Quantification of behaviour for engineering design standards and escape time calculations

Purser, David; Bensilum, M.

doi:10.1016/s0925-7535(00)00066-7

Cited by 213 publications

(145 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

128

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Research into occupant behaviour during emergency evacuations has been carried out at BRE over many years [5]. This has involved monitored evacuations, with video analysis of pre-movement and travel behaviours, and fire incident investigations of occupant and management behaviours, in a range of occupancy types.…”

Section: Design Behavioural Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has revealed the complexity of occupant behaviour during fire emergencies and the importance of these behaviours with respect to escape time. In many situations they comprise the greatest part of the time required for escape [3,4,5]. Despite this, there has been little attempt to quantify the wide range of behavioural phenomena and the interactions between them, so that it is difficult to apply them to escape time calculations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Attempts have been made to develop scoring systems for the qualitative evaluation of different occupancies with regard to the ease with which efficient evacuation can be achieved [4], but these have not provided data usable by engineers for escape time calculations. In recent design standards, attempts have been made to relate pre-movement time to the type of warning system used (sounder, recorded voice message or direct personal address message) [1,2], but in many situations the fire safety management system and occupant characteristics are more important [5].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This involves physically-based processes more amenable to design calculation methods [6]. However, travel times interact with pre-movement times and can be affected by behaviours such as wayfinding and exit choice [3,4,5]. Also, certain physical phenomena such as merging flows, have not been adequately solved.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this paper, a method for the quantification of escape and evacuation times is proposed, whereby a set of key qualitative features of occupant behaviour is used to specify a small number of basic "design behavioural scenarios" analogous to design fire scenarios. Quantitative data for phases of behaviour, particularly warning and premovement times, have been obtained by observations of fire safety management and occupant behaviour during monitored evacuations and fire incidents, for the main categories of design behavioural scenarios [1,5]. These are then combined with travel time calculations to provide a simple but robust method for the estimation of escape and evacuation times.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

ASET And RSET: Addressing Some Issues In Relation To Occupant Behaviour And Tenability

Purser¹

2003

Fire Safety Science - Proceedings of the Seventh International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Performance-based life-safety design depends on a comparison between the time required for escape (Required Safe Escape Time -RSET) and the time to loss of tenability (Available Safe Escape Time -ASET). Both include a number of stages, involving a variety of processes and requiring a range of input data. A problem for the design engineer is that while all stages need to be addressed to obtain a realistic outcome for the analysis, some aspects are reasonably well understood and quantified, while others are often oversimplified or ignored. For the RSET time line, most emphasis is usually placed upon the travel time component, representing the physical movement of occupants into and through the escape routes. However, the time required for occupants to engage in a range of behaviours before the travel phase (pre-movement time), often represents a greater component of the total escape time. Pre-movement time distributions are dependent upon key features such as occupancy type, warnings, occupant characteristics, building complexity and fire safety management strategy. It is proposed that a practical solution for the engineer is to apply pre-movement time distributions measured from monitored evacuations, fire incidents, or derived using behavioral models, and specified in terms of a number of "design behavioural scenarios" analogous to "design fire scenarios", classified according to the key features listed.A problem with the evaluation of travel time, is that most calculation methods assume no interaction between the occupants and the fire effluent. If occupants are exposed to irritant smoke, then movement speeds are likely to be reduced. A calculation method is proposed, relating predicted travel speed to smoke and irritant concentrations.The ASET time line ends when occupant incapacitation is predicted from exposure to fire effluent. This depends upon the time-concentration curves for the main toxic fire effluents, requiring inputs on smoke and toxic product yields under different fire conditions. Existing engineering calculations use only smoke density and/or carbon monoxide, with yields often treated as constants, usually for the well-ventilated fire case. A method is proposed, whereby yield data for major toxic effluent species can be obtained over a range of fire conditions, expressed in relation to the global equivalence ratio. Results are illustrated for carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.

show abstract

Section: Design Behavioural Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

ASET And RSET: Addressing Some Issues In Relation To Occupant Behaviour And Tenability

Purser¹

2003

Fire Safety Science - Proceedings of the Seventh International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Bounding defaults in egress models

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary Egress model developers are in a difficult position. It is in their interest to develop models that are simplified representations of reality and at the same time reduce inadvertent misuse. While default values enable immediate (i.e. out‐of‐the‐box) use of models without in‐depth familiarization with modelling assumptions, defaults often represent optimistic and/or even unrealistic evacuee behaviours. In this paper, the term ‘default’ relates to a preset, fixed setting or value (or distribution) for a parameter or algorithm. Most egress models provide default values for five core behavioural elements: pre‐evacuation time, travel speeds, route usage, route availability and flow conditions. These behavioural elements typically need to be represented in order for the model to function. The authors suggest that bounding default settings, rather than optimistic values, should be provided for each behavioural element. Here, a bounding default setting is a value derived from relevant empirical data that prolongs the overall evacuation time produced for a particular design. If a user wishes to decrease the conservative nature of a setting, he or she would be required to justify the modification of the bounding default value(s). This approach allows immediate model use but forces the user to modify the settings to obtain credible design scenarios. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

School egress data: comparing the configuration and validation of five egress modelling tools

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vous avez des questions? Nous pouvons vous aider. Pour communiquer directement avec un auteur, consultez la première page de la revue dans laquelle son article a été publié afin de trouver ses coordonnées. Si vous n'arrivez pas à les repérer, communiquez avec nous à PublicationsArchive-ArchivesPublications@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca. Questions? Contact the NRC Publications Archive team atPublicationsArchive-ArchivesPublications@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca. If you wish to email the authors directly, please see the first page of the publication for their contact information. NRC Publications Archive Archives des publications du CNRCThis publication could be one of several versions: author's original, accepted manuscript or the publisher's version. / La version de cette publication peut être l'une des suivantes : la version prépublication de l'auteur, la version acceptée du manuscrit ou la version de l'éditeur. NRC Publications Record / Notice d'Archives des publications de CNRC:http://nparc.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/view/object/?id=3b09eddd-ff9f-4226-95c7-250893a5d93c http://nparc.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/fra/voir/objet/?id=3b09eddd-ff9f-4226-95c7-250893a5d93c School egress data: Comparing the configuration and validation of five egress modelling tools ABSTRACTData were collected between 2011 and 2014 from five evacuations involving the same school buildings located in Spain. Children from six to 16 years of age were observed during the evacuation exercises. Background information was collected on key factors deemed to influence evacuation performance: a description of the geometry, the population involved, the procedures employed and the organisation of the drills conducted. Using live observations and video footage of these drills, evacuation data were collected, focusing on the pre-evacuation times, the routes employed, the travel speeds adopted and the arrival times. These data informed a range of a posteriori simulations, conducted using four computer models (buildingEXODUS, MassMotion, Pathfinder, and STEPS), as well as the SFPE hydraulic model (i.e. SFPE hand calculations). Comparisons were drawn between the models' output and against the observed outcome for one of the trials to determine the accuracy of the model predictions given that they were configured using the initial conditions for a specific evacuation. The purpose of this work is to (1) provide insight into the configuration of these models for equivalent scenarios; (2) examine any variation in the simulated conditions given equivalent initial conditions; and (3) provide suggestions on how to perform validation studies for multiple evacuation models.

show abstract

Quantification of behaviour for engineering design standards and escape time calculations

Cited by 213 publications

References 5 publications

ASET And RSET: Addressing Some Issues In Relation To Occupant Behaviour And Tenability

ASET And RSET: Addressing Some Issues In Relation To Occupant Behaviour And Tenability

Bounding defaults in egress models

School egress data: comparing the configuration and validation of five egress modelling tools

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About