BUILDING SERVICES III

ELEVATORS &
ESCALATORS

CIRCULATION ELEMENTS IN BUILDINGS

Architectural Elements
Corridors
Entrance / Door / Gate
Stairways
Ramps
Mechanical Elements
Lifts / Elevators
Escalators
Moving Walkways

ELEVATORS / LIFTS

HISTORY

HISTORY
The first reference in literature to a lift
is in the works of the Roman architect
Vitruvius,
who
reported
that
Archimedes (c. 287 BC c. 212 BC)
built his first lift probably in 236 BC.
Elisha Otiss invention of the Safety
Gear in 1852 marks the birth of lifts as
we know them.
The Equitable Life Building completed
in 1870 in New York City was the first
office building to have passenger lifts.
They served 8 floors.
The Tallest building in the world is
currently the Burj Khalifa in Dubai
with 160 floors.

TYPES OF ELEVATORS
Passenger lifts
1. Hydraulic lifts
2. Electric traction lifts
3. Machine room-less lifts

TYPES OF ELEVATORS
Observation lifts Glazed
or
partially
glazed lift car within a
glazed or open-sided lift
well.
Also called wallclimber,
scenic, glass, panoramic
or bubble lifts
Located
within
an
atrium or external to the
building.

TYPES OF ELEVATORS
Dumbwaiter
Stair lifts
Scissor lifts

TRACTION LIFT
The car, cables, elevator machine,
control equipment, counterweights,
hoistway, rails, penthouse, and pit are
the principle parts of a traction
elevator installation.
The car is a cage of fire-resistant
material supported on a structural
frame, to the top member of which the
lifting cables are fastened. By means of
guide shoes on the side members, car
is guided in its vertical travel in the
shaft.
The car is provided with safety doors,
operating-control equipment, floorlevel
indicators,
illumination,
emergency exits, and ventilation.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The most popular elevator design is the roped
elevator. In roped elevators, the car is raised
and lowered by traction steel ropes.
The ropes are attached to the elevator car, and
looped around a sheave (3).
A sheave is just a pulley with grooves around
the circumference. The sheave grips the hoist
ropes, so when you rotate the sheave, the ropes
move too.
The sheave is connected to an electric
motor (2).
When the motor turns one way, the sheave
raises the elevator; when the motor turns the
other way, the sheave lowers the elevator.

Cont
Typically, the sheave, the motor and
the control system (1) are all housed in
a machine room
The ropes that lift the car are also connected
to a counterweight (4), which hangs on the
other side of the sheave. The counterweight
weighs about the same as the car filled to 40percent capacity. above the elevator shaft.
Both the elevator car and the counterweight
ride on guide rails (5) along the sides of the
elevator shaft. The rails keep the car and
counterweight from swaying back and forth,
and they also work with the safety system to
stop the car in an emergency.

TRACTION LIFT