Old suggestions, made before revisal of elevator design[edit source]
- Initial thoughts. With the kind of design you describe, safety is partly a matter of:
- How much force would be applied to a person if they got caught (whole body, or finger). Keeping speed and weight low would be important.
- Not sure I understand the question; as I mentioned before it would be door-less; meaning trapping of finger or body in the door is impossible.
- I mean if a body part is in the doorway when passing a floor - it could be trapped between the ceiling of the building level and the floor of the elevator, or vice versa. --Chriswaterguy 10:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that's possible, but you'll really need to be clumsy to have such an accident; ie you normally step into the elevator far enough from the edge, and also the time you have to place a body part in a floor doorway opening is limited, there are only openings every new floor. That said, perhaps that if a low-power electrical engine (or accuratly powered one), or a manual pulley system is used, the system won't be powerful enough to inflict major damage, in case something like this is encountered.
- Design for safety is about realizing that people can indeed be clumsy, and trip or stagger into harm's way, especially if old/weak/ill/drunk. --Chriswaterguy 01:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that's possible, but you'll really need to be clumsy to have such an accident; ie you normally step into the elevator far enough from the edge, and also the time you have to place a body part in a floor doorway opening is limited, there are only openings every new floor. That said, perhaps that if a low-power electrical engine (or accuratly powered one), or a manual pulley system is used, the system won't be powerful enough to inflict major damage, in case something like this is encountered.
- I mean if a body part is in the doorway when passing a floor - it could be trapped between the ceiling of the building level and the floor of the elevator, or vice versa. --Chriswaterguy 10:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
- Not sure I understand the question; as I mentioned before it would be door-less; meaning trapping of finger or body in the door is impossible.
- Structural strength. Capacity will be less, because it's lighter. How do you prevent it from being overloaded? (I'm not sure you can.)
- Capacity would not necessairily be less because it's lighter I think, this depends on the type of material we use to construct it. As for being overloaded, again it depends on the type of material, aswell as how large we make the cabin (hard to overload if the cabin/platform is made smaller)
- A small platform certainly seems like a good idea.--Chriswaterguy 10:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
- How well it's implemented. We'd be talking about countries without effective safety standards, meaning that builders are not accustomed to taking a lot of care with safety. I'd be concerned about how this was implemented, even if the design was safe. So it's important to find ways to make it more fundamentally safe - i.e. more margin for error.. --Chriswaterguy 23:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'd opt to use the safety system described above; ie if the chain or cable snaps, a second cable (which automatically locks after rising/lowering a few meters) would take over the job. Offcourse, we can expect the passenger to still get a shock (only locks every few meters), but this shock wouldn't be too great to be harmful, also we can use some shock-absorbing material (ie rubber) eg for the floor.
Note by the way that I'm not envisaging to make it a allround implementable system, it would be used just for our own AT-designs, this means that aldough it needs to be fundamentally safe, we don't need to design it to comply with everything (I'm guessing that otherwise, the absence of doors would form a problem, ie legally). KVDP 08:38, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a danger of trying to reinvent the wheel here. First let's look at existing methods of vertical transportation - stairs, ramps, ladders, lifts/elevators, moving staircases/escalators. What are the advantages/disadvantages of each. What technologies have already been invented. Current building regulations in most countries ban the use of lifts for evacuation during a fire (except for special wheelchair evacuation lifts with special requirements) and insist adequate stairs are provided to evacuate all the people from the building safely. If sufficient stairs are provided to evacuate all the people in the building at the same time then you are not going to save any space by providing lifts as well. The standard safety measure for lifts is an automatic brake which grips the lift guide rail unless it is held off electrically. Lifts are safe even if all the ropes break. Lift manufacturers are working all the time to improve their lifts. In recent years this has mostly been related to improving the controls - putting more intelligence into the system, replacing contactors with variable speed drives. The mechanical components haven't changed much. I would suggest that the modern lift is already appropriate technology and we are not likely to improve on it here. We should rather be thinking of alternatives to the lift; low rise buildings? Paternoster lifts, scissor lifts for wheelchair access to an upper level (these are already on sale), rack-and-pinion lifts for multi level buildings (used for man access on building sites. Noisy and slow but simpler tech) Installing a lift is not a job for an amateur - if it is done wrong then people could die. Rather than trying to reinvent the lift we should start with a page on the tech available now and who you can buy it from - at least that's what I think. Joe Raftery 15:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
- Good idea Joe, indeed we could make a first article comparing the existing lift systems. As you mentioned before, the traditional lifts use rail safety systems, aswell as heavy/expensive materials, ... which increase the cost heavily. However, the other systems you propose (scissor lifts and rack & pinion lifts (dough not sure about the safety systems here; is a block (similar to the one proposed with the ropes) also integrated in the gears ?) seem very intresting. Offcourse the installation of it requires more skilled people; however my first idea was to only use it in the more advanced concepts I made (which probably require more advanced builders). As for only listing suppliers, I think we should certainly keep the option open of building the system ourselves (not that this is also useful to ensure proper maintenance), this especially when we pick systems that are more low-tech. Regarding the requirement of the installation of stairs anyhow, I stated that I don't intent to make it completely nation-legal (with all nations); this too is done eg with some systems used in Earthships, and atleast in some developing countries safety rules are much laxer, and some builders I think don't even follow them as it should. As it's only for our own systems, as we implement proper maintenance, and as the systems will be designed inheritly safe, we don't need to also integrate stairs. In addition, regarding the fire aspect, I think that the integration of a ladder (in the side of the wall unto which the lift hangs) could be used. Regarding the danger of falling down, perhaps a safety harness can be foreseen per person, fitted to a seperate cable (see also: my idea at [1]regarding a safety harness to be worn all the time) Small update: using this idea, I think it will also allow us to only activate the elevator when loads need to be moved up or down; if a single person wishes to move up/down, we can simply use the cable on the harness, this will reduce pulling wear and thus increase lifetime of rope or chain aswell as the engines, ... I'm not sure however how exactly the person would move towards the shaft exit/entrance (swinging would work buts that isn't too safe; perhaps using 2 seperate cables; the 2nd one being attached when the person arrives near the exit/entrance floor.
KVDP 07:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)