This elevator design can be incorporated into new construction OR retrofit into any existing Elevator Building provided the following criteria are met.
1: Existing building must have at least 2 elevator ascent shafts
2: The design only works on even numbers of shafts, if there is an odd #, then the odd #'d shaft will not be capable of receiving the retrofit.
3: There must be sufficient space below the last floor with elevator service, and above the last floor with elevator service, OR there must be room laterally on the upper and lower most floor to accommodate the additional mechanicals.
The elevator makes use of existing vertical ascent shafts and elevator cars, but would require additional superstructure, mechanicals and software.
Connect 2 adjacent shafts at the top and bottom most levels, creating a loop. If there is no space lower the the lowest service floor or higher than the highest service floor, consolidate the elevator into a single entrance/egress at the apex of the loop. On one side of a thusly created loop, created a spur channel capable of holding at least one but preferably multiple elevator cars.
Install more than 2 elevator cars within the loop and engineer it so that the elevators can travel along the entire loop circuit (elevators raised and lowered via cables would need to be engineered to rise and lower vial guide rails and brushless electric drive traction motors). All elevator cars will travel in the same direction in the loop, when a call button is depressed the next elevator on the loop preceding the call button will stop and accept the new passenger(s).
The configuration can be side by side where the passengers face the loop head on, or across a corridor where the passengers are waiting in the lobby created by the loop. However the across the corridor configuration would require space above the top most serviced and bottom most serviced floor as the loop would have its bottom and top apex points in the center of the elevator lobby.
Additional software would need to be developed to ensure anti-collision measures are employed, and the spur line would be to take elevators out of service for maintenance, repair or replacement. In extreme cases, one entire shaft can be taken out of service and the elevator will travel up and down the single shaft at reduced efficiency.
The benefit of this design is that wait times will be significantly cut and capacity will be dramatically improved. Since the elevator cars all travel in the same direction, (one shaft being up-only and the other being down-only), more than 2 elevator cars can be housed in any 2 shafts, allowing for configurations such as 5 cars in 2 shafts (or a greater or lesser #), even at 2 cars per 2 shafts, which would afford the same number of cars per shaft as in a traditional elevator configuration, as there would never be the need to back track empty in the event of more passengers traveling in a particular direction, such as during the start and end of a work shift, there would still be efficiencies realized. The greater efficiency would be to have multiple cars in the transit loop.
Responsible safety protocols should likely require each elevator's emergency support brake/clamps to be able to withstand greater than 1 full cars. Perhaps as many as all full cars. A possible more cost effective alternative is to construct a mechanical clamp engagement system which is triggered by a car physically encountering another car, the primary physical contact point could be a lever that severs power to the ascent/descent drive motors and mechanically engages the clamping brakes of both cars. In such a configuration, even a cascade failure of all cars, would result in nothing more than a string of cars all locked into place by emergency clamps. This configuration would eliminate the need for clamps on any one car being required to support more than one full car in weight.
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