An Experimental Study on Spatiotemporal Step Characteristics of Individuals Considering the Effect of Ship Heeling and Trim

Abstract

Ship listing and motion affects individual movement pattern on board, thus individual walking behavior would be significantly different from those on level ground. To quantify the correlation between individual walking speed and gait parameters of individuals on board, we designed a ship corridor simulator, where we performed both fast and freely walking experiments considering the effect of ship heeling and trim. Results indicated that both step length and step frequency are positively linearly associated with individual walking speed with different degrees, with one exception that individuals could adopt quick and tiny steps in a much lower walking speed with even larger step frequency to keep balance when the trim-up or trim-down angle exceeds 20°. However, there is no direct relationship that could be observed between step width and individual walking speed, despite that walking with wider steps might weaken individual stability and increase fall risk. Moreover, though individual experimental subjects tend to walk along the right side due to cultural factors, the walking routes are more likely to be close to the handrail arranged on the opposite side for safety purpose when the trim-down angle exceeds 20° even though some of them did not use the handrail actually. This work would be a primary consideration in the development of evacuation models and the design of evacuation facilities on board.