[WRE ADVISOR | BUSINESS] Elevators double their reach BY STEPHANIE AURORA LEWIS, RA, LEED AP
KONE’s UltraRopeTM is made of lightweight carbon fiber with a high friction coating. The combination allows for a
lift that can not only travel farther up, but faster as well. Photos courtesy of KONE
T
he newest, most revolutionary breakthrough in elevator technologies was conceived by a Finnish inventor in the comfort of his home’s sauna. Te curious creator began to experiment with threading together several thin strands of wrapped carbon fiber by hand. Ten to build the shape, heat was needed. When his wife said the oven
was “off limits,” he took the hand-threaded rope to his sauna to melt the fibers together into a carbon fiber elevator hoisting rope prototype. Trough years of extensive testing, KONE’s UltraRope™ is transforming the elevator industry, skyscraper and urban design. Passenger elevators were introduced by Elisha Otis during the Industrial Revolution at
the 1854 New York World’s Fair. In fact, the invention of the elevator itself enabled buildings to soar higher than five stories because people generally would not walk up more than five flights of stairs. Since June 2013, the Finnish KONE elevator company revealed the latest technology that may have the most powerful impact on the built environment since the passenger elevator was introduced. KONE’s UltraRope diverges from traditional hoisting rope technology with its carbon-
fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) material core, commonly referred to as carbon fiber or simply carbon. By contrast, traditional elevators use steel wire hoisting ropes. Carbon allows the ropes to weigh only 19% of steel wire ropes, last at least twice as long, and avoid corrosion. Carbon fiber is elastic and only stretches when tensioned to a certain point to compensate for a heavier load. Steel hoisting ropes, however, stretch lengthwise causing the need to typically trim the ropes several times at the beginning of the elevator’s use. “You wouldn’t think it, but rope weight impacts everything,” says Tomio Pihkala, Executive
Vice President, Safety, Quality and Installation, KONE Corporation. “If you have a lighter rope, you can have a smaller and lighter elevator counterweight and sling. Tis means the overall moving masses are reduced.” Looking rather like black licorice, the wide and flat ribbon hoisting ropes are sheathed in a polyurethane high-friction coating. Te UltraRope’s flat bar or belt shape is formed by four longitudinal bars melted together. Until the cost of carbon fiber drops further, KONE recommends the carbon fiber ropes
for travels of 500 feet (150m) and above. UltraRope currently is used with elevators with blocking arrangements where the car and rope speeds are the same (1:1 roping) while blocking arrangements where the car speed is half of the rope speed (2:1 roping) is still in development. Lubrication oils are not needed for the carbon hoisting ropes such as with steel wire rope. While an oil spill is rare, eliminating the need for these lubrication oils reduces the risk of a hazardous environmental waste and associated intervention from the EPA.
74 MARCH-APRIL 2014 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE
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