9 ms·

what problem does this solve to justify the crazy expense, complexity and maintenance? the reason elevators exist is because people cannot easily climb 100+ ve

what problem does this solve to justify the crazy expense, complexity and maintenance? the reason elevators exist is because people cannot easily climb 100+ vertical ft, especially while carrying stuff. on the other hand, humans are well adapted for horizontal travel - 15mi per day without breaking a sweat. and when they're not, there are movable walkways like in airports. this whole thing is a solution looking for a problem, IMO. we don't yet live in Matrix-style human incubators with miles of horizontal travel in buildings that are also miles high - it's usually either/or, and not because we've been lacking these revolutionary elevators.

chki 9y ago
If those elevators worked they would actually solve a big engineering problem: Very High Buildings can only have a limited number of elevator shafts. But it takes a significant time to use them which makes it problematic if there are a lot of people who want to go. But if elevators were able to travel horizontally that is a first step towards having multiple elevators in one shaft. There are still other problems that need to be solved in order to do this but if it works you can easily transport a lot of people in skyscrapers by having one "upwards" shaft and one "down" shaft which the elevator capsule can change between by moving horizontally.
- leeoniya 9y ago
  you can have dedicated up and down shafts where the cars move horizontally only at the top and bottom, like a ferris wheel. without having them move horizontally at any floor. you just need a way to disconnect the rope (like ski lifts). or you can have towing cars that have only 50 ft of rope and operate on rails (like ships that get towed through Panama locks)
  - russdill 9y ago
    That means that all cars must traverse the entire distance and that all cars must wait each time a car reaches a floor.
    - leeoniya 9y ago
      > That means that all cars must traverse the entire distance with a lot of cars in uni-directional shafts, is this really an issue? > all cars must wait each time a car reaches a floor maybe solved by a 2-lane shaft with a passing lane. very doable with rails or towing cars.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        How can you have multiple cars in a single shaft, using the rope system? To what would the second car from the ceiling be hanging on?
        leeoniya 9y ago
        > very doable with rails or towing cars.
        icebraining 9y ago
        Ah, right. But then, isn't that what they've done here?
rmccue 9y ago
> what problem does this solve to justify the crazy expense, complexity and maintenance? Elevators have a natural height limit, due to the weight of the rope, which is why taller buildings need sky lobbies. You also can't (really) increase the capacity of a single elevator shaft with a traditional rope-based system.
legulere 9y ago
It solves the problem that you can only have on cabin (or two) in an elevator shaft. That's very inefficient in super-tall buildings. With horizontal travel elevator cabins can go out of their way and enable much better usage of elevator shafts. Further you become independent of the total length of the elevator shaft. So you drop another limiting factor to super-tall buildings.
russdill 9y ago
Elevators share a similar problem to rockets. Only instead of the rocket tyranny, it's the elevator shaft tyranny. At a certain point, making a building taller can subtract from the square footage because of the extra shafts required. With a linear motor system, more elevators can be added without adding shafts. Part of making that possible is allowing elevators to change shafts.
- leeoniya 9y ago
  the limiting factor is that shafts havr to accommodate bidirectional movement and using a rope only allows 1 per shaft. you can solve this by having the cars on rails and having unidirectional shafts where the cars only travel horizontally at top and bottom. this would allow muliple elevators per shaft.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
I think this solves a number of problems. Foremost the horizontal movement between buildings. China has a lot of these towers and typically there's skyways to walk across. An elevator that moves horizontally could make it easier to move from 1st of one building to 30th of another. Another point made in the video is that the elevators can move around one another. Solving the issue we have now of a single shaft moving one car to multiple, busy destinations (i.e. the morning rush) allowing multiple cars to use the same shaft to work around one another. All in all I think this is aiming to solve the two greatest problems: time, and cost.

chki 9y ago

If those elevators worked they would actually solve a big engineering problem: Very High Buildings can only have a limited number of elevator shafts. But it takes a significant time to use them which makes it problematic if there are a lot of people who want to go. But if elevators were able to travel horizontally that is a first step towards having multiple elevators in one shaft. There are still other problems that need to be solved in order to do this but if it works you can easily transport a lot of people in skyscrapers by having one "upwards" shaft and one "down" shaft which the elevator capsule can change between by moving horizontally.

leeoniya 9y ago
you can have dedicated up and down shafts where the cars move horizontally only at the top and bottom, like a ferris wheel. without having them move horizontally at any floor. you just need a way to disconnect the rope (like ski lifts). or you can have towing cars that have only 50 ft of rope and operate on rails (like ships that get towed through Panama locks)
- russdill 9y ago
  That means that all cars must traverse the entire distance and that all cars must wait each time a car reaches a floor.
  - leeoniya 9y ago
    > That means that all cars must traverse the entire distance with a lot of cars in uni-directional shafts, is this really an issue? > all cars must wait each time a car reaches a floor maybe solved by a 2-lane shaft with a passing lane. very doable with rails or towing cars.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      How can you have multiple cars in a single shaft, using the rope system? To what would the second car from the ceiling be hanging on?
      - leeoniya 9y ago
        > very doable with rails or towing cars.
        icebraining 9y ago
        Ah, right. But then, isn't that what they've done here?

rmccue 9y ago

> what problem does this solve to justify the crazy expense, complexity and maintenance? Elevators have a natural height limit, due to the weight of the rope, which is why taller buildings need sky lobbies. You also can't (really) increase the capacity of a single elevator shaft with a traditional rope-based system.

legulere 9y ago

It solves the problem that you can only have on cabin (or two) in an elevator shaft. That's very inefficient in super-tall buildings. With horizontal travel elevator cabins can go out of their way and enable much better usage of elevator shafts. Further you become independent of the total length of the elevator shaft. So you drop another limiting factor to super-tall buildings.

russdill 9y ago

Elevators share a similar problem to rockets. Only instead of the rocket tyranny, it's the elevator shaft tyranny. At a certain point, making a building taller can subtract from the square footage because of the extra shafts required. With a linear motor system, more elevators can be added without adding shafts. Part of making that possible is allowing elevators to change shafts.

leeoniya 9y ago
the limiting factor is that shafts havr to accommodate bidirectional movement and using a rope only allows 1 per shaft. you can solve this by having the cars on rails and having unidirectional shafts where the cars only travel horizontally at top and bottom. this would allow muliple elevators per shaft.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

I think this solves a number of problems. Foremost the horizontal movement between buildings. China has a lot of these towers and typically there's skyways to walk across. An elevator that moves horizontally could make it easier to move from 1st of one building to 30th of another. Another point made in the video is that the elevators can move around one another. Solving the issue we have now of a single shaft moving one car to multiple, busy destinations (i.e. the morning rush) allowing multiple cars to use the same shaft to work around one another. All in all I think this is aiming to solve the two greatest problems: time, and cost.