BIO

I am a second year civil engineering student. I am originally from Bowie, Maryland. I have a passion for structural sustainability field.

Simulation-based Heavy Equipment Planning for Mass Rescue Operation

Abstract

The success of mass rescue operations, such as in the aftermath of a building collapse, requires effective use of limited resources to search for more people on time and expedite the debris removal process. However, the two major processes of rescue operation, debris removal and survival search, have different objectives (i.e., removal of debris and search for survivors, respectively) but share resources, such as excavators and trucks, thereby making resource planning for mass rescue operation challenging. We propose a novel approach to optimize heavy equipment planning for mass rescue operation through discrete event simulation (DES). Debris collection and survivor search operations are simulated as two distinctive processes that share excavators and trucks. One key challenge in developing a simulation model of rescue operation is the lack of productivity data for each process. To overcome this issue, we conduct small-scale experiments in which students operate 1:14 scale heavy equipment for debris removal and rescue operations, while their productivity for each operation is recorded. The measured productivity data from the small-scale experiments are used in the developed simulation model in order to identify bottleneck resources within these two processes. The use of equipment is planned in a way that address such resource bottlenecks and thus expedite the overall mass rescue operation. Our findings have important implications for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of rescue operations in the aftermath of a disaster.

Keywords: infrastructure, rescue, disaster