Investigation on an Integrated Evacuation Route Planning Method Based on Real-Time Data Acquisition for High-Rise Building Fire

Evacuation of occupants in high-rise buildings is one of the most important tasks when the building is subjected to a significant level of fire threat. Since the mechanism of fire spread is too complicated for the trapped people to determine the evacuation route, a real-time evacuation route planning method is needed for rescue and safety management. In this paper, an integrated real-time evacuation route planning method for high-rise building fires is proposed. This method is composed of real-time data acquisition, risk distribution calculation, and evacuation route formulation. The real-time data acquisition process is achieved by using the sensor system and the wireless data transmission system, the calculation of risk distribution is based on the risk assessment of casualties, and the formulation of evacuation route is based on the fast marching level set method. To demonstrate the presented method, a sample building under an assumed fire is used for numerical investigation, and a real building model is used for experimental investigation. The results show that this method can evaluate the fire status and formulate evacuation strategies instantly in high-rise building fire. The risk distribution and the evacuation route of the building fire can be intuitively displayed. This method can be used in practical applications and will be an important technical basis for the program development of rescue and evacuation.