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Technology Hardware

Maglev Elevators by 2008? 352

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the one-technology-i-don't-mind-waiting-for-testing dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting that the first magnetic levitation elevators could hit the market as soon as 2008. The Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corporation has stated that the same technology used to develop high speed trains will soon be available in their elevators. From the article: 'The maglev elevators will be quieter and more comfortable and will travel 300 meters (984 feet) per minute -- not as fast as the company's conventional lifts that can move up to 1,010 meters (3,314 feet) a minute, Toshiba said.'"
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Maglev Elevators by 2008? More

Maglev Elevators by 2008?

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  • Oh wowee (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Concern ( 819622 ) * on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:29PM (#14496802) Journal
    So, it's:

    1. Slower
    2. More complex
    3. Dangerous failure mode
    4. Uses lots of electricity
    5. Difficult to maintain (no elevator technicians know maglev)
    6. Dare I speculate... more expensive?

    But at least I get the thing I've always really wanted in a new elevator:

    More "comfortable."

    Wow, this baby's got legs.

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:2, Insightful)

      by T3hFish ( 943693 )
      Yes... but it is the latest tech! Since when did people start demanding that new products are better than older versions of the same product?

      • Re:Oh wowee (Score:3, Funny)

        by walt-sjc ( 145127 )
        Yes - I for one support our MagLev overloards. I'm going to petition building management to be the first test site. It should be a wonderfully smooth ride for my backup tapes... Doh!

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, but it's cool, which is why every company that wants to have the most high-tech building will want it. :)

      Actually, it is most certainly all the things you describe, but remember, this is the first generation of these things. As time goes on, the cost will go down, and efficiancy will increase. My guess is that the designers are looking ahead to the super-skyscrapers they see coming down the road, and they want an elevator that is fast and easy to maintain. True, maglev isn't either of those things,

      • Re:Oh wowee (Score:2, Interesting)

        by networkBoy ( 774728 )
        A maglev excells in the taller buildings where cables become a liability. Cable elevators are just like a striped set without parity, lose one bit and you've lost it all. The friction brakes on the car are the parity and those would be there in the maglev version as well.
        -nB

        • Re:Oh wowee (Score:2, Interesting)

          by yobjob ( 942868 )
          A maglev excells in the taller buildings where cables become a liability.

          Try telling that to Betty Lou Oliver. In 1945 a plane crashed into the Empire State Building, causing an elevator cable to be sheared. The elevator holding Oliver fell 75 floors and she survived. Why? Because the cable below the elevator formed a coil at the bottom of the shaft which cushioned the landing.

          • Re:Oh wowee (Score:3, Interesting)

            by ColaMan ( 37550 )
            Well, when they build these, they can put a big spring down there. Happy?

            I reckon the guide rails could taper in a bit when you reached the bottom of the shaft - say, over the last 20ft. Your falling car could then wedge itself in and stop slower than just hitting the deck. You could survive decelerating from 100mph in 20ft, although you'd be pretty pissed off about it.

            Probably end up just crushing the car like a coke can though :-/

          • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Informative)

            by skyman8081 ( 681052 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (1808namyks)> on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @02:23AM (#14497497) Homepage
            Compared to the South African mining elevator incident(Vaal Reef?) where the elevator got stuck in the shaft and cable piled up on top of the elevator until it was too heavy to hold, at which point it fell down the shaft because of all the slack cable that had piled up. The momentum of the falling elevator sheared it off the cable, where it kept going until it hit the bottom of the shaft, reducing its remains to a wreck only 2 feet high.

          • Re:Oh wowee (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Zog The Undeniable ( 632031 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @05:50AM (#14498136)
            Otis' original safety brake used a toothed track running down the walls of the shaft on each side. The cable was attached to the lift via levers operating on a pair of dogs which were designed to engage with the toothed tracks and stop the lift. The cable tension held the dogs clear of the ratchet.

            Otis demonstrated the system in public by cutting the cable (actually a more easily-cut rope, for demonstration purposes) while he was in the lift. As soon as the cable tension failed, the dogs sprang out, engaged the shaft and Otis only dropped a few inches. Of course, modern systems use different safety devices, but the original Otis one would not work with a maglev drive.

    • The only thing on your list that really seems to be correct is slower and I'd imagine that is only in these early models. A maglev has the potential to move people much faster and be much simpler in design so probably easier to maintain, safer, and cheaper. It shouldn't use as much electricity as a normal elevator since friction should be reduced. It's all magnetics which means there is little in the way of parts to break and no need for counter-weights, pullies, etc. If the power dies I'd expect the car wo
      • It shouldn't use as much electricity as a normal elevator since friction should be reduced. It's all magnetics which means there is little in the way of parts to break and no need for counter-weights,

        Do I read this right? There is no counterweight? That would make it VASTLY more inefficient. Elevator cabs are typically counterweighted with a weight equal to the cab plus an average-sized load. So at the peak of the distribution curves, with a normal elevator, the only force to overcome is friction, plus

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:4, Funny)

      by DurendalMac ( 736637 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:41PM (#14496877)
      7. Wipes the drive on your iPod/laptop/thumbdrive whenever you move up a floor.

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Informative)

      by EvanED ( 569694 ) <evaned@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:47PM (#14496916)
      Dangerous failure mode

      Probably not. It is probably based on a toned down version of the ride you see at some amusement parks (e.g. the Pit Fall at Kennywood in Pittsburgh). In the Pit Fall, most breaking is done by large permanent magnets that surround metal fins. As the car falls, the magnets induce a current in the fins that oppose the motion.

      With the magnets already needed for propulsion, it wouldn't be difficult to add something similar to the elevators.

      (Also, there's not enough detail in the article, but there's no reason that you couldn't use almost all the safety features used in traditional elevators in a maglev one.)

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mt._Honkey ( 514673 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:49PM (#14496922)
      3. Dangerous failure mode
      I presume that you mean a power failure resulting in the elevator freefalling for 110 floors. This is easy to avoid in a system such as this where on the car they probably have magnets placed near conducting plates along the elevator shaft. If power were to fail and the car start falling, the magnets would induce eddy currents in the conductors, which would create an opposing magnetic field, slowing the motion of the car.

      This has been used routinely with great success at amusement parks in those drop-towers where you are lifted several stories in the air, then dropped freely most of the way down only to be stopped in the last few meters. There is no active breaking system to stop you: if you look closely you can see metal plates sticking out of the tower that pass behind the car, where magnets are positioned to pass very close to the plates (I'm talking specifically about the one in Six Flags Great America).

      You can play with this yourself by dropping a strong magnet down a vertical copper pipe. It will move very slowly, even if it is only barely touching the sides.

      I'm not saying that the elevator is a good idea, just that it is probably safe.
      • Thank you, this was a very interesing explanation. One of those moments when you wish you could go back and edit a post... :)

      • Re:Oh wowee (Score:3, Interesting)

        by amliebsch ( 724858 )
        If power were to fail and the car start falling, the magnets would induce eddy currents in the conductors, which would create an opposing magnetic field, slowing the motion of the car.

        Wouldn't this also induce considerable resistance to motion when the elevator was in normal operation?

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Informative)

      by HaMMeReD3 ( 891549 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:54PM (#14496945)

      Reasons I think your wrong

      1. Fast for a first generation, the speed can be increased with more power, and further increased by turning the shaft into a vacuum, eliminating air resistance.
      2. Simple, instead of pullies and leavers and motors, your left with a system with no moving parts. Nothing will ever wear out, except the permanent magnets in a long long time
      3. Failure can be handled like todays elevators, clamp to the walls and put the breaks on
      4. Read above post, about how it has no moving parts, so I dont think maintenence aside from software patches would ever be necessary.
      5. More expensive, yes this one will be, but considering that the overall maintence will be less, and it will mostly be run by cheap computers, a power relay, and a bunch of magnets, it'll be as expensive as the building is tall.

      This will lead to a new generation, elevator shafts that do not require their own floor on the building, elevators that are capable to travel as many floors as we can build from a single shaft. Improvements such turning the elevator shaft into a vacuum would allow the elevators to travel at insanely fast speeds. Sure the first one will be expensive, but in 20 years, every new elevator will be a maglev one.

      • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Informative)

        by EvanED ( 569694 ) <evaned@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:10AM (#14497014)
        # Simple, instead of pullies and leavers and motors, your left with a system with no moving parts. Nothing will ever wear out, except the permanent magnets in a long long time
        # Failure can be handled like todays elevators, clamp to the walls and put the breaks on

        You're being inconsistent. The reason that brakes (Ha! I'll not make the same mistake I did in my last post!) in today's elevators work remotely well is that there's a counterweight. Lose that and probably your safety systems become crap.

        So you either need something new in the maglev elevator, or a counterweight. But if you have a counterweight, you've got at least a pulley.

        Now, it's possible that the induction-based brakes I and another poster described would substitute for a counterweight, in which case you could get away with no moving parts, but I'd have to see some experiments and calculations before I would trust it as a replacement.

        • Re:Oh wowee (Score:2, Informative)

          by EvanED ( 569694 )
          The reason that brakes (Ha! I'll not make the same mistake I did in my last post!) in today's elevators work remotely well is that there's a counterweight. Lose that and probably your safety systems become crap.

          I've thought about this a little more (I should do that before posting, but we all know the desire to get something up before someone beats you) and it might not be true. Safety systems currently are probably designed to withstand a cable break, in which case there goes the counterwight's braking pow

          • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Informative)

            by demonlapin ( 527802 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:33AM (#14497115) Homepage Journal
            Okay, posting instead of moderating. Perhaps foolish.

            It is trivial - really - to design an elevator system capable of withstanding a cable break. Imagine a system in which the tension on the cable is keeping a pair of arms from slotting into teeth on the sides of the elevator shaft walls. That's probably the simplest method.

            If passenger elevators really would fall to the passengers' deaths if the cables broke, do you think that there would be any distinction between passenger and freight elevators? Mr. Otis was able in the late 1800s to demonstrate that his design was capable of withstanding a complete cable transection.

            Not that the parent addressed this, BTW, but elevator transit speed is limited by how quickly our ears can equilibrate, not by how quickly the boxes can move. If you don't mind painfully popped ears, you can easily double the rate of travel of conventional elevators.

            • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Informative)

              by Eivind ( 15695 ) <eivindorama@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @05:31AM (#14498077) Homepage
              Indeed. Any modern elevator has like three independent braking-systems. For example, the funicular in Bergen is able to stop by any of:
              • Aslong as the cable is intact, the cable can be braked by a drum-brake at the top.
              • If that drum-brake goes, there's a second, independent cable-brake that basically clamps around the cable.
              • If both those go, the cars still don't accelerate very much, because there's a counterweigth so only the imbalance of passengers would cause acceleration.
              • If that's still bad, or the cable itself is broken, then the wagons instantly clamp to the rails they travel along. This is so because the tension on the cable is working against a spring that tries to push brake-shoes up against the rails. If the tension goes away, the spring wins.
              • Yeah, if *all* of that fails, you migth have a problem.
              Needless to say, this never happened. Inspite of the thing being in operation for like literally a hundred years and transporting thousande of passengers daily. I imagine newer designs can be even more secure, but I don't really think it's worth the effort -- it's good enough. People plummeting to their death in elevator-accidents is not a major cause of death outside of Hollywood.

        • Re:Oh wowee (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Grishnakh ( 216268 )
          This really isn't that hard.

          In addition to induction-based brakes, you could have simple friction brakes. It would be sorta like brake drums on cars, except linear instead of circular; brake shoes would pop out in an emergency, applying the friction material to steel beams next to the elevator. During normal operation, the shoes would be held back using electromagnets; when the power fails, the electromagnets would deactivate, causing the brakes to activate.

          This is the same way that fire doors in places l
        • They used to run electric trains over the Sierra Nevada using the method. The descending trains served as generators to power the ascending ones.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Oh wowee (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LoRdTAW ( 99712 )
        Sealing the shaft for a vacuum would defeat the maintenece free part. Every door would have to have a seal which would definatly be high maintenence. Perhaps a blower or fan of some sort to help relieve the piston effect.
      • Since I assume (haven't RTFA) there's no cable, a later version could possibly move horizontally as well. Yay, turbo lifts.

      • Have a vacuum in the shaft??? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:26AM (#14497882) Homepage
        You've been reading too many sci-fi books my friend. Just a couple of minor
        points you might want to consider:

        - The ability to keep a large lift shaft in vacuum in the first place.
        - The stresses on the building resulting from doing so.
        - The complex airlocks required instead of standard lift doors.
        - The problem of an air leak in the lift.
        - Provision of an emergency air supply for passengers.
        - Emergency evacuation procedure issues.
        - Removal of heat from the lift.
        - Maintenance issues (will the maintenance guys have to wear space suits??)

        And probably lots of other little details I haven't even thought of. It might
        sound cool when in a Philip K Dick novel but in the real world its a bloody
        stupid idea.

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:2, Insightful)

      by manthrax3 ( 837791 )
      I see the main advantage being elevators that can do more than simply go up and down.

      • Re:Oh wowee (Score:5, Funny)

        by rco3 ( 198978 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:25AM (#14497081) Homepage
        Zaphod: Yeah? What else to you do besides talk?

        Lift: I go up or down.

        Zaphod: Good. We're going up.

        Lift: Or down.

        Zaphod: Yeah, ok, up please.

        Lift: Down's very nice.

        Zaphod: Oh yeah?

        Lift: Super.

        Zaphod: Good. Now will you take us up?

        Lift: May I ask you if you've considered all the possibilities that down might offer you?

        Zaphod: Like what?

        Lift: Well, er, there's the basement, the microfiles, the heating system... um. Nothing particularly exciting I'll admit, but they are alternative possibilities.

        Zaphod: Ah, Zarquon's knees, did I ask for an existential elevator? What's the matter with the thing?

        Marvin: It doesn't want to go up. I think it's afraid.
    • But how would it really be any worse than a hydraulic lift that has a catastrophic failure of part of the hydraulics system? No, not the seals around the moving parts, but, say, a hydraulic pump line blows off of its fitting (like this would happen without some sort of warning at all. At the very least, hydraulic fluid stinks when it is hot. a slow leak somewhere would stink enough to probably get the elevator's users to complain to someone eventually.

      It wouldn't be a free fall trip to the basement, but it

    • Re:Oh wowee (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rtaylor ( 70602 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:48AM (#14497169) Homepage
      This has 2 major advantages.

      1. There should not be a height restriction. Cables on elevators have a tendency to swing around at resonance points. This limits the length of the cable and the height of the shaft as a result.

      2. It should be possible to run more than one elevator in a single shaft. Have a single up-shaft and a single down-shaft, then at the floor the elevator could move to the side. Many buildings have a large portion of their floor plates used by elevator shafts serving other points in the building. You can do things like express elevators to other lobbies but otherwise this limits the practical height of the building.

      We know how to build a building that is several thousand meters in height. Aside from construction costs, transporting people to those upper floors has been the large difficulty. This might solve the transportation problem.
    • Slower
      More complex
      Dangerous failure mode
      Uses lots of electricity
      Difficult to maintain (no elevator technicians know maglev)
      Dare I speculate... more expensive?

      Several have modded this "insightful", which isn't your fault.
      Why do you assume "dangerous failure mode"? More than a cable elevator anyway? Is there a chance on earth that safety wasn't a MAJOR consideration in the design?

      Why assume "more complex"? More advanced does not mean more complex -- I'd expect that it would have substantially fewer moving par
      • Why "uses lots of electricity"? Is a cable pulled elevator somehow the paragon of efficiency?

        Just about. A properly balanced cable-pulled system with a counterweight, on its average run, only needs to overcome friction and inertia - NOT gravity. It's about the most efficient way I can think of to make something go up and down over and over again.

    • I could see this as the future of multi-directional transport.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Hope this is more than. (Score:5, Funny)

    by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:32PM (#14496824) Homepage
    one-upman ship

  • Fast elevators (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:36PM (#14496849)
    The fastest elevator in the world, made by Toshiba, is located in Taiwan at 'Taipei 101' (you get to the 89th floor in ~32 seconds). It has a pressurized cabin and aerodynamic spoilers on it. I've been on it a couple times and it is actually quite comfortable and smooth. They have a cool scale model of it at the observation level. Worth a visit if you're anywhere near the area.

    --SONET (who lost his password years ago)

  • The downside this didn't mention? (Score:4, Funny)

    by AWhiteFlame ( 928642 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:37PM (#14496852) Homepage
    It will confuse the hell out of your pacemaker.

  • Great Glass Elevator (Score:5, Funny)

    by femto ( 459605 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:38PM (#14496869) Homepage
    Now I know where Roald Dahl got the idea for the Great Glass Elevator from. Does anyone else find the similarity between a mag-lev elevator and a rail gun just slightly disturbing?

  • You guys are too full of fear (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:44PM (#14496896)
    I don't know why everyone's so afraid of being in one of these when the power goes out. If I were designing it, obviously I'd put in some mechanical brakes that are only kept retracted by the application of power. A power loss would fail to hold back the brakes, allowing them to pop out to their default no-power position of immobilizing the elevator.

    Seems so obvious...what, are all the infantile Digg posters coming over here now?
    • Yeah, unless the mechanical brakes go unused for so long that they fail to deploy. I like the magnetic induction idea someone else mentioned better.
      • Except that the failsafe mechanical brake system is in use today on standard elevators and works quite well (I've even got some personal experience with that, too!). I'd rather have something tried & true than a fancy new magnetic induction doohicky. And besides, the way you get around something failing from non-usage: maintainance.

        And on the whole maglev idea itself... it seems like a solution in need of a problem. Are elevators today uncomfortable, really? The ones where I work are hardly top-end
        • I'd rather have something tried & true than a fancy new magnetic induction doohicky

          Not bashing your overall point, but induction brakes ARE in common use in amusement parks and should be essentially failsafe.

          However, they, on their own, are mostly insufficient. It's probably possible to make them good enough that if you fall to the bottom of the shaft with only the induction brake working, you'll be going slow enough that you'll not be killed, but the brakes won't STOP the car, so you'd need mechanical
    • ...which is exactly how standard elevators work.
    • I agree.
      And considering in most countries there are standards that companies have to adhere to when installing elevators, i find it highly unlikely that when the power fails, we will all plummet to our bloody doom.

      In Australia a lift is required to have a certain amount of brakes in case of emergency as standard.

      I suspect that if these are to be commissioned in other countries, the install will have to adhere to each countries individual building code standards.
    • You seriously never noticed before now that the one thing Slashdotters fear more than anything is new technology?

  • I hope you all like folk music (Score:5, Funny)

    by r00b ( 923145 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:45PM (#14496899)
    Great, now when my Bending Unit 22 gets in the elevator, its inhibition unit will malfunction and it will be singing "She'll be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" all the way up!
  • Sometimes I think /. readers have little imagination. Magnetic applications in everyday life are entirely different from the maglev application. From field restricted mag-pulses, to rails to reduce friction and noise (I know that would make me more comfortable), it is and always has been possible to upgrade a horribly old technology. Pully anyone? So instead of lamenting about reinventing the wheel, you should try and discover if your imagination can accurately describe *HOW* the maglev will be implement

  • Good work (Score:4, Funny)

    by r00b ( 923145 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @11:56PM (#14496956)
    step 1. Watch Star Trek step 2. ???? step 3. Profit

  • Mag-lev technology has its ups and downs (Score:5, Funny)

    by ian_mackereth ( 889101 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:04AM (#14496990) Journal

    The body of this post has been left deliberately blank

  • Benefits of having no cable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:17AM (#14497050)
    Benefits of having no cable that I can see are:

    * No limit on the height of the elevator.
    Currently, elevators are limited in the number of floors they can service, because the cables
    can only be so long. No such problem with these.

    * Circular route using two shafts.
    Elevator goes up to the top. Elevator goes across horizontally to adjacent shaft. Elevator comes down.
    Result: an "up shaft" and a "down shaft". And multiple cabins could be in a single shaft at the same time.
    That's a massive benefit for tall buildings.

    * No "machine room" required at the top of the shaft. Nice for buildings that want to make use of their
    roof space without having machine shacks on them. I've always wondered why there aren't more roof gardens
    around; this removes one objection.

    I wonder if they use "regenerative braking" to recover power on the descent.
    • you'll find that most new lifts being installed these days have their motors sitting on top of the actual lift As components become smaller and more powerful, lift motor rooms are fast becoming redundant. This excludes taller office towers as they obviously need massive winches etc for the amount of cable that needs to be recoiled.
    • You can't put two elevators into the same shaft, because you never know when some idiot on the third floor is going to keep holding the door open to talk to his girlfriend. Meanwhile, the person on the 42nd floor wants to go down, but the other elevator is stuck waiting on the second under Mr. Talksalot on 3.

  • Just hope... (Score:4, Funny)

    by wildsurf ( 535389 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:18AM (#14497053) Homepage
    ...the earth's magnetic poles don't flip, while you're on it.

  • It's "maglev" horizontally, not vertically (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:19AM (#14497059) Homepage
    This isn't a "ropeless elevator". It's a way to make elevators quieter by using a magnetic bearing between the elevator car and the guide rails. That's a nice feature, but not revolutionary.

    Here's the technical reference: "Electromagnetic Non-contact Guide System for Elevator Cars", Morishita, M., Akashi, M., Toshiba Corporation, Japan [u-tokyo.ac.jp].

    There have been some "ropeless elevator" proposals, including ones where linear induction motors drive the elevator cars. The most elaborate proposals involve multiple cars per shaft and switches, like a vertical railroad. This would cut down the amount of building space devoted to elevator shafts considerably. Mitsubishi did some R&D in this area back in the 1990s [elevatorworld.com], but there's no working hardware yet. There's been some military R&D in this area for shipboard weapons lifts [globalsecurity.org], but that's more like a conveyor system. Eventually somebody will probably build such a system, but not yet.

    Incidentally, the limit on elevator speed is human tolerance for changes in air pressure. 8 meters per second (downward) appears to be the comfort limit. The Sears Tower elevators were originally set for 9 m/s, and a broken eardrum was reported.

    • Incidentally, the limit on elevator speed is human tolerance for changes in air pressure. 8 meters per second (downward) appears to be the comfort limit. The Sears Tower elevators were originally set for 9 m/s, and a broken eardrum was reported.

      Humans have a much higher tolerance. In the South-African gold mines (where I occasionally have to work), people-carrying elevators (cages in mining slang) are allowed to travel at 15 m/s and ore-carrying cages can travel at 17 m/s. At 15 m/s there is no (to me a
      • The problem is people with colds or allergies. Skydiving is dangerous for anyone with blocked sinuses. Serious ear damage can result. At skydiving speeds, it's more likely than not.

        Anyone healthy enough to work in a mine probably isn't at risk for this. You might have to swallow once in a while to equalize the pressure. But office building workers aren't expected to be that rugged.

        The skydiving people recommend Afrin.

    • That's a nice feature, but not revolutionary.
      I don't find this a nice feature at all. When I get locked in a metal box, I damn WANT to know I am moving.
  • Today must be elevator day... [slashdot.org] if we get a story about smart maglev elevators in Hawaii, should we consider that a dupe or further celebration?

  • It still uses cable (Score:4, Informative)

    by raurublock ( 905298 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @12:27AM (#14497090) Homepage
    http://release.nikkei.co.jp/detail.cfm?relID=12048 4&lindID=4 [nikkei.co.jp] is the original press release from Toshiba Elevator, written in Japanese. They replaced only guide rails with maglev magnets for smoother feeling. You still need conventional rotating motor and cable.
  • Elevator repairmen know how to get it up.

  • elevators that can also go diagonal & horizont (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ad454 ( 325846 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @02:21AM (#14497495) Journal
    Without any cables or other signifigant moving parts, a mag-lev elevator can move in 3D, in diagonal and horizontal shafts in addition to vertical shafts. In fact, without cables, a mag-lev shaft can easily pass from one building to another.

    In fact with proper computer controls, several mag-lev elevators can be placed in the same shaft, and an elevator can switch from one shaft to another.

    Although this won't be useful for a traditional tall skinny building, wide building complexes would benefit. Think 3D!

  • More than one cabin per shaft? Architect's dream! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dr. Spork ( 142693 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @02:29AM (#14497514)
    The single greatest factor limiting the height of modern skyscrapers are the elevators. If you had 200 floors of offices, you would need so many elevator shafts that there would hardly be any room left for building occupants!

    Now consider the possibility that there would just be two elevator shafts - an "up" and a "down" - just like there are two parallel railroad tracks. If a floor requires a stop the elevator cabin would leave the main shaft (so as to not block the other cabins in that shaft) and comes to a halt in that floor's "station". Really, think of it as a vertical train system rather than an elevator. The train stops only by request, and only where there is a station with a turn-out track.

    Such a "railroad-like" elevator system would make high-rise architecture a great deal more practical. Even if an ultra-high-rise would need four elevator shafts (two up and two down), it would still be a huge improvement over the 16 or more that are needed now, and service would surely be much better.

    Also, since the down-elevator would be slowed by passing through a magnetic field, much of its potential energy could be recovered as induced electricity, which could be used to help lift other cabins. It would be sort of like a virtual counterweight. It's possible the energy efficiency of a maglev elevator could be competitive with a cable elevator.

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