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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.
Next week on slashdot: phased energy weapons to be made available to security forces worldwide
Bit by bit, we're catching up with Star Wars technology.
That's like saying an American company named General Electric.
Capt Kirk, Capt. James T. Kirk, you're wanted at Turbolift 1.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
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.
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
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.
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!
Rocket-powered, parachute-equipped escape pods.
Never pass up a chance to rocket-power something.
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/...
With a conventional elevator, you're correct about the "it reserves an entire shaft" concept. That's inherent with presence of either the cable, or hydraulic cylinder. Why would that limitation exist with a maglev elevator? There's no need for one elevator car per shaft. I think 4 shafts would work nicely: Up, Down, Ready, Waiting. And only the Ready shaft has a door accessible to the public. You press the call button and the usual case is the door will open immediately since there's already a car waiting there. After you select your floor, that car moves a short distance towards either the Up or Down shaft and proceeds on your journey. Meanwhile, a nearby car in the Waiting shaft starts its own journey to replace the car you just took. As your car approaches your destination, the car already there starts its own journey to a Waiting Shaft slot to make room for your 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.
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.