Experimental study on effective width through openings using Kinect

Sammanfattning: The effective width model was introduced to show how the flow was linearly proportional to the effective width on stairwells accounting for the edge effect as well as lateral body sway. In this sense, small increments on the width of the stairwell were proven to increment the flow through it in a linear manner. This same principle is currently applied as part of the background for the hydraulic calculations for engineering evacuation such as the one developed by Nelson and Mowrer in the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering. Therefore, a fundamental part of this model is the use of effective width for each specific section of the evacuation route being analysed. Consequently, the SFPE handbook suggests values for the dimension of the boundary layer that should be used for each specific element. However, in the case of openings, such as doors and archways, there is limited experimental research on the effective width that can justify the values suggested by the SFPE handbook. Therefore, this project uses novel pedestrian tracking techniques using the Kinect v2 sensor as a tool to measure the dimensions of the boundary layer on three simple scenarios considering low-density flows. The results obtained from this project show how the values suggested by the SFPE are very close to the obtained values from experimental data collection considering low-density flows with reference density values between 0.38 to 0.56 occupants per square meter. These values are not entirely conservative in the case of low-density flows since this does not account of the possible impact of doors. Additionally, this experimental study showed how the dimensions of the boundary layer, considering low-density flows, are not static. These findings indicate that the boundary layer changes its dimensions depending on the width of the opening, as there is a dependence on the number of lanes that can be observed on openings of different sizes.