Anne Dederichs

Multidisciplinary Teaching: Engineering Course in Advanced Building Design

Collaboration within the building process is difficult. This calls for employees who are experienced in collaborating in interdisciplinary teams. To fulfill this demand, a multidisciplinary course in “advanced building design” was developed at the Technical University of Denmark. The goal of the course is training of transprofessionalism and teamwork at the final stage of an engineering education. The collaboration of the students and professors participating in the course was studied in the present work. Questionnaires were answered by students and professors. The study has the following finding. The students and professors gained the experience that collaboration may be improved. The traditional role distribution may be disbanded and generally a flat team structure, where decisions are taken in consensus, can be induced. Transprofessionalism during the course was appreciated and, furthermore, it was experienced as a challenge. It is worthwhile to offer a multidisciplinary course and give engineering stu...

Evacuation Dynamics of Children – Walking Speeds, Flows Through Doors in Daycare Centers

The purpose of this study is to deliver new data and to bring attention to the subject of evacuation of children. Evacuation characteristics such as flow, densities and walking speeds are in focus. Current literature on evacuation is based mostly on studies on adults. Ten Danish daycare centers participated in full scale evacuation experiments where two age groups 0-2 years and 3-6 years were analyzed separately. The overall findings were as follows. Flow through doors, walking speeds and densities were age-dependent and differed strongly from the data in existing literature. The results showed higher walking speeds in spiral stairs when the children were familiar with the evacuation path. Higher person densities and faster flow through doors were obtained among the children than found in the current literature on adults. Children in the younger age group were generally slower than the older children. The children walked slower in horizontal plane than adults, however they were keen to run during the evacuations, in the latter case their travel speed increased and exceeded the adults’. Since the evacuation characteristics of children differ in many ways from those of adults, nowadays models badly comprehend the evacuation behavior children.

A Step towards Including Children´s Evacuation Parameters and Behavior in Fire Safe Building Design

An important part the world’s population is neglected in today’s fire safety design – children. The vast amounts of data as well as the empirical models applied describe adults. This paper embraces the fact that there is a difference between children and adults, regarding evacuation and that children’s movement parameters are age dependent. On the basis of 16 full-scale evacuation experiments made in 10 Danish daycare centers the present paper gives input data applicable in fire safety design on flow through doors, walking speed in horizontal plane and spiral stairs. Parameters distinguish small children in the age of 0–2 years from older ones in the age 3–6 years. An empirical model of children s flow through doors is introduced. The effect of using alarm/warning system on pre-evacuation time is briefly discussed. Behavioral aspects are also considered where possible. It is found that there is a higher need of physical assistance during evacuation for children in the age of 0–2 years, than for children aged 3–6. Children aged 3–6 years are keen to run during evacuations. Furthermore it was observed that children are used to following rules and routines which they continue doing during the evacuation. At last the effect of affiliation during the evacuation was seen among the children.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEACHING - MSc COURSE ON TEAMWORK AND OPARATION

Industrialization and technical development led to a split of the traditional role of the master builder into two: the architect and the engineer. Additionally, new demands on functionality such as energy and cost efficiency led to an increasing need of functioning collaboration in large teams during the design phase; as well as a need of new work methods within the process. This calls for employees who are experienced in collaborating in interdisciplinary teams. To fulfill this demand a multidisciplinary course in “Advanced building design” has been developed at the Technical University of Denmark. The goal of the course is to provide training in teamwork at the final stage of the engineering education. The course has been carried out twice. It was held by a multidisciplinary team of professors in periods 2008/09, 2009/10 and 20010/2011. Teams of students were subject of a questionnaire investigation on collaboration and team work. The study has the following findings. The latest year there has been a special focus on team work and all members tested their role according to Belbin’s theory on teamwork. The work has the following findings: Collaboration was generally good. However the extra focus on teamwork did not lead to a improvement of the team work in contrary. The team-structure was generally flat and decisions were mostly made in consensus. It is worthwhile to offer a multidisciplinary course and give engineering students experience in collaboration methods.

Nonlinear effects in examples of crowd evacuation scenarios

Severe accidents with many fatalities have occurred when too many pedestrians had to maneuver in too tight surroundings, as during evacuations of mass events. This demonstrates the importance of a better general understanding of pedestrians and emergent complex behavior in crowds. To this end, we develop both a new microscopic agent-based pedestrian model and also study simplified evacuation scenarios which permit the isolation of relevant nonlinear effects and their systematic investigation. We concentrate on two effects: First, the influence of the position and size of an obstacle in front of an emergency exit on the flux through the exit, and second, the influence of other pedestrians on the route choice of an individual. The first investigation demonstrates the possibility of improving substantially the flow through an exit by placing an obstacle in a suitable way in front of it. The latter shows clearly bistable states and hysteresis effects, indicating the existence of unstable pedestrian flow states in addition to the stable states. Furthermore, this set-up is an example of a radical change of the pedestrian flux by only a small change in the geometry of the evacuation scenario. The results motivate further investigation and eventually engineering use by optimizing the design of large buildings, stations, airports and stadiums for mass events.

Multidisciplinary Teaching - Changing Collaboration during Building Design

Traditionally the design phase was carried out by one single person – the master builder. Industrialization and technical development led to a split of the role of the design master into two: the architect and the engineer. Today, demands on functionality such as energy and cost efficiency led to an increasing need of functioning collaboration in large teams during the design phase; as well as a need of new work methods within the process. This calls for employees who are experienced in collaborating in interdisciplinary teams. To fulfill this demand a multidisciplinary course in “Advanced building design” has been developed at the Technical University of Denmark. The goal of the course is to provide training in teamwork at the final stage of the engineering education. The course has been carried out twice. It was held by a multidisciplinary team of professors in periods 2008/09 and 2009/10. The team of professors and the student teams had similar working conditions. These teams were subject of a questionnaire investigation on collaboration and team work. The study has the following findings. Collaboration can be learned and improves in time. It is shown that the team leader is not necessarily to be found within on specific profession. The team-structure was generally flat and decisions were mostly made in consensus. It is worthwhile to offer a multidisciplinary course and give engineering students experience in collaboration methods.