Walking speed probability distribution in smoke-filled tunnel experiments

ABSTRACT

The nonurgent walking speed probability distribution in a dark, smoke-filled full-scale tunnel was investigated in this study for the clarification of the evacuation behavior for quantitative assessment of the tunnel fire safety. The walking speed data were evaluated for several smoke density levels defined as 0 (no smoke), I (0.01–0.5 m⁻¹), II (0.5–1.0 m⁻¹), and III (> 1.0 m⁻¹), and were commonly found to follow the gamma, normal, or lognormal distribution. The relationship between the walking speed and the extinction coefficient (smoke density) was also surveyed based on the statistical analysis. The average walking speed gradually decreased as the extinction coefficient increased to 2 m⁻¹.

KEYWORDS:

• Tunnel
• evacuation
• walking speed
• smoke

Acknowledgement

The authors are sincerely grateful to Mr. Yamashita M. (ex-graduate student of Kanazawa University) for the assistance he extended to the team for the experimental data. Further, the authors would like to thank the Fukui Prefectural Civil Engineering Office for the help in the use of the ex-Tonokuchi tunnel.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the JSPS KAKENHI [16H03122 and 20K15006]; Tateisi Science and Technology Foundation Research Grant A [2191017];Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan;