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

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.

The Application and Prospects of Digital Visualization in Urban Public Building Space Design

“…By using digital visualization technology to assist in the P. Liang, S. A. Sharudin World Journal of Engineering and Technology design of evacuation routes in architectural spaces and combining it with relevant simulation software to analyze the horizontal and vertical evacuation of large public buildings using 3D models, designers can calculate evacuation time and evacuation areas. Effective evacuation guidance and layout can improve the efficiency of personnel evacuation and ensure their safety [15]. For example, Haotian Zheng et al [16] used Revit software to create a 1:1 scale BIM model and then used Pathfinder software to determine the most efficient evacuation channels.…”