Knowledge representation, storage and retrieval for BIM supported building evacuation design

• Main Author: Boje, Calin Petrut
• Published: Cardiff University 2018
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.753557

Safe evacuation design is a complex process, which relies on crowd simulation models when assessing the performance of large or complicated building layouts. Current simulation methods and tools lack automation and are limited to geometry when relying on BIM interoperability. The use of semantic web linked data is seen as a step towards integrating and leveraging current digital resources to facilitate intelligent and automatic design capable of knowledge processing. An intelligent software system has been developed which is capable of integrating multiple information sources and which can facilitate fast automatic construction and analysis of crowd simulation models for design decision support. The system includes several developed OWL ontologies and SWRL rules which represent design knowledge from the fire evacuation field, thus being able to process and store data about a multi-disciplinary design field. The work conducted towards the development of the system involved investigation into crowd analysis tools, evacuation and digital building models. The ontology and knowledge operators are presented and discussed, providing insight into future exploration of such methods with the aim of outlining their benefits and limitations. The system and knowledge engineered have been tested using a case study, proving they are capable of fast processing and correct interpretation of model data.