Analysis and optimization of fire evacuation safety performance in large urban complexes

Area of Science:

• Urban fire safety engineering
• Emergency response optimization
• Building Information Modeling (BIM)

Background:

• Large-scale urban complexes present complex fire safety challenges due to intricate layouts and high occupancy.
• Existing evacuation strategies often fail to account for the dynamic interaction between fire progression and human behavior.
• Suboptimal safety assessments can lead to increased casualties and economic losses during fires.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an integrated simulation framework for optimizing fire evacuation strategies in large-scale complexes.
• To enhance evacuation efficiency and personnel safety by coupling fire dynamics with pedestrian flow modeling.
• To provide a scientific basis for evidence-based safety management and evacuation planning.

Main Methods:

• Developed a Building Information Modeling (BIM)-based platform to simulate fire propagation and quantify critical fire parameters.
• Created a pedestrian evacuation model integrating demographic factors and fire-induced risks for realistic crowd movement simulation.
• Assessed safety margins by comparing Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) and Available Safe Egress Time (ASET), optimizing strategies to mitigate identified risks.

Main Results:

• The integrated framework successfully simulated fire scenarios and evacuation dynamics in a Chengdu shopping mall.
• Initial evacuation time was 260.4 seconds, with identified critical risks at specific staircases.
• Optimized strategies reduced total evacuation time to 245.5 seconds, significantly increasing safety margins and meeting all safety requirements.

Conclusions:

• The proposed integrated simulation framework is effective in quantifying fire risks and optimizing evacuation strategies for large-scale complexes.
• The study demonstrates significant improvements in evacuation efficiency and personnel safety through coupled fire and pedestrian modeling.
• This approach offers valuable insights for urban fire safety engineering and emergency response planning.