Influences of exit and stair conditions on human evacuation in a dormitory

Wenjun Lei, Angui Li, Ran Gao and Xiaowei Wang

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2012, vol. 391, issue 24, 6279-6286

Abstract: Evacuation processes of students are investigated by experiment and simulation. The experiment is performed for students evacuating from a dormitory with an exit and stairs. FDS+Evac is proposed to simulate the exit and stair dynamics of occupant evacuation. Concerning the exit and stair widths, we put forward some useful standpoints. Good agreement is achieved between the predicted results and experimental results. With the increase of exit width, a significant stratification phenomenon will be found in flow rate. Stratification phenomenon is that two different stable flow rates will emerge during the evacuation. And the flow rate curve looks like a ladder. The larger the exit width, the earlier the stratification phenomenon appears. When exit width is more than 2.0 m, the flow rate of each exit width is divided into two stable stages, and the evacuation times show almost no change. The judgment that the existence of stairs causes flow stratification is reasonable. By changing the width of the stairs, we proved that judgment. The smaller the width of BC, the earlier the stratification appears. We found that scenario 5 is the most adverse circumstance. Those results are helpful in performance-based design of buildings.

Keywords: Dormitory evacuation; Exit and stair dynamics; Stratification phenomenon; FDS+Evac (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:391:y:2012:i:24:p:6279-6286

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2012.07.044

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