A comparison of predictions from the buildingEXODUS evacuation model with experimental data

Abstract not available

The numerical simulation of aircraft evacuation and its application to aircraft safety

Abstract not available

Computer modelling of human behaviour in aircraft fire accidents

The mathematical simulation of the evacuation process has a wide and largely untapped scope of application within the aircraft industry. The function of the mathematical model is to provide insight into complex behaviour by allowing designers, legislators, and investigators to ask ‘what if’ questions. Such a model, EXODUS, is currently under development, and this paper describes its evolution and potential applications. EXODUS is an egress model designed to simulate the evacuation of large numbers of individuals from an enclosure, such as an aircraft. The model tracks the trajectory of each individual as they make their way out of the enclosure or are overcome by fire hazards, such as heat and toxic gases. The software is expert system-based, the progressive motion and behaviour of each individual being determined by a set of heuristics or rules. EXODUS comprises five core interacting components: (i) the Movement Submodel — controls the physical movement of individual passengers from their current position to the most suitable neighbouring location; (ii) the Behaviour Submodel — determines an individual's response to the current prevailing situation; (iii) the Passenger Submodel — describes an individual as a collection of 22 defining attributes and variables; (iv) the Hazard Submodel — controls the atmospheric and physical environment; and (v) the Toxicity Submodel — determines the effects on an individual exposed to the fire products, heat, and narcotic gases through the Fractional Effective Dose calculations. These components are briefly described and their capabilities and limitations are demonstrated through comparison with experimental data and several hypothetical evacuation scenarios.

Adaptive decision-making in buildingEXODUS

Given the importance of occupant behaviour on evacuation efficiency, a new behavioural feature has been implemented into buildingEXODUS. This feature concerns the response of occupants to exit selection and re-direction. This behaviour is not simply pre-determined by the user as part of the initialisation process, but involves the occupant taking decisions based on their previous experiences and the information available to them. This information concerns the occupants prior knowledge of the enclosure and line-of-sight information concerning queues at neighbouring exits. This new feature is demonstrated and reviewed through several examples.

Adaptive decision-making in response to crowd formations in building EXODUS

Given the importance of occupant behavior on evacuation efficiency, a new behavioral feature has been developed and implemented into buildingEXODUS. This feature concerns the response of occupants to exit selection and re-direction. This behavior is not simply pre-determined by the user as part of the initialization process, but involves the occupant taking decisions based on their previous experiences and the information available to them. This information concerns the occupants prior knowledge of the enclosure and line-of-sight information concerning queues at neighboring exits. This new feature is demonstrated and reviewed through several examples.

Adaptive decision-making in buildingEXODUS in response to exit congestion

Given the importance of occupant behavior on evacuation efficiency, a new behavioral feature has been implemented into building EXODUS. This feature concerns the response of occupants to exit selection and re-direction, given that the occupant is queuing at an external exit. This behavior is not simply pre-determined by the user as part of the initialization process, but involves the occupant taking decisions based on their previous experiences with the enclosure and the information available to them. This information concerns the occupant's prior knowledge of the enclosure and line-of-sight information concerning queues at neighboring exits. This new feature is demonstrated and reviewed through several examples.

Estimating the flow rate capacity of an overturned rail carriage end exit in the presence of smoke

While incidents requiring the rapid egress of passengers from trains are infrequent, perhaps the most challenging scenario for passengers involves the evacuation from an overturned carriage subjected to fire. In this paper we attempt to estimate the flow rate capacity of an overturned rail carriage end exit. This was achieved through two full-scale evacuation experiments, in one of which the participants were subjected to non-toxic smoke. The experiments were conducted as part of a pilot study into evacuation from rail carriages. In reviewing the experimental results, it should be noted that only a single run of each trial was undertaken with a limited — though varied — population. As a result it is not possible to test the statistical significance of the evacuation times quoted and so the results should be treated as indicative rather than definitive. The carriage used in the experiments was a standard class Mark IID which, while an old carriage design, shares many features with those carriages commonly found on the British rail network. In the evacuation involving smoke, the carriage end exit was found to achieve an average flow rate capacity of approximately 5.0 persons/min. The average flow rate capacity of the exit without smoke was found to be approximately 9.2 persons/min. It was noted that the presence of smoke tended to reduce significantly the exit flow rate. Due to the nature of the experimental conditions, these flow rates are considered optimistic. Finally, the authors make several recommendations for improving survivability in rail accidents. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

World in motion

Professor Ed Galea CEng, MIFireE provides a welcome to Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2003, (PED 2003) to be held in London on 20-22 August 2003.

Safer by design: simulating fire and escape at sea

When designing a new passenger ship or modifying an existing design, how do we ensure that the proposed design and crew emergency procedures are safe from an evacuation resulting from fire or other incident? In the wake of major maritime disasters such as the Scandinavian Star, Herald of Free Enterprise, Estonia and in light of the growth in the numbers of high density, high-speed ferries and large capacity cruise ships, issues concerning the evacuation of passengers and crew at sea are receiving renewed interest. Fire and evacuation models with features such as the ability to realistically simulate the spread of fire and fire suppression systems and the human response to fire as well as the capability to model human performance in heeled orientations linked to a virtual reality environment that produces realistic visualisations of the modelled scenarios are now available and can be used to aid the engineer in assessing ship design and procedures. This paper describes the maritimeEXODUS ship evacuation and the SMARTFIRE fire simulation model and provides an example application demonstrating the use of the models in performing fire and evacuation analysis for a large passenger ship partially based on the requirements of MSC circular 1033. The fire simulations include the action of a water mist system.

Computational fire engineering - do we have what we need?

This presentation will attempt to address the issue of whether the engineering design community has the knowledge, data and tool sets required to undertake advanced evacuation analysis. In discussing this issue I want to draw on examples not only from the building industry but more widely from where ever people come into contact with an environment fashioned by man. Prescriptive design regulations the world over suggest that if we follow a particular set of essentially configurational regulations concerning travel distances, number of exits, exit widths, etc it should be possible to evacuate a structure within a pre-defined acceptable amount of time. In the U.K. for public buildings this turns out to be 2.5 minutes, internationally in the aviation industry this is 90 seconds, in the UK rail industry this is 90 seconds and the international standard adopted by the maritime industry is 60 minutes. The difficulties and short comings of this approach are well known and so I will not repeat them here, save to say that this approach is usually littered with “magic numbers” that do not stand up to scrutiny. As we are focusing on human behaviour issues, it is also worth noting that more generally, the approach fails to take into account how people actually behave, preferring to adopt an engineer’s view of what people should do in order to make their design work. Examples of the failure of this approach are legion and include the; Manchester Boeing 737 fire, Kings Cross underground station fire, Piper Alpha oil platform explosion, Ladbroke Grove Rail crash and fire, Mont Blanc tunnel fire, Scandinavian Star ferry fire and the Station Nightclub fire.

An analysis of human behaviour during the WTC disaster of 9/11 based on published survivor accounts

This paper presents an analysis of survivor experiences from the World Trade Centre (WTC) evacuation of 11 September 2001. The experiences were collected from published accounts appearing in the print and electronic mass media and are stored in a relational database specifically developed for this purpose.

Modelling human behaviour in underground emergency situations

This presentation will discuss current developments in evacuation modelling and its role in and application to underground applications

Aircraft accident statistics and knowledge database: analyzing passenger behavior in aviation accidents

The Aircraft Accident Statistics and Knowledge (AASK) database is a repository of passenger accounts from survivable aviation accidents/incidents compiled from interview data collected by agencies such as the US NTSB. Its main purpose is to store observational and anecdotal data from the actual interviews of the occupants involved in aircraft accidents. The database has wide application to aviation safety analysis, being a source of factual data regarding the evacuation process. It also plays a significant role in the development of the airEXODUS aircraft evacuation model, where insight into how people actually behave during evacuation from survivable aircraft crashes is required. This paper describes the latest version of the database (Version 4.0) and includes some analysis of passenger behavior during actual accidents/incidents.

Data collection in support of the modelling of naval vessels

Evacuation analysis of passenger and commercial shipping can be undertaken using computer-based simulation tools such as maritimeEXODUS. These tools emulate human shipboard behaviour during emergency scenarios; however it is largely based around the behaviour of civilian passengers and fixtures and fittings of merchant vessels. If these tools and procedures are to be applied to naval vessels there is a clear requirement to understand the behaviour of well-trained naval personnel interacting with the fixtures and fittings that are exclusive to warships. Human factor trials using Royal Navy training facilities were recently undertaken to collect data to improve our understanding of the performance of naval personnel in warship environments. The trials were designed and conducted by staff from the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) of the University of Greenwich on behalf of the Sea Technology Group (STG), Defence Procurement Agency. The trials involved a selection of RN volunteers with sea-going experience in warships, operating and traversing structural components under different angles of heel. This paper describes the trials and some of the collected data.