Validation of FDS+Evac for pedestrian simulations in wide bottlenecks

In this study, the reliability of FDS+Evac (Fire Dynamics Simulator - FDS 6.0.1, Evac 2.4.1) is investigated by a series of well-controlled laboratory experiments. FDS is a large-eddy simulation (LES) code for low-speed flows, with an emphasis on smoke and heat transport from fires. The parameters controlling the free speed and the anisotropy of social force between pedestrians are calibrated based on the experimental values. With the adjusted values of the parameters, FDS+Evac is able to reproduce the experimental process with respect to the flow through the bottleneck. However, other pedestrian characteristics in the simulations do not match with those in the experiments. This study shows that the validation of FDS+Evac should not only consider single pedestrian characteristics. More careful calibration of parameters and comprehensive analysis are necessary before FDS+Evac is used for security-related applications in general.