8th November 2001
EVACUATION SOFTWARE WINS COMPUTER INDUSTRY ‘OSCAR’
The EXODUS suite of evacuation
software developed by the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) from the
"The judging panel was impressed by the overall quality of medal winners presented as candidates,” said Geoff McMullen President of the BCS and chairman of the judging panel. “However, in deciding how many awards to present, we found two candidates to be of outstanding merit,”
“The winners not only demonstrate technical innovation, but also show how technology can be used to benefit society at large,” added Judith Scott, Chief Executive of The BCS.
EXODUS has become the leading evacuation tool for the safety industry, enabling designers to test more designs in less time to reach the optimal solution, free of the high cost and potential danger associated with human evacuation trials. In many cases, the software can answer questions that cannot be addressed using conventional approaches. Versions of EXODUS have been tailored to the building, aircraft and maritime environments where it has been used on projects in 20 countries ranging from the Airbus-A380 to the Sydney Olympic Stadium. A rail version of the software is also under development.
EXODUS uses a set
of five core interacting sub-models (representing the Occupant, Movement,
Behaviour, Toxicity and Hazards) to produce realistic people-people, people-fire
and people-structure interactions.
The trajectory of all individuals is tracked as they make their way out
of the enclosure or are overcome by fire hazards such as heat and toxic gases.
In contrast to
previous approaches, which treated thinking humans as fluid flowing through
pipes ('hydraulic'), or mindless automata bouncing around the geometry
('ball-bearing'), EXODUS incorporates complex behavioural models with adaptive
capabilities. Individuals have knowledge of the structure, an ability to react
to communication, affiliative bonds such as family groups, individual motivation
and queue recommitment behaviour.
“We are honoured
to have won this award,” says Professor
Prof
Fire Safety Engineering Group
Fax:
+44 (0)20 8331 8925
30 Park Row
WWW: http://fseg.gre.ac.uk
FACTSHEET
There are three members to the EXODUS family of evacuation models and a fourth, railEXODUS is under development:
airEXODUS has
been used by aircraft manufacturers, AIRBUS, Boeing, BAe and dehavilland to
improve the safety performance of aircraft, ranging from regional jets to the
AIRBUS A380 SuperJumbo,.
buildingEXODUS is being used by design engineers and code enforcement
agencies in 20 countries to improve the evacuation performance of cinemas,
offices, sports stadia, stations, airports, hospitals, schools and prisons.
Notable applications include the
maritimeEXODUS has been developed in response to the resurgence in the cruise industry, where the current approach to assessing evacuation safety is inadequate for assessing the larger ships.
Prof
Fire Safety Engineering Group
Fax:
+44 (0)20 8331 8925
30 Park Row
WWW: http://fseg.gre.ac.uk