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The Latest News from TORMAX
13.02.2012
Automatic doors with unsurpassed ease of use – even when acting as fire doors
Locking facilities to maintain fire barriers in the open position in buildings are being increasingly specified or requested. Because they have to resist very high temperatures, these doors are very heavy and are extremely difficult to close manually. Therefore under normal conditions they are almost always open. But now the Swiss manufacturer TORMAX is introducing movement into the market with two drives for automatic doors – and an innovation that is quite unique in the world. The big plus point is that the doors operate like normal automatic doors but close immediately in the event of a fire.
If you have your eyes open you can see them at every twist and turn, particularly in public buildings – heavy doors standing open, for example in hospital corridors, office complexes, shopping malls, exhibition centres, not to mention large hotels and apartment blocks. Their only purpose is to close just once if fire breaks out so that they prevent smoke and flames from spreading and cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire.
Meets all standards
But the Swiss automatic door manufacturer TORMAX had a door in mind that was more than a door that was useless under normal everyday conditions. Ralph Stucki, Head of Product Management & Support at TORMAX explains "As specialists in door automation we wanted to develop a drive which offered all the functions of an automatic door including convenience in use as well as the potential savings involved in the energy used in heating and ventilation. But a drive which would also meet all the standards required of fire doors." The development engineers at TORMAX set to work. The result was two long-lasting door drives - iMotion 1301.FIRE and iMotion 1401.FIRE for swing doors. While the first of these is installed above the door frame, iMotion 1401.FIRE is concealed in the floor as an under-floor drive – the first in the world. Both systems will power single or double leaved doors automatically whenever anyone wants to pass through them. The movement is silent, gentle and effortless (as has come to be expected of TORMAX doors) even though fire doors must be of an extremely heavy design. Like all the drives in the iMotion family, the FIRE series can be linked into a building management system for monitoring or control purposes as well as being operated with several features designed to make them easy to use. The door drives therefore guarantee maximum safety and security for both users and operators.
The only manufacturer in the world with an under-floor drive
The new drives comply with the most stringent standards, a fact confirmed, for example, by the German Institute for Building Technology (Deutsche Institut für Bautechnik). This means that when a fire breaks out the doors close immediately. Thanks to a combination of smoke and/or temperature sensors, the section of the building containing the fire is isolated at the slightest sign of an outbreak, thus preventing it from spreading. Once closed, the doors can be easily operated manually, ensuring that people can escape at all times. Ralph Stucki is proud of this successful innovation, "At the present time TORMAX is the only manufacturer in the world offering an under-floor drive for fire doors". For the first time ever architects and owners no longer have to compromise in their designs when they are planning the installation of fire doors.
