A Study on Fire Evacuation Design of High-Rise General Hospital Buildings Using Pathfinder

Abstract

With the rapid development of modern society, hospital buildings are increasingly evolving into high-rise structures. Hospital buildings, characterized by intricate functional complexity and remarkably high occupant density, face multiple critical challenges during emergencies such as fires, including particularly difficult evacuation and relatively low rescue efficiency. This study systematically conducts a simulation analysis of emergency occupant evacuation using Pathfinder, with a case of a general hospital building in Shenyang. The results showed that: (1) The hospital population exhibited complex composition with significant variations in walking speeds, which leads to high evacuation uncertainty; (2) optimized functional zoning, nursing unit reorganization, and staircase configuration respectively improved evacuation efficiency by 22.53%, 7.35%, and 3.81%, significantly reducing total evacuation time and enhancing the building's emergency response capability. This study establishes a scientific foundation for optimizing evacuation design in high-rise hospital buildings, thereby strengthening emergency response preparedness of hospital buildings, while simultaneously providing significant reference value for evacuation studies in analogous building typologies.