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When an earthquake occurs, indoor objects oscillate and fall, creating a hazardous evacuation environment. However, physical effects of oscillating and falling indoor objects during earthquakes are often ignored in the existing crowd emergency evacuation simulation studies. As a result, existing models will produce predictions that differ from the outcomes of real events. Here we propose a physics-based simulation model for an indoor seismic event scenario, focusing on movable and flexible components. We predict the motion of movable components during earthquakes using simulations based on seismic data and physical laws. In doing this, we also simulate oscillations of flexible components using a driven harmonic oscillator model. The results showed that the simulated scenario had a high degee of physical realism and rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of emergencies continues to increase, technologies about crowd evacuation simulation in emergencies have attracted widespread attention. Virtual simulation technology can deduce the behavior of the crowd in emergencies and can be an intuitive tool for defining contingency plans. In emergencies, the crowd will be in a state of panic. The emotional contagion will easily lead to the crowd congestion and cause the accident. However, the influences of the emotional contagion are not well considered in the existing studies. This paper proposes a model of emotional contagion. It simulates the crowd evacuation behaviors in a fire scenario in supermarket to verify the influence of the emotional contagion. Experimental results show that emotional contagion may facilitate the spread of information among the crowd. Appropriate emotional contagion can speed up the evacuation of the crowd, but congestion may happen if the panic emotion spread too fast. This study can provide a new method to analyze crowd evacuation in emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]