A novel algorithm of simulating multi-velocity evacuation based on cellular automata modeling and tenability condition

A cellular automata (CA) model, which adopts the findings of tenability analysis, is proposed to simulate the evacuation from a smoke-filled room. Two algorithms, viz., direct algorithm and indirect algorithm, are used to model the behavior of a crowd consisting of people with different movement velocities. In the indirect algorithm, the movement velocity is related to probability so that the CPU time is greatly reduced. Another novelty is that an experimental formula for estimating the survival duration when exposed to constant concentration of toxic gases in a static environment is extended to one that involves varying degree of toxic gases. This has been incorporated into the CA model. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.