Effect of varying two key parameters in simulating evacuation for a dormitory in China

Student dormitories are both living and resting areas for students in their spare time. There are many small rooms in the dormitories. And the students are distributed densely in the dormitories. High occupant density is the main characteristic of student dormitories. Once there is an accident, such as fire or earthquake, the losses will be cruel. Computer evacuation models developed overseas are commonly applied in working out safety management schemes. The average minimum widths of corridor and exit are the two key parameters affecting the evacuation for the dormitory. The effect of varying these two parameters will be studied in this paper by taking a dormitory in our university as an example. Evacuation performance is predicted with the software FDS + Evac. The default values in the software are used and adjusted through a field survey. The effect of varying either of the two parameters is discussed. It is found that the simulated results agree well with the experimental results. From our study it seems that the evacuation time is not in proportion to the evacuation distance. And we also named a phenomenon of “the closer is not the faster”. For the building researched in this article, a corridor width of 3 m is the most appropriate. And the suitable exit width of the dormitory for evacuation is about 2.5 to 3 m. The number of people has great influence on the walking speed of people. The purpose of this study is to optimize the building, and to make the building in favor of personnel evacuation. Then the damage could be minimized.