EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON EVACUATION FROM UNDERGROUND SPACE BY USING REAL SIZE MODELS

Many floods caused by heavy rainfalls and typhoons hit Japan in recent years, and some floods attacked fully urbanized areas. Tokyo, Nagoya and Fukuoka were inundated by urban floods, and some parts of flood water intruded into underground spaces. During the floods, underground shopping arcades and subway stations were inundated. The inundation in underground space is one of the problems to resolve urgently. One of effective measures to reduce the damage of flood disaster is quick evacuation from the underground spaces. In this paper, evacuation from underground spaces has been tested by using real scale models of staircases and doors. From the results, it is found that water depth of 0.3m on the ground is a critical depth for evacuation from underground space through staircases and 0.4m deep in front of the door is the limit to open the door.