Occupant safety in vertical hurricane shelters.

Bibliography: p. 12-13

The concept of vertical shelters (i.e the use of multi-storey structures as hurricane shelters) has been proposed as a mitigative measure. Traditionally, the protection offered by a structure was evaluated on the basis of either the probability of failure of the structure or the extent to which the major load bearing elements satisified a particular building code. Fault tree analysis is utilised as an integrative technique to evaluate occupant safety from the perspective of the occupant. The method of fault tree construction and analysis is reviewed. Using results from the existing theory, a fault tree model of a typical vertical evacuation shelter is developed. The model is analysed to provide basic modes of failure and expressions for the probability of a fatality. Finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the methodology