An elevator car is suspended by ropes to move vertically along the elevator shaft. When the car stops at a specific floor in the building, the car might receive a large rope sway due to an enforced motion of the building during a strong wind or a big earthquake. Several modelings of the elevator rope sway have been proposed. One derives a difference equation based on the wave propagation equation of the string vibration to evaluate the resonance behavior of the elevator suspension rope. As another modeling, simplified equations of rope motion are derived against the horizontal and vertical direction. Each equation is expressed as 1-DOF (degree-of-freedom) model and the both vibration modes are coupled with each other. In this paper, the resonance curve of the simplified 1-DOF model is derived by an implicit function. Another equivalent resonance curve is also received by a quadratic equation, which is approximated from the implicit fuction. The both resonance curves show nonlinear resonance behavior as a softening effect. The nonlinear resonance curve can be derived as a non-dimensional function,E and the derived curve corresponds to the numerical simulation result.

Elevators are essential for means of vertical transportation. Recently elevators, which are installed in high buildings, are long stroke. These elevator ropes are longer than conventional elevator ropes. The natural period of the elevator rope becomes longer for the long elevator rope. The natural period of the elevator rope gets closer to that of the building. The elevator ropes severely vibrate by the external force, such as strong winds and earthquakes. Accordingly, the division of lift stroke has been suggested for decrease of the rope response in the conventional research. The effectiveness of the lift stroke division has been confirmed by the investigation of the time history response analysis. However, the investigation of the optimum division position at the time history response analysis is taken tremendous effort. Accordingly, the simple design method of the optimum division position is necessary at commencement of design. In this study, the simple decision procedure of the optimum division position is suggested. The optimum division position of the simple decision procedure is compared with the optimum division position of the time history response analysis. As a result, the calculation of the optimum division position is relatively simple and high precision.

Recently, analysis of the elevator rope sway motion due to a strong wind or an earthquake is more important for the long-travel elevator in high-rise buildings. In particular, this paper focuses on analysis of elevator rope sway during car traveling. However, because the conventional methods need a complex mathematical model and numerical calculation, it is difficult to qualitatively understand the characteristic of the rope from the equation. Therefore, this paper proposes a simple analysis of elevator rope sway during car traveling. In the proposed method, time-axis transformation is introduced to simplify a time-varying model to a time-invariant model. Use of the time-invariant model enables us to qualitatively understand the characteristic of the rope sway with varying length. This paper shows analysis examples in the cases of free response and enforced vibration.

In recent years, the elevator has become an important social infrastructure as a means of vertical transportation. And the height of buildings has been increasing, and the elevating stroke of elevators has become longer. The vibration of the elevator is increasing with the increase in speed and length. Traveling cables are normally suspended between a car bottom and a junction box located at a middle point of the hoistway. So this cable has also become longer and may swing greatly due to the low frequency vibration of the building caused by the wind and small earthquake and it may cause a damage or a malfunction of the equipment in the hoistway. In order to reduce this vibration, it is required to build a simulation model that can simulate the behavior of a real traveling cable. In this study, the simulation model that can simulate the three-dimensional behavior of the traveling cable was constructed using multi-body dynamics (MBD) and behavior of the travelling cable against building swing was coincided.

Generally, the rope-type elevator has multiple main ropes. If the groove depth of the traction machine is not uniform, the tension will be different for each rope of the main ropes, and the rope with a high load will deteriorate faster. This paper presents a modeling method of the main rope tension fluctuations considering the variation in the groove depth of the traction machine and the rope slipping on the sheave. For the variation in groove depth, the reference diameter is set, and the tension fluctuations are calculated from the difference in the amount of rotation between the reference diameter and each groove depth. For the rope slip on the sheave, the traction ratio is calculated for each rope and rope slip occurs when this ratio is beyond the allowance value. Compared with the actually measured tension fluctuations, the simulation accuracy was high on the cage side, but the simulation accuracy was low on the counter weight side. So further investigation will be needed, for example, minute rotation of the free sheaves on the counter weight.

In this paper, we described the strength evaluation of the elevator car floor structure using the adhesive. In elevators, the car floor is a major structure that affects the rigidity of the entire car and also has a significant impact on the ride comfort. By applying adhesive technology to the car floor, we aimed to improve the rigidity of the entire car and simplify and reduce the overall structure of the elevator. On the other hand, the adhesive bond is susceptible to the surface state of the adherend (such as, oil contamination). In addition, since the elevator is to be used for a long time, there are problems such as a decrease in strength due to fatigue. In this study, we selected a long-term reliable adhesive that can be applied to the elevator car structure, and clarified the strength evaluation method considering long-term fatigue using CZM (Cohesive Zone Model) analysis that can simulate peeling of adhesive bonding. This facilitates the design of car floors of various specifications.

In the installation of the elevator, work performs to correct the bending of the rail in order to suppress the lateral vibration of the car due to the irregularity of the guide rail. In this work, each rail bracket is adjusted so that the cutting edge of the rail is in the specified horizontal position with respect to the piano wire. However, since the rail is bent at the joint, irregularities remain even if the brackets are lined up in a straight line. Such a method cannot suppress the lateral vibration of the car and may worsen it. In this research, we proposed a method of optimizing the rail shape to minimize the vibration of the car based on a rail behavior model in that adjustment process and a car vibration model, and verified the effect by experiments using an actual elevator. As a result, we were able to suppress lateral vibration by 35% in a short working time.

In recent years, magnetic flux leakage testing is considered as method of wire rope inspection. A coil, a Hall element, and a magnetoresistive element are adopted in the detector used for this method. It is often referenced to those that can detect small magnetic flux densities when adopting these elements. Detection of small damage also became possible. However, since the noise is contained much when inspecting the wire ropes, it is difficult to detect a very small damage. The noise due to strands of the ropes is an evaluation of only the magnitude of the magnetic flux density. Thus, discussion of the direction of the magnetic flux is not performed. In this research, the effect of noise caused by the strand is evaluated by numerical analysis. Furthermore, we verified whether useful in reducing noise due to strands of the rope by the detector's angle. Therefore, it was found that there is due to strands of the rope as cause of noise. It showed that it is possible to noise reduction by the detected angle of the detector and twist angle of the strand.

The handrail of an escalator has steel wires built into the resin coating as a tensile carrier. When the handrail deteriorates due to the bending motion of the handrail, the steel wires break and the strand flies out onto the surface of the handrail, which may lead to a user accident. As a result, measures have been taken to shorten the replacement cycle of handrails. However, as the replacement cycle is shortened and the number of replacements increases, the convenience of escalators decreases. Therefore, there is a need to ensure the safety of handrails by inspecting abnormalities in steel wires and to optimize the number of handrail replacements. We have developed a magnetic inspection system that uses a magnetic image sensor to measure changes in the magnetic field distribution on the surface of the handrail caused by abnormalities in the steel wires and inspects the condition of the steel wires. In this paper, we report the measurement results using a sample handrail that simulates a steel wires anomaly using the magnetic inspection system.

In order to improve accessibility of the visually impaired person, tactile characters with protrusion have been applied on the buttons of an elevator. However, some sighted users feel discomfort or pain when they touch and push the tactile characters on the button. In this research, we focused on three elements of the tactile character: embossed height, cross-section tilt and chamfer radius of character surface, and we performed a sensory evaluation for understanding the relationship between each element and the tactile readability of the visually impaired person, and the relationship between each element and the comfort of the sighted person. Based on the results, we clarified a way to decide the shape of tactile character on elevator button which is friendly to all.