Extending IFC for Fire Emergency Real-Time Management Using Sensors and Occupant Information

EasyChair Preprint 5

Abstract

The increasing complexity of buildings has brought some difficulties for emergency response. When fires occur in a building, limited perception regarding the disaster area and occupants can increase the probability of injuries and damages. Thus, the availability of comprehensive and timely information may help understand the existing conditions and plan an efficient evacuation. For this purpose, Building Information Modeling (BIM) should be integrated with three sets of information: (1) occupancy that defines the type of space usage; (2) occupants’ information; and (3) sensory data. The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), as a standard of BIM, has the definitions for all areas, volumes, and elements of a building. IFC also has the basic definitions of sensor and occupant entities. However, these entities do not provide enough dynamic and accurate information for supporting emergency management systems. This paper aims to extend IFC for fire emergency real-time management using sensors and occupants’ information. The specific objectives of this paper are: (1) extending IfcSensor entity for occupant’s sensors; (2) adding new attributes to IfcOccupant to support emergency response operations and defining a new entity for occupancy; and (3) defining the relationships between sensors, occupants, occupancy, time series, and building components in the context of building evacuation. The feasibility of the proposed method is discussed using a case study.

Keyphrases: BIM, IFC, Occupancy, Occupant, fire, sensor, sensory data

@booklet{EasyChair:5,
  author    = {Roshanak Eftekharirad and Mazdak Nik-Bakht and Amin Hammad},
  title     = {Extending IFC for Fire Emergency Real-Time Management Using Sensors and Occupant Information},
  doi       = {10.29007/gpnx},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 5},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2018}}