Shake table testing of an elevator system in a full‐scale five‐story building

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper investigates the seismic performance of a functional traction elevator as part of a full-scale five-story building shake table test program. The test building was subjected to a suite of earthquake input motions of increasing intensity, first while the building was isolated at its base, and subsequently while it was fixed to the shake table platen. In addition, low-amplitude white noise base excitation tests were conducted while the elevator system was placed in three different configurations, namely, by varying the vertical location of its cabin and counterweight, to study the acceleration amplifications of the elevator components due to dynamic excitations. During the earthquake tests, detailed observation of the physical damage and operability of the elevator as well as its measured response are reported. Although the cabin and counterweight sustained large accelerations due to impact during these tests, the use of well-restrained guide shoes demonstrated its effectiveness in preventing the cabin and counterweight from derailment during high-intensity earthquake shaking. However, differential displacements induced by the building imposed undesirable distortion of the elevator components and their surrounding support structure, which caused damage and inoperability of the elevator doors. It is recommended that these aspects be explicitly considered in elevator seismic design.

Uncertainty-Aware Robustness Assessment of Industrial Elevator Systems

“…Al-Sharif et al [3] proposed a paradigm with three components for testing the performance of elevator group control algorithms using idealized benchmarks, random scenario testing, and gradually making scenarios more realistic. Wang et al [51] tested the seismic performance of a functional traction elevator in a reinforced concrete building under earthquake. The designed building can shake in east-west direction, which takes advantage of the ground motions developed for a site in Southern California.…”

Probability-Based City-Scale Risk Assessment of Passengers Trapped in Elevators under Earthquakes

“…Sustainability 2023, 15, 4829 2 of 20 However, to the best of our knowledge, though PTE risk maps of urban areas are highly important for protecting the lives of people under earthquakes, studies regarding this topic are currently limited. In contrast, existing studies mainly focus on the seismic performance of elevators [8][9][10][11][12]. For example, Porter performed a regression analysis of post-earthquake survey data to obtain the fragility curves of hydraulic and traction elevators [8,9].…”

“…For example, Porter performed a regression analysis of post-earthquake survey data to obtain the fragility curves of hydraulic and traction elevators [8,9]. Wang et al conducted a shaking table test to evaluate the seismic performance of elevators in fivestory reinforced concrete buildings with and without seismic isolation [10]. Nguyen et al investigated the vibration of the main and compensation ropes of an elevator system under earthquake excitation, considering the effect of varying rope lengths during the running of the elevator [11].…”

A NN-based attention model for rope vibration prediction and channel sensitivity analysis

“…13,14 In the existing elevator traction system, the hoist rope is usually mounted on the car frame through a damping connector, the car frame and the car are a two-mass inertia system with spring-mass connections. 15,16 As known, the complex structures, such as the strands of steel wires of the suspension system, the installation method, and the combination of the connections are closely related to each other, 17 including the usually installed streamlined fairings in order to solve the problem of noise and airflow generated by the wind tunnel effect 18 during high-speed operation in elevator shaft, 19 are non-normalized that impossible to model 20 the dynamics and vibration characteristics of the load interface accurately and eventually affects the timeliness and accuracy of the vibration suppression control of the whole elevator traction system. Meanwhile, the dynamics of the traction rope as the input of the load interface, is that needs to be considered in the elevator vibration suppression control.…”