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New Maglev Elevator Can Travel Horizontally, Vertically, and Diagonally (wired.co.uk)
An elevator that can move in any direction has been successfully tested by a German company named ThyssenKrupp. An anonymous reader quotes Wired UK:
The Multi is the first ropeless lift, built using the same magnetic levitation technology used in Japan's bullet train and proposed for the Hyperloop. In the same way the train slides along a track horizontally, the lift travels both vertically, horizontally and diagonally around a building riding an electromagnetic field, a system known as a linear drive. "If you can run a 500-tonne train on magnets at 500km/h you should be able to elevate a cabin of 500 kilograms or 1,000 kilograms at a speed of five metres per second," [ThyssenKrupp CEO Andreas] Schierenbeck said.
The elevator can cost 3 to 5 times more than a regular elevator -- but can handle higher buildings than a conventional elevator.
The elevator can cost 3 to 5 times more than a regular elevator -- but can handle higher buildings than a conventional elevator.
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Bit by bit, we're catching up with Star Wars technology.
That's like saying an American company named General Electric.
NT
Capt Kirk, Capt. James T. Kirk, you're wanted at Turbolift 1.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Wait, what? Elon Musk isn't involved? But.......how is that even possible? Everyone knows Musk is the world's only living inventor!
Wrong reference. This is clearly a Willy Wonka elevator.
The WONKAVATOR
PLEASE.
It's not you: I'm just this horrifically socially awkward with everybody.
One way to think about elevators and high-rises is to start from the top. The uppermost part is a little building that only needs one elevator. As you add floors on the bottom they need more shafts so that you can fill and empty the building in a reasonable time. With conventional elevators, there is only one per shaft. (Although it can be more than one floor high.) At some point the next bottom floor you add will be all elevator shafts and unless you think you can make money from a more scenic view from the top, you stop. With this tech the elevators become cars on a vertical railway and can take on passengers without blocking shafts. Big gain.
On a 50 floor building an elevator 4'x6' will have a shaft a little larger plus a 10' waiting area in front of it, so say 15x8 or 120 feet square x 50 floors gives 6000 square feet. Times $1000 per square foot for grade A office space and your elevator is now taking up $6 million dollars worth of floor space.
Seriously? Do you think that wouldn't happen with conventional elevators if they had no emergency braking system?
No, not really. The ones with cables have a counterweight, so they tend to stay put, unless the cable snaps - that's when you need emergency brakes. The hydraulic ones will descend if there is a leak or power fail, but still at a relatively safe pace.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Seriously? Do you think that wouldn't happen with conventional elevators if they had no emergency braking system?
Exactly. ... but how would you install an emergency breaking system on a (contactless!) Maglev system without seriously restricting the the directions in which this can move? (diagonally...)
Maybe they do have a solution, but the article is entirely silent on the subject...
No, not really. The ones with cables have a counterweight, so they tend to stay put, unless the cable snaps - that's when you need emergency brakes. The hydraulic ones will descend if there is a leak or power fail, but still at a relatively safe pace.
There's more than one emergency break system on elevators. One is a wheel break on the pulley, which engages in the case of power loss (or in normal operation, while elevator is at a floor).
The other is the track break, which engages in the event where the rope snaps (clamps on the cabin that seize the metal tracks that guide the cabin).
Both would be difficult to put in place on a Maglev system.
Not really. Look at the Vancouver Skytrain or any other linear motor system in use. When the train stops, it puts wheels down and brakes.
The thing I'd be worried about here is the brakes failing due to weight restrictions being ignored, and that would be easily solved by having the elevator detect brake stress and automatically go out of service.
Presumably some form of clamp on the elevator car that can be used as an emergency brake and safety lock against either the maglev power rail or an auxilliary safety rail as and when required, just as many current conventional elevators have. It may be able to move in any direction, but that's still dependant on there being a power rail alongside it in the direction it needs to go, which means many of the same safety designs would still apply - the only change is that to make the most of the maglev you need to avoid physical contact until required.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Perhaps after some system of golden tickets hidden in chocolate bars to select the lucky winners/unlucky victims?
Actually, assuming this actually gets implemented somewhere (no doubt in some phallic monument to excess), I can well imagine that the owners of the building would do a Willy Wonka themed "Golden Ticket" competition to select some people for an all expenses paid trip to their opening night. Pretty obvious PR move for your new building as, while those who win are unlikely to care much beyond their prize, it's also going to raise your profile in the awareness of those that might be looking for new office space, apartments, retail, or hotel space that your building would presumably have quite a bit of available to rent/lease at sky high prices.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
There had better be chocolate at some of the stops or Mr. Wonka will come down hard with his prior art.
Why is Snark Required?
The biggest benefit would be that you could have a separate up and down track: with all of the cars always travelling in the same direction, you can fit a lot more of them in a circuit. In the space of three conventional elevators (one up track, one down track, and one waiting space between them) you could potentially have three cars per floor (in practice, congestion would make the optimal number a lot less than this).
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No, not really. The ones with cables have a counterweight, so they tend to stay put, unless the cable snaps - that's when you need emergency brakes. The hydraulic ones will descend if there is a leak or power fail, but still at a relatively safe pace.
A lift engineer told me that the counterweight is usually set for somewhere near half the maximum load to minimise energy use, so if all power and the brakes fail you will go up if you are alone in the lift or down if you are in a fully loaded lift. He said that modern lifts are built so that if this does occur it is survivable without injury by having a either buffer or fixed slides at the bottom of the shaft, and having either the same at the top or enough "jump space" for the lift car to continue once the counterweight hits the bottom until gravity makes it fall back against the cables. I imagine that must be scary.
Was not even mentioned in the summary. You can run multiple cabins in the same shaft, saving precious floor space (and move the cabins horizontally if they need to pass each other, or you can just assign up and down shafts). Thus, for larger buildings this type of elevator can actually be a major cost saver.
Also, if you have permanent magnets on the track, you could make an eddy current brake just by moving a big piece of metal in close proximity. This piece of metal could be spring loaded to automatically return to the braking position when power goes out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It depends on the type of maglev technology used. The Japanese trains have wheels that come down when they stop, but in an emergency where there is sudden power loss they wouldn't just drop down instantly anyway. Other types use permanent magnets which provide levitation even when not moving, and only use electrical current to move.
In any case, I can't see a problem adding brakes to a maglev lift. It just needs suitable guide rails.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If you look at the actual product, it doesn't move freely in space, it is on a track. There is a rotating section of track like a railroad turntable that allows it to switch tracks.
That is where all of the hyperbole about "any direction, even diagonally" comes from. The thing moves on a track. Having the ability to switch tracks means you can have multiple cars in each elevator shaft, and cars can potentially pass one another.
Since they are installing one of these things in an actual commercial building under construction in Germany, I'm sure they have an emergency braking system.
Looking at the track, it doesn't appear as if it is a "contactless" maglev system. It looks like it is running on some sort of track and using a linear electric motor for propulsion. This means that they could simply use an inertial braking system like regular elevators - if the car goes too fast, braking weights fly out and stop the car.
Yup. Also Hyperloop advocates get very heated if anyone suggests there's any kind of maglev technology involved (I suspect the submitter is confusing maglev with linear induction motors? That still doesn't explain the Bullet Train comment though...)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The maglev part is kind of a misnomer. It's not using magnetic levitation, per se, but rather using linear motors to move around. Yes, maglev trains use that technology to travel, but so do a number of launched roller coasters out there. Any it's being used as a replacement for the steam catapult in the latest U.S. aircraft carrier.
The elevator car is still in contact with a track, for mechanical and electrical reasons. It almost certainly has track brakes that require energy to release. That is, in the event of power loss, they are spring-loaded to engage automatically.
Additionally, since we are talking about a motor, you can do dynamic braking: short the stator windings together, and the back-emf created by the passing magnets will create a substantial drag force. Want to try at home? Drop a neodymium magnet down a copper pipe and see how long it takes. Or take an ordinary DC motor, short the leads together, then try to backdrive it.
Because of the shoddy writing in the article and the summary, I can understand why you would think it's contactless. But it isn't. The similarity with maglev trains and the hyperloop is the fact that it uses a linear motor to move along the track. The elevator car is still affixed to a track/rail and does not levitate. When it needs to go sideways, it does so at specially located switchpoints where it traverses a horizontal track. This would be obvious from reading the articles or, for the short-attention-spanned, watching the embedded videos.
I have been in reserve-your-floor elevators and 2-cars-per-shaft elevators. I am not looking forward to the Wonkavator, unless they make it extremely human-friendly. It sounds cool but...
The reserve-your-floor elevator would require floor selection by a keypad exterior to the cabin. It would refuse to accept other floor number entry from within the cabin, which is disconcerting if you just jump into a waiting cabin without entering a selection first. These were universally hated. The idea is the elevator is smarter than you and maximizes traffic but really it just was aggravating to anyone not used to it. (Customers and new employees)
The 2-cars-per-shaft elevator would stop and everyone would look uncomfortably at each other in a progressively claustrophobic space. Also your ears would tend to pop from the height.
I would feel a little better about 3D elevators if they would be guaranteed never to stop except in front of a door, and could be exited at any time if someone feels sick. If you tried to exit in an emergency would you be stuck in the middle of high voltage / EMF / mega-robot gears? The image of the exchanger gear is near from an engineering perspective in the way a funicular or trolley gear is, but you don't want to be climbing over one of those things. (maybe subject of a future James Bond movie?) If hacked you could literally lose people somewhere in a building. It brings so many potential neuroses I am not sure people will want to ride them. On the other hand for a factory they would be very cool.
U.S. Navy has had contractors developing magnetic lifts for over 10 years: http://news.northropgrumman.co... (2005).
The thing I'd be worried about here is the brakes failing due to weight restrictions being ignored
Elevator brakes are way over engineered. They can handle way more weight than could possibly be crammed into the cab. Brakes can be designed so they require power to retract, so automatically engage in a power-failure. Elevator brakes are also designed to automatically trip if speed thresholds are exceeded, and the tripping mechanism is purely mechanical, requiring no power.
Quibble about TFS: The Japanese Shinkansen are not maglev. They run on wheels.
Safety considerations aside - with a normal lift the motor only has to work against cabin weight - counter weight. Even hydraulic lifts can build up pressure when the cabin is descdneing. WIth this design the linear motor has to do all the work lifting the cabin up so unless there's some sort of regenerative braking system when it comes down this is going to be horribly power hungry and inefficient just when buildings are being required to reduce their power usage.
Having a continuous-loop system, while it would allow you to put more cars in the loop, is vulnerable to a single-point-of-failure attack; jamming one car's door open piles up every car in the loop behind that one; doing that with a conventional elevator bank disables only that one elevator. To a lesser degree, this could happen under normal use simply by having people being slow getting on and off, or by having someone hold the 'door open' button to allow someone to keep the elevator on a floor to allow someone to catch that car. The problem could be reduced by having each loop feeding two or more loading stations per floor, but that adds more complexity to the system.