Residential building evacuation: Simulation of potential evacuation scenarios with presence of immobile persons

Abstract

The increase in urban population leads to the lack of housing in cities. One of potential solutions for this problem is to build tall residential buildings. The height of this objects, in recent times, ranges from several tens of meters even to several hundreds of meters, while the number of residents ranges from several hundred even to several thousands. Although these objects have built related to modern standards and technologies, with usage of modern materials and machines, problems can happen. One of particularly complex and hard problem presents the evacuation of residents in case of some disaster. Problem is much more severe and complicated if there are people with disabilities or people with special needs in the building. The potential solution for this problem can be the usage of simulation software. This paper was written to show the usage of simulation software Pathfinder in calculation of evacuation times for different evacuation scenarios, without the presence of immobile occupants, with presence of immobile occupants in the percentage of 5 % from complete occupant's number and with presence of immobile occupants in the percentage of 10 % from complete occupant's number.