Virtual Fire Evacuation Drills through a Web-Based Serious Game

Evacuation capacity is very important in building fire. In order to improve the safety evacuation capacity of occupants, a web-based serious game for virtual fire evacuation drills is proposed. As a prototype of the serious game, a stand-alone system for virtual drill had been developed. On this basis, the system framework of the serious game is first designed for web-based training, including the database, front and back ends. Secondly, an optimization solution including fire scenes and web codes is designed for smooth rendering performance. Lastly, a solution is designed to visualize the evacuation paths of numerous trainees, which can be used to reveal the evacuation rules, and an evaluation model of evacuation performance is created considering the features of evacuation paths and fire hazards, to provide comprehensive feedback for trainees. Thus, a convenient and accessible web-based serious game was developed. More than 100 people participated in the online virtual evacuation drill of a dormitory building fire. Through the drills, the average evacuation time of the trainees decreases from 79.77 s to 54.32 s, and the safety scores of the trainees improve from 74.71 to 81.21. Therefore, the evacuation abilities of trainees gradually improve, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the drill. Consequently, virtual fire drills using a web-based serious game can play an important role in improving the evacuation ability.

Investigation on the Effect of Platform Height on Smoke Characteristics of Fire Scenarios for Subway Stations

In this study, three full-scale experiments and a series of numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the influence of subway platform height and atrium ceiling height of subway stations on smoke control by mechanical exhausting systems. The smoke temperature variation with time, maximum temperature distribution, and smoke stratification were discussed. Results showed that the atrium had capacity to store smoke, especially at the early stage of smoke spread. However, the efficiency of smoke extraction did not increase simply with the rise in platform height and atrium ceiling height, and favorable smoke exhaust velocity was crucial for smoke elimination. The optimal smoke exhaust velocity was studied by numerical simulation and it was found that the area of smoke diffusion in subway stations with a higher platform was significantly smaller under the optimal smoke exhaust velocity. In addition, a prediction model of optimal smoke exhaust velocity with subway platform height was proposed. This study could provide on-site data and smoke spread characteristics for smoke control design, operation, and, significantly, guide safety evacuation of the exhaust system of subway stations.

Evacuation Experiment Study in Up and Down Escape Staircase of Underground Road

To measure evacuation basic parameters, reveal evacuation performance, and study reasonable staircase spacing of up and down escape staircase in case of fire, an evacuation experiment, which was based on the most unfavorable evacuation scenario, was conducted. The experiment took personnel and vehicles of actual underground road traffic into account, and evacuation process image data were extracted and analyzed by artificial statistics. Experimental results indicate that the personnel plane evacuation speed is between 1.43 and 1.95 m/s, and the upstairs evacuation speed that is less affected by gender and age is mainly between 0.5 and 1.1 m/s; under the escape stairs width of 0.8 m, the average capacity of escape staircase is 0.7 P/s, and the entrance of the staircase is evacuation bottleneck and queuing phenomenon occurs. Based on the experiment, a calculation model of three-phase personnel net evacuation time was established. By simplifying the evacuation model, a calculation formula of the reasonable escape stair spacing considering the influence of multiple factors was proposed. And the proposed theoretical model was verified by project cases of up and down escape staircase. With 2 min emergency broadcasting time and 6 min Available Safety Evacuation Time of medium-sized fire as the Personnel Safety Evacuation Rule’s reference, the recommended value of escape staircase spacing of single pipe double-deck two-way four-lane (double pipes double-deck two-way eight-lane) underground roads is 64.3 m.

Drones Move From "Nice To Have" to Strategic Resources for Projects

While drones have been used on oil and gas facilities for video inspections and other tasks, they have been operated by an on-site pilot or one positioned on a bobbing workboat adjacent to an offshore platform. Now a proof-of-concept study conducted by TechnipFMC has tested the feasibility of a global drone system with drones operated remotely by pilots based anywhere in the world. The study is the subject of a paper (OTC 30241) presented at the Offshore Technology Conference Asia in Kuala Lumpur in November. Construction supervision and health, safety, and environmental (HSE) monitoring were the main drivers of the study. The construction supervision application is part of a larger digitalization ambition to monitor and manage construction activities with data generated from the drone ultimately feeding an internal software dedicated to this business process. Potential HSE applications include crisis management, human safety, evacuation assistance, hazardous-area identification, traffic control, carbon-footprint reduction, and environmental surveys. One of the study’s main objectives was to move from traditional unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAV) to resident systems and to investigate the possibilities they could offer. Aerial views have been used extensively to reduce personnel exposure in specific situations such as difficult access or potentially dangerous inspection areas like active flares, confined spaces, or high structures. In these cases, the drones are controlled by an on-site pilot who is either within their line of sight or a short distance away. Combining AUV technology with embedded and associated intelligence from the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud and edge computing should enable drones to fly safely in complex and dynamic environments, resulting in integrated, resident systems that are permanently deployed at construction sites and available 24/7 without the need for an on-site certified pilot. Implementing these technologies will make data accessible and available in real time to people working on the project worldwide and it will also generate new work processes for project management and execution. Flight and Operations Testing According to the paper’s primary author, Nicolas Tcherniguin, manager of offshore business and technology with TechnipFMC, digital tools such as image recognition, machine learning, and simulation of digital twins based on the drone’s flight have been tested. Remaining bottlenecks have been identified, and some have been addressed while others will require additional efforts. AI development will offer additional features, especially if they can be integrated with other ground monitoring devices.

DWELLING FIRE SAFETY EVACUATION (DFSE): A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Fire is an ignition of heat and smoke materials, which can pose a significant life and property threat. Residential fire in Malaysia has a high percentage of fire cases due to electrical sources, cooking appliances, defective of equipment, careless and negligence. Evacuation during fire is the most critical features in building safety. This includes the utilization of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in developing a good and efficient fire evacuation. This research paper aims to propose and established a conceptual framework of Dwelling Fire Safety Evacuation (DFSE). This paper utilizes the technique of systematic overview from previous research which includes journals, conferences proceedings, reports, framework and guidelines. The outcome of this paper consists the elements of dwelling fire safety evacuation including the element of Fire Scenarios (i.e., Fire characteristic, Building characteristic and Occupant characteristic), Influences Perceived Risk (i.e., Individual-Based, Physical and Social), Survival Strategy (i.e., extinguish, shelter and evacuation) and Safety (i.e., shortest time and awareness) which contributed to the development of the conceptual framework. These findings will assist the extended investigation of DFSE for accidental fire situations.

A Study on the Safety of Evacuation according to Evacuation Delay Time and Fire Door Openness: Based on Residence Types

In this paper, the application of evacuation delay time (Cognition time + initiation time) and examine the degree of opening of fire doors in households for evaluating evacuation safety and suggest a realistic alternative. In order to proceed with this study, first of all, the preliminary investigation on evacuation safety evacuation of residential-type buildings (Apartment, urban living houses, etc.) among the performance-oriented design targets of Gwangju Metropolitan City, which was implemented until June 2018. Then, for the two representative types that are commonly used among the previously surveyed buildings, evacuation delay time is applied to W1, W2, and respectively simulating the opening of the doors is applied to th full open, 1/4 open, the leakage gap and evacuation safety evaluation was performed. As a result of evaluating evacuation safety was found that it is difficult to secure evacuation safety regardless of evacuation delay time W1 and W2 when the fire door is fully open and 1/4 open, Only when the leakage gap is applied evacuation safety was ensured even if evacuation delay time W2 was applied. Therefore, when a residential building is subject to performance-oriented design, evaluating the application of W2 rather than W1 is considered for evacuation delay time to reflect concern about privacy infringement due to CCTV installation, etc. In order to secure the Smoke blocking performance of the fire door and to improve the performance-oriented design, I would like to propose to consider the method of applying a leak gap to the degree of opening of the fire door. Through this, it is expected that the performance-oriented design will be a step further by performing evacuation safety evaluation with more realistic data.

Embedded System Based Emergency Evacuation System

The complex nature of the internal environment of public buildings make us to think about how to protect people in the break-out of fire and quickly reach the safe area. With the help of Arduino and other components such as fire hydrants, fire extinguishers, safety evacuation symbols in buildings, the migration of the people can be dynamically monitored and controlled. Using Arduino, an intelligent dynamic evacuation path solving model for emergency evacuation system was built for large public buildings. When an emergency situation occurs, the system can help guide people to evacuate from building and reach the safe exit quickly, so as to reduce casualties and economic losses.