Stairwell Evacuation from Buildings: What We Know We Don’t Know (original) (raw)
Related papers
Ascending stair evacuation: walking speed as a function of height
There is reason to believe that factors such as physical exertion and behavioural changes will influence the ascending walking speed and ultimately the possibility of satisfactory evacuation. To study these effects, a 2-year research project was initiated with the focus on effects of physical exertion on walking speeds, physiological performance and behaviours during long ascending evacuations. Two sets of experiments on human performance during ascending long stairs, with a height of 48 and 109 m, were performed. The results include aspects such as walking speeds, physical exertion (oxygen consumption, heart rates and electromyography data), perceived exertion and behavioural changes, showing that physical work capacity affects walking speeds in case of long ascending evacuation and should be considered while using long ascending evacuation. Analysis of both walking and vertical speeds is recommended because it provides additional insights on the impact of stair configuration on vertical displacement and the importance of not using the same value for walking speed for different stairs because the design of the stairs has an impact. The novel datasets presented in this paper are deemed to provide useful information for fire safety engineers both for assisting fire safety design as well as the calibration of evacuation modelling tools.
Fire evacuation in high-rise buildings: a review of human behaviour and modelling research
2013
A review of literature related to fire evacuation in high-rise buildings was carried out with the following objectives, (1) to identify the key behavioural factors affecting the performance of people during a fire in a high-rise building, the singularities associated to this type of buildings and areas of future research; (2) to review the procedures and strategies currently adopted in high-rise buildings; (3) to review and analyse the capabilities of evacuation models by reviewing their current characteristics and applications in the context of high-rise building evacuations. The review included both findings on human behaviour in high-rise buildings and modelling techniques and tools. Different categories of building use were taken into account, namely office buildings, residential buildings and health care facilities. The individual or combined use of different egress components was analysed. Egress components include the use of stairs, elevators as well as alternative means of escape (e.g., sky-bridges, helicopters, etc.). The effectiveness of the egress components is strongly affected by the building use and the population involved. The review shows that evacuation models can be effectively employed to study relocation strategies and safety issues associated with high-rise buildings. The suitability of egress models for high-rise building evacuations is associated with their flexibility in representing different egress components and complex behavioural processes. The review highlights that there is not a definitive model to be used but that the predictive capabilities of evacuation modelling techniques would be enhanced if more than one model is employed to study different egress aspects. Future research and model developments should focus on the study of the impact of staff actions, group dynamics and people with disabilities. Given the increasing height of buildings and the gradual reduction in the physical abilities of the population, the effects of fatigue on evacuation need further studies.
Empirical Findings from an Ascending Stair Evacuation Exercise in a Subway Station
Collective Dynamics
Crowd simulations have proven to be a valuable numerical tool for evacuation analysis. There is series of research and empirical evacuation studies for infrastructures and buildings. In contrast to research on evacuation via descending stairs, little attention has been given to ascending stairs, but they are an important criterion, especially in subway stations with high passenger frequencies. In this paper, we present the findings from an evacuation exercise in a subway station with long ascending stairs. The empirical findings showed an increasing walking time on the ascending stairs during evacuation. Also, the flow rate differs with higher flow rates at the beginning of the stairs and lower values at the end of the stairs. The mechanism behind these results has still to be investigated, but the findings already provide an interesting basis for modelling and validating evacuation simulations over long ascending stairs.
R Fire evacuation in high-rise buildings: a review of human behaviour and modelling research
A review of literature related to fire evacuation in high-rise buildings was carried out with the following objectives, (1) to identify the key behavioural factors affecting the performance of people during a fire in a high-rise building, the singularities associated to this type of buildings and areas of future research; (2) to review the procedures and strategies currently adopted in high-rise buildings; (3) to review and analyse the capabilities of evacuation models by reviewing their current characteristics and applications in the context of high-rise building evacuations. The review included both findings on human behaviour in high-rise buildings and modelling techniques and tools. Different categories of building use were taken into account, namely office buildings, residential buildings and health care facilities. The individual or combined use of different egress components was analysed. Egress components include the use of stairs, elevators as well as alternative means of escape (e.g., sky-bridges, helicopters, etc.). The effectiveness of the egress components is strongly affected by the building use and the population involved. The review shows that evacuation models can be effectively employed to study relocation strategies and safety issues associated with high-rise buildings. The suitability of egress models for high-rise building evacuations is associated with their flexibility in representing different egress components and complex behavioural processes. The review highlights that there is not a definitive model to be used but that the predictive capabilities of evacuation modelling techniques would be enhanced if more than one model is employed to study different egress aspects. Future research and model developments should focus on the study of the impact of staff actions, group dynamics and people with disabilities. Given the increasing height of buildings and the gradual reduction in the physical abilities of the population, the effects of fatigue on evacuation need further studies.
Investigating the Impact of Staircases Rotation on the Evacuation Efficiency
Civil Engineering and Architecture, 2022
Most people use stairs during emergencies and evacuations. Therefore, this study addressed the impact of staircase rotation to minimize physical effort and evacuation time, hypothesizing that staircase rotation affects the evacuation speed and the safety of the occupants. This study consisted of two stages. In the first stage, a questionnaire was delivered to architects, with two key questions about the preferred direction in daily use and the other regarding evacuation cases. The second stage involved field experiments on two different staircases in the rotational direction, which were applied to 53 participants to measure the efficiency of the staircases in four cases (slow descent, slow ascent, fast descent and fast ascent). The counter-clockwise staircase during the field experiments showed better results and was more efficient. The heart pulse rate (pulse/min) in the clockwise case showed a clear increase compared to the counter-clockwise case by 12.89% for slow descending, 6.91% for fast descending, 21.51% for slow ascending, and 18.27% for fast ascending. Therefore, the theoretical and practical results of the study validated the hypothesis on the impact of the staircase rotation on user comfort and evacuation speed. Moreover, it was concluded that counter-clockwise staircases provided faster evacuation with less physical effort.
Ascending evacuation in long stairways: Physical exertion, walking speed and behaviour
2015
This is the final report of the project “Ascending evacuation in long stairways: Physical exertion, walking speed and behaviour”. This project investigated the effects of fatigue on walking speeds, physiological performance and behaviours in case of long ascending evacuation. The report includes a literature review on, at the time when the project began, existing material on ascending evacuation on long stairs and escalators. Experimental research was conducted and the results are presented in the report. This includes two set of experiments on human performance during ascending evacuation in long stairs. In addition, an individual and group experiment was performed to investigate the performance of people during an ascending evacuation on a long stopped escalator. One laboratory experiment was conducted on a stair machine and a methodology to link the laboratory and the field experiments has been presented. Results include walking speeds, physiological measures of physical exertion...
Applied Ergonomics, 2014
The physical demands on firefighting personnel were investigated when using different types of handcarried stair descent devices designed for the emergency evacuation of high rise buildings as a function of staircase width and evacuation urgency. Twelve firefighters used three hand-carried stair descent devices during simulated urgent and non-urgent evacuations. The devices were evaluated under three staircase width conditions (0.91, 1.12, and 1.32 m). For comparison, an urgent manual carry was also performed on the 1.12 m wide stairs. Dependent measures included electromyographic (EMG) data, heart rates, Borg Scale ratings, task durations and descent velocities. Results indicated that the stair chair with extended front handles, which allows the front person to descend the stairs facing forward, reduced the time integrated back muscle EMG by half and showed a descent velocity that was 1.8 times faster than the other stair descent devices in the study. There were no differences across staircase widths.
Modelling Evacuation using Escalators: A London Underground Dataset
The development and expansion of underground (subway) stations, often located deep underground, has been possible with the introduction of escalators capable of efficiently transporting large volumes of people [1]. As a result, underground stations are reliant upon escalators for circulation and in many cases emergency evacuation. Despite this, few studies have attempted to quantify human factors associated with escalator usage (microscopic analysis), the majority of past studies focusing on establishing capacity (macroscopic analysis) rather than usage behaviours [2-4]. As such, it is uncertain how human factors associated with escalator usage impact escalator performance in both circulation and evacuation situations. It is also uncertain whether human factors associated with escalator usage has a cultural component. To address these issues, escalator human factors data within three underground stations in Spain (Barcelona) [5], China (Shanghai) [6] and England (London) have been collected. In each location the same methodology for data collection and analysis was used. This paper presents an overview of the analysis for the English dataset. Furthermore, using the data collected along with the newly developed escalator model available within the buildingEXODUS evacuation software [6, 7], a series of evacuation scenarios of a hypothetical underground station are presented. The evacuation analysis is intended to explore the impact of using escalators with a variety of realistic human factors.
Safety Science, 1999
This paper is concerned with the concept of building evacuation and the factors that aect the emergency egress time. It argues that the total evacuation time can be divided into three components: the time to recognize a dangerous situation, the time to decide for evacuation and the time for the movement towards safety. The last component, the egress time, is studied closely in this paper. When the capacity of a walkway is known, this component can be calculated. The capacity however is aected by a number of factors. Through two ®eld studies the eects of the motivation of people to move and the slope of stairs on capacity have been tested. It appears that initially motivation has an accelerating eect, but as the number of people per square meter grows their speed decreases. Also the steeper the slope of stairs, the slower people will move on them. Furthermore the value for capacity used in design and egress time calculations is looked upon. Various researchers have come up with dierent values. Some recommend the use of the maximum value, which gives the minimum egress time, while others recommend the use of a mean value for capacity, which gives a mean value for egress time. This paper discusses the advantages of the use of a mean value over the use of a maximum value, and thus of the use of an average over a minimum egress time. #
The Use of Elevators for Evacuation in Fire Emergencies in International Buildings
2014
The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the use of elevators for occupant evacuation from high-rise buildings with a focus on the safety of mobility impaired occupants. It addresses the specifics of evacuation via elevators, relevant building codes, and its technical challenges. Information was collected on how selected buildings around the world incorporate elevators into their emergency evacuation procedures. Six building complexes around the world were identified and reviewed in this report. A section of this report is devoted to each building, providing general building information (height, number of floors etc.) and the building's evacuation procedures during fire emergencies, with a special focus on mobility impaired occupants. After discussing the limitations of the review process, the report gives an overview of the scientific background of the human factors of evacuation via elevators and identifies research gaps. Furthermore, methodological aspects of empirical evacuation research as well as potential beneficial measures for evacuation via elevators are discussed.