Modelagem de evacuação em situações de emergência e pânico em edificações comerciais, estudo de caso: shopping Edson Diniz em Campina Grande - PB

Abstract

The various fire events that have occurred over the years in Brazil and in the World have contributed to the development of increasingly stringent regulatory standards and whose main objective is to guide the construction of safe buildings that guarantee the physical integrity of their occupants and the assets there. In view of the importance of the theme, this work made an assessment of the potential risks of fire and panic in a public and commercial building in the city of Campina Grande - PB. The popular shopping mall Edson Diniz, object of study, in addition to being a place with a wide variety of potentially combustible materials (fabrics, papers, electronic materials, among others), presents a great daily movement of people, mainly on weekends and holidays. The research methodology was divided into two stages: diagnosis and modeling. In the diagnostic stage, the building's fire risks were surveyed based on data collected on the spot and through projects made available by IPSEM (Municipal Social Security Institute), the municipal agency responsible for administration, together with the Association of Merchants shopping, which brought discussions about the current situation of the establishment, analyzing irregularities and proposing security improvements for the same. In the modeling stage, simulations were performed for different population scenarios, using the Pathfinder software, in Steering evacuation mode, which depicts the abandonment dynamics taking into account human behavior in risk situations. Regarding the diagnosis, the results showed that despite the existing combat equipment, installed after a fire started in 2014, the building still presents several risk elements that need to be corrected mainly related to irregular widths of emergency stairs and corridors between stores, type of stairs, absence of emergency lighting, undersizing fire brigades and more effective monitoring of obstruction of combat equipment. The modeling results confirmed the inadequacy of the stair widths, showing, precisely at these points, the presence of congestion and bottlenecks during the simulated evacuation processes. Finally, it is concluded that an improvement should be made in relation to the building's physical facilities, aiming at increasing the security of tenants and customers; the more effective inspection of the fire brigade to comply with current legislation; and an awareness of traders in relation to the fulfillment of occupation conditions.