THE NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF AIRCRAFT EVACUATION AND ITS APPLICATION TO AIRCRAFT DESIGN AND CERTIFICATION

Computer based mathematical models describing the aircraft evacuation process have a vital role to play in the design and development of saf er aircraft, the implementation of safer and more rigorous certificati on criteria, in cabin crew training and post-mortem accident investiga tion. As the risk of personal injury and the costs involved in perform ing large-scale evacuation experiments for the next generation ultra h igh capacity aircraft (UHCA) are expected to be high, the development and use of these evacuation modelling tools may become essential if th ese aircraft are to prove a viable reality. This paper describes the c apabilities and limitations of the airEXODUS evacuation model and some attempts at validation, including its successful application to the p rediction of a recent certification trial, prior to the actual trial t aking place. Also described is a newly defined performance parameter k nown as OPS that can be used as a measure of evacuation trial optimali ty. In addition, sample evacuation simulations in the presence of fire atmospheres are described.