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PEOPLE FLOW |
ReinvenTing The elevAToR
Traveling more than 500 meters,
or 100-odd floors, in a continuous
elevator trip is challenging and doesn’t
really make sense using conventional
technology. At that point, the weight of
the several kilometers of rope needed to
hoist the elevator becomes an obstacle.
More ropes are needed just to lift the
weight of the ropes.
In a building this tall, the moving
masses of a single elevator hoisted
with steel ropes can be some 27,000
kilograms. This is equal to fitting ten
off-road vehicles inside the shaft and
shifting them along with the elevator.
Using KONE UltraRope for hoisting in
a similar shaft, the moving masses are
roughly 13,000 kilograms, or about the
weight of four off-road vehicles.
Limits set by ropes are a major
reason why most very tall buildings
have sky lobbies served by shuttle
elevators from the ground. Separate
elevators take people higher from these
lobbies in the sky. In the future, KONE
UltraRope will enable elevator travel all
the way from ground floor to penthouse
in a kilometer-high building in one
continuous journey.
“We are on the brink of something
big. In a sense, we have reinvented the
high-rise elevator,” says Pihkala.
KONE UltraRope is compatible with
all other KONE high-rise solutions so
it can be used to replace conventional
ropes in old buildings. And with the
new technology, the higher you go, the
bigger the benefits. For example, the
energy savings for a 500-meter elevator
journey are around 15 percent versus
conventional rope. For an 800-meter
journey, the savings are over 40 percent.
some of the qualities that have been
measured.
no RusT, no weAR
Unlike steel, carbon fiber does not rust,
stretch or wear. The special coating of
the new rope makes lubrication un-
necessary, meaning environmentally
friendlier maintenance. Carbon fiber
also resonates at a completely different
frequency to most building materials.
This means KONE UltraRope is less
sensitive to building sway, and eleva-
tor downtime during strong winds and
storms can be reduced.
While typical high-rise elevator
ropes need to be changed at regular
intervals – no easy task in a tall build-
ing – the new technology enables a
rope lifetime twice that of conventional
ropes. KONE has also developed a real-
time rope condition monitoring system.
“We have a rope that works, is
reliable, and delivers on our promises,”
Pihkala beams. “This is a good place to
move on from.”
■
1km
KONE ULTRAROPE
™
WILL ENABLE
ELEvATOR TRAvEL OF UP TO ONE
KILOMETER IN THE FUTURE.
KONE UltraRope™ in
action, being tested at
the Tytyri high-rise
laborabory in Lohja,
Finland.
CoRe sTRengTh
In addition to being very light, carbon
fiber is strong and durable. It has already
revolutionized products in several other
industries, including aviation and sport-
ing equipment.
At KONE, the idea of creating a
carbon fiber rope came in 2004. “The
first prototypes were made by hand,”
says Pihkala. Actual research and
development began a few years later. It
wasn’t long before the rope was fitted
into a shaft at KONE’s Tytyri high-rise
testing laboratory in Southern Finland.
“We were surprised by how
problem-free it was,” says Pihkala.
“Often, there are a lot of problems
when you develop something com-
pletely new. But our faith in this started
to grow very quickly.”
The rope has since been tested
thoroughly both in real elevators and
in laboratories. Properties like tensile
strength, bending lifetime, material
aging and the impact of extreme
temperatures and humidity are just
PeRCenTAge %
elevAToR TRAvel heighT (m)
0,0
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1000
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AnnuAl sAvings in eneRgy ConsumPTion