A comprehensive method for environmentally sensitive and behavioral microscopic egress analysis in case of fire in buildings

This paper presents a new comprehensive method for microscopic building egress analysis, which considers the behavioral response of occupants to the various environmental conditions in case of fire in a building. This method distinguishes between different types of building users in order to calculate the appropriate egress route for each of them. The egress analysis described in this paper is integrated in the Building Information Modeling (BIM) environment and includes a special wayfinding algorithm. This algorithm has direct access to the digital building model and uses the results of appropriate model-based numerical fire simulations for each egress scenario. With this method, the algorithm behind the egress analysis can access the building properties as well as the environmental parameters in order to realize a reliable egress analysis. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.