Automatic revolving doors

MC-R30

People in and out at the same time, and the lobby never fully open to the street. Diameters from 2000 to 3800 mm, in three or four wings.

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Safety and access

A moving wing is a moving wall

Everything about automatic revolving doors is designed around the fact that the wings sweep through space people occupy. Anti-pinch sensing on the wings stops the drive rather than pushing through, and the rotation program sets a speed appropriate to who actually uses the entrance.

An accessible leaf alongside is not optional in our view. Beds, trolleys, wheelchairs, prams, deliveries and anyone uncomfortable with a revolving door all need another way in, and it should sit next to the drum rather than round the corner.

Requirements for powered pedestrian doors in South Africa are published through SABS.

Supply, install, service

One supplier for the whole entrance

We supply, install, commission and service automatic revolving doors across South Africa from our Laser Park facility in Johannesburg, and we service automatic doors from other manufacturers too.

• Our own technicians install and commission the door
• Service intervals set against cycles, not the calendar
• Sensor testing as routine work at every visit
• Access control and the adjacent leaf specified together

See also automatic sliding doors, the MCW-100 swing door operator, or spare parts and multi-brand service.

Sizing a revolving entrance to the traffic it carries

Diameter is the decision that governs everything else on automatic revolving doors, and it is set by two things pulling in opposite directions: how many people have to pass through at the busiest moment, and how much floor the lobby can give up.

The MC-R30 covers 2000 to 3800 mm in three or four wings. A smaller diameter suits an office or hotel entrance with steady rather than surging traffic. A larger one is what a lobby needs when a lift bank empties, or when people arrive with luggage, trolleys or cases that will not fit a narrow segment.

Wing count changes the character as much as the size. Three wings give larger segments, which suits luggage and pushchairs and feels more generous. Four wings give a better air seal, because there is always a wing closing off the outside, which matters most where the entrance exists to stop conditioned air leaving the building.

Where the traffic genuinely surges — a stadium, a shift change, an event venue — automatic revolving doors on their own are usually the wrong answer. They meter people at a steady rate by design, and that is a virtue on a lobby and a problem on a crowd.

The energy case, honestly

The reason most buildings specify automatic revolving doors is the air seal, and it is a real effect rather than a marketing one.

A sliding or swing entrance opens a hole in the elevation every time somebody passes, and on a busy doorway that hole is open a large fraction of the day. Heated or cooled air leaves through it and outside air comes in, which the building then has to condition again. A revolving entrance never presents an open aperture: there is always a wing between inside and outside, so the exchange is limited to the volume carried around in the segment.

That matters most where the temperature difference is largest and the traffic is heaviest — a Highveld winter morning, a coastal summer afternoon, a lobby with a lift bank behind it. It matters least on a doorway used twenty times a day, where the saving will never repay the floor space.

The honest test is footfall against floor area. Where both are high, automatic revolving doors pay for themselves. Where footfall is low, a well-specified sliding entrance with a lobby does the same job for less money and less floor.

Safety around a moving wing

A revolving wing is a moving wall, and the safety thinking is different from a sliding or swinging leaf because people are inside the mechanism rather than beside it.

The pinch points are where a wing meets the drum wall and where it meets the centre shaft, and anti-pinch sensing covers those. Vertical sensing on the leading edge detects somebody the wing is about to catch. Presence sensing in the segments stops the door rather than carrying somebody around who has stopped walking.

Speed is a specification decision, not a preference. A drum turning at a comfortable pace for an unencumbered adult is too fast for somebody with a stick, a case or a child, and automatic revolving doors in a building with mixed users are set down rather than up. Push-and-slow and stop functions belong on the specification for the same reason.

Every building with a revolving entrance also needs an alternative for people who cannot use it — wheelchairs, large deliveries, anyone uncomfortable in the drum. That is usually a pass door beside the revolving unit, and it is part of the entrance rather than an afterthought.

Quick answers on automatic revolving doors

• Automatic revolving doors from us are the MC-R30, 2000 to 3800 mm diameter.
• Automatic revolving doors come in three or four wings; four seals better, three carry luggage better.
• Automatic revolving doors never present an open aperture, which is the whole energy case.
• Automatic revolving doors meter traffic steadily, so they suit lobbies and not crowd surges.
• Automatic revolving doors need a pass door beside them for anyone who cannot use the drum.
• Automatic revolving doors carry anti-pinch sensing at the drum wall and the centre shaft.
• Automatic revolving doors are set to the slowest user, not the average one.
• Automatic revolving doors carry a 24-month warranty on the operator; sensors are quoted separately.

What a revolving entrance needs around it

Automatic revolving doors are the most demanding entrance type to site, because the drum has to sit in a lobby that suits it rather than simply in a hole in a wall.

The approach on both sides needs clear run-off. People leaving the drum have to have somewhere to go; a revolving entrance opening directly onto a lift lobby or a stair creates a pinch that has nothing to do with the door. Inside, a mat run long enough to take grit off shoes protects the floor track, which on a revolving unit carries the whole weight of the wings.

The floor itself matters more than on a sliding entrance. The drum is a circle, and the floor within it has to be level and to stay level; settlement that a sliding threshold would tolerate shows up as a wing binding at one point in its rotation.

Above the drum, the canopy carries the drive and the sensing, and it needs both structural support and access for servicing. A canopy that cannot be opened without scaffolding turns an ordinary service visit into an event.

Finally, the pass door beside the unit is part of the entrance rather than an extra. It carries wheelchairs, deliveries, prams and anybody who simply will not use a drum, and it needs its own activation, its own locking and its own place in the fire strategy.

Servicing and what wears on a revolving unit

Automatic revolving doors have fewer catastrophic failures than sliding entrances and more slow deterioration, which makes the service interval more important rather than less.

The floor track and the wing bottoms take the grit, and that is where most wear appears. The drive and the speed governor are checked because a drum that has crept faster over a year is a drum that is now too fast for its slowest user. Seals along the wing edges and the drum wall are inspected because they are the entire energy case; a revolving entrance with failed brush seals has become an expensive sliding door.

The safety sensing gets proved rather than inspected. Anti-pinch at the drum wall and the shaft, vertical sensing on the leading edge, presence detection in the segments — each is walk-tested at handover and at every visit, because a revolving entrance that has lost a sensor still turns and still looks entirely normal.

Intervals follow the cycle count rather than the calendar, and everything set is written down so the next visit starts from a baseline. We service automatic revolving doors on any major brand, not only units we supplied.

What to send us to price a revolving entrance

Automatic revolving doors are surveyed more often than they are quoted from a drawing, because the lobby matters as much as the opening. Five things get the conversation to a useful place first.

• The internal diameter you can give the drum, measured to the first obstruction on each side rather than to the corner.
• The floor-to-canopy height available, and whether the structure above will carry the drive.
• An honest count of people through the entrance at its busiest fifteen minutes.
• Whether a pass door sits beside it already, and whether the fire strategy relies on that route.
• What is immediately inside and outside — a lift bank, a stair, a step, a road — since run-off decides whether the entrance is comfortable.

From that we can say whether automatic revolving doors suit the position, which diameter and wing count fit, and what has to be confirmed before an order. Where the honest answer is a sliding entrance with a lobby, we will say so.