Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study used many methods, such as Pyrosim, Pathfinder, and logic analysis software, to simulate and analyze the evacuation of high-rise teaching buildings. Through simulation, ASET and RSET of buildings were compared, and various factors affecting the evacuation time of buildings were analyzed. Machine learning methods were used to study the impact of single and multiple factors on evacuation time, finally, the most sensitive factors for the evacuation time of the selected high-rise building were identified.

This paper introduces the recently well-established literature review to tell the   the need of the research and the method of used. Overall, the manuscript is complete and interesting. It is a well-done task, and it can be recommended to be published as of its form after updating some minor corrections or answer some questions as suggested below.

1.        Table 2 “ASET = RSET” represent almost safe is not suitable, as we all know ASET must have a certain margin. 

2.        There is some ambiguity in the expression of carbon monoxide concentration in Table 6.

3.        In line 458, it is said that SDW has the greatest impact on the total evacuation time, while the latter sentence also states that SDW has only 10.1% impact on the total evacuation time, which is smaller than the impact of SFW on the total evacuation time.

4.        I doubt the author's statement in line 471 that “cause the "faster is slower" phenomenon”, The effect that the flow could reduce if pedestrians push depends on the level of competitiveness but also on other important factors, like the width of the bottleneck, which is complicated.

Addressing these comments will further enhance the quality of the manuscript and its contributions.

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Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is about the application of the concept of ASET/RSET in optimal egress analysis for a high-rise teaching building using Pyrosim for the fire simulation and Pathfinder for the evacuation analysis. The fire safety acceptance criterion in Table 2 and the ASET value used in the analysis are in question. The claimed conclusions in Section 4 have nothing to do with ASET and the related fire simulation, which is one of the major presented parts of this paper.  

Major issues:

1.      The conclusions in Section 4 have nothing to do with fire, even though fire simulation was performed for the selection of ASET in this paper.

2.      In fire safety engineering, it is necessary to ensure that ASET is greater than RSET by an acceptable margin of safety. The acceptance criterion in the analysis by the authors is simplified as ASET>=RSET (See Table 2). An insight review of ASET/RSET including the parameters affecting ASET/RSET is necessary, e.g.,

[1] Purser and McAllister, Assessment of Hazards to Occupants from Smoke, Toxic Gases, and Heat, in SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, 2016.

3.      The ASET value of 388.6s (Line 292) is in question. This ASET value is based on the visibility (