Evacuation Optimization Strategy for Large-Scale Public Building Considering Plane Partition and Multi-Floor Layout.

Han Fang,Xiaolian Li,Wei Lv,Bingjie Yu,He Cheng,Zhongwei Shen

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.847399

Abstract

Large-scale public buildings (e.g., stadiums and comprehensive hospitals) in modern cities provide places for various social activities. However, all of these public places encounter the scenario of large passenger flow and crowd gathering, which is highly likely to induce serious safety problems, such as stampedes. Previous studies have shown that efficient evacuation is an important way to ensure the safety of dense crowds in public places. This study aims to explore the optimization methods to improve the evacuation efficiency of public buildings. Two strategies considering plane partition and multi-floor layout are proposed for plane evacuation and vertical evacuation, respectively. Simulation scenarios and models of large stadiums and high-rise hospitals are established to verify the strategies. The results show that plane partition could effectively shorten the total evacuation time, which is due to the optimization of the initial exit choice of individuals and the avoidance of regional congestion in some evacuation channels or exits. Multi-floor layout optimization is an effective management method to arrange the different features of different floors, which could improve the evacuation efficiency for the whole multi-floor building. This study is helpful for building designers and managers to improve the building space layout design and the daily safety management mode.

Highlights

Public places provide convenience for public life
This paper proposes an optimized strategy method to divert the flow of people from high-utilization exits to adjacent low-utilization exits, balance the final evacuation time of each exit, and achieve the research goal of the final evacuation time of each exit of the scene being uniform
The level III departments with the worst evacuation capabilities are placed in the low floor, the level I departments with the best evacuation capabilities are placed in the middle floor, and the level II departments with medium mobility capabilities are placed in the high floor

Summary

Introduction

Public places provide convenience for public life. Emergencies and great safety hazards in public places may cause serious injuries [1, 2]. A stampede in a stadium in Manila killed 73 people. The fire in the Grenfell tower in London in 2017 killed 79 people. These accidents indicated that when large-space public places and high-rise buildings face emergencies, pedestrians need to be evacuated to a safe area in the shortest possible time, which can cause squeezing and trampling accidents. Effective evacuation guidance and evacuation layout are important means to improve the efficiency of pedestrian evacuation and ensure the safety of pedestrians

Objectives

Results

Conclusion