Rope elevator

#The present invention relates to a rope elevator which has a car and a counterweight which hang on suspension ropes and move in opposite directions along guiderails in an elevator hoistway, the car guide-plane formed by two car guiderails running parallel to the car-front and approximately through the center-of-gravity of the car, the elevator being driven by a drive unit with traction sheave which is so placed in the hoistway overhead above the travel-path of the counterweight that the upper part of the car can reach a position in the hoistway above this drive unit, and the suspension ropes running down from a hitch-point situated in the hoistway overhead in the vicinity of the counterweight-side side-wall of the hoistway and around one or two pulleys of the counterweight, then up and around the traction sheave of the drive unit, then down again and horizontally/diagonally across under two pulleys underneath the car, and finally up again to a second hitch-point on the car-side side-wall of the hoistway.

#From DE 197 12 646 Al a machine-room-less rope elevator is known whose drive unit with traction sheave is arranged on a concrete plinth projecting into the elevator hoistway. However, this solution has certain disadvantages. The elevator hoistway and/or the landing floor have to be designed with strength in the vicinity of the proposed concrete plinth for the maximum stresses arising on the drive unit due to operation of the elevator. The necessary construction by builders of such a concrete plinth in an otherwise simple, cubical space causes considerable extra outlay. If the plinth is not executed as drawn, problems and delays in the installation of the elevator can occur.

#FR 2 773 363-A3 discloses the machine-room-less arrangement of an elevator drive unit. This is mounted on a support which is fastened at one end to two counterweight guiderails and a car guiderail and at the other end via a console to a wall of the normally concreted elevator hoistway. Such a solution has significant disadvantages. The hoistway wall has to absorb an undefined proportion of the vertical forces acting on the drive unit. Furthermore, strain occurs in the support fastened to the hoistway wall and guiderails as a result of building shrinkage of the (concrete) hoistway wall and as a result of differing thermal expansion of the guiderails and hoistway wall (because of these problems the guiderails are fastened to the hoistway walls in longitudinally movable manner).

#An exemplary embodiment of the invention is shown in FIGS. 1 to 4 and explained in more detail in the following description.

#FIG. 1 is a side view of the rope elevator installation according to the present invention installed in an elevator hoistway shown in cross-section;

#FIG. 2 is a front view of the elevator installation shown in FIG. 1;

#Visible in FIG. 1 are an elevator hoistway 1 with the hoistway overhead 2, and a first hoistway access opening 3 with a landing hoistway door 4. 5 indicates an elevator car viewed from the side, whose upper part is shown cut away to permit a better view of the drive arrangement situated behind it, and which has a car door 6 shown here diagrammatically. Visible in the lower part of this drawing are a counterweight 7, with an associated counterweight pulley 8, and two counterweight guiderails 9. Also shown is the car guiderail 10 on the counterweight-side of the car. The counterweight guiderails 9, and the car guiderail 10 on the counterweight-side, are fastened to the counterweight-side side-wall of the hoistway with a large number of guiderail fastening brackets 11 distributed over the entire height of the hoistway. Shown in the area of the hoistway overhead 2 is a drive unit 12 with traction sheave 13 and electric motor 14, mounted on a supporting construction 15, which consists of a frame 15.1 made of sections and a mounting plate 15.2, and which itself is fastened to two counterweight guiderails 9 and the car guiderail 10 on the counterweight-side of the car. Also visible here is the path of the suspension ropes 16, in each case only one of several ropes arranged in parallel being illustrated. The starting point is a first rope hitch-point 17 integrated in the supporting construction 15 of the drive unit 12 in the vicinity of the counterweight-side hoistway wall. From here the suspension ropes first run down and around the counterweight pulley 8, then up and around the traction sheave 12 of the drive unit 11, then down again and horizontally/diagonally across under two car pulleys 18 underneath the car 5, and finally up again to a second hitch-point 19 on the car-side side-wall 20 of the hoistway (19, 20 are not visible in this view).

#In the vicinity of the section of suspension rope running down from the traction sheave 13 to the car pulley 18, the mounting plate 15.1 of the supporting construction 15 has a cutout 21 so that this section of the suspension rope can be installed at a sufficient distance from the side-wall of the car without the distance between the car and the counterweight installation thereby having to be increased.

#FIG. 2 shows a vertical cross-section through the elevator hoistway 1 and the elevator car 5 viewed from the entrance side, the plane of the section lying between the car door and the car-front. Visible here—viewed from the car-front —are the elevator car 5, the counterweight 7 from its narrow side with the associated counterweight pulley 8, the counterweight guiderails 9, the car guiderails 10 on the counterweight side, the guiderail fastening brackets 11, the drive unit 12 aligned diagonal to the hoistway wall, with its traction sheave 13 and its electric motor 14 standing vertically. Viewed in this direction it can be seen how the supporting construction 15 of the drive unit 12 is fastened to the two counterweight guiderails 9 and to the car guiderails 10 on the counterweight side.