1. Introduction
Emergencies can occur at any time. Emergency preparedness is important and necessary for aviation industry. Emergency evacuation from an aircraft is necessary for the safety of passengers. The more rapidly an evacuation is initiated and is efficiently conducted, the more likely the number of injuries and fatalities to occupants will be reduced.
According to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requirement, the Emergency Evacuation Provisions in Circular 55-AN150/2 required that all the passengers for which the airplane is certificated can evacuate within 90 s. Currently, the certification only conducted by aircraft manufacturers.
Aircraft evacuation drill must be conducted regularly. Normally, only the crew will annually practiced following the air operator’s procedure which is required by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) to ensure that the crew can correctly practice in an emergency situation. Majority of airlines do not practice with whole passengers in the aircraft seats because of a lot of constraints such as a security issue of the airport, the large and proper area in airside, risk of inexperienced occupants who might be injured, and spend a lot of money.
Hence, the aircraft evacuation simulation by the software can help efficiently evaluating the passenger evacuation in an abnormal situation. The software can reduce the time period and expenses. The Pathfinder software will be used for studying and analyzing the evacuation behavior of passenger in this study.
5. Conclusions
The evacuation from the aircraft is using all exit doors simulated in 4 formats. The result of the simulations indicated that the evacuation times were 50.9, 79.4, 50.6, and 58.6 s, respectively.
The analysis of the information from the Pathfinder software found that accumulation and congestion of the passenger have occurred at the aisle in the middle of the aircraft and that the area has a lot of passengers and the distance at the middle of aircraft is farthest from exit doors. The analysis concluded that the distance and number of passengers affect evacuation time.
Simulation in case that 1 left-side of exit door is unavailable that there are 1L, 2L, 3L and 4L unavailable door and simulated in format 1–4 is described as follows;
The most efficient format for the evacuation with exit door 1L unavailable was format 1 and 3, the evacuation times was 51.3 s. The second and third were format 4 and format 2, the evacuation times were 82.0 and 82.2 s, respectively.
The most efficient format for the evacuation with exit door 2L unavailable was format 1, next were format 2, format 3 and format 4, the evacuation times were 58.5, 81.0, 98.5 and 117.5 s, respectively.
The most efficient format for the evacuation with exit door 3L unavailable was format 1, next were format 4, format 2 and format 3, the evacuation times were 62.6, 76.1, 80.0 and 95.1 s, respectively.
The most efficient format for the evacuation with exit door 4L unavailable was format 1, next were format 3, format 4 and format 2, the evacuation times were 59.3, 85.2, 112.4 and 155.4 s, respectively.
The seats configurations or the layout inside the cabin are specific and cannot be changed. The seat row adjustment might decrease the evacuation time. The researcher has analyzed the accumulation and density of passengers in the cabin while evacuating in each second and try to adjust passengers to evacuate to exit doors which determined. Evacuation times can be decreased in 2 cases, the first case was door 1L unavailable, the evacuation time was 49.3 s, decreased 2 s. The second case was door 4L unavailable, the evacuation time was 59.0 s, decreased 0.3 s.
The simulation of these scenarios including all exit door available, 1 left-side door unavailable and adjusted format found that the majority of the most efficient format was format 1, the evacuation time of the other formats are slightly different. Then, it can be concluded that the best way to use for the aircraft evacuation is to evacuate freely.
According to aircraft accident statistic, the researcher additional simulated in case of 2 exit doors are unavailable that there are Door 3R, 3L Door 4R, 4L and Door 3L, 4L. The evacuation times were 86.5, 88.4, and 78.7 s, respectively.
Comparison of aircraft evacuation by using all exit doors and the exit door is unavailable found that 1 exit door is unavailable, effecting to increase of evacuation time. The 2 exit doors are unavailable, effecting to increase of evacuation times more than 1 exit door is unavailable.