Lect. Dr. Ing. Ion ANGHEL

Evacuation of people from building on fire

Fires are tragic events that lead to loss of many lives. This particular fact together with the customs in the last dozens of years to build more non-conformist buildings (from the point of view of dimensions, shape and structure) has led to the need of adapting and improving optics on rules to the followed in regard to fire safety of people and buildings. People have the opportunity and, one can even say, the freedom to learn from the past and their own mistakes. Lessons of the past are, in fact, serious fires that have conducted to changes in the fire safety codes. Learning from the past lessons imposes an evolution from prescriptive codes to performance-based codes. For example, for people who are evacuating due to a fire, a prescriptive code assumes that all people will evacuate equally throughout all exits while a performance-based code (fire safety engineering) takes into account the complexity of the issue meaning that it will take into account that people have a tendency to use for evacuation the space they have entered into the building no matter the position of the other evacuation means.

This particular presentation will briefly address the following aspects:
• examples of devastating fires that have changed fire safety codes;
• objectives of people evacuation in case of fire;
• performance criteria (tolerance) on life safety;
• people evacuation in case of fire – from design to exploitation;
• modelling and simulation of people evacuation from building in case of fire.

Modelling and simulation people evacuation from buildings is the answer to design evacuation means and fire safety management throughout the whole life expectancy of a building in order to maintain a high level of fire safety. Through the use of simulation it will be ensured a better understanding of interactions between the building itself (including the interior design), installations, people and the eventual fire.

Anghel Ion is a graduate engineer in “Installation for construction – fire-fighters” specialization (year 2004) from the Fire Officer Faculty, the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Police Academy in Bucharest. The speaker has also a Masters Degree (since 2006) and a Doctorate Degree (since 2009) in the field of fire modelling and simulation. In the present, he is Lecturer at the Fire Officer Faculty, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Police Academy in Bucharest.

Fields of competence: • Combustion theory, methods and substances for extinguishing fires; • Building behaviour and fire protection in construction; • People evacuation from buildings in emergency situations; • Applying fire safety engineering in construction design; • Modelling and simulation of fire and people evacuation.

Research projects correlated with the conference theme:
• Project no. PS 4.1.3, Internal Affairs Ministry (2012), Multifunctional stand for research in the field of fire safety engineering (Project Monitor)
• Project type BD, code CNCSIS 55 (2006): Contributions on modelling, simulation and numerical analysis of fires (Project Manager)
Published books correlated with the conference theme:
• I. Anghel – Fire Safety Engineering. General Principles, Printech Publishing, Bucharest, 2015.
• I. Anghel, C. Popa – Fire Safety Engineering. Sub-system no. 6 – Evacuation process: behaviour, localization and physical state of users, Sitech Publishing, Craiova, 2015.
Affiliation to professional associations:
• Fire Safety Association – F.S.A. (Managing Counsel).
• Romanian Association of Fire Safety Engineers – R.A.F.S.E.
• Society of Electrical Installations and Automation in Romania – S.E.I.A.R.
• Romanian Society of Thermal-technicians – R.S.R.