Experimental Study of an Airplane Accident Evacuation/Rescue Simulation Using Three-Dimensional Kinematic Digital Human Models

The 3D mass evacuation simulation of an airplane accident is experimentally verified. Evacuee motion has been experimentally investigated by building a test field that emulates the interior of an actual regional airliner with a capacity of approximately 100 passengers. The experiment results indicate that the evacuation time tends to be affected by the number of passengers and the evacuee guidance at the emergency exit. The results also indicate that any evacuation delay in exiting by individual passengers only slightly affects the total evacuation time because of evacuee congestion in the aisles. Moreover, the importance of evacuation guidance notification was investigated based on the evacuation-order variance. Finally, the experimental results were compared to the corresponding simulation results. Simulations using appropriate evacuee walking speeds can provide valid evacuation times, which are the most important factor in designing evacuation drills. Consequently, these results should be applied to existing 3D simulations using precise kinematic digital human (KDH) models for more accurate mass evacuation/rescue simulations.