Building Egress and Organization and Management of the Safety

Recommended Prerequisites

1^st cycle.

Teaching Methods

Teaching methods of theoretical lessons aim at the global learning of the course. These lessons are taught based on presentations and basic literature, using audiovisual means. Students are called to discuss the concepts, the key subjects and the ones of more complexity. At the end of each subject that constitute the curricular program of the course, a synthesis is made and some problems are proposed, both theoretical and practical, so that students can reflect on these subjects, mature concepts and do some practical exercises.

Learning Outcomes

The movement of people in emergency situations is an aspect of extreme importance in fire safety of buildings. Therefore a proper design of the evacuation routes is very important so that people can evacuate the building in an emergency situation.

Firefighters activities is also a type of interaction between people and the fires. These usually have to perform their activities in firefighting and searching for people in buildings, according to well defined rules and techniques.

Another objective of this course is to transmit a set of knowledge that allow a scientific approach in the field of organization and management of fire safety and the consequent development of emergency plans, both in regard to buildings or areas in which they are situated, focusing on aspects such as the emergency plan, exercises and drills, equipment maintenance, risk management, training of managers and users and evacuation plans and training of safety teams.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Introduction
2. Behavior of people in case of fire and other emergencies
3. Fundamental concepts about people’s movement
4. Descriptive models of people’s movement
5. Simulation models of evacuation of buildings
6. Legislation aspects on the design of spaces
7. Development and preparation of a safety plan
8. Self-protection measures for fire safety in buildings
9. Evacuation exercises
10. Training of safety teams
11. Safety Responsible and Safety Deputy
12. Safety Teams in Industry
13. Decision Support Models
14. Presentation of some integrated simulation models of development of fire and evacuation.

Head Lecturer(s)

João Paulo Correia Rodrigues

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Individual work: 40.0%
Exam: 60.0%

Bibliography

Bogart, A. F. Van.; Fire and Evacuation Times. E. Story-Scientia, Antuérpia, (1978).

NFPA; The SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering. National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, Massachusetts.

Canter, D.; Fires and Human Behavior.  Willey, London, (1980).

Coelho, A. L.; Modelação Matemática da Evacuação de Edifícios sujeitos à Acção Incêndio. Tese de Doutoramento, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, (1997).

Levin, B. M.; Human Behavior in Fire: What We Know Now?. Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Technology Report 84-3, Boston, (1984).

Pauls, J. L.; Effective – With Model for Crowd Evacuation Flow on Stairs.  Proceedings 6^th International Fire Protection Engineering Seminar, Karlsruhe, Germany, p. 295-306, (1982).

Pauls, J. L.; Evacuation and other fire safety measures in high-rise buildings. Ashrae Transactions, Vol. 81, Part 1, (1975), p. 528-534.

Levin, B. M.; Human Behaviour in Fire: What We Know Now?.  SFPE Technology Report 84-3 (1984).