Emergency Preparedness Planning and On-Line Evacuation of Large Buildings

这项研究活动的主要重点是发展概念框架和方法步骤，以确定快速疏散大型燃烧建筑物或受到敌人或自然灾害攻击的建筑物的最佳和强大的战术和操作战略。讨论了应急准备规划和实时执行。战术准备问题涉及选择精心规划的先验疏散路径，考虑到需要疏散的紧急情况中存在的固有动态和不确定性质。随着建筑结构和流通系统的实际情况（即出口方式）的揭示和与结构构件和流通系统部分持续故障风险相关的预测的更新，操作问题涉及在线确定的疏散路径实时更新。需要对紧急疏散情况的动态和不确定性进行建模，是因为这类事件的特点往往是危险随着时间的推移而加强和扩散。这些情况导致成功的出口可能会因关键的逃生路径部分或完全失效而受到抑制。此外，即使知道导致需要撤离的事件的确切地点和类型，我们也无法确定局势将如何发展。确定最佳疏散路径的现有方法没有考虑到这种不确定性以及爆炸后、火灾或其他需要紧急疏散的情况所固有的动态变化条件。如果指令没有考虑到随着时间的推移损害的演变以及可能的额外破坏和恶化的威胁，则可能导致次优决策，从而导致不必要的强加风险和不必要的生命损失。在本研究工作中进行的算法开发将在确定疏散路径策略时明确考虑这些特征，从而产生比其他路径确定的更低失败概率的稳健疏散计划。将通过开展将在课堂上进行的实际案例研究以及通过与风险分析和应急管理有关的综合研究生课程，加强教学、培训和学习。拟议研究活动产生的疏散计划将在发生军事攻击、火灾、自然灾害、发现危险物质或生物制剂或其他需要快速逃生的情况下，使建筑物能够更快、更有效地疏散。这将减少受伤人员、被困疏散人员或失去生命的人数。在这项研究工作中制定的方法也将适用于评估现有的疏散计划和确定潜在的高风险情况。这些结果也将影响许多其他功能区域，包括由于军事攻击、人为事故或自然灾害（如涉及核电站或危险化学品泄漏的事故）而导致的地理区域疏散、大坝墙等结构的倒塌、飓风、地震、洪水、火山爆发或海啸。

The primary focus of this research activity is the development of the conceptual framework and methodological steps for determining optimal and robust tactical and operational strategies for rapidly evacuating a large burning building or a building that has come under attack by enemy or natural catastrophe. Both emergency preparedness planning and real-time execution are addressed. Tactical preparedness concerns involve the selection of carefully planned a priori evacuation paths that consider the inherent dynamic and uncertain nature of conditions that exist in emergency situations requiring evacuation. Operational concerns address the on-line determination of evacuation paths that are updated in real-time as actual conditions of the building structures and circulation systems (i.e. means of egress) are revealed and predictions related to risk of continued failure concerning the structural members and portions of the circulation systems are updated.The need for modeling the dynamic and uncertain nature of conditions in emergency evacuation stems from the fact that such events are often characterized by dangers that strengthen and spread over time. These circumstances induce the possibility that successful egress may be inhibited by partial or complete failure of key escape paths. Moreover, we cannot know how the situation will progress with certainty even if the exact location and type of event that initiated the need for the evacuation is known. Existing methodologies for determining optimal evacuation paths do not consider this uncertainty and the dynamically varying conditions inherent in post-blast, fire or other situations requiring emergency evacuation. Instructions that do not consider the evolution of damage over time and threats of probable additional destruction and deterioration can result in suboptimal decisions that can lead to unnecessary imposed risk and unnecessary lost lives. The algorithmic developments undertaken in this research effort will explicitly consider these characteristics in determination of the evacuation path strategies, resulting in robust evacuation plans with lower probability of failure than paths determined otherwise. Teaching, training and learning will be enhanced through the development of real-world case studies that will be studied in the classroom and through a comprehensive graduate course related to risk analyses and emergency management. Evacuation plans resulting from the proposed research activities will enable faster and more efficient evacuation of a building in the event of military attack, fire, natural disaster, discovery of a hazardous material or biological agent, or other circumstances warranting quick escape. This will result in reduction in: the number of injured persons, trapped evacuees, or lost lives. The methodologies developed in this research effort will also be pertinent for evaluating existing evacuation plans and for identifying potentially high-risk circumstances. These results will impact many other functional areas as well, including, evacuation of a geographical region due to military attack, human-made accident, or natural disaster, such as an accident involving a nuclear power plant or escape of hazardous chemicals, collapse of a structure such as dam walls, hurricane, earthquake, flooding, volcanic eruption, or tsunami.