Could this be the platform lift of the future?
It’s like Willy Wonka finding the Holy Grail. Everyone may be used to lifts moving up and down, but one that moved sideways was supposed to be a fantasy. No more.
Magnetic Levitation
Magnetic levitation – in the industry jargon called maglev – is the first real step forward in lifting technology that can eliminate the heavy and expensive use of cables and hoists. Ever since lifts were first invented over a century and a half ago, their moving mechanism has been an electrically powered cable system. Not only has this been a very energy-intensive mechanism of lifting a load, but it is not particularly versatile. You can only move up or down.
ThyssenKrupp has developed the first cable-free lift system in the world. Its MULTI elevator technology will pull a lift cabin in a horizontal as well as a vertical direction, just as in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Some may argue that ThyssenKrupp snatched its idea from the turbolifts in “Star Trek”. These are able to travel in any direction a passenger wants.
Prototype
ThyssenKrupp is completing a prototype of this lift at Rottweil in Germany. The lift will be installed in a 260-metre-high concrete tower in the autumn of 2015. An outer skin to the building will be added in March 2016, and testing is set to begin soon after.
MULTI will be very energy-efficient – much more so than even the best of traditional cable lifts. It will also be able to run multiple cabins in a loop at speeds up to five metres per second. These maglev lifts will be able to carry at least 50% more passengers while also reducing their waiting times by up to 30 seconds. A further advantage is that the l9ft shafts will be about half of the size as those needed for a traditional cable shaft.
More Space in Buildings
All of this means that the new lifts will add significant additional space to buildings. The system is also not going to be constrained by a building’s height. In the past, a building needed to be at least 300 metres high to accommodate this technology. This is no longer the case with the maglev elevators, and it is a revolutionary development for building design.
A developer or architect will no longer have to consider how to design the building around one or more vertical lift shafts but can use all manner of possibilities that have never been imagined before.
Towards a Future of Space-Time
We are all used to lifts moving along what mathematically is the y-axis, or vertically. Maglev will bring lifts moving along the x-axis, or horizontally. In the future, we may have lift travel along the z-axis, or a direction perpendicular to both the x- and y-axes. Maybe the future will also bring travel along the w-axis, or in four-dimensional space, also called the space-time continuum. But maybe at this point the passengers could get a little confused.
