Virtual Reality for Fire Safety Engineering

Abstract

The international fire safety framework defines the characteristics of an escape system that can communicate information to allow occupants to make the optimal decision to reach a safe place. Fire safety engineering is the subject that helps the designer to carry out analyses for the study of fire through the use of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) tools and escape modelling. The interaction between the escape system and the occupants is a factor that controls the effectiveness of the design solution. This factor is difficult to assess in the absence of specific tools. An analysis methodology based on numerical simulation models, aided by virtual reality tools, improves the interpretation of results. The authors set out to develop a method capable of exporting fire simulation in a virtual environment and visualising the results within a virtual reality environment. The methodology is able to improve the knowledge of the emergency dynamics within the fire scenario.