Investigating the Impact of Aircraft Exit Availability on Egress Time Using Computer Simulation

Edwin R. Galea (), Madeleine Togher and Peter Lawrence
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Edwin R. Galea: University of Greenwich, Fire Safety Engineering Group
Madeleine Togher: University of Greenwich, Fire Safety Engineering Group
Peter Lawrence: University of Greenwich, Fire Safety Engineering Group

A chapter in Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2008, 2010, pp 411-423 from Springer

Abstract: Summary This paper examines the influence of exit availability on evacuation time for narrow body aircraft under certification trial conditions using computer simulation. A narrow body aircraft which has previously passed the certification trial is used as the test configuration. While maintaining the certification requirement of 50% of the available exits, six different exit configurations are examined. These include the standard certification configuration and five other exit configurations based on commonly occurring exit combinations found in accidents. These configurations are based on data derived from the AASK database and the evacuation simulations are performed using the airEXODUS evacuation software. The results show that the certification practise of using half of the available exits predominately down one side of the aircraft is neither statistically relevant nor challenging. For the aircraft cabin layout examined, the exit configuration used in certification trial produces the shortest egress times. Furthermore, three of the six exit combinations investigated result in predicted egress times in excess of 90 seconds, suggesting that the aircraft would not satisfy the certification requirement under these conditions.

Keywords: Evacuation Time; Exit Zone; Evacuation Simulation; Egress Time; Cabin Crew (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-04504-2_35

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-04504-2_35

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