subject: The Elevator: Inside The Workings [print this page] If you own a building with an elevator, or simply ride one every now and then, you may have given some thought to how they work. They are relatively simple machines for all of the work they do. Considering how drastically they have changed the way we live, you might be expecting a machine you could have never dreamed up on your best day. Today's lifts, though, aren't that much more complicated than the technology that powered the dumb waiters of yesterday. Certainly, the mechanics behind them are quite a bit more advanced, but at their heart, they are doing the same thing. Here's an inside look at the workings of this ubiquitous vertical transportation.
Hydraulics
When you talk about the elevator, you are usually talking about one of two kinds, the hydraulic type and the cable type, which is much more prominent. Generally speaking, the hydraulic type is less cost efficient and takes much more electricity to get moving. Just because it uses a lot of power, however, doesn't mean it's any more complicated than its cable brethren. In fact, the mechanics behind them are quite simple. The passenger car sits atop a platform that is in turn connected to a piston. This piston is the lift itself, so it has to be long enough to extend all the way to the top floor of the building. This is impractical for many larger skyscrapers and is usually shunned for even smaller buildings.
Cable
Cable is king in the world of the elevator. Unlike the hydraulic type, construction workers don't need to supply a ridiculously large piston to work the lift and they aren't required to drill too far into the ground to house it. Instead, the passenger car is connected to several steel cables, which run through a pulley. Feasibly, the system could be run by someone strong enough to simply pull the cable and lift the car. Of course, there aren't many people with that kind of strength, so the system is operated with counterweights and computers.
Safety
The chances of being in an elevator accident are far less than the movies would like you to believe, but some people are still wary about getting in one. As much of this is due to the strange sensation of being raised and lowered and the tight quarters that lend to claustrophobia as it is to safety concerns, but knowing that manufacturers have taken precautions is always good for peace of mind. The most important thing to know is that each cable is typically strong enough to hold the car all on its own, meaning that the other three to seven cables could snap and you still wouldn't fall.
