Table of Contents

1. Performance Specification....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Travel Distance................................................................................................................................ 1
1.2. Maximum Carrying Capacity............................................................................................................ 2
1.3. Elevator Travel Speeds and Acceleration........................................................................................ 3
1.4. Elevator Car Weight......................................................................................................................... 3
1.5. Cable Spring Constant.................................................................................................................... 3
1.6. Mass Moment of Inertia of Pulley.................................................................................................... 5
1.7. Motor............................................................................................................................................... 7
1.8. Summary and Selection of Elevator Conditions...............................................................................7
2. Modeling.................................................................................................................................................. 9
2.1. Simplified Model of an Elevator....................................................................................................... 9
3. Reference List........................................................................................................................................ 13

List of Tables

Table 1: Loading Capacity Considerations................................................................................................... 2

Table 2: Spring Constant of Cable at Each Floor......................................................................................... 5

List of Figures

Figure 1: General Floor Layout.................................................................................................................... 1

Figure 2: 8x19 Cable Arrangement.............................................................................................................. 4
Figure 3: MasterFormTM Compacted Strand Rope, (6).................................................................................4
Figure 4: 246.4 mm Wide Pulley/Drum Drawing.......................................................................................... 6
Figure 5: Servo Motor Speed vs Torque, (12).............................................................................................. 7
Figure 6: Simplified Model of an Elevator.................................................................................................... 9
Figure 7: FBD of the Elevator Car................................................................................................................ 9
Figure 8: FBD of the Cable........................................................................................................................ 10
Figure 9: FBD of the Pulley........................................................................................................................ 10
Figure 10: Resulting Block Diagram Illustrating Equation (x).....................................................................12

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1. ERFORMANCE SPECIFICATION
1.1. Travel Distance

As per the requirements of this assignment, a design condition has been generated for the
installation and operation of an elevator. It is thought that the elevator will be installed within an
apartment building comprising of 10 occupational levels, as well as a single underground level for
the parking of cars. The floor to ceiling height will be 2.4m with floor support of 500mm separating
each level. A basic sketch has been provided in Figure 1 below. Reference to Figure 1 below, one
can see that the elevator must rise and fall a maximum distance of 29m.

Figure 1: General Floor Layout

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1.2. Maximum Carrying Capacity

Each floor will accommodate four individual apartments allocated to house 4 persons, thus the
building will house a maximum of 160 tenants. Each apartment will comprise of a kitchen,
bathroom, two bedrooms and a single living area/lounge. It will be assumed that all four
individuals will be adults weighing an average of 80kg each. Table 1 below follows a simple
approach to determine the maximum load carrying capacity for the elevator by evaluating
different scenarios.
Table 1: Loading Capacity Considerations

Scenarios Occurrence Justification Design Capacity

All four tenants All live in the same apartment, as such
per apartment they will more than likely travel at the
High 4 persons per floor
travel at the same same time to restaurants, lifestyle
time. events, shops, etc.
All building Some of the tenants will go to work,
tenants want to thus mornings will generally be the peak
use the elevator at user time. Conservatively one will
the same time Low/Never estimate that at least 75% of the tenants 7.2 persons per floor
housed in the building work. Of that
75%, 60% will be assumed to leave at
the same time, (be it 6am, 7am, etc.).
Tenants The tenants will have guests over from
house/entertain time to time. Because of the nature of
family the apartments envisioned, the tenants
members/friends Medium can comfortably entertain an additional 6 persons per floor
2 persons. Per floor, it is unlikely that
between apartments, guests will
arrive/leave at the same time.

Based on Table 1, it implies that the elevator should be designed to transport 72 persons in total,
this will result in the elevator being designed to carry a load of 5,760kg. A grossly oversized
elevator for a simple apartment building. To reduce the elevator sizing it will be assumed that at
least 10% of the 72 persons will take the stairs.

The elevator will also be designed to complete its capacity in 2 trips. With a second elevator
installed for redundancy and to ease morning commute, a single elevator can be deigned to
transport 16 persons, or a maximum loading capacity of 1,280kg.

1.3. Elevator Travel Speeds and Acceleration

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 Typical travel speeds of the elevator car ranges between a of 1 m/sec to 3 m/sec, (1), (2). The
velocity is ultimately dependant on the travel distance and/or number of set stops required. The
velocity will affect the travel time of the occupants but a key consideration must be to the
acceleration of the car. User comfort and safety is a requirement of which is affected by the car
acceleration. Too high of an acceleration and the occupants can lose their footing and fall, or feel
discomfort as their body resists the change in motion, (inertia). The upper limit of acceleration is
2.4 m/sec based on personal preference with gearless systems capable of reaching 1.2 m/sec,
(3)

1.4. Elevator Car Weight

The primary objective of this report is to analyse a control system surrounding an elevator; the
design of the car is not paramount. In researching for set data points to apply to the
mathematical model derived in Section Error: Reference source not found of this report, it was
discovered that car masses were not readily available, as such an empirical formula supplied
below is applied for 16 persons.

Car weight = 100 + (50 x Number of Passengers), (4)

Car weight = 100 + (50 x 16)
Car weight = 900 kg

1.5. Cable Spring Constant

Elevator cables tend to be a series of smaller cables wound to together forming a wire rope of
typically an 8x19 arrangement, (5), as per Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: 8x19 Cable Arrangement

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Figure 3 below provides the minimum breaking load for an 18x9 elevator cable. The total load
that the cable must support is both the car weight, (900 kg) and the maximum personal weight
1,280 (kg). In the briefest sense, a safety factor of 2.5 will be applied to the loading, as such, the
cable must support a load of 5,450 kg or 12,015.19 lbs. A cable diameter of 7/16 inch or 11.2 mm
will be used, (the selection includes the addition of the cable length mass contribution).

Figure 3: MasterFormTM Compacted Strand Rope, (6)

The stiffness if the steel wire is determined by the following formula:

2
E .C . . d
K= , (7)
4. L

Where:
K is spring constant (kN/m)
E is modulus of elasticity (kN/mm)
C is fill-factor of wire rope (function of wire construction)
D is nominal diameter of wire (mm)
L is length of wire (m)

The fill factor of a 7/16 inch 8x19 cable is 0.58, (8) whilst the modulus of elasticity of elevator
cable is an average of 67.5 kN/mm, (9). Inserting these known values into the above formula, the
spring constant varies as per Table 2 on the following page. Note that it has been assumed that
the elevator winch system is installed approximately 1.5 m above floor 10.

Table 2: Spring Constant of Cable at Each Floor

Level Cable Length Extended Spring Constant

Underground 30.5 m 41 kN/m
1 27.6 m 45 kN/m
2 24.7 m 50 kN/m
3 21.8 m 57 kN/m
4 18.9 m 65 kN/m
5 16.0 m 77 kN/m

5
 6 13.1 m 94 kN/m
7 10.2 m 121 kN/m
8 7.3 m 169 kN/m
9 4.4 m 280 kN/m
10 1.5 m 819 kN/m

An average spring constant of 175 kN/m will be used in this report.

1.6. Mass Moment of Inertia of Pulley

Unfortunately, the elevator presented within this report does not comprise of a counter weight.
Elevators installed without a counter weight are driven via a highly efficient servo drive
synchronous motor comprising of a planetary gear, (10).

This report is compiled around the control of an elevator, not the design of one, as such the
drum/pulley diameter will be obtained from a reputable elevator supplier, namely SLC, (Sautter
Lift Components). SLC makes utilizes a 420 mm drum on their counter-weightless elevators,
(10)

The breadth of the pulley will be determined by the thickness of the cable and the number of
turns it must be wound over the pulley. The total length of cable that the pulley must support is

29
29 m, as such the cable will be wound a 11 times around the pulley. With the
2 0.420

cable being 11.2 mm thick, the cable will cover 11 11.2=123.2mm of the pulleys width.

To err on the side of caution the pulley will be double this width (pulley width is 246.4 mm)

The internal spokes of the pulley are considered negligible in terms of their mass contributions to
the moment of inertia for the pulley. The pulley will be modelled as a disk whose outer race will be
estimated at 70 mm thick.

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 Figure 4: 246.4 mm Wide Pulley/Drum Drawing

The density of cast Iron will be taken as 7,300 kg/m, (11). Thus, the pulley will weigh
approximately 140 kg. The pulley moment of inertia is thus calculated to be 1.715 kg.m where

(r 2outer + r 2inner )
I =mass .
2

The car velocity will be selected as 1 m/sec. Thus, the drum will have to rotate at (1/0.21) = 4.76
rad/sec. As such, the motor must be sized to generate at least enough torque to lift the elevator at
the designed speed. The motor power can be determined from the equation below. A safety
factor of 1.5 will be applied on the motor.

load
max ( drum radius ) ( angular velocity)
P motor=

Pmotor =( 2180 9.81 ) 0.21 4.76

Pmotor =( 2180 9.81 ) 0.21 4.76

Pmotor =32.4 kW

There Pinstalled = 2 x Pmotor = 48.6kW

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1.7. Motor

As discussed in the previous section, counter-weightless elevators utilize a servo motor as the
main drive. It will be assumed that these are DC servo motors as DC servo motors offer high
efficiencies power output, and starting torque at low RPMs. The advantages can be seen in
Figure 5 below.

Figure 5: Servo Motor Speed vs Torque, (12)

Based on the previous sections motor size requirements, it is noted that Siemens offers a 55.5
kW motor with a 3.5 N.m/A K value, a 0.33 armature resistance and a 5.83mH inductance,
(13). The viscous damping effects of the motor will be ignored as the viscous damping resulting
from the drum/pulley is assumed to be much greater.

1.8. Summary and Selection of Elevator Conditions

Table 3: Reference Constants

Condition Variable Value Units

Moment of Inertia J 1.715 kg.m
Radius of Pulley r 0.210 m
Stiffness of Cable k 175 kN/m
Velocity of Car v 1 m/sec
Bearing Damping Constant* C 0.1 N.m.s
Mass of car and Occupants m 2,180 kg
Total Travel Distance N/A 29 m
Motor Installed Power N/A 21.4 kW
*Due to the nature of this report, this is a quantitatively selected
constant to satisfy the model
1.9. Simplified Model of an Elevator

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As instructed in the project brief, the following model will be used below. Take note of the defined
variables and locations. The radius r will be fixed dimension, in other words, the winding of the
cable around the pulley will not alter the winding radius appreciably. The mass portion is a
function of the number of occupants at any given moment within the car. Ultimately the goal is to
relate the input motor torque to the velocity output of the elevator.

Figure 6: Simplified Model of an Elevator

Resolving the model into its free body diagram yields the following equations:

Figure 7: FBD of the Elevator Car

From Newtons Second Law: F=m. a (where a=acceleration= y =v )

Knowns: W =m. g

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Therefore: m. v =f 1W

m. v =f 1m. g

f 1 =m. g+m . v (i)

Figure 8: FBD of the Cable

From Hookes Law: f s=k . y

The spring/cable is a mass less element within this problem and only experiences a change in
displacement associated to the pulley rotation and elevator travel. The spring is extended by the

arc length of the pulley rotation defined by y pulley = . r , and extended by a length y elevator

as it raises. It will be assumed that y pulley > y elevator thus:

y= y pulley y elevator

Therefore, resolving Hookes law and summing the forces in the y direction yields:

f 1 =f s=k ( y pulley y elevator )

f 1 =k ( . r y ele v ator ) (ii)

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 Figure 9: FBD of the Pulley

Knowns: f s=f 2=f 1 (same massless cable, as such no inertial elements)

From Newtons Second Law: T =J (where

=angular acceleration= w
)

Therefore, summing the moments: J w=T

d ( w)+T m r . f 1 (iii)

There are now three equations:

f 1 =m. g+m . v (i)

f 1 =k . . r k . y elev ator (ii)

J w=T
d ( w)+T m r . f 1 (iii)

By differentiating (i) and (ii) w.r.t time the following equation is obtained:

f1 =m. v (iv)

f1 =k . w . rk . v (v)

Inserting (i) into (iii) the following expression is obtained:

J w=T
d ( w ) + T m r . m. gr . m. v
(vi)

By inserting (iv) into (v) the following expression is obtained:

m. v =k . w . rk . v

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 m. v +k . v
w=
r.k

m. v v
w= + (vii)
r .k r

Lastly differentiating (vii) with respect to time yields

m. v v
w=
+ (viii)
r .k r

Inserting (vii) into (vi) yields:

Jm. v Jv
+ =T d ( w ) +T mr . m. gr . m . v (ix)
r.k r

It will be assumed that the damping torque varies linearly with rotation of the shaft. In other
words, the damping torque is directly proportional to the angular velocity of the shaft. The
relationship factor between the two will be defined as variable C.

m. v v
T d=C . w where has been defined previously as + in equation (vii)
r .k r

Finally, by inserting the damping torque relationship into (ix) results in the non-homogenous
differential equation for the elevator:

v =
r .k
J .m [
T d ( w ) +T mr . m. g+
r 2 . mJ
r
v ]
[ [ ]
2
v =
r .k
J .m
C
m. v + k . v
r.k ]
+T mr . m . g+
r . mJ
r
v

[ ]
2
r . k C .m r .mJ C
v = v+ v v+T m r .m . g ( x)
J .m r .k r r

Figure 10 below provides the resulting block diagram produced from the non-homogeneous
equation (x)

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 Figure 10: Resulting Block Diagram Illustrating Equation (x)

It is important to note that the Input has been defined as the motors torque, thus a simple step
input will not suffice. In the next section the control system behind a DC motor has been derived.
A DC motor has been selected as per Section 1.7 of this report.

2. DC MOTOR

The DC motor will receive an input Voltage and produce an Output shaft rotation which in turn will
produce a torque for the elevator to utilize. A simple circuit diagram has been provided below. It is
important to bear in mind that the velocity can be controlled/varied to alter the speed of the motor.

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 Figure 11: DC Motor Simple Circuit

Applying Kirchhoffs law to Figure 11 the following equation results:

di
v =iR L e (i)
dt

Where v is the supplied voltage, R and L is the internal resistance of the wiring and inductance
respectively and e is the back emf produced as the rotator rotates.

The motor torque is directly proportional to the supplied current by a constant factor K T, whilst the
back emf is directly proportional to the angular velocity of the motor shaft by a constant factor K e,
(13). KT = Ke = K when using S.I units. Thus equation (i) reduces to the following expression:

di
L. + R . i=vK . (ii)
dt

The motor drives the drum on the elevator, as such, the force balance when using Newtons
second law results in:

J .
+C . =K .i (iii)

Applying the Laplace transform to both (ii) and (iii) yields the following expression:

(s ) K
= (iv)
V (s) LJ s2 + ( J + L ) s+( K 2 +CR )

Equation (iv) is the DC motors transfer function. It relates an angular velocity output to the
voltage input supplied to the motor. The plant requires a torque to be supplied to the motor shaft.

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 To convert the angular velocity of the motors shaft to that of torque equation (v) will be utilized
below:

P motor
T m= (v) where T is the motor torque, P motor is the power rating of the motor and

is the motor shafts angular velocity.

Equation (v) will be inserted into the model as a gain block

3. REFERENCE LIST

1. Schindler. Schindler 5500. s.l. : Schindler. GB-NI.5500.I.EN.04.13 EUN.

2. Electric, Mitsubishi. Basic Specifications.
3. Strakosch, George R. The Vertical Transportation Handbook. s.l. : Johm Wiley & Sons Inc. , 1998.
ISBN: 0471162914, 9780471162919.
4. White, Richard. Elevator: Electromechanical Elevator. 2007. S/N: F4295601565.
5. Wirerope Works, Inc. Elevator Wire Ropes . Pennsylvania : s.n., 2010.
6. CED Elevator Supply Division. Wire & Wire Rope Products.
7. Wichers, Johan. Guide to Single Point Moorings. s.l. : WMooring, 2013. 9781482649758.
8. 11mm 8x19 IWRC Bright G2160 Right Lay - PowerStrand Wire Rope. Bluej Jay Industrial.
[Online] [Cited: 31 March 2017.] http://www.bluejayindustrial.com/wire-rope/8-strand-wire-rope/8-
strand-rope-right-lay/11mm-8x19-iwrc-bright-g2160-right-lay.
9. Gustav Wolf. Elevator Ropes and Accessories for North America. 5th Edition : s.n., 2016.
10. Components, Sautter Lift. Sautter Drum Driver. slc-liftco. [Online] [Cited: ] http://www.slc-
liftco.com/downloads/Brochure-Drum-Driver_Version02.pdf.
11. Metals and Alloys - Densities. The Engineering Toolbox. [Online]
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/metal-alloys-densities-d_50.html.
12. Oriental Motor . Brushless DC Motors vs. Servo Motors vs. Inverters. [Online]
http://www.orientalmotor.com/technology/articles/brushless-dc-motors-servo-motors-
inverters.html.

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