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US 6,684,978 B1Granted
Building evacuation system
OwnerVivek Guptainventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A building evacuation system in which at least one vertical evacuation chute is provided for each floor of a building to be evacuated. A plurality of collapsible buckets are stored on each floor and, after loading, are slid along horizontal rails to the vertical chute where they engage a plurality of vertical guide tracks. The guide tracks are provided with tapered brake pads so as to provide progressively increasing braking force on the falling buckets. A sloping slide is provided adjacent a lower open end of the chute to slidably transfer the bucket and evacuee to the ground.
Claims6
A building evacuation system comprising:
- at least one open-ended, substantially vertical, evacuation chute for each floor of a building to be evacuated, each said chute having a plurality of parallel spaced apart guide tracks;
- a pair of substantially horizontal parallel rails suspended above each said floor;
- said horizontal parallel rails suspending a plurality of collapsible buckets including a plurality of rollers slidable on said horizontal parallel rails, each said bucket being adapted to receive and releasably retain at least one building evacuee;
- a loaded said bucket and the rollers thereof being transferred from said horizontal rails into slidable engagement with said guide tracks in a selected one of said vertical evacuation chutes;
- tapered brake pad means contained within said guide tracks and engaging said rollers so as to progressively retard the rate of fall of said loaded bucket in said evacuation chute;
- slide means adjacent a lower open end of said evacuation chute, arranged so as to receive a loaded bucket exiting said lower end of said evacuation chute and slidably transfer said loaded bucket to ground level.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.