Abstract
When a severe disaster such as a building collapse occurs, a first priority for rapid rescue is to find a location where people are highly expected to be buried but alive. It is, however, very difficult to correctly designate the location of such cavities by conventional geophysical survey due to a pile of debris of building members. In this study, location of possible lifeguard cavities were evaluated through a series of simulations of building collapse by explosion depending on the height of the building, a structure of basement floor and a location of explosion. Three types of building structure: five-story, ten-story and fifteen-story were prepared as a model for the simulation. As a results, in the case of low building, only basement floor partially collapsed. On the other hand, in the case of high building, a collapsed range on the inside of the building increased and lifeguard spaces were formed only in the lateral side or corner of the building. In addition, when a wall exists in the basement floor, the possibility that cavities could be formed increased compared to the cases without wall. However, for the fifteen-story building case, no possible lifeguard cavity was found. It is noted that for a high rise building, the height of building more affect forming of safeguard cavity than the structure of the basement floor.
