Project Title: Study on effect of smoke hazard on human evacuation in fire

Principal Investigator: Prof. Yang Lizhong

Funding Source: National Natural Science Fundation of China

Project Period: 2003.1-2003.12

Abstract: This project is to investigate the effect of fire smoke on human evacuation in fire scenarios, including both the physiological and psychological effect, and the CA model is established based on the human movement characteristics. The impact of fire smoke on human movement can be determined by existing data and literature survey, and the nature of human movement in normal conditions has been studied by the established human movement model. On those studies the model of human behavior in fires is built, in consideration of human cognitive competence, choice of routes and speed. Two concepts, total risk graph and visual field, are introduced into the model, and also information theory is used to build a smarter extended model. Meanwhile, the special phenomena in evacuation process are analyzed and the key factors affecting this process are investigated. Additionally, the fire spread effect on human evacuation is also studied.