Simulation-Based Evacuation Optimization for a Medical Building

For the reason that the inner space of medical building is usually complex, and a large number of patients with vulnerable physical conditions, movement inabilities and even psychological issues gather here, occupants are prone to severely crowding during emergency evacuation such as fire disaster, resulting in low evacuation efficiency. In this paper, based on the analysis of the movement characteristics and capacity of occupants in a medical building, an evacuation model is established and the influences of evacuation strategies including free evacuation, priority based evacuation, zone evacuation and elevator assisted evacuation are explored. The results show that wheelchair patients have a great adverse impact in emergency evacuation, and well-designed evacuation considering priority, zone difference and elevator performance can reduce evacuation time and improve evacuation efficiency. This work can provide a more comprehensive insight for architects and engineers to carry out design and management for hospitals.