Fires within building structures often start in a single room or location and spread from room-to-room traveling through interior doorways and other openings. As fires progress through building structures burning various combustible materials, a substantial amount of smoke is generally produced with such smoke potentially including toxic gases that are generated when certain materials and chemical compounds are oxidized. While the fires can cause significant property damage and destroy or weaken building structures, the smoke and toxic gases can cause substantial physical injury or death to persons who inhale them. Thus, by limiting the spread of fires and smoke within building structures, damage to property and building structures may be minimized and physical injury to, and the potential death of, persons within building structures may be prevented.
Many attempts have been made to develop devices that limit the spread of fire and smoke through doorways and other openings in building structures. Unfortunately, many of the devices have been found to become mechanically unstable after a fire. Therefore, a number of jurisdictions have begun requiring such devices to pass a test known as the “Hose Stream Test” in order to be approved for use in their jurisdiction. The Hose Stream Test is generally run on a device for limiting the spread of fire and smoke after it has been exposed to high temperatures over a long period of time during a separate fire test. In the Hose Stream Test, a jet of water such as that produced by a fire hose is directed at the device, generally, from a direction that is normal to the device. To pass the Hose Stream Test, the device must withstand the forces exerted on the device by the water jet and not become mechanically unstable.
Typically, the devices that have been developed to limit the spread of fire and smoke fall into two categories. A first type of devices has attempted to limit the spread of fire and smoke by sealing openings with flexible protection members including a plurality of slats. Examples of such devices include fire protection roller shutters, fire doors, and curtains made of metal components that slide over and relative to one another. Advantageously, these devices limit the spread of fire and smoke while being capable of withstanding mechanical loads particularly well, including after exposure to fire. As a consequence, many such devices have passed the Hose Stream Test. Unfortunately, these devices are typically heavy and require a large amount of space. Also, in order to use some of these devices, ceilings in buildings must be designed in a manner that enables the devices to be built into or supported by the ceilings, thereby limiting an architect's design freedom. Additionally, these devices are time-consuming to produce and are, thus, expensive.
A second type of devices, commonly known as “fire protection curtains”, have attempted to limit the spread of fire and smoke by sealing openings with a flexible protection member manufactured from a fire resistant material that can be wound around a reel or winding shaft. The fire resistant materials used in such devices typically include woven textile fabrics having warp and weft threads. The flexible protection members are generally stretched by a plurality of wires that extend between rollers moving in guides mounted relative to an opening in a building wall. Beneficially, these devices reduce the spread of fire and smoke, are relatively light in weight, and save space. However, these devices are generally less resistant to mechanical influences and loads than devices of the first type described above. Additionally, after exposure to the heat of a fire, the flexible protection members tend to become brittle and tear when struck with a stream of extinguishing water during a fire. Consequentially, many of these devices cannot pass the Hose Stream Test.
There is, therefore, a need in the industry for a system for deploying, retracting and supporting fire protection curtains that is lightweight, requires minimal space, is capable of improving the resistance of fire protection curtains to mechanical loads during and after exposure to fire, enables fire protection curtains to pass the Hose Stream Test, and that solves the difficulties, problems, and shortcomings of existing systems.