Shinji Yagi and Yuji Hasemi

Abstract:
With the increasing possibility of large offshore earthquakes in Japan, the government is considering whether middle to high-rise structures could be used as temporary tsunami refuge buildings. This report presents a recent study on refuge-process modeling within such buildings and their utility seen through parametric analysis. Analysis showed a strong dependence of refuge effectiveness on the time when evacuation start and building occupancies. Design guidelines are proposed to improve evacuation performance for different types of occupancy.

Keywords: tsunami refuge buildings, tsunami depth, tsunami arrival time, evacuation period in a building, refugee number within a given time