SMOKE SEALING SYSTEM

Abstract: A smoke sealing system for use with sliding type doors particularly lift landing doors and fire doors. Utilizes a continuous brush assembly (4) supported in a socket assembly (7). May also incorporate a shield (10) to prevent large foreign particles from damaging seal.

Description: "SMOKE SEALING SYSTEM" This invention relates to smoke sealing systems and more particularly to smoke sealing systems applicable to sliding type doors. 5. In my earlier Patent Australian Patent No. 507866 I have disclosed a smoke sealing system useful for hinged doors but with sliding type doors such a sealing system is not a useful and practical method as the compression needed to provide suitable sealing would 10. cause too much drag on a sliding door and if the compressi was removed to allow for sliding then inefficient sealing would result. It is most important and particularly important in tall buildings that smoke free areas be defined 15. in these buildings in time of fire to allow occupants of the building to escape. There are usually provided fire doors in buildings which are of a sliding type and hence the smoke sealing system as discussed in this present invention are useful for such doors. 20. It is generally found that in the event of fire lift wells can provide very good chimneys and it is advantageous to have a smoke sealing system around landing doors for lifts so that smoke in the lift well will not pass into the lift landing area which is often 25. associated with stairs which are used as an emergency exit in times of fire. I Alternatively in some situations such as hospitals there may be a necessity to use lifts to transport patients to suitable escape routes when for instance 30. patients are stretcher bound and it is possible then that these lifts may have to pass smoke filled floors and it is therefore important that the lift shaft be smoke free. Also in high rise buildings it would be advantageous 5. if firemen could use the lifts for quick access to upper floors in time of fire and also that the lifts can be used for the evacuation of disabled people. In either of the above cases some method to prevent or hinder ingress of smoke from a smoke filled area into a 10. smoke free area is desirable. There have been proposed various systems for putting a slight positive pressure into either a lift shaft or a stair well if one of these is desired to be smoke free- This positive pressure. ill bleed from the smoke 15. free area into the smoke filled area and prevent the passage of smoke in the reverse direction. This does however, rely on the availability of power to drive fans and the like to provide this positive pressure but in times of emergency such as in fire or earthquake when 20. fires have started power may not be available or may be intermittent and hence this system cannot be relied upon entirely. A static smoke sealing system rather than a dynamic smoke repulsion system would therefore be preferable in such situations. 25. Lift doors may operate up to 50,000 openings per year and hence any smoke sealing system for use with sliding lift doors must remain efficient over many operations yet at the same time not cause wear or other damage to the door or be worn away to such an extent that 30. it is not an efficient smoke seal any longer. Smoke has been found to cause a pressure of 32 to 36 pascals and hence a suitable smoke sealing system must withstand a pressure differential of this order and preferebly up to 50 pascals to allow for a safety 5. factor. The term smoke in this specification is generally used to signify air which is laden with particles of carbon and ash but also including ' carbon monoxide and perhaps other toxic gases. The term is therefore used to 10. signify an undesirable medium which could provide health and other problems to those who inhale it. It is an object therefore of this invention to devise a smoke sealing system for lift landing doors, fire doors and other types of sliding doors in which 15. the sealing system will not cause excess drag on the sliding door yet provide a good smoke seal. As indicated above the sealing system of my earlier Patent utilized a solid compressible seal but this may not be used for situations where sliding contact occurs 20. and I have surprisingly found an effective sealing system is advantageously found by providing a plurality of tightly packed bristles to provide a dense medium through which smoke laden air will not pass but at the same time the individual bristles will not provide drag 25. on sliding contact. The invention is therefore said to reside in an arrangement for effecting restriction of the passage of smoke laden air through a doorway where the doorway includes a sliding door arranged to effect a substantial 30. closure of the doorway characterised in that there are a plurality of bristles held in common parallel alignment held so as to project from a first support JtTSH OM?I face to an extent to interact with a corresponding positioned opposite face where at least one of the faces is or is supported by the door and the other face is or is supported by means defining the doorway, 5. the bristles being held in sufficiently close alignment an collectively being of such a thickness across a narrowest width to provide for restriction of the passage of smoke laden air therepast. It will be realised that for this, that the doorway 10. and closure of the doorway may be a fire exit door, lift landing door or similar sliding door. The invention may be further said to reside in a smoke sealing system of a type to seal between an aperture and a closure member for the aperture the 15. closure member being of a sliding type where the sealing system includes a continuous brush means. There may be further provided a rigid shield means mounted adjacent to the brush means whereby to prevent large pieces of foreign material from being drawn into 20. the clearance gap between the closure member and the periphery of the aperture. In some cases the brush means may be affixed to the periphery of the aperture and then brush against the closure member or door, and in alternative cases the 25. brush may be fastened to the door or closure member and to brush against the periphery of the aperture. The actual arrangement will in practise depend upon the construction of the sliding door and some examples of these will be given with the specific embodiments of the invention. The brush means may include a brush assembly received in and supported by a socket assembly and it is the socket assembly that may be mounted onto the periphery of the aperture or onto the closure member. The shield 5. means may form part of the socket assembly be screw fitted onto the socket assembly or mounted thereon by means of resilient clips. The bristle or material of the brush may be selected from materials including nylon, polypropylene fibres, pig 10. bristle and polyethylene fibres. For a fire door system the brushes may be placed on the door frames to bear against the stiles of the door for the vertical sides of the apertures and to the head of the aperture to seal against the top of 15. the door and on the bottom the brush sealing strip may be affixed to the door itself so that as the door shuts the brush system brushes along the floor and provides a good seal once the door is shut. For lift landing doors there are three main types 20. of lift doors. These are double opening doors with the leaves moving in one direction each, a double opening door with one door opening in front of the other and with one of the doors travelling at twice the speed of the other, and thirdly a single opening door, opening 25. to one side only. Each of these may use the sealing system as described in this invention but it will be realised that the sealing system for the double opening doors with both leaves moving in the same direction will have to be slightly different as a further seal 30. is required between the two sliding leaves. With lift landing doors the problems are somewhat more difficult because of the number of operations that lift landing doors have and hence the more likelihood of foreign matter being drawn into the sealing strips. Once again however it has been found advantageous to place the sealing strips for the sides of the door on the door 5. frames to bear against the door stile and the sealing stri for the top part of the door to be fixed to the head of th doorway aperture. Fitting of the sealing strip on the base of the" door is more of a problem however because it cannot 10. be placed on the floor in front of the door as it will be damaged by persons passing over the landing into the lift, and out of the lift, and hence it has been found practical to place the sealing strip on the face of the door opposite to the lift landing to run along 15. the edge of the step into the lift and also it Is advantageous to continue the sealing strip around the rear ends of the door so that a complete seal is made. It may be advantageous to make the positioning of the sealing strips variable by providing slotted 20. screw holes in their mounting means so that if wear does occur over a number of years then the strip may be moved slightly forward to provide effective continuous sealing. As indicated earlier with seal strips of lift 25. doors there could be a problem with foreign matter being drawn into the brush seal and damaging the seal but It will be realised of course that being a brush the damage would be less than would occur if a solid seal had some foreign matter drawn across its surface. 30. To prevent as much damage as possible therefore there is proposed a shield arrangement which provides a small clearance but will prevent the ingress of a lot of foreign matter. The shield arrangement would also have the advantage that the brushes would be shielded from inquisitine finger and hence be tamper proof. It will be realised of course that the- systems 5. proposed in this invention are for use with smoke sealing systems rather than for flame sealing systems, and hence the materials of construction of the brush seals does not necessarily have to be one which will withstand flame temperature but merely must withstand smoke 10. temperatures. To more clearly define the invention however referenc will be made to several preferred embodiments as depicted in the illustrations in which:- Fig. 1 shows one embodiment of a seal and shield 15. arrangement. Fig. 2 show a further embodiment of seal and shield. Fig. 3 shows a double opening lift door with brushes positioned but no shields positioned. Figs. 4a and 4b show the arrangement necessary 20. for one form of double opening lift door. Figs. 5a and 5b show a seal arrangement for a single opening lift door; and Figs. 6a and 6b show an arrangement for a further form of double opening doors. 25. Now looking closely to the drawings and referring specifically to Fig. 1 the smoke sealing system generally shown as 1 is affixed between a fixed door frame member 2 and a sliding door 3. The smoke seal assembly 1 comprises an elongate 30. brush 4 shown here in cross-section which comprises a plurality of bristles supported in a metal clamp member 5. The metal clamp member 5 is received in a socket 6 in a support bracket 7. The support bracket 7 is affixed to the door frame member 2 by means of a screw 8. The screw 8 may be a socket head or countersunk head screw or other form of screw to prevent vandalism. 5. The aperture 9 in the socket assembly 7 may be elongate in a direction transverse to its length so that the brush may be moved in or out to adjust to ensure that the bristles are firmly in sealing engagement with the door 3. 10. Also included is a shield arrangement 10 in this embodiment fastened by means of the same screw 8 and which may also be variably positioned to ensure that only a small gap 11 exists between the shield 10 and the dooir 3 so that as the door slides, foreign matter will 15. not be carried, or at least a minimum amount of foreign matter will be carried into the bristles 4. It will be realised that the length of the bristles should be selected so that an efficent seal can be . obtained without the bristles bending over too far 20. and of course will depend upon the nominal spacing between the door and the door frame. There may be provided several sizes of the shield and several lengths of bristles so that a complete range of spacings can be obtained allowing for use of the adjustment slot 9. 25. An alternative embodiment is shown in Fig. 2 and in this figure the similar components have the same numbering as in Fig. 1. In this embodiment concealed fitting is used by providing a cover strip 12 which conceals the screw 30. 13 supporting the socket assembly onto the door frame member 2. In this embodiment adjustment of the bristle pressure against the door 3 is obtained by means of varying the position of the socket assembly 7 on the door frame member 2 by means of the slotted hole 14 through which 5. the screw 13 passes. Fig. 3 shows a typical arrangement of a lift landing door in' which a double door is used and in which both doors travel to the left in this illustration. The lift landing 20 has two doors 21 and 22 which 10. between them cover the entire opening of the .lift when the doors are shut. Brush sealing strips are provided completely around the frame of the door but in this embodiment they are not covered by the shield to more clearly show the brushes. It will be noted that brushes 15. are mounted completely around the two sides of the door frame and at the head of the door frame and that a further brush 23 is monted on door 21 to brush against door 22. Upon opening and closing the door 22 travels at twice the rate of the door 21 and hence a sealing 20. brush is needed between them to seal upon the final closure. Brushes are not drawn along the base of the doors as these are placed behind the doors mounted onto the doors and brushing onto the step area 24. Figs. 4a and 4b depict the sealing arrangement 25. for the most common lift door arrangement that with two doors travelling in opposite directions. Vertical, continuous brushes 30 are mounted on respective door frames 31 and 32 to brush against the door halves 33 and 34. Some form of resilient seal generally shown 30. at 35 may be used where the doors meet as there would be no sliding contact there. At the head of the door frame 36 a brush 37 brushes against the top of the sliding door 33 before and at the base a further brush OMP 38 mounted onto the sliding door 33 brushes against the door step 39. There may be also provided a brush at the ends 40 at the bottom of the door to provide a complete seal. 5. Fig. 5a shows an embodiment of lift landing doors in which, there is a single door travelling to the right to open. In this embodiment vertical continuous brushes 42 are mounted onto the respective door frame members 10. 43 and 44 to brush against the door 45 as It moves and to ensure a complete smoke seal as it stops in the closed position. A further continuous brush assembly 46 mounted on the head of the door 47 ensures a good seal between the top of the door and the head of the 15. door frame. Another^ brush assembly 48 brushes against the door landing step 49. Once again brush assemblies may be further provided mounted on the bottom edge of- the door to brush against the step. Figs. 6a and 6b show the arrangement with two 20. doors travelling in the same direction and in this embodiment brushes 50 are mounted on respective door frames 51 and 52 to brush against the doors 53 and 54 respectively. A further vertical brush assembly 55 is mounted onto the door 54 and brushes against 25. the door 53. At the head of the door 56 a first brush assembly 57 brushes against the door 54 and a second brush assembly 58 only partly seen is mounted on an extension to the door frame head 56 to brush against the door 53. At the 30. base of the door brushes 59 and 60 brush against the step of the lift landing 61. It will be realised that the important feature of this invention is that sufficient bulk thickness of bristles are provided to provide a sufficient deterrent to the passage of smoke and perhaps rather surprisingly 5. it has been found that a thickness of bristles of approxi¬ mately \ to 2 millimeters when compressed and expanding out at their non-clamped end to approximately 4 or 5 millimeters is sufficient to prevent transmission of smoke. The length of bristles may depend of course 10. upon the actual assembly but satisfactory results have been obtained by use of bristle lengths ranging from 12 millimeters to 25 millimeters. The invention is not limited to bristle assemblies of these dimensions but these are given for illustration 15. purposes only. It may be feasible and desirable in some circumstance to provide a double brush seal, that is two brushes brushing against the door for instance with some air gap between them. This may allow the use of thinner individua 20. brush sections thereby reducing further the minimal provided by a single brush assembly.

Claims: THE CLAIMS DEFINING THE INVENTION ARE AS FOLLOWS:- 1. An arrangement for effecting restriction of the passage of smoke laden air through a doorway where the doorway includes a sliding door arranged to effect substantial closure of the doorway, 5. characterised in that there are a plurality of bristles held in common parallel alignment and held so as to project from a first support face to an extent to interact with a correspondingly positioned opposite face where at least one of the faces is or is supported 10. by the door and the other face is or is supported by means defining the doorway, the bristles being held in sufficiently close alignment and collectively being of such a thickness across a narrowest width to provide for restriction of the passage of smoke 15. laden -air therepast. 2. A smoke sealing system of a type to seal between an- aperture and a closure member for the aperture, the closure member being of a sliding type wherein the sealing system includes a continuous brush means. 3. A smoke sealing system as in claim 2, further including a rigid shield means mounted adjacent the brush means, whereby to prevent large pieces of foreign material from being drawn into the clearance 5. gap between* the closure member and the periphery of the aperture. 4. A smoke sealing system as in claim 2 or claim 3, wherein the brush means is affixed to the periphery of the aperture and abuts the closure member. 5. A. smoke sealing system as in claim 2 or claim 3, wherein the brush means is affixed to the closure member and abuts the periphery of the aperture. 6. A smoke sealing system as in any one of claims 2 to 5 in which the brush means includes a brush assembly and received in and supported by a socket assembly. 6. A smoke sealing system as in claim 6, in which the shield means forms part of the socket assembly. 7. A smoke sealing system as in claim 6, in which the shield means is separate from the socket assembly but mounted thereon by. resilient clip means. 8. An arrangement as in claim 1, wherein the bristles are comprised of material selected from a group comprising nylon; polypropylene; pig bristle .and polyethylene. 9. A smoke sealing system as in any one of claims 2 to 7, wherein the brush is composed of fibres selected from a goup comprising nylon; polypropylene; pig bristle and polyethylene. 10. A smoke sealing system substantially as herein¬ before described with reference to and as illustrated by the accompanying drawings.

Inventors: PEMBERTON ROBERT, PEMBERTON, ROBERT
Applicants: PEMBERTON ROBERT, PEMBERTON, ROBERT
Application year: 1983
Main classification: E06B7
IPC codes: E06B7