Egress as Part of Fire Safety in High-rise Buildings

Egress as Part of Fire Safety in High-rise Buildings

Sun, Y.

Nijsse, R. (mentor)
Peters, B. (mentor)
Schipper, H.R. (mentor)
Hoogendoorn, S.P. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Structural Engineering

Building Technology and Physics

2013-01-31

The process of evacuating some large high-rise buildings may take upwards of several hours. One question that needs to be asked, however, is whether it is feasible and desirable to completely evacuate the high-rise building in fires. This research seeks to remedy this problem by proposing one or more efficient egress plan(s) for high-rise buildings. Investigation into a number of Dutch projects, international fire codes and state-of-the-art literature laid the foundation for this study. Four egress plans have been presented from a worldwide perspective for a specific certain building: Koningin Julianaplein in The Hague, the Netherlands. At least ten egress possibilities have been presented with respect to different fire scenarios. Assessment results of all egress possibilities suggest that partial evacuation appears to be the most appropriate strategy for Koningin Julianaplein, which results in a reduction in egress time by as much as 50% (defend-in-place) and 43% (relocation). While for office towers under relatively high occupant loading, phased evacuation has positive effect on the egress efficiency in comparison with traditional simultaneous evacuation.

high-rise buildings
building fires
egress
fire safety
evacuation

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e06f2348-1cc0-49e1-842f-62ecad6b63bb

2013-02-28

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2013 Sun, Y.