Optimization Design Methods Of Evacuation Spaces For Kindergarten Buildings Analyzed Via Agent-Based Simulation

Since Chinese economy is experiencing a gradual acceleration from a manufacturingoriented to a knowledge-based and research-based pattern and the implementation of Chinese two-child policy,families with two children have become a common occurrence in China.As a result,the Chinese population of children that needs to be educated on this topic continues to increase.Because of the shortage of urban land,multi-storied instead of singlestoried kindergarten buildings are being constructed in China in recent years.Once an emergency occurs,coupled with the negative impact of fire,smoke and other harsh environments on the psychological of the children,the efficiency of evacuation is decreased.Considering the frequent occurrence of safety accidents,therefore,the safety of kindergarten buildings has become a common subject of concern in Chinese society.The aim of this study is to shed light on the effects of architectural design factors of evacuation space on children's evacuation process in kindergartens.Based on the Agentbased model theory,an evacuation model of children has been created.By using it to simulate the evacuation process to explore the quantify relationship between the architectural factors and evacuation efficiency of children.The findings were as follows.In terms of staircase:(1)When the stair flight width ranges from 0.7 to 1.0 m,an increase in this width can improve evacuation efficiency significantly;when the width ranges from 1.1 to 1.4 m,evacuation efficiency is improved continuously,but an increase in this width range has a diminishing effect on evacuation efficiency;when the width is greater than 1.7 m,a further increase has an adverse effect on evacuation efficiency,because such a staircase space allows overtaking behaviors.(2)Under the same stair flight width conditions,evacuation efficiency is higher when the staircase and corridor are perpendicular to each other than when they are parallel,because the natural steering angle of the children was preserved during their evacuation.(3)The cut corner and rounded corner designs between the staircase and corridor improved evacuation efficiency and alleviated the congestion at bottleneck positions;the evacuation efficiency continued to rise with an increase in the cutting angle.In terms of corridor: when the width ranges 1.5-2.5 m,Evacuation time of children did not change significantly.When the width is increased to 2.5-3.5 m,the evacuation efficiency is significantly improved.When the width is greater than 3.5m,it has a negative effect on the evacuation efficiency of children.In terms of the entrance/exit of kindergartens: when the width ranges from 1.0 to 2.0 m,the evacuation efficiency is significantly affected.when the width ranges from 2.0 m to 6.0 m,the evacuation efficiency is enhanced,but the effect between 3.0 and 6.0 m is not significant.When the exit width is exceeded to 6.0 m,a further increase has an adverse effect on evacuation efficiency.The result shows that blindly increasing the width of exit space could not improve the evacuation efficiency and leads to a decreasing effect.Overall,it will hopefully that understanding the effects of architectural design factors of evacuation spaces on children's evacuation process may create a more beneficial for the construction and design of kindergarten buildings in China.