Escape rout calculation wrong

agroni

I was experimenting on the Escape rout in the checking rules. I was adapting our new office standard, when I stumbled upon some unfamiliar topics.

I have a three storey building. On the ground floor and 3rd floor I have defined a door with FireExit option (one is external and the other internal). See picture below:

The checking concluded that the escape route from the 1st floor exceeds the length, hence reporting and error. So if the 1st floor is not OK, why is the second floor not included in the results? It does not have any other doors on the way, except the one on the ground floor.
I assume that the path is going upstairs to the 3rd floor where a FireExit door is located. This is off course wrong.

I did not find any option to define the escape route only downwards…
Any tip what I might be doing wrong?

Here are also the settings for the checking:

Any advice?

agroni

Nobody is checking escape routes?

paola bronzo

Hi @agroni,
I agree with your observation: it would be useful there was the possibility to choose the escape route only downwards.
At the moment the rule would seem to calculates the shortest path between the door (or internal corner) of the space and the nearest fire exit door, so in your example the second floor is ok. Try to open the rule tools and see the calculation of the exit route of the second floor :

Perhaps the solution for your model would be to indicate only the external fire exit .

I add a small note : for a correct compilation of the rule I always insert vertical access :

I take this opportunity to say that it would be interesting if it was possible to insert a custom point of the room from which to start the calculation, in addition to door and corner.

agroni

I think that is the general rule when talking about fire safety = Inform the fire department, don’t panic and Always leave the building
Well, the first two are not important for Solibri, but the third requirement could be implemented

According to Austrian/German fire regulations, the escape route starts from a point in a room and should lead to a fire safety door (40m or 35m), which usually leads to a fire escape staircase. This in most cases is located at the same floor. Therefore this length should be calculated only to this element and not until the fire exit door, which is usually located on the ground floor.

With the point in the room you are totally correct. This can sometimes have impact by 0,5m and lead to an error. In addition I would like to have more flexibility to choose which rooms should be considered in the checking. Instead of working with Classification names, maybe it would be better to have the Name Property of a Zone. In thie scenario I could include/exclude certain Names for the checking…

paola bronzo

I agree with you regarding the possibility of working with Name Property of a Zone/Space and not necessarily with the Classification Name. This would make the rule customizable more quickly

I would add that in the Italian fire regulations it is also necessary to check the travel distance between two fire extinguishers in the same compartment: therefore it would be useful if this rule could also be applied to components that are not IfcSpace.

I really hope that the rule#179 will be improved or the topic of fire regulations will be considered with new specific rules.

agroni

I could also elaborate further into this topic

Doors
When checking if a door has the appropriate width for escape routes, it is the nett width of the door (distance from inner frame until the door leaf in 90°) instead of the total opening for that door. Checking the total opening is not very precise, since there are different door frames (thicker or wider) which would influence the results.

Area/Person (Fläche/Nutzer)
This makes sense more for office buildings where it is regulated how many workers can be located per m². This then influences all other factors such as door width.
But with residential buildings (in Austria and Germany) it is not the m² that decides on how many people are going to escape, but more the number of rooms. So a living room with 30m² will have a different number than an office with that area.

There are additional details that are country specific, but I don’t want to open pandoras box