"Going Up" At 45 Mph: Hitachi To Deliver World's Fastest Elevator 109
Zothecula (1870348) writes "Hitachi has announced that it's installing the world's fastest ultra-high-speed elevators in the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre skyscraper in Guangzhou, China. Making up two out of a total of 95 elevators in the building, Hitachi says the new lifts use a range of technologies to produce record-breaking speeds of 1,200 m/min while still meeting the necessary standards of safety and comfort."
Re:Express elevators (Score:4, Interesting)
For a 3m floor height, I find about 27.5G, at least.
45mph => 20.12 m.s^-1
a t_m = 20.12 m.s^-1
a t_m^2 = (3m / 2) (max acceleration obtained at half the floor height).
=> a = 20.12^2 / (3 / 2) \approx 270 m.s^-2 / or 27.5 earth G (G = 9.8 m.s^-2)
Where the limit of the human body for such vertical acceleration seems to be between 2,3G and 5G, depending if you are going up or down... but I haven't tested that myself).
Ok, back to work now...
Hmm. (Score:5, Interesting)
I want my high speed elevator to descend at a rate *just* fast enough to have me hovering six inches off the floor, which should be made of glass.
Re:Express elevators-POP! (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how they avoid the popping. The article says that they use some kind of fancy pressurization system for that, but you still have to change altitude in a short amount of time, so how do you "avoid" that pressure change? You could pressurize the whole building, but then the windows couldn't open, you couldn't have a terrace (except if it had an ear-popping airlock), and there would be a constant strong draft from top to bottom unless you kept the floors sealed airtight (which is kind of hard to do if you have things like elevators)
I imagine the best they can do, is spread out the pressure change over the slightly longer period that includes the slower parts of the journey and the wait for the doors to open, but that won't make such a huge change.
public infrastructure innovation is not in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
If you've ever gone to Taipei 101 for example, the elevators move so quickly, and without any vibration as they go up/down that you almost cannot tell if they're moving. Go to Singapore or Hong Kong, and watch how smoothly, quietly, and punctually their subway systems run.
Or go to China and be surprised that in even small-sized cities, you didn't realize that *all* their motorcycles are now electric and they leap-frogged the smelly gasoline phase of motorbike technology.
You come back to the US, and wonder how we're still (maybe) #1, with our rickety buildings and public transport systems. It's embarrassing. And people will say, well, "Who needs quieter, smoother subways? What we have is fine." Said while yelling because you have to cover your ears to not go deaf on the F train in New York City. And as you have to hold your nose as you walk through the piss-soaked, dark and dingy subway/bus station concourses.
Sometimes I feel like we're witnessing the slow decline of American technology / investment when it comes to public infrastructure.