Development of a smoke effect model for representing the psychological pressure from the smoke

Abstract

Both microscopic and mesoscopic models use Helbing's movement model for estimating the characteristics of an evacuation. Because Helbing's movement model does not consider the effect of smoke, the influence of smoke on walking speed and the toxic gas effect of the combustion gas were used for applying the smoke effect on human behavior. However, these models cannot consider the psychological pressure on evacuees when the evacuees are confronted with the smoke or move through the smoke. Therefore, we developed a smoke effect model for representing the psychological pressure experienced when the evacuees are confronted with smoke or they move through the smoke. This developed smoke effect model is applied on FDS+Evac which can simulate the fire and evacuation simultaneously. We then analyzed the characteristics of evacuation such as evacuation time, walking speed, and direction, and the psychological pressure from smoke with applying the new smoke effect model. As a result of analysis, when the human smoke interaction force is additionally applied, the characteristics of evacuation are more reliable than the case of considering the smoke effects on the walking speed and the life or death of evacuees only. However, additional studies for a more reliable psychological factor of the evacuees are required for improving the reality of the modified movement model. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.