Emergency Preparedness Planning and On-Line Evacuation of Large Buildings

这项研究活动的主要重点是制定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袭击的建筑物的最佳和强大的战术和作战战略。应急准备规划和实时执行都得到了解决。战术准备问题涉及选择事先仔细规划的疏散路线，考虑到需要疏散的紧急情况中存在的条件的固有动态和不确定性。操作问题解决了在线确定疏散路径，并根据建筑结构和流通系统的实际情况实时更新（即出口设施）揭示和预测有关的风险继续失败的结构构件和部分循环系统的更新。需要建模的动态和不确定性的条件，在紧急疏散源于事实上，这种事件往往具有危险的特点，并随着时间的推移而加强和扩散。这些情况导致了成功逃生可能被关键逃生路径的部分或全部故障所抑制的可能性。此外，即使知道导致需要撤离的确切地点和事件类型，我们也无法确切地知道局势将如何发展。现有的确定最佳疏散路径的方法没有考虑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中固有的动态变化条件。不考虑损害随时间的演变以及可能的额外破坏和恶化的威胁的指示可能导致次优决策，从而可能导致不必要的强加风险和不必要的生命损失。在这项研究工作中进行的算法开发将明确考虑这些特征，在确定的疏散路径策略，从而在鲁棒的疏散计划，失败的概率低于路径，否则确定。将通过开发将在课堂上研究的真实世界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来加强教学、培训和学习。根据拟议研究活动制定的疏散计划将使建筑物在发生军事袭击、火灾、自然灾害、发现危险材料或生物制剂或其他无法快速逃生的情况下能够更快、更有效地疏散。这将导致减少：受伤人员、被困撤离人员或死亡人数。在这项研究工作中开发的方法也将是相关的评估现有的疏散计划，并确定潜在的高风险的情况。这些结果也将影响许多其他功能领域，包括由于军事攻击、人为事故或自然灾害（如涉及核电站的事故或危险化学品泄漏）导致的地理区域的疏散，结构倒塌（如大坝墙壁），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.