ThyssenKrupp Multi Elevator: 5 recent Newstories ThyssenKrupp Multi Elevator
It's not quite the Wonkavator, but Thyssenkrupp's magnet-propelled elevator comes close. The new elevator technology, nicknamed Multi, can go sideways as well as up and down and will begin testing in 2016.
The innovative new elevator uses magnetic levitation (maglev) technology and can operator multiple elevators in the same shaft without any ropes or wires. The system has been compared to how modern underground train networks operate, with multiple elevator cabins running in a loop. As there are no cables the elevators can go forwards, backwards, up and down. The new elevator system could allow architects to create more innovative buildings.As well as going in every direction the new elevator system can also run faster and more efficiently. Thussenkrupp has done the maths and reckons that every year all of New York's office workers spend a culmulative 16.6 years waiting for elevators and 5.9 years inside them. As Multi can run multiple cabins in the same shaft wait times for elevators could be significantly reduced.
The elevators move at a speed of around five metres a second with access to an elevator every 15 to 30 seconds. The cabins are also smaller than those in conventional elevators with the size of the shaft reduced as well.
Thussenkrupp aims to have a prototype Multi elevator running on its new test tower in Rottweil, Germany by the end of 2016.
ThyssenKrupp wants to turn elevators sideways, move people around faster and fix products before they break.
The company, whose North American headquarters is in Chicago, unveiled the latest in a crop of new innovations in late November — an elevator that could move sideways in addition to up and down. The Multi system would use magnetic levitation technology with linear motors to move elevators through a circuit.
Incoming CEO Patrick Bass will tackle Multi and other projects beginning Jan. 1 when he takes the helm at ThyssenKrupp North America.
ThyssenKrupp is developing a rope-free elevator system to enable the building industry to face the challenges of global urbanization.
“Our headquarters in Chicago is a hub to help maximize and leverage and look at the innovations we can bring,” he said. “Which also matches nicely to the footprint and direction for Chicago — of wanting to go from the traditional industrial Rust Belt city to now: a technological, innovation-driven center.”
He says Multi would fit into that. The system would decrease elevator wait times to a maximum of 30 seconds, cut buildings’ elevator footprint by up to half and conserve energy.
The company has begun building a 246-meter-tall test tower in Rotweil, Germany, to showcase the system. The tower, scheduled for completion in 2016, is designed to get people thinking about how building design could change without the architectural restraints of a strictly up-and-down elevator.
“[After] the birth of the elevator 160 years ago, we allowed the building industry to transform,” Bass said. “The problem was elevators didn’t change enough. The industry became a detractor. We’re limiting building heights and building shapes.”
A promotional video for the Accel, a moving walkway concept by ThyssenKrupp
ThyssenKrupp is also thinking about sideways movement on another place: the ground.
In October, the company announced Accel, which looks like a moving walkway but works like a magic carpet. Pedestrians step onto a belt, which then speeds up and returns back to normal speed before they step off. This technology could be used at airports.
“The biggest problem in an airport is getting them into a terminal so they can either shop or make their plane,” Bass said. “That’s the revenue driver. The more time I spend in that tunnel, the more money I lose as an airport.”
It could also be used in conjunction with public transportation.
“Instead of this old traditional railway, now you have Accel in this nice enclosed open-sunlight visible walkway that you’re walking three times faster than anything before,” Bass said.
Lastly, ThyssenKrupp is thinking about using data to keep everything moving smoothly. The company says it has partnered with Microsoft and CGI Group to connect its devices with the cloud to use data for predictive and preventative repairs.
“It’s about up time. It’s about reliability,” Bass said. “We need to know what’s happening with these (elevator) cars. Real-time. That comes through the Internet of Things.”
Copyright © 2014, Chicago Tribune
Elevators Set to Take New Direction
ThyssenKrupp Designs System That Uses Less Space, Can Travel Horizontally
No longer will elevators that move sideways remain the stuff of fiction. ThyssenKrupp is rolling out a new cable-free elevator and it could very well be the lift elevators need. Eliot Brown joins MoneyBeat. Photo: ThyssenKrupp.
By ELIOT BROWN
Updated Dec. 16, 2014 8:08 p.m. ET
For more than a century, elevators have helped shape skylines around the world largely through the same technology: a car pulled up and down by a cable.
A new technology could change that.
Manufacturing giant ThyssenKrupp AG is rolling out a cable-free elevator, a technology that—if it works as advertised—would allow multiple cars to run in the same shaft, and to run not just up and down but also diagonally and sideways.
While not quite on the level of Willy Wonka’s Great Glass Elevator, such a technology would permit buildings to stretch higher, with less space for elevator shafts, and to expand in new shapes, architects and engineers believe.
“I could almost not think of a technology that has the potential to fundamentally change tall buildings like this one,” said Antony Wood, executive director of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a skyscraper trade group.
Hurdles remain. While the company is starting its marketing for the technology, it doesn’t expect to complete a full-size prototype until 2016. And new technology often proves difficult to take from paper to reality.
In addition, the technology likely will cost significantly more than a traditional elevator, so it is unclear how often developers will choose to use it. ThyssenKrupp, based in Essen, Germany, declined to say how pricey such elevators might be.
Still, the company believes it has cracked the code and is marketing the technology, called Multi, to developers now so they can design towers with the new elevators in mind.
“Multi will change the landscape and the look of buildings,” said Patrick Bass, the incoming chief for North America at ThyssenKrupp, a giant in the elevator trade that is responsible for the elevators at the new One World Trade Center, among other towers.
Architects and engineers consider the current model unwieldy in tall towers because it generally is based on one elevator running per shaft, pulled by a cable from above. That takes up a large portion of a building’s square footage, particularly on the upper floors of a tapered tower.
“Skyscraper heights are always limited by the fact that the shafts take up more and more space” the higher buildings go, said Daniel Levinson Wilk, a history professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology who studies the history of elevators.
Multi, by contrast, runs on magnetic levitation technology, akin to super-high-speed trains in Shanghai and Germany that use magnets to run frictionless and pull and push along a track. This allows for a far more efficient use of space because the technology works more like a train on a track, where one car can follow another up one shaft and then down another. As a result, ThyssenKrupp says it expects the space devoted to elevators can be cut by as much as half.
That can significantly affect the economics of skyscrapers. Less space for elevators means more leasable space, which in turn makes the prospect of constructing a tall building more appealing to developers and investors.
Mr. Bass said he believes the elevators will prove most economical for tall buildings of about 1,000 feet and higher, or about the height of New York’s Chrysler Building. That is a fast-growing category of buildings, particularly in China and the Middle East, where he believes there will be strong demand.
Such buildings would be even more commonplace, Mr. Bass believes, if existing elevator technology didn’t take up so much space.
“The reality is, we have limited the height of buildings as an industry,” Mr. Bass said.
While the company believes the main clientele will be developers of super-tall buildings, the technology, if successful, also would open the door for buildings of nontraditional shapes, since the elevators could push diagonally or horizontally. Going sideways isn’t quite as simple, because riders are more likely to shift as they do in a moving subway car, and may need to hold on to a pole or be strapped in, engineers said.
Peter Weismantle, director of supertall rtechnology at Adrian Smith Gordon Gill Architecture in Chicago whose projects include the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, said it was too early to say just how readily the technology would be adopted, and there were likely challenges to moving horizontally. But for tall buildings, if it can save space, developers likely will look upon it well, he said.
“Anything to reduce the size of the core would be attractive to a landlord,” he said.
Write to Eliot Brown at eliot.brown@wsj.com
Home / Brief / ThyssenKrupp develops elevator propelled by magnets
ThyssenKrupp AG has developed the world’s first cable-free system that uses magnets to propel elevators through buildings.
ThyssenKrupp develops elevator propelled by magnets
ThyssenKrupp AG has developed the world’s first cable-free system that uses magnets to propel elevators through buildings.
The system, which uses the same magnetic levitation — or maglev — technology used in some high-speed trains, can move passengers horizontally as well as vertically and allows multiple elevators to pass through a single shaft, the German manufacturer said recently in a statement. Cabins run in a loop traveling at 5 meters (16 feet) a second, meaning passengers wait only 15 to 30 seconds for the next ride.
Each year in New York, office workers spend a cumulative 16.6 years waiting for elevators, and 5.9 years riding in them, Andreas Schierenbeck, chief executive officer of ThyssenKrupp Elevator AG, said in the statement. That shows “how imperative it is to increase the availability.”
The cable-free design, which ThyssenKrupp calls “the holy grail of the elevator industry,” will increase capacity by 50 percent and saves space because it allows more than one cabin to travel through a shaft at one time. It also requires smaller shafts than conventional elevators.
The MULTI system is designed for mid- and high-rise buildings, with an optimal height of at least 300 meters. The company plans to have a prototype running by the end of 2016.
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