Effects of Different Staircase Design Factors on Evacuation of Children from Kindergarten Buildings Analyzed via Agent-Based Simulation.

Jiaxu Zhou,Xiaohu Jia,Junhan Jia

doi:10.3390/healthcare8010056

Abstract

Staircase design is critical to the evacuation of children. Through an agent-based simulation, this study focused on the relationship between staircase design factors and evacuation efficiency in a multi-story kindergarten. A quantitative study was conducted on three critical architectural design factors: stair flight width, positional relationship, and design pattern of the juncture between the staircase and the corridor. The findings were as follows. (1) When the stair flight width ranges from 0.7 to 1.0 m, an increase in this width can improve evacuation efficiency significantly; when the width ranges from 1.1 to 1.4 m, evacuation efficiency is improved continuously, but an increase in this width range has a diminishing effect on evacuation efficiency; when the width is greater than 1.7 m, a further increase has an adverse effect on evacuation efficiency, because such a staircase space allows overtaking behaviors. (2) Under the same stair flight width conditions, evacuation efficiency is higher when the staircase and corridor are perpendicular to each other than when they are parallel, because the natural steering angle of the children was preserved during their evacuation. (3) The cut corner and rounded corner designs between the staircase and corridor improved evacuation efficiency and alleviated the congestion at bottleneck positions; the evacuation efficiency continued to rise with an increase in the cutting angle. These findings are expected to provide a useful reference for the evacuation design of kindergarten buildings and for emergency evacuation management.

Highlights

China is a populous country, in which there are more than 220 million children aged between0 and 14 years [1]
The findings of this study provide a useful reference for the evacuation design of kindergarten buildings and for emergency evacuation management
Through an agent-based simulation, this study quantitatively investigated the effects of three critical factors of staircase design in kindergarten buildings on evacuation efficiency

Summary

Introduction

China is a populous country, in which there are more than 220 million children aged between. 0 and 14 years [1]. Few studies have focused on the evacuation of children from kindergartens. Since the implementation of China’s two-child policy, families with two children have become a common occurrence in China; as a result, the Chinese population that needs to be educated on this topic continues to increase. Because of the shortage of urban land, multi-storied instead of single-storied kindergarten buildings are being constructed in China. Active development of fundamental education has been a major strategy in China in recent years. Considering the frequent occurrence of safety accidents, the safety of kindergarten buildings has become a common subject of concern in Chinese society [2,3]

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