Fire Safety in Museums: Simulation of Fire Scenarios for Development of Control Evacuation Schemes from the Winter Palace of the Hermitage

Abstract

The manuscript is focused on the problems of evacuation in case of fire from the buildings of museums as places with a mass presence of people. Features specific to museums and how they affect safe evacuation conditions are discussed. Most attention is paid to evacuation management, since the vast majority of museum visitors are not familiar with the layout of the building. In this case, the actions of staff in evacuation management are decisive. The paper considers the development of evacuation schemes, taking into account the spread of fire hazards in the building and the development of instructions on their basis for the staff. Using the example of the Winter Palace of the State Hermitage Museum, the solution of the marked tasks with the use of computer simulation of evacuation during a fire is given. The analysis of the simulation results showed the vulnerabilities of the museum. In this work, the evacuation schemes for the scenarios are considered. The maximum number of visitors at a single time in the Winter Palace has been set at 4000. The principles of making evacuation schemes are formulated, including taking into account the peculiarities of space-planning solutions inherent in museums, such as enfilades and the connections of rooms.

A Scientometric Research on Applications and Advances of Fire Safety Evacuation in Buildings

“…Mass audience venues with high-density pedestrian flows, rapid oxygen consumption, limited space for movement, and fixed exits are always the research focus in safety evacuation, including railway stations [170], subway stations [15,171], airports [31], hospitals [99,102], schools [108,120], commercial buildings [65], residential buildings [107,128], and public places of entertainment [172][173][174]. Safety evacuation of offshore platforms are one of the frontiers of research and a new branch in offshore engineering to which increasing attention has been paid [122].…”

Modeling of Safe Evacuation Conditions at the Construction Site for Building Type “I”

“…Xiao et al [18] used Pyrosim software and Pathfinder software to visualize and analyze the fire and evacuation of personnel from a prefabricated construction site to improve the efficiency of the safe evacuation of construction personnel after a fire during construction. Ekaterina Kirik et al [19] developed an evacuation plan for the Winter Palace of the State Hermitage Museum by considering the development of a fire and the safety of evacuation of people through a simulation. Zou et al [20] proposed fire safety management measures by simulating and studying the smoke dispersion and evacuation of people in a dormitory building fire.…”