Abstract
The door is a section prone to bottlenecks and is an important element in the study of pedestrian flow. Therefore, characteristics of doors (e.g., width, location, and the distance between doors) have been taken into consideration in the existing literature related to doors. According to several previous studies, it appears likely that the door opening process (DOP) influences pedestrian flow. However, the number of studies examining the DOP remains small. Therefore, to enhance understanding of pedestrian flow, we examined two door characteristics that could affect the DOP (opening direction (swing door: push or pull) and handle type (knob, lever, and panic bar)) and limited visibility. We conducted a walking experiment to take all variables (10 cases; 10 participants per case) into account. Statistical analysis was performed on the difference in movement times, and the results were as follows: (1) inclusion of the DOP affected pedestrian flow; (2) when visibility was limited, movement times with DOP inclusion increased significantly regardless of the door opening direction and handle type; (3) when the door opening direction was ‘push’, regardless of limited visibility and door handle type, movement times with DOP inclusion were significantly lower; and (4) the door handle type did not result in any significant difference in movement times with DOP inclusion. In addition, we calculated the delay time based on the experiment results, to include the DOP in pedestrian flow (push 1.96–2.88 s, pull 3.91–4.43 s; limited visibility: push 7.38–12.56 s, and pull 12.88–16.35 s). The results of this study could be used as basic data for the development of codes/regulations, engineering guidance, and egress models for doors.
Highlights
Understanding pedestrian flow during a fire in a building is a key problem and should be considered in improving the accuracy of an evacuation model [1,2,3,4]
The results showed that movement times for all cases with the door opening process (DOP) were significantly longer relative to those for cases without the DOP (Table 2)
There were significant differences in movement times according to the door opening direction. These results indicated that movement times were shortest when the push door opening direction was used, regardless of the type of door handle
Summary
Understanding pedestrian flow during a fire in a building is a key problem and should be considered in improving the accuracy of an evacuation model [1,2,3,4]. Building conditions are associated with the egress route that pedestrians take in evacuation and have been considered in many studies. These previous studies have examined the relationship between pedestrian flow and building conditions, including building use (e.g., high-rise building and underground) [16,17,18], stairs [5,19,20], corridors [21,22,23,24], and doors [25,26,27,28,29]. Some studies have shown that wider door width was associated with faster pedestrian walking speed [8,25]. When multiple doors were present inside a building, short distances between doors led to longer movement time [29]
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