please do - it would be very useful if there was a fire 
It may be the case that this is part of their primary fire suppression plan; I think the glass roof thing is a last-resort measure to prevent an otherwise out-of-control fire (where the contents of the burning bunker are written off as lost, I suppose) from spreading to adjacent bunkers.
on an alternative way on how to escape a high rise fire. We (should) all know that during a fire, you never use the elevators. In a 200 story high rise, that’s a WHOLE lot of stairs. I’ve read (here and elsewhere) that many handicapped people were as a result, unable to escape the WTC. So I had the idea, that they should intergrate a slide system into the stairwells…
This way, even handicappers could jest slide down to each landing. This would save a TON of time and energy. (Sometimes gravity can be our friend)
Since this would be of no benefit for firefighters… perhaps they could put landing docks in the buildings… say at the top and near the middle, so that Firefighters could be dropped off by helicopter (or Osprey if they can ever get the damn thing to work!) … saving them Thousands of steps and thereby many minutes in time. Not to mention the energy they’ll save for fighting the actual fire.
Jest some ideas that no one of importance will ever likely read 
And when the stairwells are filled with flames on the lower floors and you’re sliding down the chute without any landings or ways to stop, what then?
read, from the very portion you quoted: This way, even handticappers could jest slide down to each landing.
If access to lower floors, via the stairwells, is blocked, and you can’t use the elevators… well I guess yer jest screwed then ANYWAY huh?
Here at the University, they have a valuable news film archive, most of which is on nitrate stock. They keep it in old munitions dumps at Fort Jackson. (Recall that it gets hot enough here in the summers to set off aging nitrate, no problem.) No fires yet, although of course they take reasonable precautions in the form of molecular sieves, proper storage cans, etc. Unfortuantely, there isn’t any money for reformatting.
(I like those Guinnes Stout commercials)
Use water to put out highrise fires. BRILLIANT
Store the water in a pool on the roof. BRILLIANT
Why can’t enormous volumes of fire-extinguisher “solution” be stored and released ala a sprinkler system? 'Cause it’s pressurized? Expensive?
This is done in specialized occupancies. Kitchen hoods/fryers and the like use a chemical suppression system.
A 3M plant in my first response district that mixed adhesives for tapes had a CO2 deluge system tied to optical flame sensors. When flame was detected, a klaxon sounded, and workers had about 30 seconds to bail out before the system dumped CO2 into the mixing wing.
Computer and other ‘clean rooms’ used Halon, but much of that has been withdrawn from the market owing to it’s tendency to cause ozone depletion, Montreal Protocol, etc. FE-200 is one of the more environmentally friendly replacements. Yes, all of these systems are pressurized, and are more expensive than water, but do the job without ruining equipment that may be even more expensive.
Comments to jester21: We do use elevators, when safe to do so, but by using the fireman’s control key we override normal operations. Starting at the top and going down has a problem or two. By the time you get a helo up and on location, I have 3 engines, 1 squad, and 1 ladder on location. In an urban setting, the only place one can usually land a helo is the rooftop, so how do you get the personnel, tools, handlines, scba, radios, etc. aboard the helo?
Comments to Uvula Donor: Typically the stair towers are a very safe place, provided that people don’t compromise built in protection by propping doors open, the air handling system functions as designed, and proper housekeeping practices are followed. That’s the reason why the standpipe connections and critical circuit raceways are usually located there.
AFAIK Nitrogen compounds like film stock are self oxidizing so smothering agents probably won’t help.
Hadn’t considered that angle Padeye, but a little research confirms you to be dead on. Ignition can take place at moderately low temperatures (improperly stored goods may auto-ignite), and does produce nitrogen peroxide along with large quantities of CO. Storage recommendations for large quantities include vented cabinets and coverage by a sprinklered suppression system, although a National Park Service document mentions CO2 with the caveat extinguishment may not be possible. In these cases, a sprinkler system would serve only to extend evacuation time.
Thanks.
The concern with a nuclear reactor is preventing ‘meltdown’, where the cladding on the fuel rods melts & radioactive decay products are released into the system. Water alone isn’t going to prevent this-it may slow it down by absorbing some of the heat, but a nuclear reactor produces a lot of heat if its running uncontrolled. If the water isn’t constantly circulating to carry that heat away, the cladding will melt eventually anyway. 99% of nuclear reactors are water (or steam) cooled; there’s already water in there, failure of the process just means that the water isn’t circulating to the heat exchangers. Dumping extra water on/in it when the circulation process fails doesn’t fix your problem-at best it buys some time.
What you need to ‘smother’ a fission reactor is something with a high cross-section for neutron capture, which will dampen out the chain reaction by absorbing the free neutrons from the current fissions before they cause other fissions. Cadmium is a popular choice …
I don’t remember hearing this particularly, but that’s basically what happened in the core. The Chernyobl reactor was moderated with a graphite lattice; with the coolant circulation cut off & the cadmium control rods retracted, the reaction produced enough heat in the water coolant trapped in that lattice to dissociate it, ultimately resulting in the chemical explosion that compromised the containment …
What are the issues, and how do they address them, in retrofitting older buildings with sprinklers?
I understand there is often a problem with the capacity of the original plumbing which makes retrofitting difficult, as with the Cook County Administration Building fire.
I am an Architect and I do design Hirise buildings. Frankly they are very safe buildings and the codes specifically have items in place that help fight fires–I would go even so far as to say they are safer than most structures since much focus has been put on the issues involved in them.
The main problem I would see in putting water on top of a building and using it to fight a fire is that a building is made up of thousands and thousands of rooms and walls, and other obstructions. So if all that water was dumped–where would it go–would it naturally find its way to ‘where’ the fire was? Think of that old Chinese pinball game, I think it is called Pachinko (sp)–where you drop a ball at the top and it drops down these series of obstructions. It never goes where you want it to go. I would think water would do the same thing.
Water is going to find the path of least resistance–and guess where that is? The stair and elevator shafts–and stairs are the means that we use to exit people out of the building. All that water would do is drown those people. In addition these shafts are usually 2-4 hour rated and thus all this water would be behind a wall that in theory is safe for 2 hours and never touch the fire!
I trust sprinklers–they work fine if maintained properly.
Frankly as an Architect–water is my biggest enemy. Trust me on this one–water is an evil bitch! And it never goes where I think it is going to go–but usually I am fighting to keep it out of the building. Water can do an amazing amount of damage.
Well, it sounds like sprinkers are the way to go, but this is what I was envisioning. An elaborate “honeycomb” of pipes in the ceilings that would direct the water to virtually every room. These would run from “main lines” that could be shut off ABOVE (and maybe below) the areas that were on fire. Thus, if the fire if the out of control fire is on the 20th floor the system would let the water fall to the 22nd floor or so before being diverted to the “honeycomb” system for that floor, and below.
However, it sounds like you guys are saying that other than a WTC type disaster that sprinkers will stop almost any fire. If so clearly they are the route to go.
QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]I am an Architect and I do design Hirise buildings. Frankly they are very safe buildings and the codes specifically have items in place that help fight fires–I would go even so far as to say they are safer than most structures since much focus has been put on the issues involved in them.
The main problem I would see in putting water on top of a building and using it to fight a fire is that a building is made up of thousands and thousands of rooms and walls, and other obstructions. So if all that water was dumped–where would it go–would it naturally find its way to ‘where’ the fire was? Think of that old Chinese pinball game, I think it is called Pachinko (sp)–where you drop a ball at the top and it drops down these series of obstructions. It never goes where you want it to go. I would think water would do the same thing.
Water is going to find the path of least resistance–and guess where that is? The stair and elevator shafts–and stairs are the means that we use to exit people out of the building. All that water would do is drown those people. In addition these shafts are usually 2-4 hour rated and thus all this water would be behind a wall that in theory is safe for 2 hours and never touch the fire!
I trust sprinklers–they work fine if maintained properly.
Frankly as an Architect–water is my biggest enemy. Trust me on this one–water is an evil bitch! And it never goes where I think it is going to go–but usually I am fighting to keep it out of the building. Water can do an amazing amount of damage.
[/QUOTE]
I would think that 1 gallon dumped over 1 minute onto a square foot of fire would do better than 1 gallon dumped over 10 minutes. After all, firefighters aim at the base of the fire rather than an arc so that as little water as possible will be lost to vaporization.
If you dump all the water at once onto the fire, would it not be true that less of it would be lost to vaporization?
Let’s look at your query from the reverse, shall we? Which is easier to ignite, a 2x4 just as you get it from the lumber yard, or that same 2x4 after it’s been run through a planer and reduced to shavings and dust?
That latter is much easier to ignite, because the finely divided fuel is able to readily absorb heat to the point that combustion is achieved.
Water (in addition to being cheap) is also dandy for fire suppression owing to it’s ability to absorb heat. The expansion ratio is 1:1700 when converted from a liquid state to steam.
When I crawl the hall to a bedroom fire, those two factors work effectively for me. Assuming the truckies have taken out a window, as soon as I open the nozzle, fog position is choice #1. Aimed at the ceiling where things are hottest, the stream is swirled for a moment, and all of those droplets of water absorb heat and expand, taking a goodly volume of heat and fire gases out the window. The fog pattern also draws air from behind me, owing to Bernoulli effect. Also, when attack is done this way, the total volume of water is reduced, along with collateral damage. After things are knocked down, then straight stream application to the seat of the fire is performed. Even when operating a master stream from an aerial, I aim for the ceiling of a room, attempting to bounce off that plane and break up the stream.
Regarding your query dqa: The biggest challenge in a retrofit is not tearing the building apart to install the piping. For historic structures the architectural importance is high and those projects are costly. For less sensitive occupancies, the piping is simply installed below the ceiling and painted to match decor. That’s what was done in some of the dormitories at the National Fire Academy, because the idea was life safety first, appearance second.
The Europeans are ahead of us on residential sprinkling using cross linked polyethylene or PEX to construct a combined potable water/sprinkler system. The flexible piping can be snaked through and around obstructions with a minimum of fittings, and because of the grid appraoch has the added benefit of being almost silent when water flows for domestic use. The US has been slow to embrace the concept, and has been opposed by trade unions, presumably because it is very easy to install, compared to traditional metallic distribution systems. The effectiveness is proven-over 50 years in Europe, and extensive fire testing in Canada-PEX based systems are a solid product.
Of course. The Unions would rather have people die than risk losing high paying Union jobs