Risk Assessment through Fire and Evacuation Simulation in the Main Control Room of a Domestic Thermal Power Plant

A fire in the main control room of a thermal power plant is a significant threat to the entire power plant by incapacitating the concept of performance design to secure the safety of the power plant. In this study, using the PyroSim and Pathfinder programs to evaluate fire and evacuation risk of the main control room, the appropriate time and fire shape for evacuating people calmly were confirmed when the available safe egress time and required safe egress time of the main control room were compared. In the case of a cable fire, the simulation results indicate the heat generation rate to be more serious than the actual experimental results showed. This is because heat generation was lower in the experiment as the polymer material constituting the cable fell to the floor during combustion and no loger burns. The fire dynamics simulator results indicate that the power plant facility is safe because even these points are not considered.

Simulation-Based and Risk-Informed Assessment of the Effectiveness of Tsunami Evacuation Routes Using Agent-Based Modeling: A Case Study of Seaside, Oregon

Typically, tsunami evacuation routes are marked using signs in the transportation network and the evacuation map is made to educate people on how to follow the evacuation route. However, tsunami evacuation routes are usually identified without the support of evacuation simulation, and the route effectiveness in the reduction of evacuation risk is typically unknown quantitatively. This study proposes a simulation-based and risk-informed framework for quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of evacuation routes in reducing evacuation risk. An agent-based model is used to simulate the tsunami evacuation, which is then used in a simulation-based risk assessment framework to evaluate the evacuation risk. The route effectiveness in reducing the evacuation risk is evaluated by investigating how the evacuation risk varies with the proportion of the evacuees that use the evacuation route. The impacts of critical risk factors such as evacuation mode (for example, on foot or by car) and population size and distribution on the route effectiveness are also investigated. The evacuation risks under different cases are efficiently calculated using the augmented sample-based approach. The proposed approach is applied to the risk-informed evaluation of the route effectiveness for tsunami evacuation in Seaside, Oregon. The evaluation results show that the route usage is overall effective in reducing the evacuation risk in the study area. The results can be used for evacuation preparedness education and hence effective evacuation.

Risk Assessment of a MLCC Plant through Fire and Evacuation Simulations

In this paper, fire and evacuation simulations are conducted for the Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor (MLCC) factory clean room, and a plan to improve performance standards in the field of performance-based design simulation is suggested. First of all, fire and evacuation risk factors in the clean room were derived through fire accidents and previous research. And fire and evacuation simulations were performed using the derived risk factors as variables. As a result of the simulations, it was found that 'air conditioning equipment', 'working capacity', 'door setting method' and 'life safety evaluation method' have an influence on the life safety evaluation. Finally, a plan to improve the standards for fire and evacuation simulation was suggested to reflect the factors influencing the life safety evaluation.

Risk Assessment of Pedestrian Evacuation under the Influence of Fire Products

Traditional methods are using FDS and Pathfinder for numerical simulation of fire evacuation and do not consider the impact of fire products on pedestrians, which will lead to erroneous evacuation results. In order to explore the impact of fire products on pedestrian evacuation when a fire occurs in a building, the pedestrian evacuation risk assessment results are closer to the actual situation. By establishing a full-scale model based on the pedestrian evacuation speed coefficient, a numerical simulation of the evacuation of pedestrians under the influence of fire products is carried out, and the influence of spray intensity and smoke exhaust rate on pedestrian evacuation is analysed at the same time. The results show that, compared with traditional methods, the fire evacuation model based on the evacuation speed coefficient can better reflect the evacuation effect of the real fire scene. At the same time, adding spray and smoke exhaust devices can give pedestrians more time to escape.

Pedestrian Evacuation Risk Assessment of Subway Station under Large-Scale Sport Activity

Pedestrian evacuation risk of subway stations is an important concern in city management, as it not only endangers public safety but also affects the efficiency of urban subway transportation. Determination of how to effectively evaluate the pedestrian evacuation risk of subway stations is of great significance to improve pedestrian safety. Previous studies about the pedestrian evacuation of subway station were primarily focused on pedestrian moving behaviors and the evacuation modeling, and the evacuation scenario is the regular subway operation. There is a dearth of studies to quantify the pedestrian evacuation risk in the evacuation process, especially the pedestrian evacuation risk quantitative characterization of subway station in large-scale sport activity. The current study develops a quantitative pedestrian evacuation risk assessment model that integrates pedestrian stampede probability and pedestrian casualty. Then several different simulation scenarios based on the social force model (SFM) are simulated to evaluate the pedestrian evacuation risk of the “Olympic Park Station” in Beijing, China. The results demonstrate that the pedestrian evacuation method, pedestrian stampede location, and distance from the stampede location to the ticket gate have a large impact on pedestrian evacuation risk. Then, the pedestrian evacuation scenarios with the lowest and highest risk for the “Olympic Park Station” in large-scale sport activity are determined. The findings have potential applications in pedestrian safety protection of subway station during large-scale sports activity.

A Study on Fire Spread and Evacuation Risk of Conduit Combustion in Ceiling Hiding Place

In this study, the ISO 5660 and ISO 5659 combustion tests were conducted with synthetic resin conduits (CD, VE) and metal conduit (ST) used for wiring work in electrical facilities, which can be installed in ceiling concealed places. Then, fire spreading and evacuation risks were analyzed based on the measured data. In the ISO 5660 test, CD of 120.5 MJ/㎡, VE of 81.9 MJ/㎡, and ST of 4.9 MJ/㎡ were measured. In the ISO 5659 test, the CD 1320, VE 731, and ST 102 were measured, and then the maximum smoke densities were measured for CD 605 s, VE 740 s, and ST 1,200 s. In terms of fire spreading and evacuation risk, the CD conduit, VE conduit, and ST conduit were in order. In the fire spreading risk analysis, total heat emission was calculated as 4,820 MJ/㎡, 4,267 MJ/㎡, and 196 MJ/㎡ for CD, VE, and ST, respectively. Evacuation risk analysis shows at transmittance of 89%, CD is 127 s, VE is 35 s, and ST is 969 s. At transmittance of 79%, representing almost invisible concentration, CD is 157 s and VE is 50 s. The CD and VE conduits had a high fire spreading and evacuation risks, while the ST conduit had little effect on fire spreading and evacuation risk.