disaster. Natural disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding also stress the materials and structural elements of our built environment. A malevolent threat is manmade, e.g., a politically motivated bombing. Criminals, vandals, and terrorists attack our federal buildings, dams, bridges, tunnels, and other public and private facilities.
Engineers and architects are beginning to systematically consider these threats during the design, construction, and retrofit phases of buildings and infrastructures and are recommending advanced research in new materials, technologies, and design techniques. Existing building codes and standards do not adequately address the protection of our infrastructure or the public from many of these emerging threats.
Security of federal dams, blast modeling for the Department of State, a risk-based building evaluation program for the General Services Administration, a graduate-level educational course, a systematic assessment of a large regional power transmission system, and consultations on the design and vulnerabilities of federal facilities are a sampling of the Architectural Surety® projects undertaken. The objectives of the program are to enhance the safety and security of the general public, ensure the reliability and quality of federal buildings and facilities in the national interests, and incorporate surety concepts in academic curricula for continued applications.
Within the Architectural Surety® program, a graduate-level class has been created and taught at the University of New Mexico to teach students a risk-based approach to multi-hazard mitigation. The skills required to prepare for and mitigate the chemical/biological agent threat and other terrorist activities are lacking in the private sector. Existing building codes do not consider blast design or actions to take in the event of a chemical attack. There is a need to develop performance standards and to educate our design and construction professionals.
SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES
Sandia is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. Sandia is the Department of Energy’s lead laboratory for the science and technology for terror.
In the mid-1970s, the Department of Energy (DOE) designated Sandia National Laboratories as the lead laboratory for development of physical security technology and funded Sandia to develop a technical capability in security modeling and systems analysis; security equipment and components; and security systems engineering, integration, and implementation. As of 2000, the DOE had invested more than $250 million in these Sandia programs, and over $100 million had been invested by the Department of Defense (DOD). Sandia has developed a vulnerability assessment process that is employed at high-consequence facilities around the world.
Methodology Summarization:
At the core of RAM is the methodology to achieve a risk assessment successfully. Risk assessment is embodied in the Risk Equation: