US 2003/0116380 A1Published application

Wind chute escape system

OwnerXin-Rui Xia, Xiang Q. Konginventors

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

The present invention is a wind chute escape system using a wind pressure to control the descending speed of a person inside a wind chute. A strong landing pressure produced by a landing blower is used to decelerate the descending body to a safe landing speed. The wind pressure inside the wind chute is produced and controlled by a wind blower and the landing blower or by one of them. There are mainly two forces acted on the descending body inside the wind chute, the downward gravity and the upward wind pressure. The balance of theses two forces determines the descending speed of the escapee. Since the wind pressure inside the wind chute is under control, the descending body can be control to a desired speed. Since the wind pressure loss is small in large wind chutes of 1 to 5 feet. in diameter, and the wind pressure transfers inside the wind chute in a speed of sound, this wind chute escape system can be used for high-rise buildings or skyscrapers of hundreds, even thousands of feet high. One triple chute system could evacuate one thousand escapees per hour. Two simplified embodiments of the present invention are also disclosed.

Claims41

Dependent claims

A wind chute escape system using a wind pressure to control the descending speed of a escapee inside a wind chute for emergency evacuation from high-rise structure or skyscrapers, comprises:

a chute entrance located or setup at an emergency floor level of a building where emergency evacuation required;
a group of wind chutes having two ends, one end is connected to said chute entrance and the other end is connected to a wind blower in a landing unit positioned on a safe ground;
a landing blower to produce an upward landing pressure to decelerate the descending body to a safe landing speed, and to create a wind flow into said wind chute;
a wind blower to produce a wind flow into said wind chute to wok together with said wind flow produced by said landing blower to create an upward wind pressure inside said wind chute to retard and control a descending body to a desired speed;
a rotating door installed on the outer shell of the landing unit to withhold a static pressure inside the landing unit for balancing said landing pressure inside said landing blower and said wind pressure inside said wind chute;
an automatic control system to sense the descending speed of the escapee and to control said wind pressure inside said wind chute to control the descending body to a desired speed, and to sense said wind pressures and said static pressure and control them to function as required;
and a means to setup said wind chute escape system, preferably a helicopter assisted setup, a spool assisted setup, a VTOL assisted setup and a build-in setup.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.