Patent Application
20050077105
(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an escape ladder system, and more particularly, to one that is normally received in a box and descends down to the ground or a given floor along the external wall of the building through an opening of the box to allow people on higher floors in a building at where an aerial ladder truck fails to reach to fast escape from a fire site.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
More fire hazards have been reported on the increase recently, and the safety awareness of the general public is getting ever stronger. Among the concerns, how to fast escape from the fire site and provide first aid are on the top priorities. The general consumers are particularly concerned with the public safety concerns in entertainment places, such as KTV, MTV, cinema house, hotel, etc. where have reported increasingly higher casualties by year in fire hazards. Judging from the domestic statistics of fire hazard, most of them take place in buildings both of office and residential building where usually observed with highly populated rate and frequent accesses. Safety knowledge of fire fighting and fire escape naturally become the focuses of concerns by both of the tenants and fire safety inspection authorities.
However, escape gears provided in the buildings are very poor, if any. In most cases, only an emergency exit is provided to the window or the burglarproof window. If a fire breaks out, the people stuck in the fire site could only scramble around the exit waiting desperately for rescue, and many of them are forced to jump straight to the ground due to the unbearable heat resulting in serious casualties. Furthermore, the aerial ladder truck could best reach for approximately the twelfth level leaving those tenants working or living above the twelfth level helpless and they usually miss the best timing for escape and wind up falling on the ground to suffer serious bodily injury or even death.
The primary purpose of the present invention is to provide an escape ladder system essentially comprised of an alarm to detect the fire and send the alarm signal, a receiver to receive the alarm signals, a box placed by a balcony to accommodate the receive and other components, a drive activated by a receiver, a main shaft driven by the driver, and an escape ladder coiling around the main shaft. The escape is normally placed in the box and in case of fire, the alarm installed in the room sends the alarm signals to the receiver in the box, the receiver commands the power source to operate for driving the main shaft to operate through a gear set for the escape ladder to descend from an opening of the box down to the ground or a certain floor that is close to the ground for the tenants in the higher levels at where the aerial ladder truck fails to reach to soonest escape upon the onset of the fire.
Furthermore, on the box at where opposite to the driver a cranking device is provided with a positioning rod that can be coupled to the main shaft on one side of a section of the cranking device penetrating into the box. If the power source fails due to power interruption or its battery is consumed up, the positioning rod is coupled to the main shaft to crank the main shaft for descending the escape ladder.
FIGS. 7(A) and (B) are sectional views showing a cranking device and a main shaft of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
Referring to
The box (20) located by a balcony and firmly resting on the floor includes the receiver (21) to receive fire alarm signals provided at where appropriately to the external of the box (20), an opening (22) provided at the front end of the box (20), and an alarm (23) to send visible or audible warning signals, and two hand rests (24) striding over both sides of the box (20) for the person escaping from the fire site to grab and/or step upon rungs (52) of an escape ladder (50). One ladder strap may be used with one end of the strap tying around the waist and the other end buckling up to either hand rest for further safety reason.
The main shaft (40) provided inside the box (20) is linked to the driver (30), and multiple locking grooves (41) are provided laterally and longitudinally on the surface of the main shaft (4) to allow coiling by the escape ladder (50).
The ladder (50) made of steel cable includes two side rails (51) and multiple rungs fixed between those two side rails (51). Multiple protrusions (521) for stopping slip are provided on each rung (52). One end of the escape ladder (50) is fixed to the main shaft (40) to allow the escape ladder (50) to coil around the main shaft (40) for being subject to the transmission from the driver (30). The length of the escape ladder (50) varies depending on the practical needs.
The escape ladder (50) is normally received in the box (50) as illustrated in
Accordingly, in case of a fire breaks out, the alarm (10) in the room sends alarm signals to the receiver (21) in the box (20) to command a power source (31) to activate for turning the main shaft (40) visa a gear set (32), thus to descend the escape ladder (50) through the opening (22) on the box (20) along the external wall down to the ground. Meanwhile, a gravity rod (54) is provided to the terminal of the escape ladder (50) to accelerate the escape ladder (50) to descend down to the ground as illustrated in
Furthermore, as illustrated in
As described above, the present invention provides an escape ladder system that normally receives the escape ladder in the box and descends to the ground or a given floor closer to the ground along the external wall of a building through the opening of the box in case of a fire for the tenants on the higher floors where the aerial ladder trunk fails to reach to escape from the fire by climbing down on the escape ladder. Therefore, this application for a utility patent is filed according. However, it should be noted that the preferred embodiment described above of the present invention does not in anyway limit the scope of the present invention. Any change made by the teaching of the present invention shall be deemed as falling within the scope of the claim claimed in the present invention.
