Experimental study on vertical evacuation capacity of evacuation slide in road shield tunnel

Abstract

With the massive construction of road shield tunnels, vertical evacuation using slides is increasingly used, for it can save construction cost, improve evacuation efficiency and enhance space utilization. An evacuation experiment in an underwater shield tunnel with 101 participants has been carried out in order to obtain the alighting time of bus passengers, the movement speed, the opening time of the slide cover plate, the evacuation capacity of the slide, the total evacuation time and the behavior characteristics of the participants in the whole evacuation process by using fixed cameras, DSLR cameras and drones. The experiment results showed that the average alighting time for a 46-seat bus full of passengers was 62.3 ± 5.1 s (standard deviation), ranging from 55 s to 72 s. The average evacuation capacity of the evacuation slide was 27 person/min, and the evacuation capacity for males was slightly better than females. The opening time of slide cover plate was greatly affected by slide type and participants. The average movement speed of participants exceeded 4.0 m/s on the driveway with the good lighting conditions, smooth ground and clear evacuation instructions. And the movement speed declined in secure channel. This paper also describes the bottleneck phenomenon in the whole process of evacuation.