Bechtel Nevada Forms Seismic, Explosive, and Mining InstituteVolume 97 No. 1 ---- Spring 1997
 What happens when someone detonates a bomb in a building? What structural designs hold up best during an explosion or an earthquake? Bechtel Nevada has partnered with several of the world's leading research and development institutions to address these and other seismic, explosive, and mining related questions. The group has created the Nevada Testing Institute (NeTI), a nonprofit testing research institution that brings together the expertise of the Department of Energy (DoE), Defense Special Weapons Agency, National Advanced Drilling and Excavation Technologies Institute, SRI International, and Bechtel Nevada. NeTI will conduct experiments and exercise testing capabilities at the Nevada Test Site, which employs a cadre of explosives, mining, drilling, and sensor experts. "We're talking to officials from California, Europe, and Japan about our ability to perform full-scale seismic research at the Nevada Test Site. People need better knowledge about how earthquakes affect buildings so they can build more earthquake-resistant structures," said Pete Mote, NeTI director. "The Nevada Test Site is a unique outdoor laboratory at which we will create ground motion similar to that experienced during earthquakes using explosive techniques developed at SRI." Located in southern Nevada, the Nevada Test Site served as America's nuclear weapons proving ground until a 1992 moratorium ended underground nuclear testing. The test site work force also has experience drilling and tunneling some of the biggest and most sophisticated holes in the world under the most extreme conditions and in various geologic formation, according to Mote. FLC Representative for Bechtel Nevada:
Elaine Mew Printed courtesy of IMAGES magazine, Nevada Test Site
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