Comparison Studies on the Evacuation Impacts of Exit Angle Based on Simulation Dynamics and Animal Experiment

In order to overcome the problem that lacking empirical evacuation data limited the thorough study of the social force model and explore the importance of exit angle under panic situations, a new method which combines dynamic simulation and animal experiment is proposed. In this method, empirical data are obtained from the simulation process based on the social force model and ant experiment using panic ants in chambers with five different exit angles. Through the combination and comparison of simulation and ant experiment, it is desired to know whether the social force model can well describe the crowds’ behavior under panic situations during evacuation and the influence of different exit angles on evacuation efficiency. The results show that the social force model is overall reasonable and suitable, for its description of the changing trend of evacuation time roughly coincides with that in ant experiment. However, it still has some limitations. For instance, it could not describe some specific features and phenomena found in ant experiment. Besides, the 180° exit, which is typical in the daily life, is not the best choice for evacuation under panic situations, while the 150° exit performs the best in simulation and ant experiment. The results suggest that the social force model needs further improvement to better explain some newfound phenomena and characteristics, and a 150° exit can be taken into consideration for the exit facility design in some large crowded places.