Assessment of Narrow-Body Transport Airplane Evacuation by Numerical Simulation

Abstract

This paper presents the results obtained with a new agent-based computer model that can simulate the evacuation of narrow-body transport airplanes in the conditions prescribed by the airworthiness regulations for certification. The model, described in detail in a former paper, has been verified with real data of narrow-body certification demonstrations. Numerical simulations of around 20 narrow-body aircraft, representative of current designs in various market segments, show the capabilities of the model and provide relevant information on the relationship between cabin features and emergency evacuation. The longitudinal location of emergency exits seems to be even more important than their size or the overall margin with respect to the prescribed number and type of exits indicated by the airworthiness requirements.Nomenclature ETR = evacuation time ratio, T eva =90 N att = number of cabin attendants N flg = number of flight crew members N max = maximum number of seats according to number and type of exits in cabin N pax = number of passengers onboard N seat = number of seats in cabin Oxyz = reference system to locate all elements of cabin SCR = seating capacity ratio, N seat =N max T eva = evacuation time, t end t sta , s; also average evacuation time in a series of simulation runs T 95 = 95% confidence interval of evacuation time t end = time point when last occupant reaches ground or safe place t fee = time point when first exit is unoccupied t lea = time point when last exit is operative t sta = time origin of simulation run eva = standard deviation of evacuation time in series of simulation runs, s

Strengths and weaknesses of the emergency evacuation trial for transport airplane certification

“…Current computer models for evacuation simulation can accurately reproduce evacuation trials for airplane certification and are also capable of reconstructing accident scenarios with suitable matching of real conditions, as it has been shown for B767-300ER, 26 B737-300, 32 Cranfield University trials, 36 B737-800 accident, 39 and Airbus A320-100. 41 Besides these capabilities, evacuation computer models might also be helpful to cabin designers of both conventional and unconventional aircraft configurations.…”

Uncommon exit arrangement effects in airplane emergency evacuation

“…22 Cabin geometry is taken from manufacturers' information, such as airplane characteristics for airport planning or similar documents. The geometry submodel collects all appropriate data about seats, aisles, exits, deployable slides, etc., in a highly efficient manner 12,22 and is stored in the cabin database. For example, the numbers in Figure 1 indicate the various seat zones; i.e.…”

“…To analyse the effect of uncommon exit arrangements, the present research has chosen the Airbus A320 cabin for several reasons: Firstly, because it exhibits a commonly used layout (doors at both cabin ends and over-the-wing exits, as depicted in Figure 3), found in many aircraft such as all Airbus and Boeing narrow-body aircraft, Embraer 190, MD-90, Tupolev 134, etc; Secondly, because it was the cabin used to tune and validate the ETSIA model, all of whose details are well known and available; 27 and finally, because this cabin did not show any particular trouble in the thousands of simulation runs performed with it in all previous studies. 12,22 In the real emergency evacuation trial, to certify the A320-100, the cabin was occupied with 179 volunteers acting as passengers, plus six crew members. The crew members were real ones and had been trained for this particular cabin.…”

“…The certification trial took 81.4 s and occurred without particular troubles. ETSIA validation runs showed that this cabin could be evacuated in 77.8 s. 12 Both figures, 81.4 and 77.8 s, will be used for comparison with the new scenarios of shifted or suppressed exits.…”

Numerical investigation of the fatal 1985 Manchester Airport B737 fire

“…An early review of aircraft evacuation models (20) identified four models that could potentially be used for evacuation certification, of which airEXODUS (16,18,19,(21)(22)(23) is the only model still in common use and development. More recently, other agent-based aircraft evacuation models similar to airEXODUS have been developed (24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) . However, of these, airEXODUS is the most validated aircraft evacuation model (see, e.g., Ref.…”