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Book Chapter

Fire Safety Engineering: The Computational Simulation of the Escape in a Historic Building in Bologna

  • Stefano Tagliatti
  • Marco Alvise Bragadin

In the field of Fire Safety Engineering (FSE), virtual reality has increasingly assumed an important role, especially for the simulation of fire and escape. The present work aims at comparing the potential of virtual simulations of the escape of occupants in case of emergency to simulations based on traditional calculations. Above all, the goal is to highlight the greater adherence to reality of the simulations that use behavioural models compared to those that use hydraulic models. Simulations are performed for the case study of a listed historic tower in Bologna city centre and calculate the Required Safe Escape Time (RSET) in various evacuation scenarios using the innovative Pathfinder® software which, in addition to using flow-based models, is "agent-based", as it manages the variables related to behavioural factors and can model complex escape scenarios faster than hand-made calculation. Case study results show that RSET times calculated with the behavioural steering mode in the virtual environment are 15-19% higher than the hydraulic mode (SFPE) and therefore demonstrate that the Steering mode is more realistic, as human behaviour significantly influences the evacuation process. Anyway, all the realistic simulations return safety margin times above 100% of the RSET as asked by national law, highlighting that it is possible to guarantee the safety of the occupants in a particular historical building using innovative Fire Safety Engineering (FSE) approaches, even if the prescriptive rules are not respected

  • Keywords:
  • FSE,
  • Virtual reality,
  • Emergency Escape,
  • ASET/RSET,
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Stefano Tagliatti

University of Bologna, Italy

Marco Alvise Bragadin

University of Bologna, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-8537-8103

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  11. Decreto del Ministero dell’Interno 18 ottobre 2019. Modifiche all'allegato 1 al decreto del Ministro dell'interno 3 agosto 2015, recante «Approvazione di norme tecniche di prevenzione incendi, ai sensi dell'articolo 15 del decreto legislativo 8 marzo 2006, n. 139» [ed. Nuovo Codice di Prevenzione Incendi] (2019, 31 October) (Italy) Supplemento ordinario n. 41 alla Gazzetta Ufficiale (256). Retrieved July 28, 2023, from https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/gu/2019/10/31/256/so/41/sg/pdf
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  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Pages: 1125-1136

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  • Publication Year: 2023

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Fire Safety Engineering: The Computational Simulation of the Escape in a Historic Building in Bologna

Authors

Stefano Tagliatti, Marco Alvise Bragadin

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0289-3.112

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY-NC 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

CONVR 2023 - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality

Book Subtitle

Managing the Digital Transformation of Construction Industry

Editors

Pietro Capone, Vito Getuli, Farzad Pour Rahimian, Nashwan Dawood, Alessandro Bruttini, Tommaso Sorbi

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY-NC 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0289-3

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0289-3

eISBN (xml)

979-12-215-0257-2

Series Title

Proceedings e report

Series ISSN

2704-601X

Series E-ISSN

2704-5846

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