Effectiveness of downward evacuation in a large-scale subway fire using Fire Dynamics Simulator

Effective evacuation routes in the case of a large-scale subway fire were studied. A serious problem in the subway fire is that the directions of smoke flow are coincident with those of evacuation toward the surface. Hence, it is necessary to design an evacuation route without interference from smoke. A disastrous fire broke out in the Jungangno subway station in Daegu, South Korea in 2003. Based on this case, the Jungangno subway station with three basement levels was used in Fire Dynamics Simulator model in this study. The influences of smoke, temperature, and toxic gases (carbon monoxide [CO] and carbon dioxide [CO2]) were computed at the evacuation staircases in the subway station with a fire source in the third basement floor (B3). The calculations showed that the evacuation staircases had high smoke density, temperature, and concentrations of CO and CO2 in the subway fire. Hence, these factors greatly affected all of the upward evacuation staircases due to the coincidence of the smoke flow and the evacuation routes. Therefore, our paper proposes a new subway station with a fourth basement floor (B4) having downward evacuation routes which are in the opposite direction to the smoke flow. The results of analysis show that these factors hardly affected the staircases from B3 to B4. We conclude that downward evacuation can be more effective than upward evacuation for a large-scale subway fire.

► We investigate the effectiveness of downward evacuation in a large-scale subway fire.
► Influences of smoke, temperature, and toxic gases are computed with FDS.
► Downward evacuation can be more effective than upward in a large-scale subway fire.
► We propose a new evacuation route in the subway station.
► The new route has the possibility of being utilized effectively by firefighters.