Analysis of Building Indoor Earthquake Evacuation Considering Collaborative Collapse and Debris Distributions of Suspended Ceilings and Masonry Infill Walls

Earthquake collapse behavior and fallen debris distributions of suspended ceilings and masonry infill walls of buildings have an important impact on indoor personnel evacuation during an earthquake; however, there is currently a lack of sufficient research in this area. To this end, this paper conducts the following systematic and in‐depth research. First, a shake table test on earthquake collapse of the suspended ceilings and masonry infill walls located in the corridor of an RC frame building is carried out, from which the collaborative collapse behavior and mechanism, collapse area ratio and fallen debris distributions of suspended ceilings and masonry infill walls of buildings are investigated and analyzed. Second, based on the shake table test results, a random simulation method is proposed for sampling the earthquake collapse processes and fallen debris distributions of the suspended ceilings and masonry infill walls. Finally, the formulas evaluating the impact of the earthquake collapse and fallen debris distributions of suspended ceilings and masonry infill walls on the indoor personnel movement velocity during an earthquake are established, which are introduced into the previously proposed building earthquake evacuation simulation model to develop a new random method for effectively simulating indoor personnel earthquake evacuation. An illustrative example of a real three‐story office building earthquake evacuation analysis is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the developed indoor personnel earthquake evacuation simulation method.