Simulation and Experiment of Mass Evacuation to a Tsunami Evacuation Tower

Author(s):  
Takao Kakizaki ◽  
Jiro Urii ◽  
Mitsuru Endo

A 3D mass evacuation simulation using precise kinematic digital human (KDH) models and an experimental study are discussed. The tidal wave associated with the large tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake was responsible for more than 90% of the disaster casualties. Unfortunately, it is expected that other huge tsunamis could occur in Japan coastal areas if an earthquake with magnitude greater than 8 occurred along the Nankai Trough. Therefore, recent disaster prevention plans should include evacuation to higher buildings, elevated ground, and construction of tsunami evacuation towers. In the evacuation simulation with 500 KDHs, the mass consists of several subgroups. It is shown that the possible evacuation path of each group should be carefully determined to minimize the evacuation time. Several properties such as evacuee motion characteristics of KDHs, number of evacuees, exit gates and, number of injured persons were carefully considered in the simulation. Evacuee motion was also experimentally investigated by building a test field that simulates the structure of an actual tsunami evacuation tower for accommodating approximately 120 evacuees. The experimental results suggest that an appropriately divided group population may effectively reduce the overall group evacuation time. The results also suggest that the fatigue due to walking during evacuation adversely affect the total evacuation time, especially the ascent of stairways. The experimental data can be used to obtain more accurate simulations of mass evacuation.

Author(s):  
Takao Kakizaki ◽  
Jiro Urii ◽  
Mitsuru Endo

A three-dimensional (3D) mass evacuation simulation using precise kinematic digital human (KDH) models and an experimental study are discussed. The flooding associated with the large tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on Mar. 11, 2011, was responsible for more than 90% of the disaster casualties. Unfortunately, it is expected that other huge tsunamis could occur in Japan coastal areas if an earthquake with magnitude greater than eight occurs along the Nankai Trough. Therefore, recent disaster prevention plans should include evacuation to higher buildings, elevated ground, and constructed tsunami evacuation towers. In this study, evacuation simulations with 500 KDHs were conducted. The simulations consisted of several subgroups of KDHs. It is shown that the possible evacuation path of each group should be carefully determined to minimize the evacuation time. Several properties such as evacuee motion characteristics of KDHs, number of evacuees, exit gates, and number of injured persons were carefully considered in the simulations. Evacuee motion was also experimentally investigated by using a multistoried building to replicate the structure of an actual tsunami evacuation tower that could accommodate approximately 120 evacuees. The experimental results suggest that an appropriately divided group population could effectively reduce the overall group evacuation time. The results also suggest that fatigue due to walking during evacuation adversely affects the total evacuation time, especially in the ascent of stairways. The experimental data can be used to obtain more accurate simulations of mass evacuation.


Author(s):  
Takao Kakizaki ◽  
Jiro Urii ◽  
Mitsuru Endo

The 3D mass evacuation simulation of an airplane accident is experimentally verified. Evacuee motion has been experimentally investigated by building a test field that emulates the interior of an actual regional airliner with a capacity of approximately 100 passengers. The experiment results indicate that the evacuation time tends to be affected by the number of passengers and the evacuee guidance at the emergency exit. The results also indicate that any evacuation delay in exiting by individual passengers only slightly affects the total evacuation time because of evacuee congestion in the aisles. Moreover, the importance of evacuation guidance notification was investigated based on the evacuation-order variance. Finally, the experimental results were compared to the corresponding simulation results. Simulations using appropriate evacuee walking speeds can provide valid evacuation times, which are the most important factor in designing evacuation drills. Consequently, these results should be applied to existing 3D simulations using precise KDH models for more accurate mass evacuation/rescue simulations.


Author(s):  
Takao Kakizaki ◽  
Mitsuru Endo ◽  
Jiro Urii

The 3D mass evacuation simulation of an airplane accident is experimentally verified. Evacuee motion has been experimentally investigated by building a test field that emulates the interior of an actual regional airliner with a capacity of approximately 100 passengers. The experiment results indicate that the evacuation time tends to be affected by the number of passengers and the evacuee guidance at the emergency exit. The results also indicate that any evacuation delay in exiting by individual passengers only slightly affects the total evacuation time because of evacuee congestion in the aisles. Moreover, the importance of evacuation guidance notification was investigated based on the evacuation-order variance. Finally, the experimental results were compared to the corresponding simulation results. Simulations using appropriate evacuee walking speeds can provide valid evacuation times, which are the most important factor in designing evacuation drills. Consequently, these results should be applied to existing 3D simulations using precise kinematic digital human (KDH) models for more accurate mass evacuation/rescue simulations.


Author(s):  
Takao Kakizaki ◽  
Jiro Urii ◽  
Mitsuru Endo

Disaster drills are important for minimizing the damage caused by earthquakes, floods, and fires. Therefore, mass-evacuation drills are considered to be an important obligation of schools and workplaces that employ several individuals. Moreover, for the validation of drill effectiveness as well as disaster prevention, the significance of mass-evacuation simulation has increased.In the present paper, a three-dimensional mass-evacuation simulation is first explained. The developed multi-agent-based simulation with a detailed three-dimensional building infrastructure uses a kinematic digital human (KDH) model with precise human joints. Simulation of a mass-evacuation drill by high-school students agrees well with the results of actual drills. In addition, considering the transportation of badly injured persons during disasters, digital human motion sets of patients, and transporters have been developed for critical evacuation simulation. Several examples have revealed the possibility of applying the extended simulation to evacuation from houses and hospitals.


Author(s):  
Takao Kakizaki ◽  
Jiro Urii ◽  
Mitsuru Endo

Disaster drills are important for minimizing the damage caused by earthquakes, floods, and fires. Therefore, mass-evacuation drills are considered to be an important obligation of schools and workplaces that employ several individuals. Moreover, for the validation of drill effectiveness as well as disaster prevention, the significance of mass-evacuation simulation has increased. In the present paper, a three-dimensional mass-evacuation simulation is first explained. The developed multi-agent-based simulation with a detailed three-dimensional building infrastructure uses a kinematic digital human model with precise human joints. Simulation of a mass-evacuation drill by high-school students agrees well with the results of actual drills. In addition, considering the transportation of badly injured persons during disasters, digital human motion sets of patients and transporters have been developed for critical evacuation simulation. Several examples have revealed the possibility of applying the extended simulation to evacuation from houses and hospitals.


Author(s):  
Takao Kakizaki ◽  
Jiro Urii ◽  
Mitsuru Endo

A post-tsunami evacuation simulation using 3D kinematic digital human models (KDHs) and its experimental verification are addressed in the present study. Methods for carrying or assisting (transporting) injured people were experimentally investigated and the results were used for KDH data calibration to increase the accuracy of the simulations. It was found that, on flat ground, both the transit speed and the amount of time spent on intermittent rests were strongly affected by the load on the transporters. During ascent of stairways, the transit speed depended on the type of carry method being used, and decreased in the order saddleback carry, two-person arm carry and slightly injured walking. Several KDH evacuee motion primitives were developed for stairway ascent to a tsunami evacuation tower. The simulation results show that the evacuation time was affected by the number of evacuees and the congestion due to the transportation of injured people. The developed simulation techniques can be effectively utilized in the planning of tsunami tower evacuation and predicting related crowd behavior.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 168781401878509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yung-Piao Chiu ◽  
Yan-Chyuan Shiau ◽  
Yi-Hsuan Lai

With the increasing number of domestic buildings, the importance of safety evacuation in case of fire in the buildings has been aware. Occupants in a building will crowd at exit(s) when they evacuate in disasters. The content of this study includes the following: (1) to conduct a literature review on severe stampedes in history, identifying the number of casualties, and to explore existing research on crowd evacuation; (2) to examine the applicability of software packages EXODUS and Unity for simulating occupant evacuation using them for simulations under identical conditions; and (3) to construct simulated evacuation environments using Unity and perform simulations with different combinations of occupant number, space size, exit size, and flow diverter size. The simulation results found that placing a flow diverter in front of the exit could reduce the evacuation time effectively. The best result was observed when the width of the door is close to the width of the flow diverter; it can reduce the evacuation time by about 25%. When more than 60 people were emptying through an exit below 120 cm width, the blocking happened regardless of whether a flow diverter was placed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 90-93 ◽  
pp. 3093-3096
Author(s):  
Zhong Yuan Yang

Disaster degree and hazard risk of rockfall is essential for roadside slope design for safety. This paper is concerned with research efforts to calculate full motion trace of the rockfall along road slope with effective and numerical analysis methods. Two main terms including gradient of side slope and damping function between rockfall, mountain slope and rock speed are employed in so-called Damping and Rebounding Osculation Method (DROM). This tool is developed to define rock motion trace and delve into motion characteristics such as direction and rotational angle speed of the rockfall. Hereon, polygon rock is regarded as a rigid body of Non-particle and the motion formula are set up with the revolution motion of rock rigidity. The objective of this study is to accurately characterize the rockfall motion trace for disaster prevention and mitigation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1187-1192

Crowd simulation is an active research domain and is crucial for simulating crowd behaviour in certain condition such as normal or panic situation. The simulation is to show the interaction between the individual in a crowd. Nowadays, there are many kinds of scenarios as well as simulation softwares that can be adapted to simulate a crowd simulation such as during emergency situation e.g. building evacuation. Crowd simulation in three-dimensional platform is fairly important in order to have a more realistic looks and movement of the crowd in one particular environment. The evacuation simulation is useful for the crowd in one confinement to seek for a safe exit path in shortest time possible and thus increase the occupant’s safety. The evacuation time is said to be in safe condition if all the evacuees successfully can get through the exit in minimal time. To aid in minimal exit time, the concept of faster-is-slower (bottleneck) must be solved as it can lead to more waiting time or delay during evacuation process. In this paper, it will discuss about the crowd simulation behavior, crowd simulation based on agent-based model, existing crowd simulation tools and the result of simulating the three-dimensional (3D) crowd evacuation time based on a number of exits variation in panic situation. The tools used to carry out the experiment is Anylogic software whereby the results show that it adheres to shorter evacuation time when the number of exit increases. The 3D layout design was following the original layout the faculty’s lower ground floor where the classrooms are mostly resided. The simulation is useful in order to estimate of evacuation time with different total number of exits to alleviate the faster-is-slower effect in case of any emergency situation happens at the faculty building.


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