Abstract
In everyday life, several situations can be mentioned in which a building or a complex of buildings may require emergency evacuation: fires, chemical leaks, release of toxic or explosive gases, explosions, violent behavior, or threats with weapons/bombs. To calculate the time needed for building evacuation, numerical models are used to simulate this process of movement of groups of people, in a closed physical space. Algorithms for access path and exit selection use both properties of the crowds model and the individual interaction between event and people. The pandemic context has raised several questions about the safe use of buildings, given the presence of the risk of disease transmission. The policies adopted in the last year regarding the use of buildings, establishing access flows, and social distance, vary within great limits, being specific to each state and based on the analysis of the virus transmission rate rather than on risk assessments at the building level. The paper aims to present the main challenges to which the models of emergency evacuation, must respond, especially those considering social distancing and interaction between individuals, within a given distance, all to minimize the risk of disease transmission during the evacuation process of the building.
Highlights
In the last years, research on the evacuation of people in emergencies has seen an unprecedented development, fire safety specialists adopting new methods of studying this issue, based mainly on mathematical analysis and computer simulations
Numerical analysis methods are based on the mathematical model, on which the current parameters of the evacuation process are converted into mathematical equations, which are to be solved using the computational technique
Macroscopic models ignore the behavior of individuals involved in the evacuation process, being based on flow network models, which can more quickly solve the problem of choosing the optimal escape routes in a state of emergency [3]
Summary
Research on the evacuation of people in emergencies has seen an unprecedented development, fire safety specialists adopting new methods of studying this issue, based mainly on mathematical analysis and computer simulations. A recent report [4] presents an unprecedented situation in the case of office buildings and activities, with an increase in the number of people adopting work from home and companies, who are required to redesign workspaces and access circuits in order to comply with social, physical distancing, to avoid human congestion and to ensure a high level of air quality and good recirculation These aspects are just one side of the new framework of measures that will require strong changes in the functionality of companies, the development of work processes, the definition of productivity, the development of teamwork, etc. The paper aims to present the main challenges to which the models of emergency evacuation, must respond, especially those considering social distancing and interaction between individuals, within a given distance, all to minimize the risk of disease transmission during the evacuation process of the building
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