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Pedestrian Evacuation Modelled by a Conservation Law with a Two-inflection-point Flux Function

Lindell, Henrik LU (2019) In Master's Theses in Mathematical Sciences NUMM11 20191
Mathematics (Faculty of Engineering)
Abstract
When designing a building one must consider safety aspects. One such aspect is that in the case of an emergency people should be able to efficiently evacuate the building. In this paper we investigate how the width-profile of a corridor leading to an exit might affect the efficiency of evacuation. We model the dynamics of crowds using a continuum model, leading to a one-dimensional non-linear hyperbolic conservation law, a type of partial differential equation. The width-profile of the corridor is given by a two-parameter function, and we seek the best choice of these parameters.

In the first part of the Msc thesis we introduce the model, along with the theory needed to find exact solutions. In the second part we investigate how... (More)
When designing a building one must consider safety aspects. One such aspect is that in the case of an emergency people should be able to efficiently evacuate the building. In this paper we investigate how the width-profile of a corridor leading to an exit might affect the efficiency of evacuation. We model the dynamics of crowds using a continuum model, leading to a one-dimensional non-linear hyperbolic conservation law, a type of partial differential equation. The width-profile of the corridor is given by a two-parameter function, and we seek the best choice of these parameters.

In the first part of the Msc thesis we introduce the model, along with the theory needed to find exact solutions. In the second part we investigate how solutions behave near the boundary, and use this to find an exact solution when the width is constant. We then classify all stationary solution, when the width is non-constant. In the third part we investigate the conservation law numerically, using Godunov's method.

The numerical results suggest that the optimum choice of width-prole is to let the corridor have a convex profile with as large width in the entry to the corridor as possible. However, if one scales the density such that the maximum rate of people entering the corridor is constant, the variance is only temporary. The model also breaks down as the width at the entry increases, as one can no longer assume that people only move
in one direction. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Lindell, Henrik LU
supervisor
organization
course
NUMM11 20191
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Numerical analysis, Applied mathematics, Hyperbolic conservation laws, Finite volume methods, Partial differential equations, Pedestrian dynamics, Modeling
publication/series
Master's Theses in Mathematical Sciences
report number
LUNFNA-3027-2019
ISSN
1404-6342
other publication id
2019:E14
language
English
id
8974950
date added to LUP
2019-07-15 10:54:21
date last changed
2019-07-15 10:54:21
@misc{8974950,
  abstract     = {{When designing a building one must consider safety aspects. One such aspect is that in the case of an emergency people should be able to efficiently evacuate the building. In this paper we investigate how the width-profile of a corridor leading to an exit might affect the efficiency of evacuation. We model the dynamics of crowds using a continuum model, leading to a one-dimensional non-linear hyperbolic conservation law, a type of partial differential equation. The width-profile of the corridor is given by a two-parameter function, and we seek the best choice of these parameters.

In the first part of the Msc thesis we introduce the model, along with the theory needed to find exact solutions. In the second part we investigate how solutions behave near the boundary, and use this to find an exact solution when the width is constant. We then classify all stationary solution, when the width is non-constant. In the third part we investigate the conservation law numerically, using Godunov's method.

The numerical results suggest that the optimum choice of width-prole is to let the corridor have a convex profile with as large width in the entry to the corridor as possible. However, if one scales the density such that the maximum rate of people entering the corridor is constant, the variance is only temporary. The model also breaks down as the width at the entry increases, as one can no longer assume that people only move
in one direction.}},
  author       = {{Lindell, Henrik}},
  issn         = {{1404-6342}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{Master's Theses in Mathematical Sciences}},
  title        = {{Pedestrian Evacuation Modelled by a Conservation Law with a Two-inflection-point Flux Function}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}