Development of Falling Speed Control System for Escape Descender Using Rotary type Orifice Oil Damper

Abstract

An escape descender is the most commonly used evacuation mechanism for dropping people under a building at a constant speed using a rope. It is very difficult to maintain the falling speed constantly or adjust the falling speed according to the weight of the falling object because existing descenders use the friction force to adjust the falling speed. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a descender with a falling speed controller using the rotary type orifice oil damper. By controlling the orifice cross-sectional area, the flow rate of the hydraulic oil in the rotary hydraulic cylinder is controlled to keep the falling speed constant in this proposed descender. Therefore, it is considered that the escape descender using the rotary type hydraulic orifice oil damper proposed in this study will contribute to saving lives by safely evacuating people to the ground at a constant speed in a high-rise building when a fire occurs.