Uncertainty analysis of parameters on occupant evacuation in building fires

Abstract

The primary goal of fire safety is to ensure people's life safety when fire occurs. In this study, reliability analysis method is presented to assess the safety level of occupant evacuation in building fires. Uncertainty analysis of parameters is carried out. In order to express the uncertainty and stochastic characteristic, influencing parameters are considered to comply with a certain probability distribution. The fire growth rate, building height, and total width of exit are analyzed based on the proposed method. It is found that the failure probability increases with the increase of fire growth rate, but decreases with the increase of building height and total width of exit. Nevertheless, the failure probability will not decrease anymore when total width of exit reaches to a certain value. Finally, a building's fire safety is evaluated. The conclusions in this work would be helpful for fire safety assessment and management.