Integration of Fire Risk Concept into Performance-Based Evacuation Safety Design of Buildings

Abstract

The integration of the fire risk concept in performance-based fire safety design of buildings is beneficial in many aspects of fire safety. In this paper, a Risk-Based Evacuation Safety Design Method is proposed for rational evacuation safety design as an important area of fire safety design. While the goal of this method is to control the evacuation risk in fire within an acceptable level, the evacuation safety verification in this method can be conducted according to the deterministic procedure in usual performance-based fire safety design. The particular advantage of this method is that design fires and scenarios in the performance-based design of a building are identified in a systematic manner. The practicability of this method in performance-based designs of actual buildings is demonstrated by case studies for realistic buildings.