[Movie review] High-rise Building Burned —— From Pearl Tower in "Sky Rescue"

Dashi Johnson's family is in trouble again..

The action film "Sky Rescue" produced by American Legend Films was released worldwide in July 2018, and the response was good. In the film, the fictional skyscraper with the tallest and most complex structure in the world is located in the center of Hong Kong. The building is magnificent and contains a variety of high-tech equipment, but faces the destruction of terrorists. Will Sawyer, the building security consultant played by Dawn Johnson, is framed for arson and murder. As a veteran, he must rely on his own strength to wipe out complaints and save his family, as well as tackle terrorists. A series of high-altitude missions related to life and death begins.

No matter the plot or the atmosphere of the film, it has reached a point of extreme tension, often making the audience's heart touch its throat, even scaring the audience with acrophobia. Obviously, the reason for the success of this atmosphere is that most of the visual effects come from the "Pearl Tower" skyscraper, which is taller than the Burj Khalifa. Pearl Tower is covered with high technology, except for the general high speed. Apart from the lift and indoor garden, the most appropriate discussion might be summed up by the words "wind and fire."

Wind: Silencer and power generation

The wind is the common enemy of skyscrapers. Under normal circumstances, the higher the altitude from the ground, the greater the wind speed, the wind speed at an altitude of 100 meters is more than three times the speed of the wind near the ground. For a skyscraper several hundred meters high, the wind speed over the roof could reach tens of meters per second. With this wind speed, no matter how strong the building material is, inevitably the building will shake. On the one hand, it will damage the structure of the building. The people inside the building will also feel dizzy because of the big swing and cannot work and live normally.

In order to solve the problem of high winds in the highlands which cause the shaking of skyscrapers, architects have thought of various methods, such as streamlining the cross-section of high-rise buildings to reduce wind resistance, etc., but this static prevention is far from being able to withstand winds in all directions along year. A fickle wind is coming. Later, architects invented a device called a "wind damper," which is called a "tower artifact." Its use can effectively reduce the impact of strong winds on super high-rise buildings.

The wind damper is also called the adjustable mass damper. It is basically a set of energy dissipation and vibration reduction devices that can use their own characteristics to offset the impact of external winds. Its main body is generally a large piece of metal used as a counterweight, suspended from the top of a skyscraper. When strong winds hit, a wind sensor equipped with a wind damper can sense the wind speed and the level of shock of the building, then calculate the damping data based on that data, and then move the balancing metal beam to move the opposite way. direction, thereby reducing the degree of building sway. In short, these great wind absorbers are like when we walk in the middle of a strong wind, our bodies lean towards the wind, and uses its great gravity to fight the wind so it doesn't tilt. For example, the World Financial Center is equipped with two wind absorbers on the 90th floor, each weighing 150 tonnes, making it the heaviest damper in the world.

The Pearl Tower in "Heaven Rescue" was even better in terms of wind resistance. The tower is equipped with large three-dimensional metal slats in the perforated position of the tower. Its weight can fully meet the requirements of wind absorbers. At the same time, it can generate rotary power driven by wind, according to the film, it can independently and fully meet Pearl Tower's energy needs. However, the electricity required for the normal operation of a skyscraper is enormous. Unless the occupancy rate is very low, the wind damper for this part-time power plant will be somewhat defenseless.

Fire: Fire and Protection

Fire protection has always been the focus of architectural design, and super-high rise buildings face many difficulties due to large-scale up and down traffic problems, which require special designs and special demonstrations. The special fire fighting dirt climbing vehicle has limited ladder reach, and is essentially powerless for buildings over 100 meters. Therefore, the focus of fire protection on super-story buildings can rely solely on self-provided sprinklers. and protection systems. In the film, the sprinkler system of Menara Mutiara is undoubtedly very powerful. The emcee, Mr. Zhao, is also very confident in this matter. When a fire broke out on the remote floor beneath his feet, he firmly believed that this trivial fire could be automatically extinguished by the sprinkler system, even refusing to evacuate. Unfortunately, due to hacker interference by terrorists, the sprinkler system controls are locked, and all the sprinklers are out of the water, everyone can only watch the flames spread upward and become more and more violent. If the fire extinguishing system is only triggered by smoke or high temperatures, without an unexplained remote control, the system may be able to put out the fire first, but the unreliable control system makes fire fighting impossible. to be a design mistake. Fortunately, the heroine in the film finally had an idea and immediately restarted the entire control center, allowing the powerful spray system to restart. When the system restarts, The sprinklers on all the floors started spraying water, and the raging flames surrounding the entire Pearl Tower disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only billowing smoke, which made people feel independent and survive. .

Apart from extinguishing fires, the protection and escape of personnel on the floor is the focus of fire protection work in super tall buildings. Due to their super high height, ordinary fire emergency stairs cannot meet the evacuation requirements for super high-rise buildings, therefore, high-rise buildings with a height of more than 100 meters must periodically install protection floors. The role of the evacuation floor is to provide evacuation and protection for people inside the building in the event of a fire, not to allow content that has nothing to do with fire fighting equipment, nor to allow people to move. Exits and stairs for each floor must have an exit when passing through the evacuation floor,

Protection floors should not be placed on irrelevant content, so that they are fire resistant and can be like forest fire breaks, preventing the fire from spreading to other floors to some extent. In addition, the evacuation floor must have good ventilation characteristics so that the smoke that spreads does not endanger the community on the evacuation floor when a fire occurs. Therefore, many protection floors are only constructed as open, which can be seen from the outer layer of the building. Although open protection floors affect the uniform appearance of the building's outer walls, the latter is more important than escape and rescue in the event of a fire.

However, the Pearl Tower in the film does not have an open protection floor that is clear from the outside, and no closed protection floor can be reached inside the building from the escape route of the protagonist family. Additionally, many protection floors are dedicated entrances for fire-fighting elevators. If the Pearl Tower had created a fire extinguisher design like this earlier, the members of the protagonist family wouldn't have to take the risk of using a normal elevator to fall free as they escape.

In the film, although the one kilometer tall Pearl Tower comes from fiction, with the development of an extreme human-pursuit mentality, there will definitely be skyscrapers exceeding one kilometer on earth in the future. Wind and fire prevention is only the foundation. Maintaining the safe and smooth operation of skyscrapers is a comprehensive project including energy, transportation, ecology and other disciplines. Every aspect is sufficient to write a bold specification. In addition, be it construction or routine maintenance, the personnel concerned must strictly follow the specifications and must not be lucky. For example, some high-rise buildings "innovatively" darken protection floors as fitness facilities to increase their floor utilization rates, and also promises to claim that it will not affect normal fire protection work. It's okay if there is no problem with this behavior, if there is a problem, no one can take responsibility.