Patent Application
20200255262
The present invention relates to an elevator arrangement as defined in the preamble of claim 1.
The invention in question relates particularly to using elevators on construction sites to move construction materials and parts to upper parts of buildings.
At construction sites it is common to use elevators as transportation means to move construction materials and parts up. Usually, the height of an elevator car is not more than 2500 mm. Hence, long construction parts, such as air pipes, façade elements etc. cannot be moved up with normal elevators because they are longer than the height of the elevator car. Instead, separate construction elevators or cranes must be used to transport long construction parts up. This causes several problems. Separate construction elevators create additional costs and they move quite slowly. The difference of speed of a normal elevator and a construction elevator can be quite significant. In addition, the weight limit of construction elevators is usually lower than what can be achieved with a normal elevator. Also, a separate construction elevator is usually fitted to a wall of a building and after it has been removed, the wall must be treated properly. Using construction cranes to move long and light construction parts is not effective, because the construction cranes are in high demand and should rather be used for other purposes, such as moving heavy construction parts and materials.
The vertical material transportation is critical in the success of high-rise construction projects, and the ways material can be moved gets more limited the taller the buildings get. Elevators are currently used during the construction time, and they provide a good and weather protected way to transport people and material. However, as mentioned earlier, they are limited in size and some elements are too long to be transported with normal elevators. Façade elements are one of the largest groups of items transported to the upper floors and the pace they are installed, has a critical importance, as they protect the building interior from the weather.
One objective of the present invention is to eliminate drawbacks of prior art technology and to achieve an elevator arrangement where the elevator car can be used to move also long construction materials and parts to the upper parts of buildings. Another objective of the present invention is to achieve an elevator arrangement where the transportation of construction materials and parts is fast, easy and safe. The elevator arrangement according to the invention is characterized by what is disclosed in the characterization part of claim 1. Other embodiments of the invention are characterized by what is disclosed in the other claims.
The inventive content of the application can also be defined differently than in the claims presented below. The inventive content may also consist of several separate inventions, especially if the invention is considered in the light of expressions or implicit sub-tasks or from the point of view of advantages or categories of advantages achieved. In this case, some of the attributes contained in the claims below may be superfluous from the point of view of separate inventive concepts. Likewise, the different details presented in connection with each embodiment can also be applied in other embodiments. In addition, it can be stated that at least some of the subordinate claims can, in at least some situations, be deemed to be inventive in their own right.
In order to achieve the objectives mentioned above, the present invention provides an elevator arrangement having an elevator comprising an elevator car arranged to run up and down in an elevator shaft along guide rails. The elevator car comprises one or more openings to one or more extension spaces outside the elevator car, which extension spaces increase the height of the elevator car. The extension spaces are surrounded with covering members, which protect materials and parts being transported from being damaged for example caused by them hitting a wall of the elevator shaft.
One advantage of the solution according to the invention is that also long construction parts can be moved to upper parts of a building using a normal elevator already assembled to the building because the height of the elevator car can be increased.
Another advantage is that adjusting the height of the elevator car and car sling is fast and easy.
Another advantage is that there is no need for a separate construction elevator, which lowers construction costs and enables faster transportation of construction materials and parts to the upper parts of buildings. Yet another advantage is that a construction crane can be used more efficiently on the construction site because it is not needed to hoist so many parts to upper parts of a building.
Yet another advantage of the invention is that the arrangement is simple and inexpensive and provides light weight structure.
Yet a further advantage of the invention is that after construction time use (CTU) it is easy, fast and cost-efficient to convert the elevator to a normal elevator which is used to transport passengers.
In the following, the invention will be described in detail by the aid of example embodiments by referring to the attached simplified and diagrammatic drawings, wherein
An aspect of the invention is to achieve an elevator arrangement with an elevator car having possibility to transport long construction parts to upper parts of buildings and which also removes the need to use a separate construction elevator. With the solution according to the invention it is possible to transport elements which are longer than the normal height of the elevator car.
The roof frame 15 comprises edges 16 which are dimensioned so that the width and length of the roof frame 15 are substantially the same as the width and length of the elevator car 1. The roof frame 15 is attached to the top of the elevator car 1 as a temporary roof. Inside the edges 16 of the roof frame 15 is an opening 12 from inside the elevator car 1 to outside the elevator car 1. The size of the opening 12 is substantially the same as the area of the floor of the elevator car 1.
Above the opening 12 there is an extension space 13, which increases the height of the car, thus allowing longer pieces of freight to be transported in the car. In this embodiment of the invention, the extension space 13 is surrounded with a covering member 14, which is in this embodiment an extension roof made of some suitable sheet metal, which is folded so that it comprises side parts 14a and a top part 14b. The covering member 14 or the extension roof is attached to the roof frame 15. The covering member 14 is arranged to protect materials and parts being transported from being damaged. When the elevator car 1 is at its uppermost position there is a distance between the covering member 14 and the top of the elevator shaft. To prevent the covering member 14 from hitting the top of the elevator shaft a temporary safety member is installed under the buffer of the counterweight of the elevator. This safety member prevents the counterweight descending as low as in normal use. When the elevator is no more needed for transporting construction materials the temporary roof is replaced with a permanent roof and the temporary safety member is removed.
In the embodiments of
The interior height of the elevator car 1 is arranged to be extended by one of the following arrangements:
During the extended mode, door openings are be made high by removing some parts from the elevator car 1. In this embodiment, the bottom floor 19 is two-stories tall to allow fast loading. In the extended mode landing doors are replaced with manual operated protection doors having the required door safety circuits.
The elevator is operated by a designated driver, with a plugin removable control-device, so that the elevator could not be operated by unauthorized users. Alternatively, a special mobile user interface is used for giving calls and monitoring the car position and load (car camera, load sensor, position indicator displayed on mobile UI), so that a driver would not need to be inside the car.
It is obvious to the person skilled in the art that the invention is not restricted to the examples described above but that it may be varied within the scope of the claims presented below. Thus, for instance the structure of the elevator car and other parts can be also different from what is presented above. For example, an elevator car can comprise extension spaces both under the elevator car and above the elevator car.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19156090.3 | Feb 2019 | EP | regional |
