Distributed and interoperable simulation for comprehensive disaster response management in facilities

• Published in: Automation in construction 2018-09, Vol.93, p.12-21
• Main Authors: Choi, Minji, Starbuck, Richmond, Lee, Seulbi, Hwang, Sungjoo, Lee, SangHyun, Park, Moonseo, Lee, Hyun-Soo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer simulation; Damage assessment; Damage prediction; Data transmission; Disaster response; Disasters; Distributed processing; Distributed simulation; Earthquake damage; Emergency preparedness; Evacuation; High Level Architecture; Property damage; Response; Restoration; Simulation
• ISSN: 0926-5805; 1872-7891
• DOI: 10.1016/j.autcon.2018.05.007

Disaster-related simulations can be helpful for conducting various analysis on damage evaluations and response operations in damaged facilities. However, no single simulation can solve all the functional needs for complex disaster situations due to diverse disasters, damage types, and response efforts. To address these issues, the authors have developed a distributed simulation platform for a comprehensive analysis of facility damage and response operations, which can be flexibly applied to diverse disaster situations. The High Level Architecture is adopted to synchronize different federates such as simulation models and incoming data streams within an interoperable simulation environment. The developed simulation platform includes five different disaster-related federates such as the Fire Dynamics Simulator, USGS earthquake data feeds, OpenSees structure response simulation, evacuation simulation, and restoration simulation. The accuracy of interactions among different federates was confirmed with the case simulations of a facility fire evacuation and an earthquake restoration situation. The developed platform provides a flexible and interoperable distributed simulation environment for comprehensive disaster response management of unexpected disaster situations while promoting reusability and future extendibility of existing and newly-added disaster-related simulations. •A distributed simulation platform for facility damage/response analysis is developed.•The platform provides interoperability among different disaster-related simulators.•Simulators' interaction accuracy is confirmed using fire and earthquake situations.•The interacted simulation is flexible enough to analyze various disaster situations.•The platform can be extended for more comprehensive disaster-response management.