Investigating the impact of occupant response time on computer simulations of the WTC North Tower evacuation

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Galea, Edwin R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0001-6665, Sharp, Gary, Lawrence, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0269-0231 and Dixon, Andrew J. (2007) Investigating the impact of occupant response time on computer simulations of the WTC North Tower evacuation. Interflam 2007 11th International Fire Science and Engineering Conference. Interscience Communications Ltd, Greenwich, pp. 1435-1442. ISBN 9780954121693

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Official URL: http://fseg2.gre.ac.uk/HEED/publications/fseg_inte...

Abstract

This work explores the impact of response time distributions on high-rise building evacuation.
The analysis utilises response times extracted from printed accounts and interviews of evacuees from the
WTC North Tower evacuation of 11 September 2001. Evacuation simulations produced using these
“real” response time distributions are compared with simulations produced using instant and engineering
response time distributions. Results suggest that while typical engineering approximations to the
response time distribution may produce reasonable evacuation times for up to 90% of the building
population, using this approach may underestimate total evacuation times by as much as 61%. These
observations are applicable to situations involving large high-rise buildings in which travel times are
generally expected to be greater than response times

Item Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This paper forms part of the published proceedings from 11th International Fire Science & Engineering Conference, Interflam 2007, 3-5th September 2007, Royal Holloway College, University of London, UK
Uncontrolled Keywords:	response time distributions, high-rise buildings, World Trade Centre, evacuation simulations, travel time
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science T Technology > TH Building construction
Pre-2014 Departments:	School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences > Centre for Numerical Modelling & Process Analysis School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences > Centre for Numerical Modelling & Process Analysis > Fire Safety Engineering Group School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences > Department of Mathematical Sciences
Related URLs:	Organisation Publisher Organisation Organisation Organisation
Last Modified:	30 Sep 2019 14:39
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/1098

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