Assessment of Agent Avoidance Behavior in the Face of Fire Hazards

Abstract

ABSTRACT An assessment approach is proposed to assess the injury consequences of evacuation in the face of fire hazards, taking into account the spatial-temporal distribution of fire hazards and the time-varying location of agents. In this study, the diffusion process of fire hazards is simulated first using the fire dynamics simulator (FDS version 6.7.7) software, and an assessment approach is proposed, when fire hazards including toxic gases, thermal radiation, high temperature, and extinction coefficient are considered. Then, a novel fire avoidance model based on the modified social force model is proposed, and the impacts of heat release rate and soot yield on the injury consequences are discussed. The results demonstrate that an increase in heat release rate leads to an increase in the temperature and radiation values near the fire source, which directly raises the injury consequences. Soot yield primarily affects environmental visibility and thus the agent’s evacuation speed, which in turn affects the exposure time in fire hazards and injury consequences. Finally, the proposed fire avoidance model is compared with the existing radiation repulsive force model and the interaction force model between agents and fire. It is concluded that the proposed fire avoidance model can present a more reasonable fire avoidance behavior with significantly less cumulative injuries than the existing fire avoidance models.