Feasibility Study of Rotorcraft Fire Fighting for High-Rise Buildings

Abstract

Fire risk in high-rise buildings is of special concern to the fire community, since it is crucial but still technically extremely challenging to significantly improve the current fire fighting capabilities when a calamity happens above the "seven story limit." In fact, at the moment, there is a lack of effective means for fire fighting in this rare but potentially deadly and costly accidents. To address this problem, in this work we provide a preliminary exploration of a new concept for fire suppression: the use of rotorcraft vehicles for aerial fire fighting in high-rise buildings. If available, such system could effectively support fire fighting efforts conducted with conventional means; moreover, it could provide for one of the very few alternatives to classic systems in certain critical cases such as postearthquake fires. At first, we analyze the operative context with the help of a few reference realistic scenarios which allow for the estimation of some key physical parameters. Next, we evaluate two alternative fire extinguishing technologies, and we identify in the water impulse cannon the solution which seems to be the most effective and compatible with the use on-board a rotorcraft for the scopes considered in this work. The analysis leads us to the identification of a target vehicle as a possible candidate platform for the development of a fire fighting helicopter. Finally, we propose a preliminary design of the fire fighting kit, and we evaluate the handling qualities of the vehicle during operations with reference to the ADS-33 normative

Applying Real-Time Travel Times to Estimate Fire Service Coverage Rate for High-Rise Buildings

“…with rotorcraft vehicles in high-rise buildings [33]. Min et al (2016) designed a moveable fire pump apparatus system with low-cost for fire suppression in high-rise buildings [34].…”

Cuckoo search-based method for trajectory planning of quadrotor in an urban environment

“…Under this bad situation, the efficiency and safety of some tasks, such as rescue, scout and express will be influenced. 1,2 Quadrotor is a kind of small and flexible aircraft which can vertically take off and land. It is also easy to be manipulated and has a low flight cost.…”