Improving competitive evacuations with a vestibule structure designed from panel-like obstacles in the framework of the Social Force Model

I. STICCO; G. FRANK.; AND C.O.DORSO

SAFETY SCIENCE

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2022 vol. 146 p. 105544 - 105556

0925-7535

It has been shown that placing an obstacle in front of an exit door has proven to be a successful methodto improve pedestrian evacuations. In this work, we will focus on the space limited by the exit and theobstacles (i.e. the vestibule structure). We performed numerical simulations to analyze two different types ofvestibules: the two-entry vestibule (which consists of a single panel-like obstacle) and the three-entry vestibule(which consists of two panel-like obstacles). In the former, we studied the effects of varying the walls’ frictioncoefficient κ w and the distance from the obstacle to the exit door d. In the latter, we varied the space betweenthe two panels (gap). We found that the three above mentioned parameters control the vestibule’s density,which subsequently affects the evacuation flow (fundamental diagram). We have also found that reducingthe distance d or increasing the friction facilitates the formation of blocking clusters at the vestibule entries,and hence, diminishes the density. If the density is too large or too low, the evacuation flow is suboptimal,whereas if the density is around 2 p/m 2 , the flow is maximized. Our most important result is that the density(and therefore the evacuation flow) can be precisely controlled by κ w , d, and the gap. Moreover, the three-entryvestibule produced the highest evacuation flow for specific configurations of the gap and the distance fromthe panels to the door.