General information about elevators
An elevator or lift is any installation used for the raising of persons or loads.
Today, the French term “ascenseur” has prevailed for the elevator used in multi-storey buildings. The idea of using such installations dates back to very ancient times.
The first reference to an elevator is found in the works of the Roman architect Vitruvius, who mentioned that Archimedes (287 BC – 212 BC) built the first elevator, most probably in 236 BC. In certain literary sources from later historical periods, elevators were described as cabins with a hemp rope, which moved by hand or by animals. It is believed that elevators of this type had been installed at the Monastery of Sinai in Egypt.
In the year 1000, the Book of Secrets by Ibn al-Khalaf al-Muradi in Islamic Spain described the use of an elevator-like lifting device, so as to raise a large battering ram to destroy a fortress.
In the 17th century, prototype elevators were found in the palace buildings of England and France.
Ancient and medieval elevators used drive systems based on hoists or winding mechanisms.
The invention of a gear-based system was perhaps the most important step in elevator technology since ancient times, leading to the creation of modern passenger elevators.
The first gear-driven elevator was built by Ivan Kulibin and installed at the Winter Palace in Russia in 1793.
Several years later, another Kulibin elevator system was installed at Arkhangelskoye near Moscow. In 1823, an “ascending room” made its debut in London.
Elisha Otis filed a patent for an elevator on 15 January 1861.
By the mid-1800s, there were many types of slow elevators carrying out freight transport. Most of them had hydraulic lifting systems.
The first hydraulic elevator used a piston beneath the cabin to raise or lower the elevator. A pump sent water pressure into an iron column inside a vertical cylinder.
The increase in pressure caused the elevator to ascend. The elevator also used a counterweight system, so that the piston did not need to lift the entire weight of the elevator and its load.
The piston, however, was impractical for tall buildings, because it required a pit as deep as the building was tall.
Later, a rope elevator with multiple pulleys was developed.
In 1850, Henry Waterman of New York was awarded for his invention concerning “the continuous control of the rope” for an elevator.
In 1852, Elisha Otis introduced the safety elevator, which prevented the cabin from falling if the rope broke.
The design of the Otis safety elevator is somewhat similar to a type of elevator that continues to be used to this day.
A device (safety catch) activates a toothed cylinder(s), which locks the elevator to its guide rails in the event that the elevator descends at excessive speed.
He demonstrated it at the New York Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in a dramatic presentation — defying death — in 1854.
On 23 March 1857, the first Otis passenger elevator was installed at 488 Broadway in New York, at the Haughwout department store. It was steam-powered, ascended five storeys in less than one minute, and was an undeniable success.
The first elevator shaft was constructed 4 years before the first elevator. The construction was for Peter Cooper, at the Cooper Union Foundation building in New York, which began in 1853.
An elevator shaft had been included in the design, because Cooper was convinced that a safe passenger elevator would be invented soon.
The shaft was cylindrical because Cooper believed it was the most efficient design. Later, Otis designed a special elevator for the building.
The first electric elevator was built by Werner von Siemens in 1880. The safety and speed of electric elevators were significantly enhanced by Frank Sprague.
The inventor Anton Freissler developed the ideas of von Siemens and created a successful enterprise in Austria-Hungary.
The development of elevators was driven by the need to transport raw materials, including coal and timber, from hills.
The technology developed by these industries and the application of metal beams in building construction contributed to the development of both passenger and freight elevators as used today.
In 1874, J.W. Meaker obtained a patent for a method that allows elevator doors to open and close safely. U.S. Patent 147,853.
In 1882, when hydraulic power was an established technology, a company later named the London Hydraulic Power Company was formed.
It constructed a high-pressure network on both sides of the Thames, which eventually extended to nearly 184 miles and powered approximately 8,000 machines, primarily elevators, as well as cranes.
In 1887, American inventor Alexander Miles of Duluth, Minnesota, patented an elevator with automatic doors that enclosed the elevator shaft.
In 1889, an electric motor was used for the first time. In this installation, at the Demarest Building in New York, an electric motor drove a winding drum in the building’s basement.
The introduction of electricity led to two further developments: in 1894, push-button controls were introduced, and in 1895, a lifting device was exhibited in England in which power was supplied to a grooved pulley at the top of the shaft.
The weights of the cabin and counterweight were sufficient to ensure traction. By eliminating the disadvantages of the winding drum, the traction drive mechanism allowed for the construction of taller shafts and the achievement of higher speeds.
In 1904, gearless operation was achieved, by directly fitting the driving pulley to the rotor shaft of the electric motor, and with this innovation, practically unlimited speed was achieved.
After resolving the problems of safety, speed, and height, attention turned to comfort and economy.
In 1915, so-called automatic levelling was introduced, in the form of automatic control systems at each floor that, once the operator discontinued manual operation at a certain distance from the floor level, would guide the car to a specific parking point.
Furthermore, doors became electrically powered. With the increase in building heights, elevator speeds rose to 365 metres per minute in express installations, such as those intended for the upper floors of the Empire State Building (1931), and reached 549 metres per minute at the John Hancock Center in Chicago in 1970, and 61 metres per minute at the Sunshine 60 building (Ikebukuro, Tokyo) in 1978.
Automatic operation, widely prevalent in hospitals and apartment buildings due to its economy, was improved with the introduction of collective operation, in which one elevator or a group of elevators responds to calls sequentially, from the last to the first floor or vice versa.
The fundamental safety feature of all elevator installations was the interlock between the drive mechanism and the shaft doors, which completely prevented the cabin from starting before the external door was closed and locked.
From 1950, automatic group control systems were already in operation, eliminating the need for elevator operators.
An early attempt to minimise the loss of floor area in elevator installations in tall buildings was based on the concept of the double-deck elevator, which was first tested in 1932.
Each elevator consisted of two cabins, assembled one above the other. These two cabins operated as a single unit, serving two floors at each stop (in our country, this arrangement is prohibited by the relevant regulations of the Ministry of Industry).
Automatic double-deck elevators have been operating since 1971 at the Time-Life Building in Chicago and have been adopted in many other buildings around the world.