Essential Requirements for Horizontally Moving Automatic Doors

Hello dear readers, 

In this article, we will examine the essential requirements for horizontally moving automatic doors. 

The car, which provides normal access to the lift car and the openings in the shaft are closed with doors. These doors must be unperforated, and their height must be at least 2 m.  

The gap between door panels, between panels and door frames and between panels and the threshold must not exceed 6 mm. This measurement can be 10 mm with abrasions, but in glass doors it should not exceed 6 mm in any case.  

The door sill must be resistant to a load of 0.4-0.6 times the capacity. 

Horizontally moving doors must be guided at the top and bottom, while vertically moving doors must be guided on both sides, and doors should not come off the guides or get stuck during normal operation.

The gap between the floor and car door sills must not be more than 35 mm horizontally, and the gap between fast panels of the doors must not be over 12 cm. 

Landing doors must have at least E30 fire resistance category. If the height of the building is above 51.50 m, the fire resistance of the door must be E60. The structure of the landing door, all of its components and the way it’s mounted on the shaft wall must be exactly the same as the test sample and mounting.

A static force of 300 N applied vertically to any 5-cm2 area on the door panels should not cause a permanent deformation greater than 1 mm and elastic deformation greater than 15 mm and should not prevent the safe operation of the door.

A force of 1,000 N to be applied vertically to an area of 100 cm2 on door panels and door frames should not impact the function and safety of the doors.

For doors with multiple panels, mechanical gears must be used, and precautions must be taken to prevent panels from coming off the guides. These gears should be a part of the panel suspension element, or it should be an additional component.  

A force of 150 N applied to closed-door panels from the weakest point of the panels in the direction of door opening should not cause an opening of more than 4 5mm in centrally opening doors and 30 mm in telescopic doors. 

Door panels and door frames wider than 150 mm must be subjected to the pendulum test according to EN 81-50. As a result of the test, the integrity of the door must not be compromised, there must not be large openings of 12 cm towards the well and if the panels are glass, there must be no cracks in the glass. 

Cavities and protrusions over the car and landing door panels must not be more than 3 mm, and their edges must be in the door opening direction. The purpose of this is to ensure protection against cuts. 

The kinetic energy of landing and car doors and the mechanical parts must not exceed 10 J in the average speed of doors closing. 

A beam curtain or similar device should reopen the door that is closing when a passenger passes through. The device must be active between 25 mm and 1,600 mm vertically and able to detect objects with a minimum diameter of 50 mm. The beam curtain or a similar device can be deactivated in the last 20 mm toward the closing direction of the door. The mentioned device may be deactivated to allow the door to be closed after a certain period of time. In this case, the kinetic energy of the door to be closed must not exceed 4 J. 

The force required to open a closing door should not exceed 150 N. This condition does not apply in the last third of the closing path of the door. For glass panel doors, the force required to open a closing door should not exceed 150 N. 

If a labyrinth or cavity-protrusion is made between the high-speed panel and the frame of the landing door for fire protection purposes, these bendings must not be more than 25 mm. In glass panel doors, the thickness of the front edge of the rapid panel set into the door frame must not be less than 20 mm. 

Glass paneled doors pose a risk of injury due to children’s hands and fingers moving on or with the panel. In order to prevent this, the part of the glass that the passenger will touch must be made opaque up to a height of 1.1 m with frosted glass or similar material. Or it is required that any touch on the glass panel should be detected, and in case of any touch, the door panels are not allowed to move in the opening direction. Detection of fingers on the glass panel is required up to 1.6 m above the threshold level. Another method is to limit the gap between door panels and door frame to 4 mm. This gap can only be up to 5 mm at most with wear. The gap between the panel and the frame must not exceed 4 mm vertically for a height of 1.6 m from the threshold level.

The landing doors should have a mechanical locking device as we all know, and mechanical lock should enable locking with an electricity safety gear. The electrical safety gear must be activated after the door locking elements are connected by at least 7 mm, and the electrical and mechanical safety gears must work together without any other mechanism in between. 

Landing door lock and electricity safety gear should have passed all mechanic and electrical resistance tests, static and dynamic tests according to EN 81-50. If a lock is used in the car door, this locking device should also have passed tests in EN 81-50, just like the landing door lock. 

All floor doors must have the emergency unlocking device shown in the figure below and must be able to be opened with the emergency unlocking triangle key. 

If the unlocking triangle is on the door panel or vertical door frame, its position should not exceed 2 m from the floor level. If the unlocking triangle is on the horizontal panel of the door frame, it should not be higher than 2.7 m above the floor level. 

When the landing door is opened with the emergency key and the panels are subsequently released, the doors should close and lock again without the need for any action or force.

It should be checked with electricity safety gear that the doors are closed just as it is checked with electricity safety gear that floor doors are locked. 

If the lift car is in the unlocking section, the required force to open the car and floor door must not exceed 300 N. In this case, the doors should be able to be opened from the car or the landing door after unlocking it with the emergency key.

In order to open the car door while it is moving/in operation, at least a force of 50 N should be required. In addition, it should be possible to open the car door by a maximum of 50 mm with a force of 1,000 N; it should not be possible to open the door further.

I hope my article will be helpful for you to recall the requirements for doors.

I wish you healthy and safe days.