Testing the International Standards Organization Verification and Validation protocol for evacuation simulations-An application to the FDS+Evac model

Sammanfattning: Nowadays, many evacuation models exist in the market, and new models are continuously released with new features. How to assess the usability and reliability of model results becomes an issue for both developers and users. Therefore, verification and validation (V&V) protocols were introduced in the assessment process of evacuation models. To conduct V&V of a model, a widely accepted test procedure should be defined and followed by the tester. However, there are no comprehensive and globally accepted V&V test procedures available to conduct V&V of evacuation models. Therefore, the International Standard Organization Verification and Validation Standard (ISO V&V Standard) (ISO, 2019) was proposed as a new benchmark of V&V for building evacuation models. This ISO document (ISO, 2019) includes carefully designed V&V tests based on accepted knowledge of human behaviour in fire and building features. Notably, a most comprehensive validation test procedure is provided with a list of recommended experimental data for the first time, along with methods to conduct the mode results evaluation. This thesis goes through the whole ISO V&V test procedure including a global validation test by applying it to a simulator named FDS+Evac (Korhonen, T., & Hostikka, 2009). The benefits of the application of the ISO test procedure in V&V were identified and discussed in comparison with existing test procedures. Based on the simulated results except test 26, the issues and challenges of FDS+Evac and current evacuation models were analysed and summarised. It should be noted that the ISO document referred in this thesis is undergoing modifications and is routinely updated by ISO; therefore, the thesis work can be used to provide possible suggestions for improvements to refine the ISO V&V Standard protocol.