High-rise Building Evacuation Research Articles

Fire Evacuation Process Using Both Elevators and Staircases for Aging People: Simulation Case Study on Personnel Distribution in High-Rise Nursing Home

There were increasing concerns on the possibility and suitability of using elevators for high-rise building evacuation because, through the improvement of the elevator system, the self-evacuation ability of age people is promoted as much as possible in the process of an emergency evacuation. The combined evacuation using both elevators and stairs was put into discussion. However, there was no empirical evidence and numerical simulation on emergency evacuation using both elevators and staircases for aging people in high-rise nursing homes. Therefore, using one case study, this paper simulated the emergency evacuation in a high-rise nursing home using variables such as the distribution of the elderly with different physical conditions, the proportion of the elderly in different physical conditions, the number of the elderly, the number of floors, the number of elevators used, and the priority of the elevator floor. By simulating the evacuation process in various scenarios, the general distribution strategy of high-rise nursing home and the optimal use of the elevator-stair combination during the emergency evacuation were developed. Results show that the elevator-stair combination of evacuation is more effective than using elevators or stairs alone. Increasing the number and speed of elevators can reduce evacuation time. Categorizing elderly people on each floor according to their physical conditions could reduce the evacuation time than randomly distributing them.

Egress Parameters Influencing Emergency Evacuation in High-Rise Buildings

Fire in buildings pose a significant threat to occupants, first responders as well as the structural system. Rapid spread of fire and smoke in buildings can hinder the process of evacuation resulting in loss of human life. Such situations call for a reliable egress system that provides safe evacuation of occupants in minimal time. Updating the occupants and first responders with much-needed situational awareness such as accessible stairwells and exits during the disaster can not only lead to efficient evacuation but also shorten the duration of evacuation in some scenarios. This paper examines occupant evacuation scenarios in fire exposed high-rise buildings. A parametric study is carried out on evacuation strategies in a 32-story typical office building during different fire exposure scenarios. The movement of occupants with and without situational awareness is simulated. The effect of critical parameters such as number of stories, width of the egress paths, location and number of exits on the evacuation process is evaluated. The time required for occupants to evacuate the building is estimated under normal conditions (to simulate fire evacuation drill) and under realistic fire exposure. Results from the study indicate that the two most significant factors that influence evacuation time are the location of stairway within the building and the floors at which fire starts. When fire starts at the lower levels of the building, the evacuation time is the highest. More importantly, if situational awareness is incorporated in emergency evacuation procedure, it can improve the evacuation efficiency in a fire exposed high-rise building; wherein up to 24% reduction in evacuation time is achieved.

Modeling Evacuation of High-Rise Buildings Based on Intelligence Decision P System

High-rise buildings usually have more complex architectural structures and hold more people than single-storey buildings. Currently, crowd management under emergent conditions, especially rapid evacuations of high-rise buildings, is a worldwide problem. In this study, a bio-inspired simulation technology extracted from a cell migration process, namely Intelligent Decision System (IDPS), was used to model the dynamic evacuation of high-rise buildings and calculate the evacuation time for different scenarios. This work was motivated by the comparability between the pedestrian movement behavior and cell migration process. Specific structure information of high architecture was also described in IDPS. A case study was done about evacuation simulation of a 12-storey teaching building in China University of Geosciences in Beijing. The simulation results showed that evacuation time varied with different parameters, such as density threshold, interaction probability, walking speed, population distribution, and stair width. With the proper density threshold and good interaction probability, the load balance of staircases and exits can be improved. For staircases with high utilization ratios, it was recommended that the evacuation process can be accelerated by widening the staircases appropriately. Finally, the impact of initial number of evacuees at each floor level was also analyzed in view of safety management.

The numerical analysis of mass evacuation in Taipei 101 with control volume model

Issues of safety evacuation of super high-rise buildings for emergencies have been attracting a lot of studies, especially after the disaster of WTC 9/11. In this study, the numerical results and dynamic processes of mass evacuation of a super high rise building are investigated by using the control volume model. The evacuation process of this model is divided into five stages and based on the assumptions of homogeneous flow with merge flow ratio where the exit flows from different floors meet and merge together. The super high-rise building, Taipei 101 is chosen for the object of evacuation simulation building, which is about 508 m tall. Seven scenarios, which content as total building evacuation and phased evacuation, are analyzed by using various values of the parameters which influenced the evacuation process in the building including walking speed, coefficient of flow rate, and merge flow ratio etc. The numerical results of mass evacuation are found to be in good agreement with the result of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) first-order approximation and indicate that the evacuation processes are highly dependent on the parameters of walking speed and specific flow. Furthermore, the dynamic characteristics of the evacuation process at each time-step for each floor are presented and discussed.

Experimental Study of Egress Selection Behavior Between Stairs and Elevators During High-Rise Building Evacuation

How do evacuees behave and what factors influence their egress selection behavior of stairs or an elevator during a high-rise building evacuation? These issues remain unclear given a paucity of research. In this paper, a series of experiments and questionnaires with 45 participants were carried out to examine the effects of non-irritant smoke and participants’ knowledge of evacuation procedures (especially elevator evacuation). After each experiment, participants were asked to respond to a questionnaire. The results of evacuation times for the elevator versus stairs, the proportion of elevator users, elevator wait times, and redirect behaviors are analyzed and discussed. In experiment 1, 26.7% of 45 participants chose the elevator. In experiment 2, non-irritant smoke was released, and the proportion of participants who used the elevator decreased to 24.4% of 45 participants. Before experiment 3, we shared information about the evacuation (i.e., an explanation of evacuation procedures and elevator evacuation experience) with the participants, after which elevator use increased to 40% of 45 participants. As a result, we found that non-irritant smoke and knowledge of evacuations affected evacuees’ behavior; however, the gap between the proportions of participants who reportedly preferred to use the elevator and who actually used the elevator was large. According to the questionnaire, the proportion of participants who wanted to use the elevator was 55.6%. Moreover, elevator overload, physical fatigue, and social bonds were observed in our experiments. In conclusion, several suggestions are given to building designers, and basic data (such as evacuation times and proportion of stairs or elevator use) offer insight for building safety engineers in designing evacuation strategies incorporating stairs and elevators.

Autonomous and resilient infrastructure with cognitive and self-deployable load-bearing structural components

Abstract This paper explores concepts and pilot studies for realizing autonomous and disaster-resistant infrastructures through integrating cognitive and self-deployable load-bearing structural components. These components act as secondary, and independent structural systems, that allow civil construction to autonomously reconfigure their internal structure to adapt to severe loading conditions in real-time. As a result, an autonomous infrastructure can achieve higher levels of structural resilience under extreme events (i.e. fire, earthquake etc.). This improved performance mitigates premature failure (collapse), thus providing occupants with sufficient time to evacuate, and allowing first responders to tackle the adverse effects of disasters. The practicality of the proposed concepts is illustrated through a comprehensive case study that covers fundamental aspects of structural performance and human evacuation in a super-tall 80-storey high-rise building undergoing an extreme event.

Optimization of grouping evacuation strategy in high-rise building fires based on graph theory and computational experiments

It is difficult to rescue people from outside, and emergency evacuation is still a main measure to decrease casualties in high-rise building fires. To improve evacuation efficiency, a valid and easily manipulated grouping evacuation strategy is proposed. Occupants escape in groups according to the shortest evacuation route is determined by graph theory. In order to evaluate and find the optimal grouping, computational experiments are performed to design and simulate the evacuation processes. A case study shown the application in detail and quantitative research conclusions is obtained. The thoughts and approaches of this study can be used to guide actual high-rise building evacuation processes in future.

Effects of Initial Distribution Ratio and Illumination on Merging Behaviors During High-Rise Stair Descent Process

Evacuation in high-rise buildings has attracted a lot of researchers to study human performance during evacuation process especially since the “911” disaster. However, there is little research studying the effect of initial distribution ratios among the different floors and the impact of sub-optimal illumination on merging behaviors between different pedestrian flows. In this paper, some experiments are presented in a real staircase to analyze the human behavior at the merging area. Through extracting movement characteristics from recorded video, the data about human movement performance is obtained and studied. It is found that when inflows from upstairs are opposite to inflows from stairs at the merging area, the geometrical structure seems to be biased in favor of occupants from floors and merging behaviors negatively affect the walking speed of pedestrians from upper floors. Then it is found there are three phases (free movement, extended zipper effect and following movement) during merging process. Furthermore, there is a relationship between the time pedestrians enter mid-landing and overall speed: speeds of pedestrians decrease and stabilize as the arrival time to the merging area grows. The merging behaviors are influenced by illumination and initial distribution ratios: in the experimental conditions, initial occupants from floors are more than that from upstairs, contributing high density at the merging area regardless of illumination. The results help to better understand the overall movement during stair evacuations and provide valuable data to validate and improve evacuation models.

An Empirical Study on Seniors’ Self-efficiency in Evacuation and Self-confidence in Health during Experiments of Fire Evacuation in High-rise Building

본 연구는 고령화 사회에 고층건물이 급증하는 현실을 방영하여 화재 시 노인들의 대피행동에 대한 심리적 이해를 제공하고자 총 30명의 노인들을 대상으로 고층건물 화재 대피실헙을 진행하였다. 신체적 노화과정이 심리적 상태에 영향을 미치는 노령층의 특수성을 고려하여, 노인들의 건강 및 인지상태에 대한 자신감과 위기 시 안전하게 대피할 수 있다는 자기효능감에 중점을 두었다. 분석결 과, 건강 상태에 대한 낮은 자신감은 대피공간에 대한 높은 요구와 관계가 있었으며, 시각 및 청각에 대한 자신감은 자기효능감, 공간탐색, 위기판단과 상관관계를 모였다. 반면, 실험 전 자기효능감은 실제로 이동한 층수와 부적 관계를 나타내었다. 다중회귀분석에서는 건강과 인지능력에 대한 자신 감이 자기효능감에 긍정적인 영향을 미쳤으며, 정성적 분석결과로부터 대피실험이 노인들에게 자기 효능감을 변화시킨 의미있는 경험으로 작용한다고 유추할 수 있었다. 이러한 결과는 노인들의 대피 를 위한 정책적 배려와 함께, 위기 시 현실적 자신감과 자기효능감을 갖도록 적절한 교육이 제공되 어야 함을 시사한다.

The use of elevators in the evacuation of high-rise buildings

The paper substantiates the possibility of using the elevators as the main evacuation path from high-rise multi-storey buildings. The analysis of the reasons preventing effective evacuation of people from high-rise buildings is carried out. A tall multi-storey office building was modeled in the Pathfinder software package. Several scenarios of the human flow are presented, and the influence of time parameters (the beginning of evacuation and delay of signal delivery), the composition of the flow (different ratios of people of different mobility groups), and the level at which the evacuation of each group begins are reflected on the time of evacuation using elevators. The time of evacuation by a staircase is compared with the time of evacuation using elevators. It is shown that it is effective to use evacuation elevators in 60-storey buildings, but it is not rational to use them for a 20-storey building.

Simulation-based optimization of emergency evacuation strategy in ultra-high-rise buildings

Emergency evacuation in high-rise buildings is a crucial problem. The evacuation strategy of using stairs and evacuation elevators should be optimized. In this paper, simulation-based optimization method is used to optimize the evacuation strategy of using stairs and elevators in high-rise buildings. The stair simulation is based on a cellular automata model, and several typical pedestrians’ walk preferences are considered in this model. In the simulation, evacuation elevators can arrive at the refuge floors, and the scheduling of the elevators is optimized based on the GA algorithm. The simulation-based optimization is designed as a two-level problem: The upper level is a strategy level; the lower level is an operation level. In the study case, the evacuation strategy of a 100-floor ultra-high-rise office building is optimized. We find that if evacuees follow the traditional stair evacuation strategy, the evacuation time is 42.6 min. After optimization, the evacuation time of optimal strategy by using both stairs and elevators is 25.1 min. Compared with the traditional stair evacuation strategy, the efficiency of evacuation is improved by 41.1%. It is also found that the merging behavior in stairwells will decrease the velocity of the pedestrian flow. Stairs are still the main egress, and evacuation elevators are an assistant egress during high-rise building evacuation.

Study on rapid evacuation in high-rise buildings

More and more high rising buildings emerged in modern cities, but emergency evacuation of tall buildings has been a worldwide difficult problem. In this paper, a new evacuation device for high rising buildings in fire accident was proposed and studied. This device mainly consisted of special spiral slideway and shunt valve. People in this device could fast slide down to the first floor under gravity without any electric power and physical strength, which is suitable for various emergency evacuation including mobility-impaired persons. The plane simulation test has shown that human being in alternative clockwise and counterclockwise movement will not become dizzy. The evacuated people should wear protection pad, which can prevent slider from being injured by surface friction with the slide, and eliminate the friction coefficient difference caused by different clothes and slide surface. The calculation results show that the evacuation speed of the new device is much faster than traditional staircases. Moreover, such new evacuation device can also be used as a means of vertical transportation in high-rise buildings partly. People can take it from any floor to ground floor directly, which not only save time for waiting for the lifts but also save the power. The new evacuation system is of simple structure, easy to use, and suitable for evacuation and partly used as vertical downwards traffic, which shows light on solving world-wide difficulties on fast evacuation in high-rise buildings.

Event-driven modeling of elevator assisted evacuation in ultra high-rise buildings

In the past few decades, numerous ultra high-rise buildings have been erected in the metropolitan areas of many cities around the world. For the related building designers, building occupants and the governments, fire safety problem is certainly a major concern, especially after the collapse of World Trade Center in the 9/11 event. That disaster makes people reconsider ultra high-rise building evacuation strategies. Of the current strategies, using elevators in ultra high-rise buildings to assist evacuation seems to be promising in improving evacuation efficiency. To quantitatively evaluate elevator assisted evacuation process, an event-driven agent-based modeling approach is proposed in the present paper. This modeling approach could capture not only the movement characteristics of stair-using occupants but also the detailed elevator motion features. The combined effects of occupants’ and elevators’ parameters on the evacuation efficiency have been investigated. Results indicated that the model is helpful to reveal the dynamics of elevator assisted evacuation, and sometime, using elevators to move all occupants to ground safety point may not be an optimal solution.

DIJKSTRA-ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM FOR SHORTEST AND SAFEST EVACUATION IN HIGH RISE BUILDING

The successfulness of evacuation is defined by the ability of the evacuees to escape from the danger place safely in a short time. The three problems highlighted in this study are evacuees do not know the right route should they take to safe themselves especially in high rise building due to the complexity of the building. Moreover, the provided evacuation map in the building is commonly not showing the shortest and safest path to assist evacuees in choosing the best route. Furthermore, the shortest path algorithm needs additional features to support the directed graph in order to obtain the best result. The objectives of this study are to design and develop the evacuation route via the shortest path algorithm and to evaluate the evacuation route model in high rise building evacuation maps. The methods used are modelling the evacuation route from the original floor plan into 2D floor plan, and then generating the directed graph based on the distance between nodes and coordinate of nodes to generate the shortest and safest path based on the utilisation of Dijkstra’s algorithm and Dijkstra-Ant Colony Optimization (DACO). The results obtained are proven consistent in generating the shortest and safest path with the same distance.

Simulation of high-rise building evacuation considering fatigue factor based on cellular automata: A case study in China

Stair evacuation plays a crucial role in building evacuation since stairs are generally the only means to evacuate high-rises on fire. To ensure safety stair design, the Life Safety Code suggests using a performance-based design approach, which requires evacuation simulations. Most of existing simulations, however, do not consider the structure of stairs and fatigue of evacuees, and these simulations are not validated by real emergency events or experiments. This paper is on improving the simulation of pedestrian flow in the stairs of high-rises by addressing these issues. A new Cellular Automata simulation model is developed where the simulation map is divided into zones based on the stair structure, and the rule of evacuees’ movement for each zone is appropriately defined to simulate turning behavior. To validate the simulation, a fire drill was held in two high-rise buildings. In this drill, evacuees felt tired after a walk. The simulation results demonstrate that, compared with the simulation without fatigue factor, our simulation can predict the evacuation time more accurately. Building designers can make evacuation plans and strategies based on the new simulation.

Experimental Study of Elevator Loading and Unloading Time During Evacuation in High-Rise Buildings

To date, there are various types of elevators, such as evacuation elevators, that are being utilized during high-rise building evacuations in several countries, in accordance with their respective building codes. In order to enhance the effectiveness of elevator evacuation, evacuees’ behaviors should be better understood, in this way taking human behavior into consideration will allow for elevators to be better utilized. However, there are few studies on this topic since nearly no elevator evacuation events or experiments have been previously recorded. In this paper, 64 experiments were carried out to study how evacuees behave and what factors influence their behaviors during evacuation. Several key data, such as elevator loading and unloading time, time to open and close elevator doors were collected. We found that loading time (6.0 s) is much shorter than the time to open and close the doors (15.4 s). According to our findings, the number of evacuees influences evacuees’ behaviors when using elevators, but smoke does not. Furthermore, the shapes of queuing, such as arch and line, will influence the duration of time for evacuees going through elevator doors. The evacuees in the arch shape (5.3 s) pass faster than those in the line shape (6.4 s). Several interesting phenomena were observed in our experiments, such as push, hesitation, re-entering the elevator, stair-preference, and social bonding. Finally, several suggestions, such as the width of doors and the design of elevator lobbies, are proposed to building designers on the issues mentioned above. The basic data of our experiments can be used to calibrate and validate elevator evacuation simulations.

Evaluating the physical demands when using sled-type stair descent devices to evacuate mobility-limited occupants from high-rise buildings

The physical demands on evacuators were investigated when using different types of sled-type stair descent devices designed for the emergency evacuation of high rise buildings. Twelve firefighters used six sled-type stair descent devices during simulated evacuations. The devices were evaluated under two staircase width conditions (1.12, and 1.32 m). Dependent measures included electromyographic (EMG) data, heart rates, Borg Scale ratings, and descent velocities. All stair descent speeds were below those reported during pedestrian egress trials. With the exception of the inflatable device, the devices operated by two evacuators had higher descent speeds than those operated by a single evacuator. High friction materials under the sleds facilitated control and reduced the muscle demands on stairs but increased physical demands on the landings. Usability assessments found devices with shorter overall lengths had fewer wall contacts on the landing, and handles integrated in the straps were preferred by the evacuators.

Simulation Model of Pedestrian Evacuation in High-Rise Building: Considering Group Behaviors and Real-Time Fire

Many fire evacuation models have been proposed in recent years to better simulate such as an emergency situation. However, fire has different characters in high-rise building, and is affected by all kinds of factors. Evacuation of persons in case of fire is very complex, the environment will affected it, the individual psychological quality and physical quality, real time fire and so on. The numerical model based on cellular automata is presented, considering group behavior and real time fire development in the paper, and simulation experiments show the model is on the brink of reality and demonstrate its applicability and validity.

Evaluating the physical demands on firefighters using track-type stair descent devices to evacuate mobility-limited occupants from high-rise buildings

The physical demands on firefighting personnel were investigated when using different types of track-type stair descent devices designed for the emergency evacuation of high rise buildings as a function of staircase width and evacuation urgency. Twelve firefighters used five track-type stair descent devices during simulated urgent and non-urgent evacuations. The devices were evaluated under two staircase width conditions (1.12, and 1.32 m), and three devices were also evaluated under a narrower staircase condition (0.91 m). Dependent measures included electromyographic (EMG) data, spine motion, heart rates, Borg Scale ratings, task durations and descent velocities. Stair descent speeds favored the devices that had shorter fore/aft dimensions when moving through the landing. EMG results indicated that there were tradeoffs due to design features, particularly on the landings where the physical demands tended to be greater. On the landings, devices that could be rolled on four wheels reduced the deltoid and bicep activation levels.

Analyzing pedestrian merging flow on a floor–stair interface using an extended lattice gas model

The floor–stair interface is a critical component of the escape stairs in high-rise buildings, and the characteristics of the merging flow in the floor–stair interface is also significant for investigating the evacuation of high-rise buildings. In this paper, the original lattice gas model is extended by considering inner-side walking preferences, turning behavior and different desired speeds. Then the merging flow in the floor–stair interface is simulated with the extended model. The fundamental diagram of the simulation results has the same tendency as the empirical data and it is found that the merging at the floor–stair interface could retard the motion of pedestrians on the incoming stairs and reduce the motion speed in the case when the corridors are adjacent to the incoming stairs. The effect of two kinds of typical structures of the floor–stair interface on pedestrian merging behavior is investigated. The results show that the evacuation process will be improved when the corridor is connected to the landing opposite to the incoming stairs. The results given in this paper may be helpful in understanding the characteristics of pedestrian merging flow in floor–stair interfaces and in designing building structures.