Performance optimization of the obstacle to corner bottleneck under emergency evacuation

Abstract

Nowadays, with population growth and urban development, there is a demand for larger public buildings and facilities, and congestion at the bottleneck of the building may pose a danger to people during evacuation under emergency situation such as a fire. In this paper, the effect of adding an obstacle with different sizes and positions in front of a 30° corner exit on evacuation is studied through simulation and experiment. By analyzing factors such as total travel time, time interval between adjacent pedestrians, and area density, it is found that the beneficial effect of an obstacle on evacuation depends on the size and the distance to the exit. At the same time, the sensitivity analysis of various variables found that the distance from the obstacle to the exit has the greatest impact on evacuation, followed by the length of the obstacle, and finally the width. A series of experiments have been carried out to verify the corresponding simulation results. Finally, by changing the distance between the obstacle and the exit (Doe), the obstacle length (Lo) and the exit width (We) to find out the obstacle arrangement that is most conducive to evacuation, it is showed that the evacuation effect is optimal when Doe: Lo: We equals to 1.25:1:1 under the 30° corner exit. This research provides a theoretical basis for safe evacuation design to alleviate the pedestrian congestion effect at the bottleneck.