Performance-Based Evaluation on Egress Safety of Nursing Hospitals Considering Egress Guides and Delay Time

Abstract

In recent years, the number of nursing hospitals has significantly increased as the number of elderly has increased. However, since there are many patients who have difficulty in moving quickly in the nursing hospitals, it is very hard to evacuate rapidly in the event of a fire, which results in many casualties. In this study, fire and evacuation simulations for the nursing hospital were performed, based on which the evacuation safety was evaluated in detail according to the location of the fire compartment, number of evacuation guides, and evacuation delay time. The simulation results showed that it is necessary to secure the number of evacuation guides complying with the legal standards, and to reduce the evacuation delay time to be less than 60 s in order to avoid loss of life.