Risk Assessment for Critical Flood Height of Pedestrian Escape in Subway Station

Abstract

The escape of pedestrians in the subway station is hampered by floods created by heavy rain. In order to explore the critical flood level in a subway station so that pedestrians can escape safely, the case study of the Mingxiu Road subway station in Nanning, China, was conducted using numerical simulation techniques. In total, 30 groups of sample pedestrians with different walking speeds and numbers were randomly generated by the Monte Carlo method, and 3D simulation software was used for escape simulation. The simulated escape data were put into the SVM model, and the maximum pedestrian capacity and minimum speed of pedestrians were solved successfully with different conditions of the Mingxiu Road subway station. Then, a 1:1 contour model of the pedestrian was constructed to simulate the flood resistance of the pedestrian escaping at the minimum speed. The flood resistance and the friction force between the pedestrian and the ground were compared to calculate the critical escape flood level height, and the critical escape flood level height of an adult, child, and elder was 87.4 cm,75.5 cm, and 83.0 cm, respectively.