Bern Oulli
Under normal operations we were kept at cruise level beyond descent point due outbound traffic at LPA last night. When clear, winding speed up to 340Kt in "open descent" (i.e idle thrust) gave peak descent rate >6000 fpm with an average of about 4000fpm down to FL 150 to get us back on profile, with use of speedbrake (A320). Pressurisation system copes fine with these rates, so no ear popping.
as an aside, for an Emergency descent our QRH drill says to "maintain or reduce speed if structural damage" which would obviously reduce the descent rates, whereas for a straightforward pressurisation failure (non structural) we will wind the speed up to max for highest ROD which probably "averages out" to 6000-7000 from FL350 down to FL100.
Scally