A STUDY ON FIRE EVACUATION SIMULATION OF A BUILDING

Abstract

An effective building evacuation is paramount to fire safety in the building for a safe escape. The consequences of such can be detrimental which may result in substantial amounts of property damages and holistically affect the safety of the occupants.

In Singapore, all the buildings are governed by the Fire Code, also known as the Singapore Code of Practice for Fire Precautions in Buildings, a standard which provides a comprehensive set of fire safety requirements, encompassing both passive and active fire protection. Also, the Fire Safety Act was enacted in 1994 to enforce fire safety regulations (Fire Safety Act, 2014)

These codes and standards are enacted to mitigate the possible effects of fire; to protect and save lives, and to preserve the integrity of the properties found within the building. For decades, researchers have been working to meliorate on the fire safety practices through developing communications models, studying human behaviours and implementing fire safety guidelines that can endeavour to elucidate the impact for an effective building evacuation.

The preconditions for an effective building evacuation include a sufficient range of fire safety facilities and escape routes in the building. Additionally, building occupants are also required to demonstrate swift fire responsiveness and receptiveness. These preconditions can be achieved through carrying out fire drill exercise in the form of a full evacuation drill, which will then serve as a safety benchmark based on the evacuation’s time performance.

However, in spite of achieving full compliance to the fire code and bolstering an effective evacuation strategy on paper, the evacuation timing recorded in drills is still not satisfactory. Besides, as the buildings are getting higher and more complex, it is pertinent to develop a real time interactive evacuation strategy. This will prove to be more effective than the traditional approach of mainly conducting fire drill exercises, which lacks flexibility.

Therefore, this research aims to develop an evacuation simulation model and to identify the factors influencing the time taken for evacuation, particularly for light industrial. The author will also be comparing the researcher’s data and input these parameters into the software to determine the results differ significant from the real life case study.

The study will be accomplished through conducting in-depth research, analysing of literature reviews, case studies and developing of the simulation model.