4 VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION

SYSTEMS

4.1. INTRODUCTION

Vertical transportation systems include all kinds of transportation media within

buildings, such as lifts, escalators, hydraulic hoists and passengers conveyors etc.
It may be considered the most important building services system for high-rise
buildings. Every occupant of a high-rise commercial building needs to take lifts
at least four times a day, in the morning, during lunch and after office hours. In
this chapter, we shall look into the basic structure of a lift, safety devices, and the
control and monitoring aspects. Modem lift drives and techniques in traffic
analysis will be touched on briefly.

4.2. STRUCTURE OF A LIFT

In accordance with CIBSE Guide D [1], a lift is a permanent piece of lifting

equipment, serving two or more landing levels, provided with a car or platform
for the transportation of passengers and/or freight, running at least partially in
rigid guides either vertical or inclined to the vertical by less than 15°; known in
U.S.A. as an elevator. There are, in general, two major categories of lifts, namely
electric lifts and hydraulic lifts. From the operational target point of view, lifts
can be categorised into four five types, namely passenger lifts, goods (freight)
lifts, service lifts, fire fighting lifts and vehicle lifts. For very special applications,
there are other lifts such as wheelchair lifts, observation lifts, scissor lifts and rack
and pinion lifts etc. As electric lifts and hydraulic lifts are so common, we shall
concentrate our study on these two kinds of lifts.

4.2.1. Structure of an electric lift

Figure 4.1 shows the major components of an electric lift. The vertical void in
which the lift travels up and down is called "hoistway" or "lift shaft". The bottom
of the lift shaft is called "lift well" or "lift pit". The cabin in which passengers
are being carried is called the "lift car". The lift car has its own doors, called "car
doors". At each landing, there are "landing doors". The landing doors are not
powered as they are opened or closed by the car doors under mechanical

A. T.-p. So et al., Intelligent Building Systems

© Kluwer Academic Publishers 1999
28 Vertical Transportation Systems

engagement when the car is within the unlocking zone of each floor. The landing
indicator, or called hall lantern, is used to inform the passengers a certain car
arrives to serve that particular floor. The car doors are powered by a door
operator which is essentially a
Brake"
small DC or AC motor. The ..._____Controller
car is lifted up or down by
suspension ropes terminated at Drive motor
the top of the car frame. The
ropes go up from the car frame
to the machine room which is
normally at the top of the Car guide rail /' Door operator
hoistway and are laid on the
drive sheave, down to the -tt-t--+----Car
counterweight frame. The
drive sheave is mechanically Safety gear -\~¢ljJI~;t;;;~S,p
____ Car
doors
driven by the traction motor
------. Apron
which can be DC or AC, with
Travelling cables-
or without a gear box. For Landing
high speed lifts, the drive is indicator
Landing doors Landing
usually gearless. A brake is pushbutton
installed between the sheave
and the drive motor and it is Counterweight ____
guide rail -
mechanically applied, -Hoistway
electrically released. The
space between the two Counterweight _
terminals of the ropes can be
increased by diverter pulleys. Counterweight _Limit
buffer
At the bottom of the hoistway, switches

there are buffers for the car

and the counterweight. The
"', Car buffer
communication between the
car and the controller inside
the machine room for control Figure 4.1 Structure of an Electric Lift
and display functions is via a
ribbon of travelling cables. The horizontal movement of the car is constrained
by the guide rails using guide shoes for low speed or guide rollers for high speed.

Safety is the most important issue of consideration when a lift is designed. There
are many safety devices built into a lift system. The car doors and landing doors
are both electrically and mechanically interlocked. When anyone car door or
landing door panel is not closed and locked properly, the car cannot move. Inside
the hoistway, there are limit switches that switch off the electric power to the lift
when the car overtravels down into the lift pit or too high up the hoistway above
the top floor. The car doors are equipped with mechanical safety edges, or
optical, infrared or proximity sensors so that when a passenger is entering a car
Intelligent Building Systems 29

or the doors are hitting a passenger, the doors will be opened automatically and
immediately. There is an overload sensor underneath the car floor and the car
will not move when the car is overloaded with passengers. Very often, the car
will not stop to answer a landing call when the car is more than 90% loaded. The
most important safety device is the safety gear and overspeed governor
integration. The governor wheel, usually of centrifugal type, consists of a sheave,
flyweights and a rope clamping device. As the sheave rotates when the car is
going down, the pivoted flyweights move outwards due to centrifugal force. At
a predetermined speed, the weight strike a release mechanism that causes the rope
clamping device to grip the governor rope. The rope than activates the safety gear
on the car and holds the guide rail tightly until the car stops.

4.2.2. Structure of a hydraulic lift

The practical maximum rise of

a hydraulic is around 20 m
where the contract speed is
usually limited to 0.63 mls.
Recently, high speed hydraulic Guide rails
Door
lifts up to 1 mls have been operator
developed. Figure 4.2 shows
the structure of a typical
Car doors --Car
hydraulic lift. The major
advantage of hydraulic lifts is
the absence of the machine
Lift well
room where space can be Travelling
saved. The common hydraulic cables

lift is the direct acting type

where a central or side acting
jack is used to lift up and
down the car. For lifts with LandiJlg
indicator -.. . . . .
higher contract capacity (load),
twin or tandem jacks are
Landing
employed. The jack is pushbutton
essentially a piston inside a
cylinder. An oil tank or
reservoir is used where the Landing \
doors Tank
motor and pump are
submerged in the tank for
cooling. When the lift
Collar
descends, oil is released from
the cylinder back to the oil Cylinder in
borehole
tank.

Two distinctive protective Figure 4.2 Structure of a Hydraulic Lift

30 Vertical Transportation Systems

devices associated with a hydraulic lift but not with an electric lift are the
protection against free fall of the car and the descent with excessive speed and
creeping. A pawl device is installed that operates only in the downward direction
and stops and maintains the car stationery on fixed stops with full load. For each
landing, supports are provided at two levels to prevent the car from sinking below
the landing level by more than 0.12 m and to stop the car at the lower end of the
unlocking zone. At least one pawl device is electrically retractable and the
movement of the pawl to the extended position is effected by guided compression
springs and/or by gravity. Furthermore, an electrical anti-creep system is provided
so that when the lift has been unused fbr a period not exceeding 15 minutes after
the last journey, the car is dispatched automatically to the lowest landing. This
is to avoid gradual creeping of the car.

4.3. LIFT DRIVES [2,3]

Common lift drives can be divided into two categories, namely DC and AC In
the past, DC drives were used for high speed lifts while AC drives were for low
speed lifts. In nowadays, AC drives are almost dominating the market due to the
development of high speed AC drives and the maintenance convenience of AC
induction machines.

The W ard-Leonard (WL) configuration consists of a constant flux DC motor and

a rotating conversion AC motor and DC generator set. By adjusting the generator
field, a variable DC voltage and thus a variable motor speed can be achieved.
The motor flux is kept constant by the controlled motor field rectifier and hence,
the motion can be controlled by forcing the appropriate current into the motor by
means of a controllable generator field excitation. It is obvious that the
installation costs for the WL Drive are relatively high due to the extra space
needed for the conversion set and the extra maintenance provided for the
commutatorlbrushes of both generator and motor. In order to avoid such
disadvantages, the rotating conversion set can be replaced by a static converter,
the thyristor Leonard (TL) system. The principal power circuit contains two back-
to-back, fully controlled three phase bridges (Converter I and II). The average
value of the DC voltage is controlled by the thyristor firing angle.

The AC-2 speed drive is the most conventional type of AC drive and may be
considered as uncontrollable. The AC induction motor is designed with two
independent stator windings, the pole pairs of which differ considerably from each
other. For elevator drives, a ratio of 1:4 is typical. In order to bring the elevator
to a complete stop, a small mechanical brake is required. The use of two
independent stator windings leads to a relatively expensive induction machine
which cannot be operated at its best utilisation. Also, AC-2 speed drive is not
speed controllable. A single winding machine is always more economical and
preferable. For an AC variable voltage drive (ACVV), the machine is supplied
with two combined voltage controllers, one for each phase sequence. The
Intelligent Building Systems 31

acceleration as well as the deceleration is controlled by varying the respective

three phase AC voltages.

The major disadvantage of the ACVV Drive is the resistive losses arising at every
acceleration and especially every braking process. They are inherent to an
induction machine being operated at constant frequency, and they are accentuated
by controlling the voltage during the process. A better AC drive for elevators
calls for both voltage and frequency control. A pulse-width-modulated (PWM)
inverter can produce a symmetrical set of three-phase AC voltages from a DC
voltage source by varying the switching intervals of the six power electronic
elements, either thyristors or power transistors. By this method, quasi-pure
sinusoidal currents of the required frequency and voltage can be applied to the
machine windings. Very low speed operation down to stand-still and re-
generative braking are possible without difficulty. VVVF drives were mainly the
"scalar" type in late 80's and early 90's but at present, the "vector" type is
dominating. The "scalar" type calls for a constant slip control while the "vector"
type tries to modify the control of an AC machine into a DC machine mode, and
thus the dynamic performance becomes superior.

4.4. LIFT TRAFFIC ANALYSIS [4]

The problem in sizing lift systems is to match the demands for transportation from
the building's occupants with the handling capacity of the installed lift system.
This procedure should also result in an economic solution. The calculation of lift
performance depends on three data sets concerning the building, the lift and the
passengers. The building data set consists of number of floors and the interfloor
distance. The lift system data set consists of number of cars, contract capacity,
contract speed, flight times between floors, door opening times, door closing times
and the traffic control system. The passenger data set consists of number of
passengers boarding from specific floors, number of passengers alighting at
specific floors, traffic mode, i.e. unidirectional or multidirectional, transfer times
for passengers entering and leaving cars and passenger actions.

There are mainly three types of distinctive traffic patterns, i.e. morning up-peak
and up-peak after lunch, being slow to rise and quick to fall; down-peak before
lunch and afternoon down-peak, being larger in size and longer in duration;
balanced interfloor traffic, 2-way and 4-way traffic. According to normal
practice, designers always size a lift installation to handle the number of
passengers requesting service during the heaviest five minutes under the up-peak
traffic condition. A lift system must perform well in two aspects, namely the
quality of service which is the actual average passenger waiting times and the
quantity of service which is the handling capacity of the whole system within 5
minutes. Before any design is carried out, it is necessary to determine the
percentage of a building's population that will require transportation to the higher
floors of a building during the morning up-peak of five minutes. The rate
32 Vertical Transportation Systems

depends on the type of building occupancy, the starting regime, and locations of
bulk transit facilities such as buses and trains schedules.

4.4.1. Round trip time (RTT)

This is the most important parameter in lift traffic analysis. It is the average
period of time for a single car trip around a building, during the up-peak traffic
condition, measured from the instant the car doors start to open at the main
terminal to the instant the car doors start to reopen at the main terminal when the
car returns to the main terminal after its trip around the building. The car trip is
characterised by the average number of stops (S) and the average highest call
reversal floor (H). For further details, readers are recommended to refer to
Barney [4]. The equation for estimating RTT is shown below:
RTT = 2 H tv + (S + 1) ts + 2 P tp

where tv df ; ts (4.1)
v
(tl + t)
P 0.8 CC
2

Here, H is the "highest reversal floor"; S is "expected number of stops"; ts is

"stopping time"; tv is "single floor flight time under rated speed"; tp is "passenger
transfer time in or out of the car"; to is "door opening time"; tc is "door closing
time"; de is "floor to floor height"; v is "contract speed or rated speed of lift car";
t~l) is "single floor flight time stationery to stationery"; t\ is "passenger loading
time into the car"; tu is "passenger unloading time out of the car"; P is "number
of passengers inside car"; CC is "contract capacity in terms of number of
passengers". If it is assumed that the cars are uniformly distributed within the
building, from RTT, the up-peak interval (UPPINT) and up-peak five-minute
handing capacity (UPPHC) can be estimated as shown below:
RTT
UPPINT where L = number of cars
L
300 P (4.2)
UPPHC
UPPINT
300 P L
for L number of cars
RTT
If the possible effective number of occupants inside the building, i.e. effective
building population, U, is known, the percentage population handled by the lift
system, %POP, can be estimated as shown below:

% POP =
* 100
UPPHC
U (4.3)
where U = effective population of building
The design procedures become simple. First, the effective population, U, IS
Intelligent Building Systems 33

determined by information from either the developer or the architect. The

percentage of U that will ask for lift services during up-peak condition is found
based on experience or from CIBSE Guide D [1]. RTT of one car is calculated
and then the suitable number of lifts is selected to determine the UPPINT. It is
required to check whether the UPPINT obtained is satisfactory. For example, the
UPPINT of 25 to 30 seconds will be quite good for a commercial building. The
UPPHC and %POP are calculated. If the %POP obtained deviates much from the
required percentage, the design process has to be repeated.

4.5. SUPERVISORY CONTROL [4]

The control of lift systems raises two different engineering problems. First, some
means of commanding a car to move in both up and down directions and to stop
at a specified landing must be provided. Secondly, in a group of cars working
together, it is necessary to co-ordinate the operation of the individual cars in order
to make efficient use of the lift group. The simplest form of automatic lift control
is "collective control". When there is more than one car to serve the same zone,
"group control" must be employed. For conventional group control, "static
sectoring" may be the simplest. "Dynamic sectoring" is a little bit more advanced
in that the number of sectors and the position and limits of each sector depend on
the instantaneous state, position and direction of travel of the individual cars.
Recently, computerised group control becomes popular due to the availability of
advanced microprocessors, examples being "duplex/triplex system", "fixed
sectoring priority timed system" and "CCL" etc.

The most advanced computer control system may be the "hall call allocation"
scheme [4]. The car call pushbutton panels are placed at the landings. Each time
a new landing call is registered, the computer allocates the best car based on the
lowest cost of all possible allocations. One suitable cost function is passenger
average waiting time, AWT [4]. Suppose a new call is to be allocated to a lift
system of L cars, car I having N(I) landing calls to answer and WT(I)
accumulated waiting time for the N(I) landing calls. Assume that NWT(K) is the
new accumulated waiting time for N(K)+ 1 landing calls of car K, when the new
landing call is allocated to car K. The average waiting time for the L cars is
given by:
L
L WT(l)
A WT = NWT(K) - WT(K) + _1=_1_ __ (4.4)
L L
1 + L N(l) 1 + L N(l)
1=1 1=1

From equation (4.4), it can be seen that the minimisation of AWT only implies
the minimisation ofNWT(K) - WT(K). This simplifies the evaluation of the cost
function as only the incremental cost is to be considered.
34 Vertical Transportation Systems

4.6. REMOTE MONITORING [5]

Remote monitoring of elevators is one of the most important features of elevator

systems. The issue was addressed in CIBSE Guide D [1] and it will be discussed
in details again in the coming revision of Guide D 1998/99. Benefits [1] of
elevator monitoring include increased safety, increased availability and reliability,
faster response times in the events of breakdown and complaints, elimination of
repetitive breakdowns, establishment of condition maintenance programmes, 24-
hour assistance for trapped passengers and on-site setting of parameters for lift
controllers etc.

Most commercially available remote monitoring systems make use of the public
switched telephone network, PSTN, to report problems to the emergency centre.
However, there is always a danger of collecting too much data that it cannot be
assessed and therefore will not be acted upon. An optimal selection of parameters
to be monitored must be decided upon. According to CIBSE Guide D, the
general features of a remote monitoring system should be as follows:

i) indication of lift-in-service status

ii) trapped passenger alarms
iii) inoperable lift alarms
iv) performance malfunction (alarms)
v) early transmission of alarms and status to the lift maintenance
contractor's monitoring control centre
vi) automatic collection of lift performance data
vii) two-way voice communication with trapped passengers
viii) remote configuration of field units
ix) ability to conduct 'on-line' investigation and analysis of lift activity
x) optional measurement of levelling performance
xi) data analysis

4.7. REFERENCES

[1] CIBSE, Guide D: Transportation Systems in Buildings, CIBSE, 1993.

[2] So A.T.P. and Chan W.L., "Computer simulation based analysis of elevator drive systems",
HKlE Transactions, H.K.I.E., 1992, pp. 13-22.
[3] Doo1aard D.A., "Energy consumption by different types of lift drive systems", Elevator
Technology 4, IAEE, 1992, pp. 77-85.
[4] Barney G.c. and dos Santos S.M., ed. Elevator Traffic Analysis, Design and Control, lEE,
Peter Peregrinus, London, 1985.
[5] Chan W.L., So A.T.P. and Liu S.K., "A cost effective remote monitoring and
communication system", Elevator Technology 9, IAEE, 1998, pp. 64-73.