MRL Elevators

• Designed for buildings between about two

and 30 stories, this system employs a
smaller sheave than conventional geared
and gearless elevators.
• The reduced sheave size, together with a
redesigned machine, allows the machine to
be mounted within the hoistway itself—
eliminating the need for a bulky machine
room on the roof.
• Just as unique are the flat polyurethane-
coated steel belts, an Otis invention, that
replace the heavy, woven steel cables that
have been the industry standard since the
1800s.
• The belts make the sheave smaller.
• They are only 0.1 inch (3 mm) thick, yet
they are as strong as woven steel cables and
far more durable, flexible and space-saving.
MRL Elevators
• These elevators do not have a dedicated
machine room above the elevator shaft.
• The machine sits in the override space and is
accessed from the top of the elevator cab
when maintenance or repairs are required.
• The control boxes are located in a control
room that is adjacent to the elevator shaft on
the highest landing and within around 150
feet of the machine.
• The mechanism of a MRL Elevator is similar
to the traction lift
• Machine-room-less elevators have a
maximum travel distance of up to 250 feet
and can travel at speeds up to 500 feet-per-
minute.
• Machine-room-less elevators are becoming
the most popular choice for mid-rise
buildings where the travel distance is up to
250 feet.
• They are energy efficient, require less space,
and their operation and reliability is as good
as the gear-less traction elevators.
DOUBLE-DECKER LIFT
• Double deck elevators (DD) can be
compared to railways. These move large
numbers of people horizontally using
common connected carriages with a
single drive system - double deck
elevators use the same principle by
creating vertical trains with double
stacked cars.
• DD elevators comprise two passenger
cars, one located above the other,
connected to one suspension and drive
system.
• The lower and upper decks can serve
two adjacent floors simultaneously and
during peak periods the decks are
arranged to serve `even’ and `odd’
floors.
DOUBLE-DECKER LIFT
• Architecturally, this is important, as
double-deck elevators occupy less
building core space than traditional
single-deck elevators do for the
same level of traffic.
• In skyscrapers, this allows for much
more efficient use of space, as the
floor area required by elevators
tends to be quite significant.
• The other main technique is shared-
shaft elevators, where multiple
elevators use different sections of
the same shaft to serve different
floors.
 ADVANTAGES / LIMITATIONS
• Modern DD elevators employ sophisticated
controls to ensure the best elevator deck is selected
to minimise passenger waiting times, journey
times and the number of stops each elevator
makes.
• The real benefit of the DD elevator is that while
people can be transported in the same time as SD
elevators, the required shaft area is reduced.
• For DD elevators to work efficiently it is necessary
to have a floor area in excess of 2000m2 to ensure
a balanced demand and a high level of coincidence
for people travelling to consecutive levels.
• Sometimes one or more elevators in a building has
a double-deck car, where the second deck is used
• 110 level Sears
for transportation of goods, typically outside of
Tower in Chicago,
peak traffic periods. This technique has the
completed in 1973
advantages of preventing damage to interior
was the first
fixtures due to impact from trolleys, and does not
building to use DD
require a dedicated shaft solely devoted to a goods-
Elevators
only elevator car.